5 Best Gold Stocks To Own Right Now

Purely from investment angle it  makes no sense to invest in gold  jewellery  for use at a future point of time. Generally, it is seen that people buy jewellery specially during festive season specially when there is no making charges. This jewellery is being purchased for let us say the marriage of your  dear daughter which however is to take place a decade later. Hence, it is recommended that in the year 2013 do buy  jewellery when the purpose  is to buy for your own use and wear but abstain  from investing in jewellry in case you plan to use the jewellery for marriage in the family which will take place after a long interval because  the jewellery would become outdated. It will however be better to go in for buying  gold coins and investments through Gold ETF.

The author is Tax and Investment Consultant at New Delhi for last 40 years.  He is also Director of M/s R.N. Lakhotia & Associates LLP & The Strategy Group.E-mail : slakhotia@airtelmail.in

5 Best Gold Stocks To Own Right Now: First Majestic Silver Corp.(AG)

First Majestic Silver Corp. engages in the production, development, exploration, and acquisition of mineral properties with a focus on silver in Mexico. The company owns interests in La Encantada Silver Mine comprising 4,076 hectares of mining rights and 1,343 hectares of surface land located in Coahuila; La Parrilla Silver Mine consisting of mining concessions covering an area of 69,867 hectares; and San Martin Silver Mine comprising approximately 7,841 hectares of mineral rights and approximately 1,300 hectares of surface land rights located in Jalisco. It also holds interests in Del Toro Silver Mine consisting of 393 contiguous hectares of mining claims and an additional 129 hectares of surface rights located in Zacatecas; Real de Catorce Silver Project comprising 22 mining concessions covering 6,327 hectares located in San Luis Potosi state; and Jalisco Group of Properties consisting of mining claims totalling 5,240 hectares located in Jalisco. The company was founded in 1979 and is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada.

5 Best Gold Stocks To Own Right Now: Goldcorp Incorporated(GG)

Goldcorp Inc. engages in the acquisition, exploration, development, and operation of precious metal properties in Canada, the United States, Mexico, and Central and South America. It produces and sells gold, silver, copper, lead, and zinc. The company was founded in 1954 and is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Chad Tracy]

  The five largest holdings in the GDX fund make up 45% of the total portfolio. They are Goldcorp (NYSE: GG), Barrick Gold (NYSE: ABX), Newmont Mining (NYSE: NEM), Silver Wheaton (NYSE: SLW), and Randgold Resources (Nasdaq: GOLD).

Hot Biotech Stocks For 2014: CME Group Inc.(CME)

CME Group Inc. operates the CME, CBOT, NYMEX, and COMEX regulatory exchanges worldwide. The company provides a range of products available across various asset classes, including futures and options on interest rates, equity indexes, energy, agricultural commodities, metals, foreign exchange, weather, and real estate. It offers various products that provide a means of hedging, speculation, and asset allocation relating to the risks associated with interest rate sensitive instruments, equity ownership, changes in the value of foreign currency, credit risk, and changes in the prices of commodities. CME Group owns and operates clearing house, CME Clearing, which provides clearing and settlement services for exchange-traded contracts and counter derivatives transactions; and also engages in real estate operations. Its primary trade execution facilities consist of its CME Globex electronic trading platform and open outcry trading floors, as well as privately negotiated transact ions that are cleared and settled through its clearing house. In addition, the company offers market data services comprising live quotes, delayed quotes, market reports, and historical data services, as well as involves in index services business. CME Group?s customer base includes professional traders, financial institutions, institutional and individual investors, corporations, manufacturers, producers, and governments. It has strategic partnerships with BM&FBOVESPA S.A., Bursa Malaysia Derivatives, Singapore Exchange Limited, Green Exchange, Dubai Mercantile Exchange, Johannesburg Stock Exchange, and Bolsa Mexicana de Valores, S.A.B. de C.V., as well as joint venture agreement with Dow Jones & Company. The company was formerly known as Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings Inc. and changed its name to CME Group Inc. in July 2007. CME Group was founded in 1898 and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Jeff Reeves]

  Options traders and commodity junkies should recognize CME Group (CME) as the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, a financial entity that operates a host of futures exchanges as well as providing its own exchange-traded products and derivatives.

• [By Holly LaFon]

  Within equities, we believe that most companies will be negatively impacted by rising interest rates, but we did identify some exceptions. For example, the CME Group is a Chicago-based operator of numerous trading exchanges including a large volume of 铿�ed income futures contracts. Higher interest rates and greater interest rate volatility tends to be a catalyst for greater trading volumes, and hence, greater revenue for CME (CME). The company was our top-performing U.S. investment in the last three months with gains of nearly 30%. The insurance industry is another area that we believe can offer resilience in the face of rising rates. This quarter we added to our positions in Manulife Financial in Canada, AmTrust Financial in the U.S., and introduced U.K.-based Aon to our international portfolio. Many of our insurance companies enjoyed strong performance this quarter and helped offset the declines suffered within the 铿�ed income portfolio.

• [By Holly LaFon]

  We re-established an investment in CME Group, Inc. (CME) during the period. CME is the largest and most diversified derivatives marketplace in the U.S. Its exchanges support trading across a variety of asset classes, including interest rates, equity indexes, energy, agricultural commodities, foreign exchange and metals. We believe CME has the opportunity to significantly accelerate its growth rates due to the eventual normalization of interest rates and the attendant interest rate volatility. CME's interest rate trading volumes (ADV) have been depressed as a result of the Fed's zero interest rate policy and low interest rate volatility. For example, interest rate ADV was 4.8 million in 2012compared to 7.1 million in 2007, before the financial crisis. However, given the Fed's recent policy statements (discussed above), market participants are starting to anticipate an end to quantitative easing (QE). On May 30, CME experienced record volume for interest rate derivatives with ADV of 19.4 million. With the globalization of CME's business, a host of new products, and the regulatory requirement for interest rate swaps to be cleared on an exchange, we believe CME's interest rate volumes can surpass their prior peak, significantly driving earnings growth for the company.

• [By Jon C. Ogg]

  CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ: CME) was raised to Outperform from Market Perform at Keefe Bruyette & Woods.

  Cypress Semiconductor Corp. (NASDAQ: CY) was maintained as Buy, but earnings estimates were cut and the price target was cut to $13 from $15, by Sterne Agee. Wedbush downgraded it to Neutral from Buy after the warning.

5 Best Gold Stocks To Own Right Now: Australian Dollar(AU)

AngloGold Ashanti Limited primarily engages in the exploration and production of gold. It also produces silver, uranium oxide, and sulfuric acid. The company conducts gold-mining operations in South Africa; continental Africa, including Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Namibia, and Tanzania; Australia; and the Americas, which include Argentina, Brazil, and the United States. It also has mining or exploration operations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guinea, and Colombia. As of December 31, 2010, the company had proved and probable gold reserves of 71.2 million ounces. The company has a strategic alliance with Thani Dubai Mining Limited to explore, develop, and operate mines across the Middle East and parts of North Africa. AngloGold Ashanti Limited, formerly known as Vaal Reefs Exploration and Mining Company Limited, was founded in 1944 and is headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Holly LaFon]

  The second largest market cap company, at $11.22 billion, is Anglogold Ashanti Ltd. (AU). Its afternoon stock price of $29.15 is within 5% of its three-year low, and has experienced a more significant drop than Newmont ��it is down 44.9% from its high price of $52.86 a share.

5 Best Gold Stocks To Own Right Now: Northgate Minerals Corporation(NXG)

Northgate Minerals Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, engages in exploring, developing, processing, and mining gold and copper deposits in Canada and Australia. Its principal producing assets include 100% interests in the Fosterville and Stawell Gold mines in Victoria, Australia; and the Kemess South mine located in north-central British Columbia, Canada. The company was formerly known as Northgate Exploration Limited and changed its name to Northgate Minerals Corporation in May 2004. Northgate Minerals Corporation was founded in 1919 and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada.

At the Open: Dow Industrials Off 130 Points as Shutdown Looms; International Paper Drops 2% on Merrill Lynch Downgrade

When little orphan Annie sang, “Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love you tomorrow, you’re only a day away,” I don’t think this is what she had in mind.

Associated Press

The U.S. government will shut down tomorrow, unless the House and the Senate, which continue to toss budget bills back and forth, reach a compromise. That fact has caused stocks to tumble this morning, prolonging the pain of last week’s drop. The S&P 500 has fallen 0.7% to 1,679.28 at 10:08 a.m., while the Dow Jones Industrials have dropped 0.8%, or 128 points, to 15,130.61.

Newedge USA’s Robbert van Batenburg explains the situation:

Today the fight over the Continuing Resolution to keep the Federal government funded comes down to the wire. If Congress doesn’t strike a deal today, the nonessential functions of the Federal government start shutting down at midnight.

The Senate reconvenes at 2pm today and to vote on the most recent House bill. This bill passed the House Saturday and leaves the government funded for 70 days but calls for 1-yr delay of Obamacare. Defeat of this bill is likely at which point Republicans in the House of Representatives will need to form a new bill to avert a government shutdown.

The Lindsey Group’s Peter Boockvar looked at what happened the last time the government closed:

To look at the past for some current market guidance, the two government shutdowns in 1995-1996 had almost no impact on equity markets. The first shutdown lasted from November 13th to the 19th and the S&P's were up 4 pts. After the temporary fix ended and the government shut down for a 2nd time from Friday December 15th 1995 to January 6th 1996, the market fell 1.5% on Monday December 18th but ended January 6th little changed from its close on December 15th. Of course the circumstances are much different today in many ways but markets should assume that a deal will come sooner rather than later because the negative consequences get too large the longer this all lasts, particularly with the debt ceiling.

Belus Capital Advisors Brian Sozzi notes signs of investor complacency in sector performance. He writes:

Shares of consumer staples (the old standby "defensives", although I have long thought in an economic pullback U.S. households trade down to private label) and dollar stores (exposed to an earnings growth rate acceleration amid a crumbling consumption backdrop) continue to track (aka "correlate") with the major equity indices. This is investors showing me front and center that portfolios continue to be overweight economic recovery (aka cyclicals and industrials; the latter deserves some froth removal considering two weeks of consolidation in European indices) plays rather than the defensive companies that stand to benefit from a less prosperous economic climate. In my view, the market logging losses in six of the last seven sessions is the initial realization on the part of strategists that portfolios are ill-prepared for near-term volatility…

Tomorrow indeed.

Cal-Maine Foods (CALM) has dropped 3% to $47.45 after the company reported a profit of 36 cents, below forecasts of 49 cents.

Omnova Solutions (OMN) has fallen 3.8% to $8.36 after it said it earned 19 cents a share, missing forecasts of 22 cents.

Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG) has gained 1.6% to $425.84 after it was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight by Morgan Stanley, while Panera Bread (PNRA) has fallen 1.7% to $161.25 after the investment bank downgraded it to Equal Weight from Overweight.

International Paper (IP) has fallen 2.1% to $44.47 after it was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Merrill Lynch.

Batting Cleanup on Chat Queries

For those who are unaware, each month there is a joint web chat for subscribers of The Energy Strategist (TES) and MLP Profits. The chat is conducted by Igor Greenwald, managing editor for TES and chief investment strategist for MLP Profits, and myself. This month’s chat took place on Sept. 10.

We place a priority on answering questions about portfolio holdings and recommendations during the chat, but often we get questions about companies we don’t currently recommend. Or, we sometimes get questions or comments about a company that require an extended answer. In these cases we push those questions to the end, and attempt to answer them if time allows. For this past chat there were several questions remaining at the end, which I will address here today. For each company, a brief background is presented for readers who may not be familiar with the company.

Q: What is your view of BCEI at the present price?

Bonanza Creek Energy (NYSE: BCEI) is a Denver-based oil and gas company with operations in Colorado and southern Arkansas. While the Bakken Formation in North Dakota and the Eagle Ford Shale in Texas get more press, oil and gas plays in the Denver-Julesburg Basin have helped turn Colorado into one of the fastest growing energy producing states in the country and the fastest growing oil producer in the Rocky Mountains. Since 2008 oil production in Colorado has risen by an impressive 63 percent to a 50-year high.

BCEI is well-positioned with acreage in the Wattenberg Gas Field north of Denver. The field is one of the largest natural gas plays in the US. Wattenberg represents 60 percent of BCEI’s proved reserves, with 59 percent of those reserves classified as liquid. Of the company’s remaining reserves, 39 percent are located in the oil-bearing Cotton Valley Sands in Southern Arkansas (68 percent liquids) and 1 percent in Colorado’s North Park Basin (100 percent liquid! s).

BCEI has grown reserves at a 45 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) since 2007, while production has grown at a 71 percent CAGR. In the most recent quarter, production was 55 percent higher than in 2012, and production in the Rocky Mountain region was 105 percent higher. This followed a first quarter that actually disappointed on production and EBITDA, and saw the company take a 10 percent hit to its market cap. But shares have since recovered, and are trading at an all-time high, which represents a 238 percent increase in the share price since the 2011 IPO.

Bonanza Creek’s incredible growth rate continues to justify the premium valuation. Nevertheless, with the share price up 21 percent in the past month and major flooding in Colorado potentially affecting Q3 operations, you will likely find a better entry point over the next two to three months.

Q: What do you think of the latest Peyto results?

Peyto Exploration & Development (TSX: PEY) is a Canadian producer of natural gas. Its production had been on the decline for several years until 2009, when Peyto joined the fracking revolution and began to use hydraulic fracturing on horizontal wells. Since then, the fortunes of the company have made a sharp reversal along with the production rate. After declining from 2005 to 2009, Peyto’s share price has risen 230 percent since the beginning of 2009.

In the most recent quarter, Peyto reported a year-over-year production increase of 41 percent to a new company record of 58,145 barrels of oil equivalent per day. The sharp recovery in natural gas prices also helped, propelling the company’s funds from operations 70 percent higher to $110 million Canadian dollars.

So, to answer the question, the quarterly results were superb, and continued the pattern of strong growth the company has shown since 2009. But strong production growth is only a part of the company’s story. They have also done a fantastic job of controlling costs. Peyto should be on anyone’s short list if they are looking to invest in natural gas, and are looking for diversification beyond the US.

Q: Would like your opinion on TAT

TransAtlantic Petroleum (NYSE: TAT, TSX: TNP) is a small energy company with interests in Turkey (primarily) and Bulgaria. There are untold numbers of small, publicly-traded energy companies operating in different regions of the world, but TAT has a story worth telling.

When people suggest to me that the world won’t produce much more oil or gas than is currently produced, my counterargument is that the fracking revolution that has made the US the fastest growing oil and gas-producing country in the world has yet to spread across the globe. It was less than a month ago that Poland became the first European country with a significant hydraulic fracturing success, producing commercial quantities of shale gas.

TransAtlantic Petroleum seeks to bring the fracking revolution to Turkey. (Bulgaria has banned fracking.) In fact, TAT has begun to hydraulically fracture wells in Turkey’s Thrace Basin. In the ideal scenario, TAT, which has seen its share price languish for years, would see the sort of renaissance experienced by Peyto once they began their program of hydraulic fracturing.

But it’s far too early to tell if TAT will have commercial success, and it faces significant competitors in the region, such as Shell (NYSE: RDS.A). Given all the risk factors, this is not one that I would feel comfortable owning at this time, but if it were to significantly increase production in Turkey as Peyto did in Canada, I might reconsider.

Q: Can you comment on the prospects for Devon Energy?

Devon Energy (NYSE: DVN) is one of the major oil and gas producers in North America. Historically the company has produced more natural gas than oil — at present producing more than 3 percent of the natural gas consumed in North America — but Devon is now focused on producing more liquids. At present these make up only about a third of the output, but the company anticipates pushing that to 50 percent by 2016 and is devoting substantial capital to that goal.

The market has richly rewarded Chesapeake Energy (NYSE: CHK) for shifting production from natural gas to liquids — that stock is up 31 percent since joining The Energy Strategist’s Aggressive Portfolio four months ago.

But investors have so far taken a wait-and-see approach with Devon. This is somewhat understandable since Devon’s total production of oil and gas is about where it was 10 years ago.

Having said that, the recovery of natural gas prices since last year pushed Devon’s second-quarter earnings to $1.69 a share versus $1.16 a year ago. Oil production increased 14 percent over the previous year. The market’s response to date has been tepid; shares are up less than 5 percent since the earnings release six weeks ago.

But Devon looks like a real value to me at this level, and I would exercise a bit more patience if you are holding it. I have been tempted in the past to buy a few shares, and I don’t think they have looked like a bigger value than they do today.

Q: Please comment on LRE and MEMP

I am going to address LRR Energy LP (NYSE: LRE) and Memorial Production Partners LP (NASDAQ: MEMP) in an upcoming issue of MLP Investing Insider.

(Follow Robert Rapier on Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook.)

Packaging Corp to Acquire Boise for $1.27B

Shares of Packaging Corp. (PKG) jumped almost 13% in pre-market trading on Monday after the company announced that it will purchase a rival containerboard-maker.

Under the deal, which is expected to close during the fourth quarter, Packaging Corp. will pay $12.55 a share, or $1.27 billion, for Boise (BZ). That represents a 26% premium over the target’s last closing price, the Associated Press noted.

Koch Industries to Buy Molex for $7.2B

Not surprisingly, shares of Boise surged about 26% in pre-market trading. The company has roughly 100.9 million shares outstanding.

The combined company will have a total containerboard production capacity of 3.7 million tons. The deal will also boost Packaging Corp.’s corrugated products manufacturing by around 30%.

Including $714 million in Boise debt, the total deal is worth about $2 billion.

Pay Attention To The Proxy Statement

When seeking information about the health and well-being of a company, the first place investors often look is the 10-K or the 10-Q. But the proxy statement really should be the first stop. It offers a brief, yet thorough, description of a company's health. More specifically, it delves into business relationships, the backgrounds and compensation of corporate officers, and the future potential of the firm in plain, easy-to-read text.

The typical proxy statement addresses many topics of value to investors. Below is some of the information you can find in this important document.

Biographies
The proxy outlines a company's management employment history. This is valuable because it gives investors insight into officers' abilities and experience. Have the officers worked in the industry before? Did they move up the corporate ladder in the typical fashion, or were they somehow transplanted from another industry? Do they sit on boards at other companies? Do they have any potential conflicts of interest, or are their duties spread too thin? These are all important questions that the proxy can often answer.

Insider Ownership/Salaries
The proxy statement can tell you whether a company is being run for the benefit of the shareholders or insiders. One section will detail executive compensation. Check out how much management is being paid. Also look at their option positions. Do they have a vested interest in seeing the shares rise? Or are they merely collecting a fat paycheck?

Ideally, you want to see a large percentage of management's pay coming from out-of-the-money call options, meaning options that are currently worthless, but that could be worth a bundle if the share price moves materially higher. Put simply, option-based compensation gives management an incentive to enhance shareholder value and to find ways to drive the share price higher.

Loans
Sometimes in the course of business, companies will make sweetheart deals with their senior-level executives. These loans are sometimes in the hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. This is bad for the average shareholder for several reasons. First, the company should not be acting as a bank. Its capital, if it were looking out for the common shareholder, should ideally be retained to spur business-related growth, or be paid back to the shareholders in the form of a dividend.

A second issue is that the interest rate being charged on these loans is often below what is being offered in the broader lending market. This is problematic because it means the company is being inadequately compensated for making the loans. A third problem, and perhaps the most worrisome, is that many times companies will forgive these loans entirely, particularly if the employee is fired or retires, leaving shareholders to foot the bill.

Change In Auditors
Sometimes a company will switch auditing companies. The proxy will outline the rationale behind the change and give the investor some insight into whether it was a legitimate switch or due to a disagreement on accounting.

General Discussion
Similar to an annual or quarterly filing, in a proxy statement, management will also typically include a general discussion about the overall health of the business. Interesting insights can often be gleaned from information on backlog, gross margin trends, balance sheet opportunities or concerns.

Plans
The proxy will detail business plans or issues on which the board may vote. This information, while sometimes contained in the 10-K, is often much more concise and easy to read in the proxy statement. This valuable information should be analyzed by the investor to determine whether the company is facing any potential challenges down the road, or if there are any opportunities that management has not outlined on conference calls, or in the management discussion and analysis (MD&A) section of the 10-K or 10-Q.

Related Party Transactions
In the proxy, there will also be a section that reveals "related party transactions." Look for potential conflicts of interest or sweetheart deals that management has set up for themselves. For example, is the company obtaining a critical raw material for its products from another company owned by the chief executive? If so, perhaps the company may be paying more than it has to.Too many conflicts of interest should certainly pique your interest as a shareholder and make you wary of the company's investment merits.

Litigation
The company may describe litigation risks in the footnotes of other financial statements. The proxy will often comment on the potential outcomes of certain suits, or the possibility that management may set aside money in the form of a reserve to pay for the potential loss of a suit.

Bottom Line
The proxy statement is probably the most overlooked form that is filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. However, it can inform and enlighten the curious and diligent investor.

Consumers' Hard-Earned Lessons Help Keep Debt in Check

Alamy Have consumers forgotten what it was like during the depths of the Great Recession? Not according to the latest data from Equifax (EFX). The company reports that credit balances rose year over year in the 12 months ending in July. It is the first such increase in five years. The Results Are Mixed American banks hold $536.5 billion in credit card debt as of this writing. That's up marginally from $533.3 billion a year ago at this time, Equifax reports. And yet, interestingly, credit card revenue wasn't up across the board last year. American Express (AXP) saw a 1.6 percent increase in U.S. card revenue, while JPMorgan Chase (JPM) suffered a 4.5 percent decline in credit card proceeds in 2012. But the story doesn't end there. Despite the rise in credit card balances, consumers have made improvements in managing other types of debt. This is definitely a story of silver linings peeking out from under the gray news. Here's a closer look at the four key areas Equifax tracks in its annual National Consumer Credit Trends Report. 1. Credit card balances are rising again, but delinquencies are not. Blame new credit applications for rising balances. According to Equifax, consumers applied for and received $72.9 billion in new credit from January to May -- a 6 percent increase over the same period last year. New loans and new credit now sit at a five-year high. The good news? Delinquencies fell to just 1.86 percent in July -- an 11 percent decrease year over year. 2. Fewer young adults will enter the workforce financially crippled, but ... : Student loan applications fell 9.3 percent from January to May. The bad news? Balances grew 4 percent to $24.3 billion. Those who carry student debt are shouldering more of a load than their graduating peers, leading to record write-offs. Regulators had already forgiven $11.6 billion in student debt through May, an eight-year-high and 58 percent more than than last year at this time. 3. We're ready to go on a spending bender. Good news for Ford Motor (F) and other car makers. Dealers and banks have teamed up to boost auto financing from $745.3 billion at this time last year to $826.8 billion as of Equifax's report, a 10.9 percent increase. 4. We're also ready to buckle down on our biggest debt -- real estate. Home loan write-offs fell more than 22 percent and now stand at their lowest level since 2007. Severe delinquencies (i.e., 30 or more days past due) fell 22 percent while primary mortgages 90 days past due or in foreclosure fell 25 percent to a five-year low. Home equity installment debt fell 4.1 percent while revolving equity debt fell 8.9 percent. Count them all as signs of a sustained recovery in the housing market. "Only two major consumer credit segments are currently growing: auto financing and student loans," said Equifax Chief Economist Amy Crews Cutts in a press release. "In all other segments, consumers are reducing their debt burdens, either negatively, through foreclosures and bankruptcies, or positively, through payoffs -- payoffs are dominating in most cases today. We expect mortgage balances to begin rising again over the next several months as new home purchase loans overtake foreclosures and payoffs." Trading burdensome credit card debt for tax-deductible mortgage debt? Talk about a long-overdue step up. So while there's still a ways to go -- $536 billion in credit card debt isn't to be taken lightly -- efforts to pay off existing balances and avoid late payments and other fees suggest many of us are making progress.

Junk bond junkies are going short (term)

Rising interest rates have yield-starved investors moving into short-term high-yield-bond funds, and mutual fund companies are planning new products to meet the demand.

Fidelity Investments and Eaton Vance Corp. are the latest mutual fund companies to plan to offer such funds. They both unveiled plans to launch them this month, pending approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Wells Fargo & Co. launched the first short-term high-yield-bond fund, the $1.4 billion Wells Fargo Advantage Short-Term High Yield Bond Fund (STHBX), way back in 1997, but the most popular short-term high-yield options so far have been exchange-traded funds.

Since May, when interest rates began to climb upward, investors have shown a clear preference for shorter-term funds in the high-yield space.

“You're getting pretty much all the yield and a lot less of the interest rate risk,” said Louis Kokernak, principal at Haven Financial Advisors.

The $2.9 billion Pimco 0-5 Year High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (HYS) and the $1.7 billion SPDR Barclays Capital Short Term High Yield Bond ETF (SJNK) have seen inflows of $931 million and $560 million, respectively, since the beginning of May, according to IndexUniverse LLC.

The two most popular longer-term high-yield-bond ETFs, the iShares iBoxx High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (HYG) and the SPDR Barclays High Yield Bond ETF (JNK) have suffered net outflows of $492 million and $2.29 billion, respectively.

The move turned out to be good for advisers such as Mr. Kokernak, who uses the SPDR short-term ETF.

The SPDR Barclays Capital Short Term High Yield Bond ETF, which has an average maturity of about 3.5 years, lost just under 1% in the second quarter when interest rates shot up 100 basis points to 2.5%. Its longer-dated sibling, which has an average maturity of 6.75 years, lost about 2.5% during the quarter.

For the year, the shorter-term ETF is up 2.67%, while the longer-term one is down 0.35%.

One of the big reasons for the outperformance is that even though the durations are shorter, there isn't a big difference in the yield the funds pay out.

The yields on the two SPDR High Yield Bond ETFs are 5% for the short-term one and 6% for the long-term one, for example. The Pimco 0-5 Year High Yield Bond ETF has a yield of 4.7%.

Those high yields create a cushion against rising interest rates, which cause bond prices to drop.

Interest rates have come back into the spotlight after an uneventful July as the possibility of the Federal Reserve Bank cutting back on its asset purchases has become more realistic.

Last week, initial jobless claims dropped to 320,000, the lowest level since Oc! tober 2007. It's caused the 10-year U.S. Treasury note to surge to 2.88%, its highest level since August 2011.

Even though the short-term junk bond funds will protect against rising interest rates, Mr. Kokernak said it's important to keep in mind they won't offer extra protection from the other spectrum of risk embedded in the funds — credit risk.

“If there's a risk of recession, junk bond prices could crater,” he said. “That's true for short-term junk, too.”

BlackRock predicts deeper emerging-markets rout

Wall Street's biggest firms are predicting intensifying bond losses in emerging markets, where borrowing costs have already soared to the highest in more than four years versus U.S. corporate debt, as the Federal Reserve considers curtailing record stimulus.

“We're not yet convinced that we've seen the worst in terms of flows out of emerging markets,” Jeffrey Rosenberg, the chief investment strategist in fixed-income at New York-based BlackRock Inc., the world's largest asset manager, said in a telephone interview, expressing his own views. “We see a lot of valuation change but we see the potential for even more valuation change.”

Investors have yanked $22.1 billion from emerging-market bond funds since the end of April, almost five times the amount pulled from U.S. corporate credit, according to EPFR Global. That's pushed the extra yield that buyers now demand to own dollar-denominated emerging-market debt instead of U.S. company notes to 1.4 percentage points, about the most since December 2008.

Borrowing costs are soaring from record lows reached in January as speculation deepens that the Fed will curtail its so- called quantitative easing as soon as this month, signaling an end to the flood of cheap money that propped up asset prices from India to China and Indonesia. The exodus from developing nations began after Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke told Congress on May 22 that the central bank could scale back the pace of its $85 billion of purchases of mortgage bonds and Treasuries if the U.S. economy showed sustained improvement.'Defensive View'

Emerging-market debt has lost 7.9 percent since the end of April, versus a 5.1 percent decline on U.S. corporates, Bank of America Merrill Lynch index data show. While an expansion in the world's biggest economy is accelerating, growth in China is projected to slow to 7.5 percent this year from as high as 14.2 percent in 2007, according to 53 economists surveyed by Bloomberg.

“Given the likelihood of further rate volatility and an uncertain emerging-markets growth outlook, we maintain our defensive view” on corporates from developing countries, analysts led by Eric Beinstein in New York at JPMorgan Chase & Co., the world's largest underwriter of corporate bonds, wrote in a Sept. 5 report.

Elsewhere in credit markets, the extra yield investors demand to hold corporate bonds worldwide instead of government securities rose for a third week. Sprint Corp. led bond sales to the highest level since May with the biggest high-yield offering in more than five years. Loan prices increased.Default Swaps

Relative yields on investment-grade bonds from the U.S. to Europe and Asia widened 1 basis point to 149 basis points, or 1.49 percentage points, according to the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Corporate Index. Yields rose to 3.225 percent from 3.088 percent on Aug. 30.

The cost of protecting corporate bonds from default in the U.S. declined. The Markit CDX North American Investment Grade Index, a credit-default swaps benchmark that investors use to hedge against losses or to speculate on creditworthiness, decreased 2.2 basis points last week to a mid-price of 81.8 basis points, according to prices compiled by Bloomberg.

The Markit iTraxx Europe Index of 125 companies with investment-grade ratings dropped 1.6 to 102.7 to the lowest level since Aug. 26 at 10:28 a.m. in London. In the Asia-Pacific region, the Markit iTraxx Asia Index of 40 investment-grade borrowers outside Japan fell 5.7 to 140.Verizon Bonds

The indexes typically fall as investor confidence improves and rise as it deteriorates. Credit swaps pay the buyer face value if a borrower fails to meet its obligations, less the value of the defaulted debt. A basis point equals $1,000 annually on a swap protecting $10 million of debt.

The Bloomberg Global Investment Grade Corporate Bond Index has declined 0.63 percent this month, bringing losses for the year to 3.95 percent.

Bonds of Verizon Communications Inc. were the most actively traded dollar-denominated corporate securities by dealers last week, accounting for 3.9 percent of the volume of dealer trades of $1 million or more, according to Trace, the bond-price reporting system of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

The New York-based company will meet investors in the U.S. and Europe this week as it prepares to sell as much as $50 billion of debt to buy Vodafone Group Plc out of their wireless joint venture, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. A first offering may exceed Apple Inc.'s record $17 billion issue in April, another person said last week.Sprint Sale

Sprint, the third-largest U.S. wireless carrier, led $80.4 billion of corporate bond sales worldwide, the busiest week since $123.9 billion was issued in the five days ended May 17 and up from $42.3 billion in the prior period, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The Overland Park, Kansas-based company, acquired in July by Japan's SoftBank Corp., sold $6.5 billion of eight- and 10- year notes on Sept. 4 in the biggest junk offering since Intelsat priced $7.1 billion of bonds through three units in June 2008, Bloomberg data show.

The Standard & Poor's/LSTA U.S. Leveraged Loan 100 index rose 0.04 cent to 97.68 cents on the dollar, the highest since Aug. 22. The measure, which tracks the 100 largest dollar- denominated first-lien leveraged loans, has returned 3.11 percent this year.

In emerging markets, relative yields narrowed 8.9 basis points last week to 366.2 basis points, according to JPMorgan's EMBI Global index. The measure has averaged 307.4 this year.'Disproportionate Selloff'

Following average annual returns of 15.3 percent in the four years ended last December, dollar-denominated emerging markets notes have lost 6.8 percent this year, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch index data. That compares with a 2.9 percent loss in 2013 on the Bank of America Merrill Lynch U.S. Corporate & High Yield index.

“Developed markets paper has held in much better than emerging markets paper,” said Stephen Antczak, the head of U.S. credit strategy at New York-based Citigroup Inc., the second- biggest underwriter of emerging-market bonds. “What worries me is if you don't have this natural support in place, you could get a disproportionate selloff in emerging markets.”

Investors are withdrawing more cash from developing nations' bonds after pouring $58.8 billion last year into funds that buy the debt, EPFR data show. Emerging-market debt was seen as a haven with higher-yielding securities amid a U.S. stimulus program that's funneled more than $2.6 trillion into the financial system since September 2008.Avoiding India

Yields on the Bank of America Merrill Lynch U.S. Emerging Markets External Debt Sovereign and Corporate Plus index have climbed to 5.73 percent after reaching an all-time low of 4.04 percent on Jan. 24.

The gap in yields with U.S. company debt widened to as much as 1.44 percentage points on Aug. 31, the most since reaching 1.47 percentage points on Dec. 1, 2008.

The $22.1 billion of outflows from emerging-market debt funds in the past four months compare with $4.6 billion of withdrawals from U.S. corporate bond funds, EPFR data show.

Asian economies have been among the hardest hit. A JPMorgan index of Indian dollar-denominated bond yields touched 6.525 percent on Sept. 5, the highest since January, with BNP Paribas SA forecasting economic growth of 3.7 percent through next March, compared with a 10-year average of about 8 percent.

India is “one country we're completely avoiding and have been doing so for 12 months,&

Does Lehman recovery justify $2B bankruptcy bill?

Harvey Miller, the lawyer guiding Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. through the biggest-ever U.S. bankruptcy, sipped a cappuccino at a tourist-filled cafe near Manhattan's Central Park and reflected on how his client's collapse five years ago went from unthinkable to inevitable.

Lehman's demise “ignited a worldwide conflagration that almost brought down the global financial system,” said Miller, who filed the Chapter 11 petition at 2 a.m. on Sept. 15, 2008, in New York after the bank failed to win U.S. government aid or attract a buyer. “The consequences were unknown.”

Five years later, Miller takes credit for helping fend off some creditors' liquidation demands and instead turning the remains of one of the biggest failures of the financial crisis into a going concern. In the process, the Lehman estate has paid more than $2 billion in fees and expenses to professionals like him for that work, dwarfing the previous record of $757 million in Enron Corp.'s bankruptcy.

Check out Liz Skinner's look back, five years after the crisis

In exchange for that eye-popping payday, consistently approved by the judge in charge of the case, Lehman creditors are poised to get 18 cents on the dollar by 2016, from an estate valued at $65 billion, according to a liquidation plan approved in December 2011. Miller, 80, estimated that recovery may rise to as much as 22 cents as the value of Lehman's assets increases over the next three years to about $80 billion.

His estimate is a “somewhat educated guess,” Miller said in an interview near the offices of his law firm, New York-based Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP. “I am sure debt traders have their own projected recovery valuations.”$43 Billion

Lehman, which listed $613 billion in debt when it filed, is scheduled to pay out $14 billion to creditors on Oct. 3, bringing total distributions to $43 billion since the Chapter 11 plan was approved, according to court records.

Miller's firm, which also worked on the Enron case, has made almost $500 million since the Lehman bankruptcy started, and more than $600 million has gone to the restructuring company Alvarez & Marsal Inc., whose employees ran Lehman after the collapse and are still unwinding complex derivatives contracts to generate cash for creditors.

The Lehman case is “one of a kind” and should be viewed as a success, even with the fees, said Stephen Lubben, a bankruptcy professor at Seton Hall University School of Law in Newark, New Jersey.

“The creditors got a pretty decent recovery given the circumstances, and the world didn't come to an end,” Lubben said in a phone interview. “If you think of the fees as the price the creditors pay to get this recovery, I'm sure most of them would be willing to pay.”Historical Norms

Robert Lawless, a professor at the University of Illinois College of Law in Champaign, said Lehman's fees are well within historical norms for very large cases, particularly for a case involving assets of $639 billion. He said fees usually total 2 percent to 4 percent of a bankrupt company's assets.

“It's easy to be outraged and say it shouldn't happen, but is this emblematic of a system that's broken and isn't working? I can't look at $2 billion in fees in a $639 billion case and say that,” Lawless said in a phone interview.

Miller said the fees are reasonable considering they went to hundreds of people, including financial advisers, investment bankers, forensic accountants, appraisers, tax specialists, real-estate specialists and regulatory specialists.

“It has been the largest, most complex case ever filed,” he said in an e-mail. “Professionals had to be engaged all over the world to protect Lehman assets.”

The judge-approved expenses would have been higher if not for cuts sought by Tracy Hope Davis, the U.S. Trustee who supervises bankruptcies for the Justice Department. Davis has objected repeatedly to payments she deemed were “not reasonable.” She has also criticized creditors such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. that fought Lehman to improve their own payout and then asked the estate to pay their lawyers.Big Cases

Another reason Weil, Alvarez & Marsal and other professionals might have received the stamp of approval on their in fees: Judges don't often challenge payments to lawyers who bring in big cases because those lawyers are free to take future cases to competing courts that won't question the fees, Lynn LoPucki, a bankruptcy professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said in his 2005 book “Courting Failure: How Competition for Big Cases Is Corrupting the Bankruptcy Courts.”

Alvarez & Marsal Chief Executive Officer Bryan Marsal, who led Lehman after the bankruptcy, said in 2009 that it made more sense to manage the bank's properties and maximize their value than liquidate them at “fire sale” prices.

Miller said the plan worked. Marsal, 62, had no immediate comment on the case.

Lehman technically exited bankruptcy in March 2012, although the case will linger for three to five more years as the reorganization is executed and related multibillion-dollar lawsuits are dealt with, Miller said.'Humongous Failure'

“We were dealing with a humongous failure and we achieved a realization of value that was unanticipated,” according to Miller, who wouldn't say how much he was personally paid for the case. “Almost everybody has been surprised by the success of the administration.”

Miller, who also worked on the General Motors bankruptcy, said the expense can be blamed in part on the Lehman case's chaotic start, after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and then-U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson declined to bail out the 158-year-old firm.

The pair wrongly concluded that any disruption from the collapse of the world's fourth-biggest investment bank would stabilize within a few days and that it should therefore be allowed to die, Miller said.

“Bernanke and Paulson were under the impression that the financial markets were prepared for Lehman's demise,” he said. “They were wrong. They were so wrong that the financial markets almost collapsed.”White House

Paulson said at a White House briefing on the day of the bankruptcy that he “never once considered it appropriate to put taxpayer money on the line in resolving Lehman Brothers.” That decision contrasted with deals he helped broker to provide Fed financing for JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s agreement in March that year to buy Bear Stearns Cos. and his takeover of mortgage- finance companies Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

Miller's highest-profile success for Lehman came early on when the company's still-functioning brokerage unit was sold to Barclays Plc for $1.75 billion -- a figure based mostly on the value of Lehman's headquarters in Manhattan and two data centers in New Jersey. The court approved the sale at a speed that U.S. Bankruptcy Judge James Peck in Manhattan said at the time was “unheard of.”Archstone Sale

More recently, in November, Lehman agreed to sell its Archstone Inc. apartment unit to Sam Zell’s Equity Residential and AvalonBay Communities Inc. for $6.5 billion, dropping plans to take the company public in an initial stock offering. The price included $2.69 billion in cash along with stock valued $3.8 billion.

The fees and expenses could have been lower if Lehman had had more time to prepare the filing and create a plan in advance, said Chip Bowles, a bankruptcy lawyer at Bingham Greenebaum Doll LLP in Louisville, Kentucky.

The case was “so complex, so nasty, so heavily litigated, it’s very hard to come back and say you could have saved money here and there,” he said. “Bankruptcies, when they are planned and organized, are cheaper than those that are chaotic.”

In June, three months after Lehman’s plan took effect, Weil fired 60 salaried attorneys and 110 staff and cut some partners’ pay. Miller said such developments are predictable when a big case like Lehman winds down.Claims Basis

He also said there’s no basis for claims that Lehman took too long to begin repaying creditors.

“Other big cases have taken much longer,” he said. “Given the complexity and size of the case, it’s extraordinary that distribution has occurred in only four and a half years.”

The fees are justified given the effort put into the case, including many days of “24-7” work by employees, Miller said. He compared attorneys’ compensation to that of plumbers, who are also paid by the hour, “though plumbers are more appreciated than lawyers.”

Weil, which represented Lehman in financial matters for more than two decades before the bankruptcy, won court approval in 2008 to bill as much as $950 an hour for its top lawyers. That figure rose to $990 by 2010 and as much as $1,000 for partners working overseas, court records show.

“When you’re working on an hourly basis, it’s not a great way to make money,” Miller said. “If you come up with a good idea that’s very valuable, you only get paid one hour for it.”

(Bloomberg News) Like what you've read?

Small Cap Trucking Stocks Trucking Great YTD Returns: YRCW, ABFS, FFEX, SAIA & USAK

Despite what can best be described as a soft economy, small cap trucking stocks YRC Worldwide, Inc (NASDAQ: YRCW), Arkansas Best Corporation (NASDAQ: ABFS), Frozen Food Express Industries, Inc (NASDAQ: FFEX), Saia Inc (NASDAQ: SAIA) and USA Truck, Inc (NASDAQ: USAK) have been trucking some pretty impressive returns since the start of the year. In fact, these small cap trucking stocks are up anywhere from 72% to 150% or so since the start of the year despite the slow economy. Certainly trucking stocks provide a good indicator of how the economy is doing, but might investors be jumping the gun by pushing up these trucking stocks?

Here is what you need to know about all five:

YRC Worldwide, Inc. One of the largest transportation service providers in the world, YRC Worldwide is the holding company for a portfolio of brands that include YRC Freight, YRC Reimer, New Penn, Holland and Reddaway. Investors should be aware that YRC Worldwide narrowly averted bankruptcy in its fiscal 2009 financial year when it successfully persuading bondholders to exchange their $470 million in bond notes for roughly 94% of the company's shares while in September 2011, the company completed a financial restructuring which essentially wiped out shareholder equity. Last week, YRC Worldwide sank after it reported earnings and missed Wall Street expectations when it reported $1.24 billion in revenue verses the $1.26 billion Wall Street was expecting. YRC Worldwide reported a net loss that narrowed to $15.1 million, or $1.72 per share, from $22.6 million or $3.21 per share for the same period last year, but that loss was far higher than Wall Street's expectations. The company also said it has retained Credit Suisse to help refinance debt or recapitalize the company – something that is probably not a good sign. On Thursday, small cap YRC Worldwide fell 7.36% to $16.74 (YRCW has a 52 week trading range of $5.20 to $36.99 a share) for a market cap of $195.43 million plus the stock is up 149.8% since the start of the year, up 221.9% over the past year and down 99.7% over the past five years.

Arkansas Best Corporation. A freight transportation services and solutions provider whose largest subsidiary is ABF Freight System, Inc that's been in service since 1923, Arkansas Best Corporation has evolved from a local less-than-truckload (LTL) motor carrier into a global provider of customizable supply chain solutions. Last Friday, Arkansas Best Corporation reported earnings that beat expectations. Specifically, Arkansas Best Corporation reported $576.9 million in revenue verses $510.5 million for the same period last year along with net income of $4.9 million verses net income of $11.8 million. Salaries and wages did impact revenues, but management noted a new contract with the Teamsters (once approved, it will run through March 31, 2018) which could clear the road in order to focus on profitability. On Thursday, small cap Arkansas Best Corporation fell 2.21% to $22.97 (ABFS has a 52 week trading range of $6.43 to $24.0 a share) for a market cap of $591.02 million plus the stock is up 148.6% since the start of the year, up 121.7% over the past year and down 40.4% over the past five years.

Frozen Food Express Industries, Inc. One of the leading temperature-controlled truckload and less-than-truckload carriers in the United States, Frozen Food Express Industries has core operations in the transport of temperature-controlled products and perishable goods including food, health care and confectionery products. In mid July, Frozen Food Express Industries announced a definitive agreement where Duff Brothers Capital Corporation, is wholly owned by Thomas and James Duff, who also indirectly own KLLM Transport Services, LLC, would acquire all of the outstanding shares of common stock of FFE for $2.10 in cash per share of common stock in a transaction that valued the company at approximately $38.2 million. The deal is expected to close later this month or by September. Frozen Food Express Industries is up 134.8% since the start of the year, up 27.4% over the past year and down 67.9% over the past five years.

Saia Inc. Offering customers a wide range of less-than-truckload, non-asset truckload and logistic services, Saia Inc operates 147 terminals in 34 states. In late July, Saia Inc reported a 2% revenue increase to $293 million while net income came in at $22.7 million verses $17.4 million. However, the CEO did note that "volumes during the quarter were relatively soft in line with the general economy." It should also be noted that Saia Inc had a three for one stock split on June 13th. On Thursday, small cap Saia Inc fell 0.84% to $28.31 (SAIA has a 52 week trading range of $13.02 to $34.98 a share) for a market cap of $691.41 million plus the stock is up 90% since the start of the year, up 90.1% over the past year and up 115% over the past five years.

USA Truck, Inc. A dry van truckload carrier transporting general commodities via our Truckload and Dedicated Freight service offerings, USA Truck transports commodities throughout the continental United States and into and out of portions of Canada plus the company transports general commodities into and out of Mexico by allowing through-trailer service from its terminal in Laredo, Texas. In late July, USA Truck announced "significantly improved" year-over-year financial and operating results as base revenue increased 7.7% to $111.5 million while the company's net loss came in at $1.0 million ($0.10 per share) verses a net loss of $3.5 million ($0.34 per share) for the same period last year. Despite cost improvements, management noted their belief that "substantial opportunity remains to realize more earnings leverage in our Trucking model in the areas of asset productivity, equipment maintenance, insurance and claims, fuel economy and driver retention." On Thursday, small cap USA Truck rose 0.17% to $5.73 (USAK has a 52 week trading range of $2.65 to $6.89 a share) for a market cap of $60.42 million plus the stock is up 71.6% since the start of the year, up 42.2% over the past year and down 67.7% over the past five years.

Finally, here is a long-term chart for all five small cap trucking stocks:

As you can see from the chart, only Saia Inc has put in a solid long-term performance for investors. With that and all of the above in mind, investors might want to avoid troubled small cap trucking stock YRC Worldwide and recently acquired Frozen Food Express Industries to take a closer look at  Saia Inc as well as Arkansas Best Corporation and USA Truck.

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Forget The Dot-Com Boom -- Profit From The Next Internet Revolution

I'll never forget the dot-com boom. It was an unbelievable time to be involved in the financial markets. Tiny companies with only a dream and a sketchy business plan were able to raise millions if their name included the dot-com suffix. 

Things became so crazy that a close friend confided to me that he felt embarrassed to be making so much money in such a quick and easy fashion by getting in on Internet IPOs. Once a hyped Internet company's stock debuted, shares would often move 2 to 5 points higher. If you were investing during this time, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

The Internet has truly revolutionized the way we live. Not only has it enriched investors untold amounts, but it has empowered everyone in ways never thought possible. 

If you missed out on the lucrative Internet revolution, a second revolution has started to emerge. This revolution will dwarf the first one in terms of magnitude, personal impact -- and investment potential. 

Now, I am not talking about a new company with a new unproven technology like was seen during the first revolution. This isn't something like the overhyped Segway transporter or a new way to sell pet food. This revolution will be built on the backs of established technology companies that have already started to develop tools and techniques to exploit the pending sea change. 

In fact, many people are already using rudimentary aspects of the world-changing technological shift. The first Internet revolution connected billions of people to one another through social networks. It provided easy access to knowledge and products that had been previously nearly inaccessible.  

The pending revolution will connect everything on the planet. Now, before you think I have lost my mind by watching too much "X-Files" or "Star Trek," let me explain. 

Many of you have experienced the first ripples of this revolution. Some of you even use it on a daily basis. Prime examples include the E-ZPass for toll roads, ATMs and gas pumps. These tools are all connected to the Internet through machine-to-machine interfaces. 

Soon, nearly everything will be connected. This revolution is called the "Internet of Everything," or IoE for short. It is forecast to produce profits of $613 billion in 2013 and has the potential to become a $14 trillion market.

It is estimated that by 2020, 50 billion connections will exist between everyday objects, people, and devices. The Internet of everything will connect everything from digital remote health monitoring to smart factories and virtual assistants. 

Everyday objects will be able to "talk" to keep owners informed and up to date. For example, imagine running low on milk. A throwaway tag will sense this fact and automatically place an order using your virtual assistant to deliver another gallon to your refrigerator.

	(Click to enlarge)
	The Internet of Everything is truly a world-changing revolution that will forever alter the way we live, work and play.

The potential is mind-blowing. The Internet of Everything is truly a world-changing revolution that will forever alter the way we live, work and play. 

Sounds fascinating, but how can we profit?

The No. 1 company on the forefront of designing and profiting from this trend is Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO). 

The company is developing routing technologies to help manage this revolution. It's a high-end routing device consisting of 1.5 million lines of code and 4 billion transistors and is expected to cost $250 million. This application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) will create the technology needed for the Internet of Everything to become a reality. Cisco developers expect this chip to be available by the end of this year. 

In addition, Cisco's Insieme Networks is working on the convergence of switching, routing, storage and computing on a common platform. The purpose of this device is that it allows the architecture to spread to the edge of the network providing the brains to the Internet of Everything. 

A look at the financial health of the company shows Cisco reported decent results for the fourth quarter of its 2013 fiscal year. Earnings per share (EPS) increased by 11% year over year, to $0.52 a share, while revenue followed suit with a 6% gain. 

"Our fourth quarter was a record on many fronts with record revenue, and record non-GAAP income, net income and EPS. We also generated $4 billion in operating cash flow, another record," Cisco CEO John Chambers said.

While things appear to be strong, the company just announced it is slashing of 4,000 jobs (5% of its workforce) in a cost-reduction effort. In addition, 2014 guidance was in line with analysts' expectations, but certainly nothing to get excited about. 

Taking a technical look, shares have pulled back from hitting resistance at the high of $26.50. Price broke through the 50-day simple moving average on the downside and may find support in the $23 range. The 200-day simple moving average in the $22 area is the next solid technical support level. 

Risks to Consider: The Internet of Everything is an exciting idea, and Cisco appears to be the company best poised to profit from its growth. However, it remains unclear how consumers, businesses and governments will accept the concept at the projected scope. In addition, all the standard stock market risks are in play despite the huge projections. Always use stops and position size correctly when investing.

Action to Take --> The recent lackluster projections by Cisco has knocked the shares down into my value buy zone. Buying now, with a stop at $23 with a 12-month target of $33, makes solid sense right now. Investors interested in the Internet of everything should also look at General Electric (NYSE: GE) as an alternative way to profit in this space. 

P.S. -- When you get in on the ground floor of a potentially revolutionary new trend like the Internet of Everything, the profits that can follow can change your life forever. Andy Obermueller's Game-Changing Stocks is entirely devoted to finding the next big, life-changing investing idea. See his latest report for more groundbreaking investment plays.

Top Analyst Upgrades and Stocks to Buy: Best Buy, Herbalife, Questcor, Dick’s and More

Investors and traders often look for new research ideas that can generate higher income or more profits. 24/7 Wall St. reviews many fresh research calls each morning to find great ideas from value stocks to growth stocks to dividend stocks. We have broken out the positive analyst calls, and these are some of this Wednesday’s top analyst upgrades, initiations and positive analyst research calls seen from Wall Street.

Barrick Gold Corp. (NYSE: ABX) was raised to Buy from Hold by TD.

Best Buy Co. Inc. (NYSE: BBY) was raised to Buy from Neutral at B. Riley; Stifel Nicolaus reiterated its Buy rating but raised the price target to $40 from $30 in the call.

Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc. (NYSE: DKS) was maintained as Buy with a $58 price target at Sterne Agee, but the firm did lower earnings estimates, with the firm noting that shares slid too far down after lowered guidance. BofA/Merrill Lynch also reiterated its Buy rating and $58 price target. Canaccord Genuity maintained its Buy rating but lowered its target to $56 from $58 in the call.

Herbalife Ltd. (NYSE: HLF) was raised to Buy from Hold with an $80 price target, along with higher earnings estimates for 2013 and 2014, at Argus.

Questcor Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOR) was raised to Buy from Neutral with an $80 price target (prior $58 target), based on a longer growth period for Acthar sales, at BofA/Merrill Lynch.

Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (NYSE: RCL) was raised to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley.

Sanchez Energy Corp. (NYSE: SN) was initiated with a Buy rating and $31 price target at Canaccord Genuity.

Trina Solar Ltd. (NYSE: TSL) was raised to Outperform with a $10 price target at Cowen & Co. after earnings yesterday. Note that there were two other analyst upgrades yesterday as well after the report.

Trulia Inc. (NYSE: TRLA) was resumed with an Overweight rating and $51 price target at J.P. Morgan.

Veolia Environnement S.A. (NYSE: VE) was raised to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley.

You Won't Believe What's Clogging America's Sewers

Julio Cortez/AP Wastewater officials across the country have been trying to spread the message that not just anything can go down the toilet, and it has recently taken aim at wipes. Vancouver, Wash., has a campaign called "Smart Bunnies" that shows a bespectacled rabbit sitting on a toilet and the tag line: "Smart bunnies flush only toilet tissue ... All wipes and other products will clog the pipes!" "Many new products, such as wipes, claim to be flushable. However, that doesn't mean they're treatable in our wastewater system," according to the campaign's materials. Among the items it says don't belong in the toilet: cleaning rags, reinforced paper towels, baby diapers and wipes, feminine hygiene products, and medical bandages, tubing and pads. A public awareness campaign by the Orange County Sanitation District in California called "What 2 Flush" emphasizes that the toilet is meant only for the three Ps -- pee, poop and toilet paper. It even says facial tissues are too sturdy to be flushed. Among the more unusual items it says people commonly flush that risk causing clogs: cat litter, condoms and dental floss. A study by the Portland Water District in Maine in 2011 analyzed what was causing clogs in their sewer pipes and came up with this analysis: 42 percent paper products, including paper towels 24 percent baby wipes 17 percent hygiene products, including feminine pads and tampons 8 percent "flushable" wipes Remainder, other items, including household wipes, cosmetic pads and medical materials.

When it comes to your safety, you should never shop secondhand. Minor scratches or dings in helmets that you might be unable to spot right away can cause their safety rating to fall.

Weekly CFO Sells Highlight

According to GuruFocus Insider Data, the largest CFO sells during the past week were: Cornerstone OnDemand, United Technologies, Memsic, SBA Communications and Biogen Idec.

Cornerstone OnDemand (CSOD): CFO Perry A. Wallack Sold 225,235 Shares

CFO of Cornerstone OnDemand (CSOD), Perry Wallack, sold 225,235 shares during the past week at an average price of $53.52.

Cornerstone OnDemand has a market cap of $2.78 billion; its shares were traded at around $53.93 with and P/S ratio of 18.35.

Cornerstone OnDemand reported second quarter 2013 revenue of $44.3 million, up 66% over the second quarter last year, and second quarter bookings up 55% to $48.9 million. The company's net loss for the quarter was $8.7 million ($0.17 per share).

President & CEO Adam L Miller sold 12,800 shares of CSOD stock on Sept. 10 at the average price of $53.43. Multiple other insiders also sold shares of CSOD stock over the past week.

United Technologies Corp (UTX): SVP and CFO Gregory Hayes Sold 146,033 Shares

SVP and CFO Gregory Hayes sold 146,033 shares of UTX stock on Sept. 16 at the average price of $109.55. Gregory Hayes owns at least 66,803 shares after this. The price of the stock has increased by 0.03% since.

United Technologies Corp has a market cap of $100.54 billion; its shares were traded at around $109.58 with a P/E ratio of 19.92 and P/S ratio of 1.61. The dividend yield of United Technologies Corp stocks is 1.95%. United Technologies Corp had an annual average earnings growth of 9.1% over the past 10 years. GuruFocus rated United Technologies Corp the business predictability rank of 2.5-star.

Memsic, Inc. (MEMS): CFO Patricia Niu Sold 107,185 Shares

CFO Patricia Niu sold 107,185 shares of MEMS stock on Sept. 17 at the average price of $4.23. The price of the stock has decreased by 0.24% since.

Memsic has a market cap of $102.6 million; its shares were traded at around $4.22 with a P/E ratio of 54.10 and P/S ratio of 1.89.

Memsic ! Inc generated second quarter net sales of $13.2 million compared to $14.4 million in the 2012 quarter. GAAP net loss was $2.3 million ($0.09 per share), compared to a net loss of $0.5 million ($0.02 per share) in the prior year quarter.

CEO Yang Zhao sold 485,654 shares of MEMS stock on Sept. 17 at the average price of $4.23. President, NA & EU Operations Paul M Zavracky and multiple directors all also sold shares of MEMS stock over the past week.

SBA Communications Corp (SBAC): Senior Vice President & CFO Brendan Thomas Cavanagh Sold 101,628 Shares

Senior Vice President & CFO Brendan Thomas Cavanagh sold 101,628 shares of SBAC stock on Sept. 16 at the average price of $77.04. Brendan Thomas Cavanagh owns at least 6,628 shares after this. The price of the stock has increased by 0.23% since.

SBA Communications Corp has a market cap of $9.87 billion; its shares were traded at around $77.22 with and P/S ratio of 8.31. SBA Communications Corp had an annual average earnings growth of 15.8% over the past 10 years.

SBA Communications Corp has released its second quarter 2013 results. Total revenues for this quarter were $324.3 million compared to $229.1 million last year. Tower Cash Flow increased 33.8% to $203.9 million. Net loss was $35.9 million compared to loss of $53.5 million in the prior year quarter.

Biogen Idec Inc (BIIB): Executive VP and CFO Paul J Clancy Sold 125,815 Shares

Executive VP and CFO of Biogen Idec Inc (BIIB) Paul J Clancy sold 125,815 shares during the past week at an average price of $238.27.

Biogen Idec has a market cap of $58.97 billion; its shares were traded at around $248.13 with a P/E ratio of 36.76 and P/S ratio of 9.95. Biogen Idec Inc had an annual average earnings growth of 14.3% over the past 5 years.

Biogen Idec Inc. has released its second quarter 2013 results ended June 30, 2013. For this quarter, total revenues were $1.7 billion, an increase of 21% compared to the same quarter last year. Non-GAAP EPS were! $2.30, a! n increase of 26% over the prior year quarter.

Multiple other insiders have also sold shares of BIIB stock over the past week.

For the complete list of stocks that Sold by their CFOs, go to: Insider Buys.

Related links:GuruFocus Insider DataThe business predictability rank of 25-starBrendan Thomas Cavanagh

3 Out of 4 Investors Think We're Headed for a Major Retirement Crisis

By Hal M. Bundrick

NEW YORK (MainStreet) -- Pessimism regarding the retirement future for Americans is growing. Nearly three-quarters (73%) of investors believe "the U.S. is headed for a major retirement crisis in the next 20 to 30 years that will result in large populations living at a far reduced standard of living, or at the poverty line." And the Wells Fargo/Gallup survey says four in 10 non-retired investors (41%) say they are "extremely" or "very worried" about another global financial crisis in their retirement years, surpassing concerns about having a lower standard of living (28%), running out of money (26%) or having to work in retirement (25%).
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More than two-thirds see a "slow" or "non-growing" U.S. economy to be the norm for the balance of their lifetime.

"Over the summer, investors watched rising mortgage rates, a volatile stock market and stubborn unemployment figures - all of which understandably impact optimism," says Joe Ready, director of Institutional Retirement and Trust at Wells Fargo. "What is so striking to me is the fact that five years after the market collapse, non-retired investors harbor significant concerns about a repeat financial crisis. The past continues to color their view of retirement, and whether the stock market is a place where they can invest and grow savings." A majority (69%) of investors say this year's stock market increases do not make them any "less fearful about sustained losses" if the market were to fall similar to the 2008-2009 downturn. Fifty-nine percent of retired and 51% of non-retired investors say they haven't seen a "noticeable increase" in their retirement account values as a result of recent stock market advances.
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Just 14% say the stock market increases have made them feel "a lot" or "somewhat" more confident about their retirement future. In fact, retired investors estimate that only 39% of all their assets, not including cash or savings accounts, are actually invested in stocks or bonds. For non-retired investors the figure is 34%. "According to the poll, the average investor is not highly invested in the market in either equities or bonds, and it appears that a more stable economy with better employment prospects would encourage more participation," added Ready.

Amid all the pessimism, more investors (39%) are setting out specific plans to meet their retirement and investment goals and 60% say they have calculated a good financial estimate of how much they will need to save now to retire comfortably.
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A majority of investors (84%) say when and how much you set aside are "extremely" or "very important" factors in determining whether you will save enough to live comfortably after retirement. Somewhat fewer consider selecting the right investment funds (75%), the amount of investment gains made each year (70%), or having low fees on investment funds (62%) as being important.

"The findings indicate investors understand they will need to save their way to a secure retirement, not merely invest their way there; and they are taking more responsibility for their savings through better planning," Ready says.

--Written by Hal M. Bundrick for MainStreet

Intel's Mobile Future Lies On a Rocky Bay Trail

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Last week, Intel (INTC), at its developer forum, launched its latest family of low-power systems-on-a-chip (SoC), codenamed "Bay Trail."

The chipsets are designed to shake up the status quo in the market place, and offer improved tablet performance and battery life, tablet/PC hybrids and other mobile devices. The SoC will be available for both consumers and businesses starting in the fourth quarter of this year. Hardware manufactures such as AAVA, Acer, ASUS, Dell (DELL), Lenovo and Toshiba have already signed up to come out products supporting the new chipsets.

I recently sat down with Hermann Eul, general manager of Intel's Mobile and Communications Group to discuss what Bay Trail means for Intel as it relates to the mobile devices market.

Chris Ciaccia: "What can consumers expect in terms of performance, battery life from Intel's Bay Trail, as opposed to something that's based off Arm Holdings (ARMH)?" Hermann Eul: "Users can expect really great performance. They can expect stunning visuals, they can expect a powerful imaging engine, and they can expect wonderful battery lifetime. We already are measuring beyond 10 hours of battery life time, and our custom systems. We believe this will go a little higher, as they are in the process of fine-tuning the systems coming to the market. To this, we believe this is a very, very balanced package going into the market, and it will deliver new experiences that have not been seen at that power envelope and battery lifetime before." Ciaccia: "In terms of new experiences, can you touch on what you think will happen?" Eul: "We look at this as the market is so quickly changing. It is about us providing a platform, a powerful platform. We put a lot of work behind it, in case of our API's (Application Programming Interfaces) that we do. We put a lot of work behind it in terms of the optimization we do for any of the different operating systems that runs on this. We believe, deeply believe, that a lot of innovation will come out of this ecosystem, that then goes after it, and builds the application and comes up with new ideas that have not been possible before. This is what we want to do, lay the ground for, pave the road, that now this ecosystem can pick this performance up, and translate this into the next step that you might not have thought a year ago."

Ciaccia: "Will pricing for the chips be competitive with what's already in the market, or can Intel either undercut or charge a premium?"

Eul: "We believe the Bay Trail system, depending on how our customers position, depending on what components and what kind of quality they put behind that, we believe that we can bring this down to system price points of $199."

Ciaccia: "As far as I'm concerned, the big push is not to rely on just Windows-based machines, but also Google's (GOOG) Android-based OEM's. How important is expanding multiple OS's (operating systems) to Intel's mobile future?"

Eul: "We have a tradition of being agnostic towards operating systems, actually so to speak, forever. There has been a predominant operating system, but in the server space, it was always Windows, it was always Linux. We have a long tradition of this. Now, there's Chromebooks out, there's Windows books out. We're doing the same in the tablet space as well. We respond to what the market needs, what our customers ask us for, and we support that." Ciaccia: "64-bit chips will start to come at the beginning of next year. Is that process being sped up with Brian [Krzanich] coming on as the new CEO, or was that always the case?" Eul: "The 64-bit capability is deeply embedded into the architecture. The Silvermont architecture is 64-bit architecture. That has been developed for years. We anticipate that the market is going to ask for this. We deeply believe that this will also be big for enterprises. Enterprise systems, 64-bit will come sooner or later. 64-bit allows IT officers to manage their PC clients, their desktops, and their laptops all out of one hand. They can use all the technology that we bring, in terms of platform security, everything goes into this. As always, we believe that the ecosystem will look for 64-bit, and a must for us to do, and the market will adopt to it."

Ciaccia: "You touched on battery life earlier. When do you think we start to see battery life on phones and tablets not be a concern anymore, where you can go an exceptionally long period of time without charging?"

Eul: "We can go already in a way without charging, an exceptionally long time, sometimes as long as three weeks."

Ciaccia: "In terms of actual usage."

Eul: "It depends on the user. As we drive forward Moore's Law, every generation has a lower power consumption. Of course, we expect the 14 nanometer generations will again deliver a big, big push forward in terms of either processing power, or usage time on the battery." --Written by Chris Ciaccia in New York >Contact by Email. Follow @Chris_Ciaccia

Jefferies Upgrades Intel to “Buy”; Sees 33% Upside (INTC)

Early on Thursday, analysts at Jefferies upgraded Intel Corporation (INTC), commenting that they believe the semiconductor and microprocessor manufacturer “offers one of the best alpha generation opportunities” in its sector.

Jefferies upgraded INTC from “Hold” to “Buy” and see shares reaching $30, up from the previous target of $27. This new price target suggests a 33% upside to the stock’s Thursday closing price of $22.63.

Mark Lipacis, an analyst at Jefferies, said, “We believe INTC offers one of the best alpha generation opportunities in semis: 1) it is finally focusing its manufacturing leadership to make MPUs that are lower power, higher performance and cheaper than competitive solutions. This new focus should translate to share gains in sub-$500 tablets, 2-in-1 PCs and handsets. 2) Consensus incorrectly assumes INTC’s x86 MPUs have an inherent disadvantage vs ARM, and its 3yr, $60b investment nets to zero advantage.”

The analysts lowered INTC’s fiscal 2013 EPS estimates from $2.02 to $1.88, but raised fiscal 2014 EPS estimates from $2.06 to $2.15.

Intel shares were up 42 cents, or 1.86%, during pre-market trading on Friday. The stock is up 9.75% year-to-date.

Summers Take Away

After Larry Summers Fed chairman consideration withdrawal announcement, global markets rallied and, MoneyShow's Jim Jubak, also of Jubak's Picks thinks there is a lesson to be learned from this.

A losing team changes coaches and suddenly starts to win. A company replaces its CEO and its stock suddenly moves up. Lawrence Summers withdraws his name from consideration to replace Ben Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve in January and global financial markets rally.

The Standard & Poor's 500 stock index ended the day yesterday up 0.57%. The German DAX closed up 1.22% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng finished up 1.47%. The 10-year US Treasury traded to yield 2.86%.

There's certainly an element of personal judgment in these moves. Summers has a reputation for intellectual brilliance and arrogance that led to well-reasoned worries that he would not be able to build consensus at the Fed.

But mostly, the markets' move upwards is relief that someone who had come—rightly or wrongly—to embody the possibility that the Fed would move aggressively to normalize its balance sheet and interest rates, won't be in charge of the US central bank.

Summers worried global financial markets, not just because he might have moved more quickly to end the Fed's buying of Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities than Bernanke would have if he had remained in charge of the Fed, but also because Summers might have pushed to raise short-term interest rates, now at 0% to 0.25%, to something like a more normal 1%.

Global financial markets may not like the idea that the Fed is about to start tapering off its buying program. But the markets are really, really afraid that the Fed won't hold short-term rates at their current extraordinarily low levels until 2015 as it has promised.

The take away lesson from the markets' reaction to the Summers withdrawal is how close to the surface the markets' worry about an early Fed tightening is. The real threat to the markets, this reaction says, is not tomorrow's Fed decision to taper or not to taper, but an easy tip in market psychology is to worry about tightening—even on very little or no objective evidence that the Fed is about to move in that direction any time soon.

Full disclosure: I don't own shares of any of the companies mentioned in this post in my personal portfolio. When in 2010 I started the mutual fund I manage, Jubak Global Equity Fund, I liquidated all my individual stock holdings and put the money into the fund. The fund did not own shares of any company mentioned in this post as of the end of June. For a complete list of the fund's holdings as of the end of June see the fund's portfolio here.

Dollar General Adjusts Forecast, Sees Gross Profit Slide

Dollar General Corp. (NYSE: DG) reported second-quarter 2013 results before markets opened this morning. The discount retailer reported adjusted diluted earnings per share (EPS) of $0.77 on revenues of $4.39 billion. In the same period a year ago, Dollar General reported EPS of $0.69 on revenue of $3.95 billion. Second-quarter results compare to the Thomson Reuters consensus estimates for EPS of $0.74 and $4.36 billion in revenue.

The company said that same-store sales rose 5.1% in the second quarter, driven by increased sales of consumables. The company specifically noted tobacco sales and strong sales of perishables, candy and snacks.

In its outlook statement, Dollar General said it expects full-year sales to rise 10% to 11% above the 2012 total and same-store sales are forecast to rise 4% to 5%. At the beginning of the 2013 fiscal year the top end of these ranges was one point higher.

Gross profit as a percentage of sales fell by 77 basis points in the second quarter, and the company forecasts full-year gross profit down 0.9%. Operating profit, forecast in March in a range of $1.78 billion to $1.845 billion, is now forecast at $1.73 billion to $1.77 billion.

Adjusted full-year EPS is now forecast at $3.15 to $3.22. The current consensus EPS estimate from analysts is $3.21.

The company's CEO said:

We are very pleased with the increase in customer traffic in our stores. We continue to grow our market share and believe that our second quarter results position us well to deliver our financial outlook for the year.

Yearly gross profit was flat, at 31.7% . Positive factors included higher inventory markups and a lower provision for inventory. Weighing on gross profit were higher markdowns, a smaller impact from price increases, and a reduction in shrinkage. Operating profit rose from 10.1% in 2011 to 10.3% in in 2012.

Dollar General repurchased $220 million in its own stock in the first half of 2013. The company now has $424 million remaining for share repurchases.

The company has increased the number of new stores it plans to open in 2013, from 635 to 650. In the first half of the current fiscal year Dollar General opened a net 360 new stores and now claims a total of 10,866 stores in operation.

In our earnings preview yesterday, we noted the now more moderate growth in the discount variety store sector. Dollar General's second-quarter performance and lowered outlook do not change our view of these stores' futures.

Shares are up about 1.7% in premarket trading Wednesday morning at $54.80, in a 52-week range of $39.73 to $56.10. Thomson Reuters had a consensus analyst price target of around $59.50 before today's results were announced.

Does Travelers Support These Prices?

With shares of Travelers (NYSE:TRV) trading around $86, is TRV an OUTPERFORM, WAIT AND SEE or STAY AWAY? Let's analyze the stock with the relevant sections of our CHEAT SHEET investing framework:

T = Trends for a Stock’s Movement

Travelers is engaged in providing a range of commercial and personal property and casualty insurance products and services to businesses, Government units, associations and individuals. The company is organized into three business segments: Business Insurance; Financial, Professional and International Insurance, and Personal Insurance. Through its segments, Travelers offers an array of property and casualty insurance and insurance-related services to its clients, surety and financial liability coverage’s, property and casualty products, and a range of property and casualty insurance covering individuals’ personal risks. Consumers and companies worldwide like to mitigate risk as much as possible because of the uneasy that uncertainty brings. As new risks are identified and existing ones are covered, look for companies like Travelers to continue to see rising profits.

T = Technicals on the Stock Chart are Strong

Travelers stock has seen an explosive move higher over the last several years. After a huge run, the stock is now trading at all-time high prices and has not seen any significant selling pressure just yet. Analyzing the price trend and its strength can be done using key simple moving averages. What are the key moving averages? The 50-day (pink), 100-day (blue), and 200-day (yellow) simple moving averages. As seen in the daily price chart below, Travelers is trading above its rising key averages which signal neutral to bullish price action in the near-term.

(Source: Thinkorswim)

Taking a look at the implied volatility (red) and implied volatility skew levels of Travelers options may help determine if investors are bullish, neutral, or bearish.

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	Implied Volatility (IV)	30-Day IV Percentile	90-Day IV Percentile
Travelers Options	14.82%	10%	11%

What does this mean? This means that investors or traders are buying a very small amount of call and put options contracts, as compared to the last 30 and 90 trading days.

	Put IV Skew	Call IV Skew
June Options	Flat	Average
July Options	Flat	Average

As of today, there is an average demand from call buyers or sellers and low demand by put buyers or high demand by put sellers, all neutral to bullish over the next two months. To summarize, investors are buying a very small amount of call and put option contracts and are leaning neutral to bullish over the next two months.

On the next page, let’s take a look at the earnings and revenue growth rates and the conclusion.

E = Earnings Are Increasing Quarter-Over-Quarter

Rising stock prices are often strongly correlated with rising earnings and revenue growth rates. Also, the last four quarterly earnings announcement reactions help gauge investor sentiment on Travelers’s stock. What do the last four quarterly earnings and revenue growth (Y-O-Y) figures for Travelers look like and more importantly, how did the markets like these numbers?

	2013 Q1	2012 Q4	2012 Q3	2012 Q2
Earnings Growth (Y-O-Y)	15.35%	-48.18%	179.75%	-239.77%
Revenue Growth (Y-O-Y)	-1.00%	1.63%	1.64%	-0.45%
Earnings Reaction	2.09%	1.74%	3.58%	-0.48%

Travelers has seen increasing earnings and revenue figures over most of the last four quarters. From these numbers, the markets have been happy with Travelers’s recent earnings announcements.

P = Average Relative Performance Versus Peers and Sector

How has Travelers stock done relative to its peers, American International Group (NYSE:AIG), WR Berkley (NYSE:WRB), American Financial Group (NYSE:AFG), and sector?

	Travelers	AIG	WR Berkley	American Financial Group	Sector
Year-to-Date Return	19.74%	26.20%	13.99%	23.43%	22.14%

Travelers has been an average performer, year-to-date.

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Conclusion

Travelers provides valuable insurance products and services to an increasing number of consumers and companies looking to mitigate risk. The stock has been on a significant run over the last several years and is now trading at all-time high prices. Earnings and revenue have been increasing over most of the last four quarters which has kept investors upbeat. Relative to its strong peers and sector, Travelers has been an average year-to-date performer. Look for Travelers stock to OUTPERFORM.