Thursday, January 22, 2015

Best Diversified Bank Stocks To Watch For 2014

ATHENS, Greece (AP) -- Greece's troubled privatization program suffered a blow Monday after the Russian energy giant Gazprom withdrew its interest in buying the natural gas firm DEPA, citing fears over the Greek company's future finances.

The news, announced as a delegation from Greece's international creditors returned to Athens for a new round of inspections, hammered stocks in Greece, with the main index closing 4.7 percent lower.

After the deadline expired Monday, DEPA failed to attract any bids while sister company DESFA, the gas network operator, received a single bid from Azerbaijan's state oil company SOCAR, Deputy Development Minister Asimakis Papageorgiou said.

"As far as DEPA is concerned, it will be reexamined and retendered at a future time -- when conditions will be much more favorable for greater participation," he said.

The head of Greece's privatization fund, Stelios Stavridis, said the new tender would be held "as soon as possible," but gave no further details. Stavridis said Gazprom's decision was a disappointment "but not a disaster."

Top 10 Solar Stocks To Watch For 2015: Berry Plastics Group Inc (BERY)

Berry Plastics Group, Inc. (Berry), incorporated on November 18, 2005, is a provider of plastic consumer packaging and engineered materials. Berry owns 100% interest of Berry Plastics Corporation. Berry sells its solutions predominantly into end markets, such as food and beverage, healthcare and personal care. The Company operates in three segments: Rigid Packaging, Engineered Materials and Flexible Packaging. As of September 19, 2012, the Company supplied its customers through 82 manufacturing facilities throughout the United States (68 locations) and select international locations (14 locations). In June 2012, the Company acquired 100% interest of Frans Nooren Beheer B.V. and its operating companies (Stopaq). In September 2011, the Company acquired 100% interests of Rexam Closures Kentucky Inc., Rexam Delta Inc., Rexam Closures LLC, Rexam Closure Systems LLC, Rexam de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Rexam Singapore PTE Ltd., Rexam Participacoes Ltda. and Rexam Plasticos do Brasil Ltda. (collectively, Rexam SBC). In August 2011, Berry acquired 100% interest of LINPAC Packaging Filmco, Inc.

Rigid Packaging

The Company�� Rigid Packaging business consists of containers, foodservice items, house wares, closures, over caps, bottles, prescription vials, and tubes. The end uses for these products are consumer-oriented end markets, such as food and beverage, retail mass marketers, healthcare, personal care and household chemical. The Company manufactures a collection of container products. The Company produces 32 ounce or thermoformed polypropylene (PP) drink cups and offers a product line with sizes ranging from 12 to 52 ounces. The Company�� products of house wares market is focused on producing semi-disposable plastic home and party and plastic garden products. The Company produces closures and over caps across several of its product lines, including continuous-thread and child-resistant closures, as well as aerosol over caps. The Company also provides a range of custom closure ! solutions including fitments and plugs for medical applications, cups and spouts for liquid laundry detergent, and dropper bulb assemblies for medical and personal care applications.

The Company competes with Airlite, Letica, Polytainers, Silgan, Aptar Group and Reynolds.

Engineered Materials

Berry�� Engineered Materials business primarily consists of pipeline corrosion protection solutions, specialty tapes and adhesives, polyethylene-based film products, and can liners served to a variety of end markets including oil, water and gas infrastructure, industrial and consumer-oriented end markets. The Company produces anti-corrosion products to infrastructure, rehabilitation and pipeline projects throughout the world. Products include heat-shrinkable coatings, single- and multi-layer sleeves, pipeline coating tapes, anode systems for cathodic protection and epoxy coatings. These products are used in oil, gas and water supply and construction applications.

Berry is the manufacturer of cloth and foil tape products. Other tape products include range of splicing and laminating tapes, flame-retardant tapes, vinyl-coated and carton sealing tapes, electrical, double-faced cloth, masking, mounting, original equipment manufacturer (OEM) medical and specialty tapes. These products are sold under the National, Nashua and Polyken brands in the United States. The Company manufactures and sells a portfolio of PE-based film products to end users in the retail markets. These products are sold under brands, such as Ruffies and Film-Gard. Its products include drop cloths and retail trash bags. The Company manufactures customized PP-based, woven and sewn containers for the transportation and storage of raw materials, such as seeds, titanium dioxide, clay and resin pellets.

The Company offers range of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) meat film and agricultural film. Berry�� products are used primarily to wrap fresh meats, poultry and produce for supermarket applic! ations. I! n addition, the Company offers a line of boxed products for food service and retail sales. Berry sells trash-can liners and food bags for offices, restaurants, schools, hospitals, hotels, municipalities and manufacturing facilities. The Company also sells products under the Big City, Hospi-Tuff, Plas-Tuff, Rhino-X and Steel-Flex brands. The Company produces both hand and machine-wrap stretch films, which are used by end users to wrap products and packages for storage and shipping. It sells stretch film products to distributors and retail and industrial end users under the MaxTech and PalleTech brands.

The Company competes with AEP, Sigma and 3M.

Flexible Packaging

The Company�� Flexible Packaging business consists of barrier, multilayer film products, as well as finished flexible packages, such as printed bags and pouches. Berry manufactures and sells a range of film products ranging from mono layer to coextruded films having up to nine layers, lamination films sold primarily to flexible packaging converters and used for peelable lid stock, stand-up pouches, pillow pouches and other flexible packaging formats. The Company also manufactures barrier films used for cereal, cookie, cracker and dry mix packages that are sold directly to food manufacturers like Kraft and Pepsico. It also manufactures films for industrial applications ranging from lamination film for carpet padding to films used in solar panel construction.

The Company supplies component and packaging films used for personal care applications. Berry is a converter of printed bags, pouches and roll stock. Its manufacturing base includes integrated extrusion that combines with printing, laminating, bagmaking, Innolok and laser-score converting processes. The Company is a supplier of printed film products for the fresh bakery, tortilla and frozen vegetable markets with brands, such as SteamQuick Film, Freshview bags and Billboard. The Company manufactures specialty coated and laminated produ! cts for a! range of packaging applications. Its products are sold under the MarvelGuard and MarvelSeal brands and are sold to converters who transform them into finished goods.

The Company competes with Printpak, Tredegar and Bemis.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By John Udovich]

    One of the most famous scenes in the cult classic, the Graduate, was when Mr. McGuire�took Dustin Hoffman�� character aside and said�"Ben, I want to say one word to you, just one word: Plastics"; but what about the Berry Plastics Group Inc (NYSE: BERY) and its performance verses that of the�iShares S&P 500 Index ETF (NYSEARCA: IVV), iShares Russell Midcap Index Fund ETF (NYSEARCA: IWR) and iShares S&P SmallCap 600 Index ETF (NYSEARCA: IJR)? I should mention that plastics and the Berry Plastics Group was not the place to be yesterday as the stock took a tumble on reduced guidance.

  • [By Bryan Murphy]

    It's certainly not as big as Berry Plastics Group Inc. (NYSE:BERY). It's not even as big as Tredegar Corporation (NYSE:TG). There's one big way AEP Industries (NASDAQ:AEPI) can certainly compete head-on with BERY and TG right now, however... as an investment opportunity. Thanks to the bullish bump AEPI gave us last week, a long-standing selloff has been revered, and there's a whole lot of ground to make up.

  • [By Ben Rooney]

    In pointing out the possibility of the upcoming ban, a recent Goldman Sachs (GS) report said it would be good news for Berry Plastics Group (BERY), which makes cups out of a material similar to polystyrene that is recyclable.

Best Diversified Bank Stocks To Watch For 2014: Pope Resources(POPE)

Pope Resources, a Delaware Limited Partnership, engages in the management of timber resources. It operates in three segments: Fee Timber, Timberland Management & Consulting, and Real Estate. The Fee Timber segment involves in growing, harvesting, and marketing timber to domestic and the Pacific Rim markets from its 175,000 acres of tree farms. The Timberland Management & Consulting segment provides investment management, disposition, and technical forestry services to the timberland owners. The Real Estate segment engages in securing permits, entitlements, and installing infrastructure for raw land development; and selling the land to buyers, who sell it to home buyers, operators, or lessors of commercial property. This segment also engages in the rental of residential and commercial properties in Port Gamble and Kingston, Washington. Pope Resources sells its logs to lumber mills and other wood fiber processors located in western Washington and northwest Oregon. As of Dece mber 31, 2010, it owned 114,000 acres of timberland in western Washington; 61,000 acres of timberland for the funds in Washington and Oregon; and 2,800 acres of real estate held for sale or development. Pope MGP, Inc. and Pope EGP, Inc. operate as the general partners of the company. The company was founded in 1985 and is based in Poulsbo, Washington.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Rich Duprey]

    Timberland manager�Pope Resources� (NASDAQ: POPE  ) announced today�it would be paying�its second-quarter distribution of $0.45 per unit, the same rate it paid for the last four quarters after it raised the payout �from $0.35 per unit.

Best Diversified Bank Stocks To Watch For 2014: Radware Ltd.(RDWR)

Radware Ltd. provides application delivery solutions and network security solutions to banks, insurance companies, manufacturing and retail, government agencies, media companies, and service providers worldwide. The company offers AppDirector Intelligent Application Delivery Controller for data center optimization and to eliminate traffic surges, server bottlenecks, connectivity disconnects, and downtime for business continuity; and Alteon Application Switch application delivery controller that supports local, global, and transparent load-balance, multi-homing network load-balance, and bandwidth management capabilities. It also provides AppXML, which offers XML and Web services communications for mission-critical applications; AppWall, a Web application firewall (WAF) appliance that secures Web applications; LinkProof that manages wide area networks and Internet traffic for networks; Content Inspection Director, a smart redirection and dynamic policy enforcement device to meet contemporary carrier needs; and Session Initiation Protocol Director, an application delivery controller for application vendors, telecom equipment manufacturers, and system integrators. In addition, the company offers DefensePro Intrusion Prevention and Denial of Service products that protect against worms, bots, viruses, malicious intrusions, and DOS attacks; Inflight, a hardware device that provides online and network-based monitoring solutions; and APSolute Vision, an appliance-based management and monitoring system for information technology staff to centrally manage distributed devices and check the performance and security of enterprise wide application delivery infrastructures. It markets and sells its products primarily through distributors and resellers in North America, Europe, and Asia, as well as directly to select customers in the United States. Radware Ltd. was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Evan Niu, CFA]

    What: Shares of Radware (NASDAQ: RDWR  ) have fallen by as much as 24% after the company announced disappointing preliminary earnings for the first quarter.

  • [By Evan Niu, CFA]

    Rival ADC vendor Radware (NASDAQ: RDWR  ) also issued disappointing preliminary results this morning, with its own revenue projected at $45 million -- also below its guidance. Radware said sales were strong in the U.S. market but cited weakness in EMEA and China for its weakness.

  • [By Seth Jayson]

    Radware (Nasdaq: RDWR  ) reported earnings on July 25. Here are the numbers you need to know.

    The 10-second takeaway
    For the quarter ended June 30 (Q2), Radware met expectations on revenues and missed estimates on earnings per share.

Best Diversified Bank Stocks To Watch For 2014: U.S. Physical Therapy Inc.(USPH)

U.S. Physical Therapy, Inc., through its subsidiaries, operates outpatient physical and occupational therapy clinics in the United States. Its clinics provide pre-and-post operative care and treatment for orthopedic-related disorders, sports-related injuries, preventative care, rehabilitation of injured workers, and neurological-related injuries. The company also offers physician services to third parties; and operates clinics, which specialize in the outpatient, non-surgical treatment of osteo arthritis degenerative joint disease and other musculoskeletal conditions. As of December 31, 2011, it operated 416 clinics in 42 states; and managed 15 physical therapy facilities for third parties, including physicians. The company focuses its marketing efforts on physicians comprising orthopedic surgeons, neurosurgeons, physiatrists, internal medicine physicians, podiatrists, occupational medicine physicians, and general practitioners. U.S. Physical Therapy, Inc. was founded in 1 990 and is based in Houston, Texas.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Seth Jayson]

    Calling all cash flows
    When you are trying to buy the market's best stocks, it's worth checking up on your companies' free cash flow once a quarter or so, to see whether it bears any relationship to the net income in the headlines. That's what we do with this series. Today, we're checking in on US Physical Therapy (NYSE: USPH  ) , whose recent revenue and earnings are plotted below.

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