5 Stocks Under $10 to Trade for Breakouts

DELAFIELD, Wis. (Stockpickr) -- At Stockpickr, we track daily portfolios of stocks that are the biggest percentage gainers and the biggest percentage losers.

>>5 Big Stocks to Trade for Big Gains

Stocks that are making large moves like these are favorites among short-term traders because they can jump into these names and try to capture some of that massive volatility. Stocks that are making big-percentage moves either up or down are usually in play because their sector is becoming attractive or they have a major fundamental catalyst such as a recent earnings release. Sometimes stocks making big moves have been hit with an analyst upgrade or an analyst downgrade.

Regardless of the reason behind it, when a stock makes a large-percentage move, it is often just the start of a new major trend -- a trend that can lead to huge profits. If you time your trade correctly, combining technical indicators with fundamental trends, discipline and sound money management, you will be well on your way to investment success.

>>5 Stocks With Big Insider Buying

With that in mind, let's take a closer look at a several stocks under $10 that are making large moves to the upside today.

Vical

Vical (VICL) researches and develops biopharmaceutical products based on its patented DNA delivery technologies for the prevention and treatment of serious or life-threatening diseases. This stock closed up 2.2% to $1.29 in Thursday's trading session.

Thursday's Range: $1.27-$1.30

52-Week Range: $1.17-$4.51

Thursday's Volume: 774,000

Three-Month Average Volume: 2.14 million

From a technical perspective, VICL rose modestly higher here right above some near-term support at $1.25 with lighter-than-average volume. This stock has been trending sideways inside of a consolidation pattern for the last two months and change, with shares moving between $1.17 on the downside and $1.64 on the upside. This sideways trend is coming after shares of VICL gapped down sharply in August from $3.75 to $1.37 with heavy downside volume. Shares of VICL are now starting to trend within range of triggering a big breakout trade above the upper-end of its consolidating chart pattern. That trade will hit if VICL manages to take out its 50-day at $1.40, and then once it clears more key resistance levels at $1.44 to $1.64 with high volume.

Traders should now look for long-biased trades in VICL as long as it's trending above support at $1.25 or $1.21 and then once it sustains a move or close above those breakout levels with volume that hits near or above 2.14 million shares. If that breakout hits soon, then VICL will set up to re-fill some of its previous gap down zone from August that started near $3.75.

Transition Therapeutics

Transition Therapeutics (TTHI) is a product-focused biopharmaceutical company, developing therapeutics for disease indications with markets. This stock closed up 9.5% to $4.80 in Thursday's trading session.

Thursday's Range: $4.38-$4.83

52-Week Range: $1.90-$4.99

Thursday's Volume: 143,000

Three-Month Average Volume: 157,125

From a technical perspective, TTHI exploded to the upside here right above its 50-day moving average of $4.16 with decent upside volume. This move pushed shares of TTHI into breakout territory, since the stock took out some past overhead resistance at $4.53. Shares of TTHI are now quickly moving within range of triggering another big breakout trade. That trade will hit if TTHI manages to clear Thursday's high of $4.83 to its 52-week high at $4.99 with high volume.

Traders should now look for long-biased trades in TTHI as long as it's trending above $4.50 or its 50-day at $4.16 and then once it sustains a move or close above those breakout levels with volume that hits near or above 157,125 shares. If that breakout hits soon, then TTHI will set up to tag $6 to $7.

Clean Diesel Technologies

Clean Diesel Technologies (CDTI) is a manufacturer and distributor of heavy-duty diesel and light-duty vehicle emissions control systems and products to major automakers and retrofitters. This stock closed up 11% to $1.61 in Thursday's trading session.

Thursday's Range: $1.45-$1.63

52-Week Range: $1.10-$3.05

Thursday's Volume: 483,000

Three-Month Average Volume: 182,652

From a technical perspective, CDTI exploded to the upside here right off its 50-day moving average of $1.48 with heavy upside volume flows. This move is quickly pushing shares of CDTI within range of triggering a big breakout trade. That trade will hit if CDTI manages to take out Thursday's high of $1.63 to some more near-term overhead resistance levels at $1.65 to $1.68 with high volume.

Traders should now look for long-biased trades in CDTI as long as it's trending above its 50-day at $1.48 or above more support at $1.40 and then once it sustains a move or close above those breakout levels with volume that hits near or above 182,652 shares. If that breakout hits soon, then CDTI will set up to re-test or possibly take out its next major overhead resistance levels at its 200-day moving average of $1.92 to $2.08. Any high-volume move above those levels will then give CDTI a chance to tag $2.25 to $2.50.

Superconductor Technologies

Superconductor Technologies (SCON) develops high-temperature superconductor materials and related technologies. It also designs, manufactures, and sells high-performance infrastructure products for wireless communication applications. This stock closed up 10.1% to $1.96 in Thursday's trading session.

Thursday's Range: $1.80-$2.08

52-Week Range: $1.42-$6.72

Thursday's Volume: 2.30 million

Three-Month Average Volume: 281,509

From a technical perspective, SCON exploded higher here right above its 50-day moving average of $1.61 with monster upside volume. This move pushed shares of SCON into breakout territory, since the stock took out some near-term overhead resistance levels at $1.89 to $1.95. Shares of SCON are now quickly moving within range of triggering another big breakout trade. That trade will hit if SCON manages to take out Thursday's high of $2.08 and some past overhead resistance near $2.25 with high volume.

Traders should now look for long-biased trades in SCON as long as it's trending above Thursday's low of $1.79 or its 50-day at $1.61 and then once it sustains a move or close above those breakout levels with volume that hits near or above 281,509 shares. If that breakout hits soon, then SCON will set up to re-test or possibly take out its next major overhead resistance levels a $2.85 to $3. Any high-volume move above those levels will then give SCON a chance to tag $3.88 to $4.

Organovo

Organovo (ONVO) is a three-dimensional biology company focused on delivering breakthrough bioprinting technology and creating tissue on demand for research and medical applications. This stock closed up 5.5% to $6.07 in Thursday's trading session.

Thursday's Range: $5.75-$6.08

52-Week Range: $1.80-$8.50

Thursday's Volume: 2.74 million

Three-Month Average Volume: 2.75 million

From a technical perspective, ONVO ripped higher here right off its 50-day moving average of $5.72 with decent upside volume. This move is quickly pushing shares of ONVO within range of triggering a near-term breakout trade. That trade will hit if ONVO manages to take out some near-term overhead resistance levels at $6.09 to $6.33, and then once it clears more resistance at $6.39 with high volume.

Traders should now look for long-biased trades in ONVO as long as it's trending above its 50-day at $5.72 or above more support at $5.33, and then once it sustains a move or close above those breakout levels with volume that hits near or above 2.75 million shares. If that breakout triggers soon, then ONVO will set up to re-test or possibly take out its next major overhead resistance levels at $7.50 to its 52-week high at $8.50.

To see more stocks that are making notable moves higher today, check out the Stocks Under $10 Moving Higher portfolio on Stockpickr.

-- Written by Roberto Pedone in Delafield, Wis.

RELATED LINKS:

>>5 Stocks Under $10 Set to Soar

>>4 Stocks Rising on Unusual Volume

>>5 Hated Earnings Stocks That You Should Love

Follow Stockpickr on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

At the time of publication, author had no positions in stocks mentioned.

Roberto Pedone, based out of Delafield, Wis., is an independent trader who focuses on technical analysis for small- and large-cap stocks, options, futures, commodities and currencies. Roberto studied international business at the Milwaukee School of Engineering, and he spent a year overseas studying business in Lubeck, Germany. His work has appeared on financial outlets including

CNBC.com and Forbes.com. You can follow Pedone on Twitter at www.twitter.com/zerosum24 or @zerosum24.

Should I Buy DTV? 3 Pros, 3 Cons

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10 Best Tech Stocks For 2014

DirecTV (DTV) has made some of the funniest commercials in recent memory, and after the company's most recent earnings report, it's laughing all the way to the bank.

The largest satellite television provider reported an awesome quarter. Net income at DTV surged 24% to $699 million, or $1.28 per shares, easily beating the $1 per share consensus. Revenue spiked more than 6% to $7.88 billion, surpassing analysts’ $7.88 billion estimates.

DirecTV added 139,000 new subscribers in the quarter — the most since 2011, thanks to refugees from Time Warner Cable (TWC) and CBS (CBS) fee dispute. Time Warner, the second-largest cable company, was the clear loser in the two-week blackout. It lost 304,000 video customers in the quarter, almost double what analysts expected.

DTV has jumped almost 30% this year, on par with peers like Dish Network (DISH) and Comcast (CMCSA). One reason for DTV’s outperformance has been its strong international business and its satisfied customers. During the most recent quarter, DirecTV’s churn rate fell to 1.61% — its lowest quarterly churn in more than 6 years.

So, is now the time for investors to tune into DTV’s stock? Let’s examine the pros and cons.

DTV Pros

Happy customers: For years, DTV and its rival DISH have scored higher than their cable rivals on customer satisfaction surveys. Happy customers tend to be loyal customers, meaning that it will take more than a promotional rate to get them to leave DTV. It also means that they may be less tempted to “cut the cord” or quit pay television entirely.

Valuation: Shares of DTV trade at forward earnings multiple of 12.9, well under Dish’s 30.4 valuation and Comcast’s 19.1 valuation. The stock trades about 6% under its average 52-week price target of $68.04, while Dish trades about 3% under its average target of $49.73. Comcast, though, still has a 25% upside for its $53.74 target. But comparing CMCSA with DTV and DISH has its limits since the Philadelphia-based cable company also owns the entertainment giant NBC Universal.

Dish Merger: Earlier this year, Billionaire John Malone, the largest shareholder of DTV, has urged his counterpart at DISH Charlie Ergen to merge the two satellite providers “for the good of the industry.” Ergen, who is no slouch in the dealmaking department either, reportedly has his eye on a deal with Time Warner Cable. The potential of a DTV-DISH alliance should give the shares a boost, at least until the next shoe drops in the constantly changing world of Pay TV.

DTV Cons

Costs: Costs for original content seem to be soaring by the millisecond. Of particular concern to DTV shareholder is the company’s NFL Sunday Ticket program. The satellite provider’s $1 billion contract with the NFL expires in two years, and retaining that business won’t be cheap. Officials in the NFL are certainly keeping their options opened and have recently met with Google. As I argued before, NFL Sunday Ticket is such huge deal for DTV that it could force a “shotgun wedding” with DISH so it can gain the scale to counter the threat posed by the search engine giant.

Latin America: The company has been growing like gangbusters in Latin America in recent years, but it might nearing a cap. As of September 30, DTV had 11.3 million customers in the region, an increase of 260,000 from a year earlier. That number might seem like a big bump, but it's down from 543,000 a year earlier. This may not be a temporary hiccup, either: The International Monetary Fund recently lowered its forecast for the region’s economic growth to 2.7% for 2013.

Television Watching: In 2011, many people were shocked to learn that number of TV householders — defined by Nielsen as homes having at least one television set — fell for the first time in 20 years. The number rebounded slightly this year to 115.6 million, though it still lags 2010′s 115.9 figure. What this shows is the consumers increasingly want to consume media on their terms, which is going to create huge challenges for the pay TV industry going forward.

DTV Bottom Line

DirecTV has many challenges ahead. Not only is growth in Latin America slowing, but content costs and carriage fees continue to skyrocket. The fights between content providers and distributors are only going to get nastier over time. And then there's the uncertainty over DTV's lucrative NFL programing.

So should you buy DTV? No. For now, the stock's risks outweigh the rewards .

As of this writing, Jonathan Berr didn’t hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.

Stalled Student Loan Bill: Here's How It Affects You

Interest rates on federally subsidized Stafford student loans doubled as of July 1, and since then, Congress has tried to pass a student loan bill that would give students and parents some relief from those higher rates.

But as of Friday morning, the Senate hadn't been able to find a compromise that would be acceptable for everyone. Without action, students will pay 6.8% for their Stafford loans this year, up from 3.4% during the previous school year.

Let's take a look at the current status of the student loan bill and what the congressional impasse means for your finances.

What the student loan bill would do
President Obama and a number of lawmakers have put forward several proposals that would reduce student loan interest rates below the 6.8% level. Most of them involve tying the rate for loans granted in a specific year to current interest rates such as those on U.S. Treasury bonds.

For instance, Bloomberg News reported earlier this week that one tentative Senate proposal would involve using the 10-year Treasury bond rate and adding 1.8 percentage points to it, which would have equated to a 3.61% interest rate this year. For parent PLUS loans, the add-on would be 4.5 percentage points, producing a 6.31% rate compared with the 7.9% they pay currently. That's the rate that students would pay on that year's loans for as long as they had them outstanding.

Not everyone agrees that a rate that changes every year is best for students.

What's holding things up
Some lawmakers have pushed for a temporary continuation of last year's 3.4% rate, but those bills have been blocked by those seeking a more permanent solution. Others believe that even a 3.4% rate is too high, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren having made a proposal to match up student loan rates with the current Federal Reserve discount rate of 0.75%.

For the most part, though, finding a middle-ground rate isn't the problem. Rather, two more fundamental disagreements are holding up progress on a compromise.

First, the Senate and the House differ on whether student loans should have rates that are fixed for the life of the loan or whether those rates should vary from year to year. Second, lawmakers agree that any changes shouldn't result in added cost, but the tentative Senate proposal described above would cost the government an additional $22 billion according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Until those issues are resolved, the impasse is likely to continue.

It's important to understand that for the most part, the impact on banks from the bill would be minimal. Under the Federal Direct Loan Program, the Department of Education is the lender on Stafford loans extended through the program rather than a private lender. Admittedly, rising rates on Stafford loans might make private student loans from lenders Sallie Mae (NASDAQ: SLM  ) and Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC  ) look somewhat less unattractive. But increased regulation led Bank of America (NYSE: BAC  ) , US Bancorp (NYSE: USB  ) , and several other institutions to reduce or eliminate their student lending programs, making it clear that student loans aren't enough of a money-making cash-cow to give banks an incentive to keep lending.

What you should do next
Regardless of what happens with the student loan bill impasse, the key for students and parents looking to take out student loans is to recognize that they have minimal leverage in affecting the congressional debate.

Even then, the debate doesn't affect you if you don't qualify for subsidized loans or if you've already graduated. All of the proposals affect only future loans, and the way your existing rates are calculated won't change.

For all others, the first thing to do is to figure out what type of loans you have or are eligible for and recognize that rates on Stafford loans have historically been substantially lower than what's available elsewhere -- and even if those rates rise significantly, you're not likely to find better deals.

Next, focus on reducing the amount you need to borrow in student loans in the first place.

Early college savings, financially savvy decisions about which college a student chooses, and looking into lower-cost alternatives on housing options and other necessary college expenses can reduce your need for student loans (and the whims of lawmakers). In particular, with tax-free accounts like 529 plans and Coverdell Education Savings accounts, parents can work to help their children avoid the difficulty of entering adulthood with a big debt burden on their shoulders before they even get their first job.

Whatever the government does with rates, the student loan bill impasse is a good reminder that taking control of your own financial destiny is the best way to handle uncertainty.

Unfortunately, those who rely on loans will end up having to accept whatever decision the government makes, with few if any alternatives to what could prove to be a tougher repayment burden for years to come.

Besides the student loan bill, the other big government issue affecting millions of Americans right now is the onset of Obamacare, which will undoubtedly have far-reaching effects. The Motley Fool's new free report, "Everything You Need to Know About Obamacare," lets you know how your health insurance, your taxes, and your portfolio could be affected. Click here to read more. 

Agriculture ETFs to Feed the World

Hot Gold Stocks To Watch Right Now

The next big geopolitical struggle could be over food. Many experts predict that there won't be enough food to feed growing populations, and agricultural commodities will double in price over the next 20 years, suggests Richard Stavros, editor of Inflation Survival Letter.

For the sixth time in 11 years, the world last year consumed more food than it produced, largely because of extreme weather in the US and other major food-exporting countries.

Poverty fighting organizations, such as Oxfam, predict that the price of key staples, including wheat and rice, could double over the next two decades, threatening disastrous consequences for human populations.

These statistics suggest that a combination of agricultural commodities investments in the US, Africa, and Asia would be in order, with a focus on wheat, rice, maize, and soybeans.

Various agricultural supply forecasts paint a dystopian future, reminiscent of the 1973 movie, Soylent Green. Let's hope the world's leaders find sustainable solutions to these pressing problems.

But for now, let's put aside science fiction and return to science fact. Here are the best plays on the coming era of food scarcity.

The benchmark agricultural commodity ETF is PowerShares DB Agriculture (DBA). It is a pure food products commodity play. It holds futures contracts on corn, wheat, soybeans, and sugar. These contracts are rolled over before expiration to maintain exposure.

Another futures-based ETF is PowerShares Deutsche Bank Commodity Index (DBC). It is more diversified than DBA. It holds futures contracts in corn and wheat. But it also holds significant positions in gold, heating oil, and crude.

A comparison of DBA with DBC finds that agricultural commodities have been on the rise as a whole over the last ten years.

The broader DBC ETF increased almost 13%, whereas its more focused cousin, DBA ETF increased by less, by 3%. DBA and DBC are both buys up to $30.

Given the world's current and future demand for corn, wheat, soybeans, and sugar, we are adding DBA to our portfolio. For those seeking a more diversified exposure, DBC is also an option.

Subscribe to Inflation Survival Letter here…

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Best Small Cap Companies To Buy For 2014

Alamy Forbes columnist Phil DeMuth recently posed the question: "What is your edge as an investor?" After admitting that having an edge is not "as easy as it sounds," DeMuth walks through some possible edges. These range from the highly unlikely/illegal (such as working at the FDA and investing in a drug stock before its approval) to the tougher to quantify -- like being "good at spotting trends" or being "a market-beating stockpicker." So if you're not Warren Buffett or willing to risk jail time for insider information, is there any hope for you to beat the market? Do individual investors have any advantages over the world of Wall Street Goliaths? Absolutely! The Forbes article points out several strategies that everyday investors can implement to at least equal the market's return (through investing in index funds) and maybe even do a bit better (by buying index-like investments that seek out market anomalies). But aside from strategies, there are some inherent qualities of being an individual investor that give you an edge. These are advantages that could make you more successful than even the best mutual fund managers -- not to mention famous investors like Warren Buffett. In fact, Buffett once quipped that if he had only $1 million in net worth (instead of his current $53.5 billion), he could guarantee 50% annual returns. So why is he so confident in making such a bold promise? He never specifically answers that question, but I've put together a list of five "edges" small investors have that I think even Buffett would agree with: 1. You've got no pesky shareholders. Much of a money manager's time is spent thinking (and worrying) about their customers (aka, shareholders). A large investor might call up and ask why his money's not growing as quickly as he'd like -- and then after that, another could send an email explaining their moral objections to the money manager's most recent purchase. It never ends. But when you're investing for yourself, you only have yourself to answer to. No one will harrass you about inevitable downturns or berate you for a weak quarter. 2. Your interests are perfectly aligned. Believe it or not, not all mutual fund managers own shares of their fund. In fact, a 2007 study from the Georgia Institute of Technology discovered that only about half of the managers of the 1,406 funds they studied did. So if they're not profiting directly off their investing decisions (and knowing that self-interest is a powerful tool), how are you to believe they're putting 110 percent of their focus in doing the same for you? You can't. But when you're working on growing own portfolio, you know your best interest and full focus is tied directly to your own money -- and there's no doubt you'll be giving 110 percent of your focus to how best to grow it. 3. You've got flexibility. Mutual funds typically have a stated purpose -- and their investing decisions must wind up within those boundaries. Large-cap funds must invest mostly in large caps, emerging market funds in foreign stocks, and so on. But when you're investing on your own behalf, you can own a broad assortment of large caps, small caps, real estate investment trusts, value stocks, growth stocks -- your universe to pick from is limitless. 4. You can control costs. The majority of mutual funds have to trade stocks daily to maintain cash flows. After all, new money is constantly flowing in. And some investors also need to withdraw their money for a variety of reasons. This means cash is regularly coming in and cash must regularly go out. Unless the manager keeps a hefty chunk of his portfolio in cash reserves to account for this, he'll likely need to make regular purchases and sales. Of course, all of this trading comes with costs. Every transaction has a commission associated with it. On top of that, all the regulatory paperwork behind each trade requires staff members to maintain these day-to-day operations. Yet when you're managing your own money, you only pay fees on transactions. You don't have a staff, and -- if you buy with the intent to hold for the long term -- you incur minimal transaction costs. Which brings me to the final edge... 5. You've got time. The biggest edge an individual investor has is that time is on their side. They can buy a stock today -- and hold for decades, without worrying about any external pressure to sell, as is common on Wall Street. Often, you've got a goal in mind: retirement, kids' college fund, new home. And, more often than not, these are many years out in the future. And although stocks are fickle in the short term -- jumping up here, dropping off a cliff there -- over the long term, the market's trajectory is consistently up. In fact, my Motley Fool colleague Morgan Housel recently calculated that an investor who bought and held over a 20-year period had positive returns ! He calculates that someone's ever returned over a 30-year period is a 250 percent gain, post-inflation. Those are returns I think all of us could get behind. So as you can see, being a small investor looking out for your own best interests is a critical edge you have over Wall Street.

Best Small Cap Companies To Buy For 2014: OCZ Technology Group Inc(OCZ)

OCZ Technology Group, Inc. designs, develops, manufactures, and distributes computer components for computing devices and systems worldwide. It primarily offers solid state drives, flash memory storage, memory modules, thermal management solutions, AC/DC switching power supply units, and computer gaming solutions. The company?s products are used in industrial equipment and computer systems; computer and computer gaming solutions; mission critical servers and high end workstations; personal computer (PC) upgrades to extend the useable life of existing PCs; high performance computing and scientific computing; video and music editing; home theatre PCs and digital home convergence products; and digital photography and digital image manipulation computers. OCZ Technology Group, Inc. offers its products to retailers, on-line retailers, original equipment manufacturers, systems integrators, and distributors. The company was founded in 2002 and is headquartered in San Jose, Califo rnia.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Rich Duprey]

  The not-so-great and wonderful OCZ
  There was no company-specific news that caused solid-state-drive maker OCZ Technology (NASDAQ: OCZ  ) to fall almost 8% Wednesday. But an article that appeared on Seeking Alpha �questioning whether the company had six months or less to live before it filed for bankruptcy seemed to coincide with its fall.

Best Small Cap Companies To Buy For 2014: Rackspace Hosting Inc(RAX)

Rackspace Hosting, Inc. operates in the hosting and cloud computing industry. It provides information technology (IT) as a service, managing Web-based IT systems for small and medium-sized businesses, as well as large enterprises worldwide. The company?s service suite includes dedicated hosting comprising customer management portal and other management tools that manage data center, network, hardware devices, and operating system software; and cloud computing that enables customers to provide and manage a pool of computing resources, as well as delivery of computing resources to business when they need them. It offers cloud servers, cloud files, and cloud sites, as well as cloud applications, such as email, collaboration, and file back-ups; and hybrid hosting that provides a combination of dedicated hosting and cloud computing services. The company also offers customer support services. It sells its service suite through direct sales teams, third-party channel partners, an d online ordering. The company was formerly known as Rackspace.com, Inc. and changed its name to Rackspace Hosting, Inc. in June 2008. Rackspace Hosting, Inc. was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in San Antonio, Texas.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Lee Jackson]

  Rackspace Hosting Inc. (NYSE: RAX) recently added a huge new customer in Emerson Electric (NYSE: EMR). In January Emerson started using Rackspace to help tune and monitor climate control products for residential and commercial customers. Adoption has gone so well that Rackspace expects Emerson to hike its commitment from 43 servers today to 100 by year’s end. The consensus price target for the stock is posted at $52. The stock closed at $50.60.

• [By Lauren Pollock]

  Rackspace Hosting Inc.'s(RAX) third-quarter profit fell 40%, with growth in costs and expenses masking a rise in revenue. Shares were down 7.3% to $45.69 premarket as the company’s earnings came in below Wall Street expectations.

• [By Tim Beyers]

  Real money was on the line then as it is now, which means any one of the five stocks you see below could ruin my investment strategy. None has fit that description more in recent weeks than Rackspace Hosting (NYSE: RAX  ) . The stock recently set a new 52-week low amid concerns over intensifying competition.

• [By Investometrica]

  First, I compare the stock performance of Salesforce.com with other competitors. Although some competitors are not exactly in the same business, all of them have either a cloud computing or CRM component in their revenue: Citrix Systems (CTXS), Rackspace (RAX), SAP (SAP), Oracle (ORCL), Microsoft (MSFT), IBM (IBM), Amazon (AMZN) and VMware (VMW). Salesforce.com's one year stock performance, 13.51%, is far from the top (that is, SAS, with 31.19%) gainer. On one hand, things could have been worse, as a good number of competitors show negative returns. On the other hand, we should notice that the current stock price level has not changed that much since early 2011 ($39.2 per share). This stagnation is hard to ignore.

Best Small Cap Companies To Buy Right Now: OmniVision Technologies Inc.(OVTI)

OmniVision Technologies, Inc. designs, develops, and markets semiconductor image-sensor devices. The company offers CameraChip image sensors, which are single-chip solutions that integrate various functions, such as image capture, image processing, color processing, signal conversion, and output of a processed image or video stream for use in various consumer and commercial mass-market applications; and CameraCube imaging devices that are image sensors with integrated wafer-level optics. It also provides companion chips used to connect its image sensors to various interfaces, including the universal serial bus and other industry standard interfaces; and companion digital signal processors that perform compression in standardized still photo and digital video formats. In addition, the company designs and develops software drivers for Linux, Mac OS, and Microsoft Windows, as well as for embedded operating systems, such as Blackberry OS, Palm OS, Symbian, Windows CE, Windows Embedded, and Windows Mobile. Its products are used in mobile phones, notebooks, Webcams, digital still and video cameras, commercial and security and surveillance, and automotive and medical applications, as well as in entertainment devices. The company sells its products directly to original equipment manufacturers and value added resellers, as well as indirectly through distributors worldwide. OmniVision Technologies, Inc. was founded in 1995 and is based in Santa Clara, California.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Evan Niu, CFA]

  Once upon a time, I was also an OmniVision (NASDAQ: OVTI  ) bull, thinking the image sensor specialist's lead in backside-illuminated technology gave it a substantial leg up against the competition. When OmniVision lost the iPhone 4S primary camera spot to Sony,�that was just the first sign that things may never be the same. The company subsequently lost the iPhone 5 primary sensor, also to Sony. HTC has gone with STMicroelectronics�for the "UltraPixel" sensor in its One flagship (OmniVision sources the secondary sensor), which lends to the idea that BSI sensors are becoming commoditized. Goodbye, pricing power. I gave up on OmniVision long ago.

• [By Rich Bieglmeier]

  OmniVision Technologies, Inc. (OVTI) plans to release its financial results for the second quarter of fiscal year 2014 on Tuesday, December 03, 2013, shortly after the market closes.� The Company plans to host a conference call to review the results and management's outlook for future periods at 5 p.m. (ET) that day.

Best Small Cap Companies To Buy For 2014: EZchip Semiconductor Limited(EZCH)

EZchip, a fabless semiconductor company, engages in the development and marketing of Ethernet network processors for networking equipment. Its products include network processor chips, evaluation boards and network-processor based systems, and development software toolkits. The company offers network processors for use in forming the silicon core of networking equipment, such as switches and routers; and for voice, video and data integration in various applications. Its network processors are single-chip solutions, which enable its customers to design multi-port line cards, such as processing and classification engines, traffic managers, media access controllers, as well as a range of specialized hardware blocks that accelerate various functions. The company offers Evaluation systems which enable customers to test NPU-based systems; and toolkits that assist customers in creating, verifying, and implementing solutions based on its network processors. It provides a library f eaturing data plane code for a range of applications, which include Metro Ethernet protocols, Multi-Protocol Label Switching, IPv4 and IPv6 routing, Access Control Lists, GPON/EPON OLT functionality, Network Address Translation, and Server Load Balancing. The company sells its products directly, and through contract manufacturers and distributors to network equipment vendors. It markets its products in Israel, China, Hong Kong, the Far East, Canada, the United States, and Europe. The company was formerly known as LanOptics Ltd. and changed its name to EZchip Semiconductor Ltd. in July 2008. EZchip Semiconductor Ltd. was founded in 1989 and is based in Yokneam, Israel.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Lisa Levin]

  EZchip Semiconductor (NASDAQ: EZCH) shares climbed 5.80% to $23.53. The volume of EZchip Semiconductor shares traded was 635% higher than normal. EZchip Semiconductor's PEG ratio is 1.57.

• [By Evan Niu, CFA]

  What: Shares of EZchip (NASDAQ: EZCH  ) have jumped today by as much as 13% after the company reported first-quarter earnings.

  So what: Revenue in the first quarter totaled $15.3 million, topping the Street's forecast of $15.1 million. Non-GAAP net income per share came in at $0.23, which was right on target with expectations.

Best Small Cap Companies To Buy For 2014: Voyager Oil & Gas Inc.(VOG)

Voyager Oil & Gas, Inc. engages in the exploration and production of oil and gas in the United States. It primarily focuses on oil shale resource prospects in Montana, North Dakota, Colorado, and Wyoming. As of May 17, 2011, the company controlled approximately 141,500 net acres in the five primary prospect areas comprising 28,000 net acres targeting the Bakken/Three Forks in North Dakota and Montana; 14,200 net acres targeting the Niobrara formation in Colorado and Wyoming; 800 net acres targeting a Red River prospect in Montana; 33,500 net acres in a joint venture targeting the Heath Shale formation in Musselshell, Petroleum, Garfield, and Fergus counties of Montana; and 65,000 net acres in a joint venture in the Tiger Ridge gas field in Blaine, Hill, and Chouteau counties of Montana. It supplies energy and fuel for industrial, commercial, and individual consumers. The company is based in Billings, Montana.

Best Small Cap Companies To Buy For 2014: Hot Topic Inc.(HOTT)

Hot Topic, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates as a mall- and Web-based specialty retailer in the United States. The company operates Hot Topic and Torrid store concepts, as well as an e-space music discovery concept, ShockHound. Its Hot Topic stores sell music/pop culture-licensed merchandise, including tee shirts, hats, posters, stickers, patches, postcards, books, novelty accessories, CDs, and DVDs; and music/pop culture-influenced merchandise comprising women?s and men?s apparel and accessories, such as woven and knit tops, skirts, pants, shorts, jackets, shoes, costume jewelry, body jewelry, sunglasses, cosmetics, leather accessories, and gift items for young men and women primarily between the ages of 12 and 22. The company?s Torrid stores sells casual and dressy jeans and pants, fashion and novelty tops, sweaters, skirts, jackets, dresses, hosiery, shoes, intimate apparel, and fashion accessories for various lifestyles for plus-size females primarily betw een the ages of 15 and 29. As of July 30, 2011, it operated 636 Hot Topic stores in 50 states, Puerto Rico, and Canada; 145 Torrid stores; and Internet stores, hottopic.com and torrid.com. The company was founded in 1988 and is headquartered in City of Industry, California.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Marshall Hargrave]

  In May True Religion (TRGL) announced a buyout offer from TowerBrook Capital for $826 million. Also in May, Rue21 decided to sell itself to Apax Partners for $2.2 billion. Before that, in March, Hot Topic (HOTT) announced that Sycamore Partners was buying out it out for $600 million.

Will interracial family be in Cheerios' new ad?

The "Cheerios Girl" with heart is suddenly getting hopeful Super Bowl cheers.

That girl is 7-year-old Grace Colbert, the girl with attitude, who starred last spring in a high-profile Cheerios spot that featured her as the biracial daughter of a white mother and black father. The commercial, about a daughter who pours Cheerios on her sleeping dad's chest because she thinks it will aid his health, ultimately became a huge hit for the brand. But it also set off such a social media firestorm, filled with so much racial tension, that the comments section on its YouTube page was closed.

COLUMN: Cheerios ad sparks hatred, support

Now, with the recent announcement that Cheerios will advertise in its first-ever Super Bowl, there is speculation over whether the girl and her two "parents" from the commercial will be reunited for a Super Bowl spot. For its part, General Mills won't say.

"Historically, what's really worked for Cheerios is emotional storytelling that involves families and children," says Camille Gibson, vice president of marketing for Big G cereals, in a statement. But Gibson declined to give any details about the spot. "The common theme is the power of family and love," says General Mills spokesman Mike Siemienas.

With more than 110 million viewers, the Super Bowl — with its $4 million, 30-second ad slots — gives General Mills a unique platform from which to broadcast that message. At issue: will that message tip-toe around the biracial harmony of its successful commercial from last spring or will it re-approach the issue in a new way?

The unanimous opinion of four branding experts — including two multicultural branding gurus — interviewed late Thursday: bring back the girl — and her family.

"They need to center the ad around the girl," says Ken Smikle, president of Target Market News, a Chicago-based company that monitors African-American marketing and media. "She's the one who embodies all of our awe and sympathy."

General Mills should ! bring back the whole "family," concurs branding consultant Pam Danziger. "They've got a winner here thanks to taking a risk, and shouldn't back away from the success they achieved."

Use the same family, but put them in a brand-new setting, suggests Yuriy Boykiv, CEO of Gravity Media, a multicultural ad agency. Consultant Kate Newlin says that the family should be used in a Cheerios ad that touches not only on racism, but also bullying "given the backlash to the original."

Siemienas, the General Mills spokesman, says the ad already has been shot and is in production.

Kathy Boole, who represents Colbert at Studio Talent Group, a talent management company, won't confirm or deny if Colbert will appear in a General Mills Super Bowl commercial. But, Boole says, "she has not shot anything yet, but around the Super Bowl that doesn't mean anything. Most advertisers shoot — or re-shoot — their Super Bowl commercials in January."

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For General Mills, it's a golden opportunity. The Super Bowl not only has the largest viewing audience of any broadcast event, but also the largest multicultural audience, says Smikle. At least 12% of the audience will be African-American, he says.

General Mills hasn't appeared in the Super Bowl since it aired a Wheaties commercial in 1996 that featured basketball legend Michael Jordan. Now, nearly two decades later, it's returning with an opportunity to speak to a new generation.

General Mills will debut the ad online sometime in January, says Gibson. "What people will see in this commercial really represents what the brand stands for. It will be a beautiful story about a family and their love for each other."

Honda's new small crossover headed to U.S.

The Vezel -- the new subcompact crossover SUV that Honda put on sale in Japan today -- will come to the U.S. in the second half of 2014, according to a report today in Automotive News.

Honda will announce later what the name of the SUV will be for the U.S. -- Vezel doesn't really roll off the tongue -- and also what the power trains will be for this market, according to the report from Japan.

It's an all-new vehicle based on the platform of the Fit, the smallest car that Honda sells in the U.S. Vezel is about 9 inches shorter than the CR-V -- currently the smallest crossover SUV Honda sells in the U.S. -- and about 7 inches longer than the Fit.

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While small, Honda asserts that the new model will have "a coupe-like, high-quality personal space for the front seats and minivan-like elbowroom, comfort and functionality for the rear seats" -- an interesting split personality.

Small crossover SUVs are a hot segment now, with Mazda's CX-5 and Subaru's Crosstrek XV continue to be volume sellers for those brands, and Nissan's Juke and Buick's new Encore are getting sales traction.

The Vezel was unveiled at the Tokyo Auto Show in November and for the Japanese market has a 1.5-liter gasoline direct-injection gasoline engine version and a 1.5-liter hybrid model. It has front- and all-wheel drive models.

The report said powertrains for the U.S., including possibly the hybrid, are still to be decided. The current U.S. Fit uses a 1.5-liter engine.

Down the road, the Vezel will get a turbocharged version to improve fuel economy and boost power, Yoshiharu Itai, the crossover's chief engineer, told Auto News. Timing of the turbo debut hasn't been decided, but Itai said he expects to use the new line of small turbo engines Honda introduced last month before the Tokyo Motor Show. He is considering the 1.5-liter turbo, which Honda showed in an Acura IL! X sedan.

"We haven't decided yet what model year it will be, but we have that in our plan," Itai said of a turbocharged Vezel at a recent briefing outside Tokyo. "We are creating a package so that turbocharging could be installed with this model."

S&P has bad news for this year's top-performing funds

S&P Dow Jones Indexes are playing the Grinch for this year's top-performing mutual funds. In its newly released Persistence Scorecard, the index company reports that the odds of the top-performing funds repeating that success are low at best and only get worse the longer the time frame. The bottom line: If you were thinking about buying new funds that have done well lately, you may want to think again.

Only 7% of the 692 domestic mutual funds that ranked in the top quartile of returns in September 2011 managed to continue to rank in the top quartile through September 2013, according to the report. Only 21.24% managed to stay in the top quartile over two straight years.

Large-cap funds fared the worst, with only 5.28% maintaining top-quartile performance over the three-years of rankings. Mid-cap funds had the highest chance of success over the same time period, with 10.31% maintaining their top quartile performance over the three years.

Over five years, the odds drop considerably, even if the standards are lowered to just staying in the top half of all funds in a respective category. Only 6.47% of the 1,421 domestic mutual funds that ranked in the top half of performers in September 2009 stayed in the top half for the next five years without slipping.

In a bit of a reversal, midcap funds fared the worst over the five-year period with less than 1% staying in the top half of best-performing funds. Small-caps fared the best with 9.9% staying consistent.

S&P's findings reinforce the idea that short-term performance chasing in mutual funds is likely to end badly for advisers, but for long-term investors, the lack of persistence doesn't necessarily mean a bad outcome, provided you can stomach the volatility.

For example, the MFS Equity Opportunities Fund (SRFAX), this year's top-performing large-cap blend fund, has returned 37% this year through Dec. 15, more than 10.81 percentage points better than its category average, according to Morningstar Inc. It ranks in the top 10th percentile over the trailing five years too, with an annualized return of 19.6%, two percentage points better than the S&P 500 over that span.

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The fund's journey to five years of outperformance wasn't smooth though. In 2009 it ranked in the bottom 10th percentile of large-cap blend funds and in 2011 it ranked in the bottom half of its category.

The fund's rocky road is far from unusual.

The Vanguard Group Inc., which is best known for its index funds but also oversees more than $650 billion in actively managed equity funds, looked at the equity funds that outperformed over the 15-year period ending in 2012 and found that 65% of the funds that outperformed over that time period suffered at least three consecutive years of underperformance.

So if you can handle a fund that dips every now and again, without a ! big change to the investment process or management, the lack of persistence shouldn't matter over the long run. But, if you're the type who's going to jump ship at the first sign of performance anxiety, you're probably better off sticking with index funds.

Will December stock ‘low’ prove bullish?

NEW YORK — December is the top-performing month for the Dow over the past 100 years. But this December has been nothing to brag about, as the Dow Jones industrial average has been down seven of 11 trading days and is off 1.1%, even after Monday's 129-point gain.

But investors shouldn't necessarily take away from the poor start the notion that Mr. Market is delivering a bag of coal instead of profits to investors this holiday season.

There's an old Wall Street saying, coined by the Stock Trader's Almanac, that says, "Wall Street's only 'free lunch' is served before Christmas."

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So what's the play? The Almanac says investors tend to sell their losers in early December for year-end tax purposes, which often "hammers these stocks down to bargain levels." But an Almanac analysis also found that stocks that trade on the New York Stock Exchange that hit their lows on Dec. 15 "will usually outperform the overall market by Feb. 15 of the following year."

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In fact, going back to December 1974, NYSE stocks that hit their lows in mid-December posted average gains of 12.9% in that two-month period vs. a gain of 3.3% for the broader NYSE, excluding the returns of preferred stocks and closed-end funds.

"The 'free lunch' strategy is an extremely short-term strategy reserved for the nimblest traders," the Almanac says.

"The object is to buy bargain stocks near their 52-week lows and sell any quick, generous gains, as these issues can be real dogs."

Apple Earnings: An Early Look

On Tuesday, Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL  ) will release its latest quarterly results. The key to making smart investment decisions on stocks reporting earnings is to anticipate how they'll do before they announce results, leaving you fully prepared to respond quickly to whatever inevitable surprises arise. That way, you'll be less likely to make an uninformed knee-jerk reaction to news that turns out to be exactly the wrong move.

Apple's past success is well-known, with its impressive lineup of popular mobile devices. But what has many investors worried is how the company plans to keep growing in the future. Let's take an early look at what's been happening with Apple over the past quarter and what we're likely to see in its quarterly report.

Stats on Apple

Analyst EPS Estimate	$10.07
Change From Year-Ago EPS	(18%)
Revenue Estimate	$42.49 billion
Change From Year-Ago Revenue	8.4%
Earnings Beats in Past 4 Quarters	2

Source: S&P Capital IQ.

Will Apple pull out of its tailspin?
Analysts have slashed their earnings calls on Apple in recent months, cutting more than $1.75 per share off their calls for the just-ended quarter and more than $4.50 per share from their full-year 2013 consensus. The stock has plunged in suit, having fallen almost 20% just since mid-January.

The big debate over Apple essentially boils down to one argument: whether its past performance has any bearing on its future results. After the death of Steve Jobs, many investors have worried that Apple's best days are behind it, as the company has been slow in delivering on promises for brand-new products.

Despite those concerns, Apple won't stop trying to innovate. Lately, attention has swirled around the prospects for a lower-priced iPhone as well as an iWatch and its ongoing efforts on an Apple TV product. A low-cost iPhone would make the product economically viable for a wider range of consumers around the world, but investors fear that it would also force Apple to accept lower margins and potentially dilute its reputation for quality.

Perhaps the biggest thing going for Apple is the fact that expectations are so low. The company's earnings are poised to fall on a year-over-year basis for the first time in a decade, and that has shifted perception of the stock away from its former growth focus to raise questions about whether it's more of a value play. Strong value-based arguments support Apple, but even the discussion of Apple as a value stock is a big change for the tech giant.

Apple's earnings report will have a huge range of metrics that investors will pore over, including its new framework for providing future guidance. But the most important thing for Apple to resolve right now is how it plans to deal with its big cash balance. With activist investors having raised the issue repeatedly, it's becoming a distraction that Apple needs to answer once and for all. If that brings shareholders a bigger dividend, share buybacks, or some more novel reorganization of the company's capital structure, then Apple could finally see its stock hit bottom.

Read more about the debate that's raging as to whether Apple remains a buy. The Motley Fool's senior technology analyst and managing bureau chief, Eric Bleeker, is prepared to fill you in on both reasons to buy and reasons to sell Apple and what opportunities are left for the company (and your portfolio) going forward. To get instant access to his latest thinking on Apple, simply click here now.

Click here to add Apple to My Watchlist, which can find all of our Foolish analysis on it and all your other stocks.

Why Ford Has to Bring Back the Ranger

I consider management to be the biggest factor when choosing which companies to invest in. The best products in the world will fail if the company is run by idiots. Ford (NYSE: F  ) has great management, but its decision to stop selling the Ranger in North America is a mistake. Trucks bring in the majority of profits for Ford and General Motors (NYSE: GM  ) , making it the most important segment to the Detroit companies. It's a segment Ford has long dominated, and killing the Ranger gives its rivals – like the Toyota (NYSE: TM  ) Tacoma – a chance to grow revenues. So far management has stuck to their guns and the Ranger is only available overseas, but I strongly believe Ford will change that – maybe as soon as this year.

You can look, but not touch. Meet the most impressive truck you can't have.

Photo source: Ford Motor

Downsizing
In the U.S. market the trend is vehicle downsizing, as pointed out in a survey by J.D. Power. They recorded that 27% of consumers purchased a smaller vehicle than their previous ride. Following that logic, we could potentially see a future rebound in the midsize truck segment, which has been in decline for years. Killing the Ranger eliminates the midsize pickup truck option for Ford's loyal customers and that's costing the company money.

Efficiency
Some argued that Ford's trimming of platforms to create a leaner operating structure is why the Ranger was killed. That couldn't be further from the truth. The Ranger is sold in 180 countries and will remain a core platform down the road. It's become a hot commodity in Australia and has a chance to be Ford's No. 1 seller in the country this year. It's also gaining popularity in parts of Asia and looks to play a role as that region's sales explode. 

Competition
Ford defended its move by saying loyal customers would simply step up to the F-150. That was a bad assumption – as the Ranger made its market exit the market share of the Tacoma jumped 16% in 2012. 

The fact is that not everyone needs or wants an F-150. For some it's just too big to be a viable option, or too expensive. There is the crowd that uses these trucks as tools for work; those consumers will always buy the large pickup. That said, there's a large crowd of people like myself who would like to own a smaller truck for the few times I need to haul something – while still having a viable ride in the city.

Currently the Toyota Tacoma and Nissan Frontier are the only options for us, but GM confirmed that a redesigned Chevrolet Colorado will resurface later this year. When that happens, expect the Colorado to quickly take the sales lead in the segment and follow it up by sticking its tongue out at rival Ford. I then expect Ford to hastily set up a press release stating plans to bring the Ranger back to the U.S. market – maybe as soon as next year.

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Bottom line
The Ranger model that is sold overseas is near the top of its compact class for towing capacity and has impressed in many different categories. With the current engine it's rated between 26-28 MPG and can still tow a payload of over 7,300 pounds. The Ranger has already been produced to comply with government standards in North America, leaving zero reason why it can't be brought back right away.

If gas prices ever go through the roof this truck could bring back sales the midsize segment hasn't seen in over a decade. If gas prices never go through the roof, I'm still convinced the Ranger – with EcoBoost engine options – would still sell very well. It wouldn't bring in quite as much profit per vehicle as the F-Series, but it's better than losing sales to competitors. As a Ford investor, I want the Ranger back in the U.S. and contributing to its revenues as soon as possible. I believe it isn't a matter of if Ford brings the Ranger back, but when.  

Worried about Ford?
If you're concerned that Ford's turnaround has run its course, relax -- there's good reason to think that the Blue Oval still has big growth opportunities ahead. We've outlined those opportunities in detail, in the Fool's premium Ford research service. If you're looking for some freshly updated guidance to Ford's prospects in coming years, you've come to the right place -- click here to get started now.

5 Best Blue Chip Stocks To Invest In 2014

It's been a busy day for the market's most important tickers. No fewer than five of the 30 Dow (DJINDICES: ^DJI  ) companies reported earnings either last night or this morning. If you had expected these news-heavy tickers to set the tone for the Dow's trading action, you may be disappointed. Three of the five missed analysts expectations -- yet the Dow is trading up today anyhow.

How did these five blue chips fare last quarter? Let's take a look at the Dow's biggest movers.

Image source: UnitedHealth Group.

Let's start with the day's biggest winner. Shares of health insurance giant UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH  ) have jumped 6.8% today on a combination of strong earnings and in-line sales. In the second quarter, revenue rose 12% year over year to $30.4 billion. Diluted GAAP earnings jumped 10% to $1.40 per share. Analysts were expecting sales of $30.5 billion and earnings of $1.25 per share.

5 Best Blue Chip Stocks To Invest In 2014: Apple Inc.(AAPL)

Apple Inc., together with subsidiaries, designs, manufactures, and markets personal computers, mobile communication and media devices, and portable digital music players, as well as sells related software, services, peripherals, networking solutions, and third-party digital content and applications worldwide. The company sells its products worldwide through its online stores, retail stores, direct sales force, third-party wholesalers, resellers, and value-added resellers. In addition, it sells third-party Mac, iPhone, iPad, and iPod compatible products, including application software, printers, storage devices, speakers, headphones, and other accessories and peripherals through its online and retail stores; and digital content and applications through the iTunes Store. The company sells its products to consumer, small and mid-sized business, education, enterprise, government, and creative markets. As of September 25, 2010, it had 317 retail stores, including 233 stores in the United States and 84 stores internationally. The company, formerly known as Apple Computer, Inc., was founded in 1976 and is headquartered in Cupertino, California.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Morgan Housel]

  Friends in the right places
  The Financial Times breaks down Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL  ) tax structure:

  One of Apple's Irish subsidiaries paid a tax rate of just 0.05 per cent in 2011, according to the committee. Yet other offshore entities did not even pay that much. A unit called Apple Operations International, which has had no employees in its 30-year history and funnelled $30bn of payments between Apple units in 2009-2012, filed no corporation tax returns at all over the past five years.

5 Best Blue Chip Stocks To Invest In 2014: Colgate-Palmolive Company(CL)

Colgate-Palmolive Company, together with its subsidiaries, manufactures and markets consumer products worldwide. It offers oral care products, including toothpaste, toothbrushes, and mouth rinses, as well as dental floss and pharmaceutical products for dentists and other oral health professionals; personal care products, such as liquid hand soap, shower gels, bar soaps, deodorants, antiperspirants, shampoos, and conditioners; and home care products comprising laundry and dishwashing detergents, fabric conditioners, household cleaners, bleaches, dishwashing liquids, and oil soaps. The company offers its oral, personal, and home care products under the Colgate Total, Colgate Max Fresh, Colgate 360 Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Dan Caplinger]

  Investors have always been interested in stocks that pay dividends, but lately, low interest rates on bonds and other fixed-income investments have made solid dividend payers even more valuable. Among the most promising dividend stocks in the market is Colgate-Palmolive (NYSE: CL  ) , and one big reason is that it is one of the few exclusive companies to make the list of Dividend Aristocrats. In order to become a member of this elite group, a company must have raised its dividend payouts to shareholders every single year for at least a quarter-century. Only a few dozen stocks manage to make the cut, and those that do tend to stay there for a long time.

• [By Dan Caplinger]

  One concern, though, is how the company handled news of Venezuela's currency devaluation. Clorox (NYSE: CLX  ) and Colgate-Palmolive (NYSE: CL  ) also felt the pinch, with Clorox taking about a $0.05 to $0.10 per-share earnings hit and Colgate losing about $0.50 per share. But they also addressed the potential devaluation more proactively than P&G did. Clorox actually�anticipated�the devaluation in its February earnings report, projecting the potential hit if a devaluation took place. Colgate didn't provide specific guidance in advance but clearly saw it as an issue, delivering on a promise to give prompt guidance revisions after the devaluation occurred.

• [By James Well]

  Analysts��Consensus Position on Pfizer
  
  Thirteen analysts including those at TheStreet, Thomson Reuters/Verus, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Barclays Capital, Morgan Stanley and Argus Research are optimistic about the performance of Pfizer going forward and, hence, reiterated a consensus buy recommendation at an average target price of $31.78 per share. Last Wednesday, analysts at Goldman Sachs removed Pfizer from Goldman�� conviction buy list (CL) where Pfizer has been since Aug. 9, 2011, and placed it on the buy list but raised its price target from $34 to $35 per share. Jami Rubin, an analyst with Goldman Sachs, claimed that Pfizer has gone up by 82.5% since being added to the CL as against 53.9% for the S&P 500 during the period and, therefore, there was the need to replace Pfizer with AbbVie at a price target of $60 because they claimed AbbVie has greater upside at this time.

Top Insurance Stocks To Own For 2014: Philip Morris International Inc(PM)

Philip Morris International Inc., through its subsidiaries, engages in the manufacture and sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products in markets outside of the United States. Its international product brand line comprises Marlboro, Merit, Parliament, Virginia Slims, L&M, Chesterfield, Bond Street, Lark, Muratti, Next, Philip Morris, and Red & White. The company also offers its products under the A Mild, Dji Sam Soe, and A Hijau in Indonesia; Diana in Italy; Optima and Apollo-Soyuz in the Russian Federation; Morven Gold in Pakistan; Boston in Colombia; Belmont, Canadian Classics, and Number 7 in Canada; Best and Classic in Serbia; f6 in Germany; Delicados in Mexico; Assos in Greece; and Petra in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. It operates primarily in the European Union, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Canada, and Latin America. The company is based in New York, New York.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Rich Smith]

  The commonly accepted wisdom in the cigarette industry goes something like this: Smoking is in decline in the United States. Therefore, if you want to make money on tobacco, you must look abroad. You must buy Philip Morris International (NYSE: PM  ) stock.

• [By GuruFocus]

  Philip Morris International Inc. (PM) Reached the 52-Week Low of $85.37

  The prices of Philip Morris International Inc. (PM) shares have declined to close to the 52-week low of $85.37, which is 15.1% off the 52-week high of $96.73. Philip Morris International Inc. is owned by 31 Gurus we are tracking. Among them, 14 have added to their positions during the past quarter. Ten reduced their positions.

5 Best Blue Chip Stocks To Invest In 2014: Visa Inc.(V)

Visa Inc., a payments technology company, engages in the operation of retail electronic payments network worldwide. It facilitates commerce through the transfer of value and information among financial institutions, merchants, consumers, businesses, and government entities. The company owns and operates VisaNet, a global processing platform that provides transaction processing services. It also offers a range of payments platforms, which enable credit, charge, deferred debit, debit, and prepaid payments, as well as cash access for consumers, businesses, and government entities. The company provides its payment platforms under the Visa, Visa Electron, PLUS, and Interlink brand names. In addition, it offers value-added services, including risk management, issuer processing, loyalty, dispute management, value-added information, and CyberSource-branded services. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Chris Hill]

  Visa (NYSE: V  ) and Under Armour (NYSE: UA  ) hit new all-time highs. General Motors (NYSE: GM  ) appears to be turning the corner in Europe. And second-quarter profits for Crocs (NASDAQ: CROX  ) fell a whopping 43%. In this installment of Investor Beat, Motley Fool analysts David Hanson and Jason Moser discuss four stocks making moves on Thursday.

• [By Rick Aristotle Munarriz]

  Alamy Companies can make brilliant moves, but there are also times when things don't work out quite as planned. From an underwhelming iPhone event to Pandora's new CEO, here's a rundown of the week's best and worst moves in the business world. Apple (AAPL) -- Loser Shares of the consumer tech giant had rallied heading into Tuesday's iPhone event, but the love didn't last. The stock began to sell off while Apple was still presenting its updated smartphones. There were no smartwatches, no high-def smart TVs, and no magical unicorns offered up at the presentation. The market was also unimpressed to find that the cheaper iPhone that everyone was hoping would make inroads into Android's 80 percent global market share wound up being just $100 cheaper than the new iPhone 5s. Apple only updates its iPhones annually, so it was also a letdown to see the company once again fail to produce phones with screens larger than four inches. Yes, Apple is spicing up the shell colors across both new iPhone lines, but the actual screens are too small compared to the larger Android devices that many consumers are choosing these days. Pandora (P) -- Winner The leading music streaming service had been searching for a new CEO for months, and it finally found one. Brian McAndrews -- who at one time ran digital marketing powerhouse aQuantive before selling it to Microsoft (MSFT) in a $6 billion deal -- will take control of the leading media platform that serves up 1.35 billion hours a month to its more than 72 million active listeners. It's a smart hire. Pandora didn't need a big terrestrial radio guru. Pandora isn't about content programming. It already has the technology in place that serves up timely music recommendations and adapts to a listeners preferences. Pandora's major challenge remains to monetize its growing airplay, and that's where McAndrews is the perfect fit for a fast-growing company that's just starting to impress marketers. The Dow -- Loser The Dow Jones Industr

• [By Marc Bastow]

  A total of 19 companies raised their dividends this week, led by big names like Visa (V) and Honeywell (HON). (Note: All dividend yields are as of Oct. 25.)

• [By Jon C. Ogg]

  International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) is proving that it has very limited growth opportunities in new revenues. The only saving grace for the rest of us these days is that IBM is now no longer the largest DJIA stock since Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) is a DJIA stock.

5 Best Blue Chip Stocks To Invest In 2014: Chevron Corporation(CVX)

Chevron Corporation, through its subsidiaries, engages in petroleum, chemicals, mining, power generation, and energy operations worldwide. It operates in two segments, Upstream and Downstream. The Upstream segment involves in the exploration, development, and production of crude oil and natural gas; processing, liquefaction, transportation, and regasification associated with liquefied natural gas; transportation of crude oil through pipelines; and transportation, storage, and marketing of natural gas, as well as holds interest in a gas-to-liquids project. The Downstream segment engages in the refining of crude oil into petroleum products; marketing of crude oil and refined products primarily under the Chevron, Texaco, and Caltex brand names; transportation of crude oil and refined products by pipeline, marine vessel, motor equipment, and rail car; and manufacture and marketing of commodity petrochemicals, plastics for industrial uses, and fuel and lubricant additives. It a lso produces and markets coal and molybdenum; and holds interests in 13 power assets with a total operating capacity of approximately 3,100 megawatts, as well as involves in cash management and debt financing activities, insurance operations, real estate activities, energy services, and alternative fuels and technology business. Chevron Corporation has a joint venture agreement with China National Petroleum Corporation. The company was formerly known as ChevronTexaco Corp. and changed its name to Chevron Corporation in May 2005. Chevron Corporation was founded in 1879 and is based in San Ramon, California.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By David Smith]

  The second "Gasland" also touches down briefly in Queensland, Australia, where anti-fracking protests have begun. It then moves to a description of "demonstrations across Europe". Named as specific sites are the U.K., Bulgaria, Romania, France, and Canada. Little did we know that our neighbors to the north had hightailed it across the pond. Poland, where Chevron (NYSE: CVX  ) has undertaken an ambitious shale drilling program is essentially unmentioned.

• [By Matt Thalman]

  Shares of both Dow energy stocks, Chevron (NYSE: CVX  ) and ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM  ) , are flat today. The price of light crude is down 0.69% today, and natural gas is down 1.77%. And because both companies have diversified their businesses into the latter, cleaner-burning fuel that is abundant in North America, they must deal with how falling natural-gas prices will affect profits.�

• [By Tyler Crowe]

  In the same way that it's more difficult for big investment funds to grow because of sheer size, it becomes harder for integrated major oil companies such as Chevron (NYSE: CVX  ) to move the oil-production needle. In fact, the company has joined�ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM  ) in seeing production shrink recently. Much of Chevron's recent slip comes from a shutdown at several facilities for maintenance, so while that may not be too much to worry about in the near future, it does raise questions about whether the company can grow its production.

Can Toyota Motor Stock See a Turnaround?

With shares of Toyota Motor (NYSE:TM) trading around $120, is TM 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

Toyota Motor is a Japan-based company mainly engaged in the automobile business and financial business. The company operates through three business segments: automobile, finance, and others. Through its segments, Toyota Motor designs, manufactures, and sells vehicles as well as related parts and accessories; offers financial services related to the sale of its products; and is involved in the design, manufacture, and sale of housing, information and communication businesses. Vehicles and related products are seeing increased innovation, and Toyota Motor is at the head of this trend. Toyota has been dominating the competition and has been first to provide new technologies so look for the company to continue innovating.

Whenever automakers look at the leader board in passenger cars, it's become an annual tradition to see the Toyota Camry perched on top. In fact, Toyota will sell well above 400,000 Camrys in 2013 as it claims first prize again among U.S. car shoppers. As the automaker plans to debut its redesigned Camry, it appears Toyota is unfazed by style critiques but will make sure its lacking safety rating improves. Bill Fay, Toyota's head of U.S. sales, told the Associated Press on Thursday that the next-generation Camry will receive a boost in safety features but suggested there wouldn't be much in the way of style upgrades for the famously vanilla sedan. The automaker plans to reveal more by December 20. While noting the success of the Camry in its current state of style, Fay reminded the Associated Press that, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."

T = Technicals on the Stock Chart are Mixed

Toyota Motor stock has been trending higher in the past year. However, the stock is currently pulling back and may need time to consolidate before heading higher. 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, Toyota Motor is trading below its rising key averages, which signal neutral to bearish price action in the near-term.

(Source: Thinkorswim)

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

	Implied Volatility (IV)	30-Day IV Percentile	90-Day IV Percentile
Toyota Motor options	22.33%	63%	60%

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

	Put IV Skew	Call IV Skew
December Options	Steep	Average
January Options	Steep	Average

As of today, there is an average demand from call buyers or sellers and high demand by put buyers or low demand by put sellers, all neutral to bearish over the next two months. To summarize, investors are buying a significant amount of call and put option contracts and are leaning neutral to bearish 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 Improving 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 Toyota Motor’s stock. What do the last four quarterly earnings and revenue growth (Y-O-Y) figures for Toyota Motor look like and more importantly, how did the markets like these numbers?

	2013 Q3	2013 Q2	2013 Q1	2012 Q4
Earnings Growth (Y-O-Y)	69.77%	55.77%	113.50%	9.74%
Revenue Growth (Y-O-Y)	16.19%	-8.43%	-10.59%	-1.86%
Earnings Reaction	-0.1%	6.41%	3.12%	1.04%

Toyota Motor has seen increasing earnings and improving revenue figures over the last four quarters. From these numbers, the markets have been pleased with Toyota Motor’s recent earnings announcements.

P = Average Relative Performance Versus Peers and Sector

How has Toyota Motor stock done relative to its peers, General Motors (NYSE:GM), Ford Motor (NYSE:F), Tesla Motors (NASDAQ:TSLA), and sector?

	Toyota Motor	General Motors	Ford Motor	Tesla Motors	Sector
Year-to-Date Return	29.29%	39.82%	26.87%	313.90%	32.99%

Toyota Motor has been an average relative performer, year-to-date.

Conclusion

Toyota Motor provides innovative vehicles and related products to consumers and companies worldwide. The company will sell well above 400,000 Camrys in 2013 as it claims first prize again among U.S. car shoppers. The stock has been trending higher in the past year, but is currently pulling back. Over the last four quarters, earnings have been increasing while revenues have been improving, which has left investors happy about recent earnings announcements. Relative to its peers and sector, Toyota Motor has been an average year-to-date performer. WAIT AND SEE what Toyota Motor does this quarter.

General Mills Inc. (GIS) Dividend Stock Analysis

Top 10 Medical Companies To Watch In Right Now

Linked here is a detailed quantitative analysis of General Mills Inc. (GIS). Below are some highlights from the above linked analysis:

Company Description: General Mills Inc. is a major producer of packaged consumer food products, including cereal, yogurt and Betty Crocker desserts/baking mixes.

Fair Value: In calculating fair value, I consider the NPV MMA Differential Fair Value along with these four calculations of fair value (see page 2 of the linked PDF for a detailed description):

1. Avg. High Yield Price

2. 20-Year DCF Price

3. Avg. P/E Price

4. Graham Number

GIS is trading at a premium to all four valuations above. Since GIS's tangible book value is not meaningful, a Graham number can not be calculated. The stock is trading at a 13.8% premium to its calculated fair value of $44.04. GIS did not earn any Stars in this section.

Dividend Analytical Data: In this section there are three possible Stars and three key metrics (see page 2 of the linked PDF for a detailed description):

1. Free Cash Flow Payout

2. Debt To Total Capital

3. Key Metrics

4. Dividend Growth Rate

5. Years of Div. Growth

6. Rolling 4-yr Div. > 15%

GIS earned one Star in this section for 1.) above. A Star was earned since the Free Cash Flow payout ratio was less than 60% and there were no negative Free Cash Flows over the last 10 years. The company has paid a cash dividend to shareholders every year since 1898 and has increased its dividend payments for 10 consecutive years.

Dividend Income vs. MMA: Why would you assume the equity risk and invest in a dividend stock if you could earn a better return in a much less risky money market account (MMA) or Treasury bond? This section compares the earning ability of this stock with a high yield MMA. Two items are considered in this section ! (see page 2 of the linked PDF for a detailed description):

1. NPV MMA Diff.

2. Years to > MMA

The NPV MMA Diff. of the $2,127 is below the $2,500 target I look for in a stock that has increased dividends as long as GIS has. If GIS grows its dividend at 10.5% per year, it will take 2 years to equal a MMA yielding an estimated 20-year average rate of 3.41%. GIS earned a check for the Key Metric 'Years to >MMA' since its two years is less than the five-year target.

Memberships and Peers: GIS is a member of the S&P 500. The company's peer group includes: Kellogg Company (K) with a 3.0% yield, Campbell Soup Company (CPB) with a 2.9% yield and The Hershey Company (HSY) with a 2.0% yield.

Conclusion: GIS did not earn any Stars in the Fair Value section, earned one Star in the Dividend Analytical Data section and did not earn any Stars in the Dividend Income vs. MMA section for a total of one Star. This quantitatively ranks GIS as a 1-Star Very Weak stock.

Using my D4L-PreScreen.xls model, I determined the share price would need to decrease to $47.02 before GIS's NPV MMA Differential decreased to the $2,500 minimum that I look for in a stock with 10 years of consecutive dividend increases. At that price the stock would yield 3.2%.

Resetting the D4L-PreScreen.xls model and solving for the dividend growth rate needed to generate the target $2,500 NPV MMA Differential, the calculated rate is 11.1%. This dividend growth rate is higher than the 10.5% used in this analysis, thus providing no margin of safety. GIS has a risk rating of 2.00 which classifies it as a Medium risk stock.

GIS operates in relatively stable end markets and has good brand strength, which should offer some protection from less expensive products. However, erratic commodity prices have weighed on the performance of companies in the industry.

The company generates consistent free cash flows and its payout of 45% is well below my maximum of 70%. GIS's debt to total capital of 55% is above my d! esired ma! ximum of 45%. With a desirable current yield of 3%, the company has been on my radar. It is currently trading above my calculated fair value of $44.04. For now I will continue to monitor and wait for a more desirable entry point.

Disclaimer: Material presented here is for informational purposes only. The above quantitative stock analysis, including the Star rating, is mechanically calculated and is based on historical information. The analysis assumes the stock will perform in the future as it has in the past. This is generally never true. Before buying or selling any stock you should do your own research and reach your own conclusion. See my Disclaimer for more information.

Full Disclosure: At the time of this writing, I held no position in GIS (0.0% of my Dividend Growth Portfolio). See a list of all my dividend growth holdings here.

Related Articles:

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Also check out: (Free Trial) High Yield Dividend Stocks in Gurus' Portfolio Top dividend stocks of Warren Buffett Top dividend stocks of George Soros

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Top 5 Tech Companies To Invest In Right Now

Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.

What: Shares of Sourcefire (NASDAQ: FIRE  ) soared a whopping 28% today after tech gorilla Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO  ) agreed to acquire the cybersecurity specialist for $2.7 billion.�

So what: The all-cash deal values Sourcefire at $76 per share and represents a premium of 29% to its closing price on Monday. Cisco is making the move to expand beyond its bread-and-butter networking gear business, naturally fueling speculation that other tech giants like IBM and EMC are looking to make a small cybersecurity purchase of their own.

Now what: The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2013 and will likely be slightly dilutive to Cisco's GAAP earnings in 2014. "Sourcefire aligns well with Cisco's future vision for security and supports the key pillars of our security strategy," said Cisco's vice president of corporate development Hilton Romanski. "Through our shared view of the critical role the network must play in cybersecurity and threat defense, we have a unique opportunity to deliver the most comprehensive approach to security in the market." So while Sourcefire's upside is likely limited at this point, another cybersecurity play like Fortinet�-- which is up 5% on today's news -- might be a possible buyout target worth considering. ��

Top 5 Tech Companies To Invest In Right Now: Park Electrochemical Corporation(PKE)

Park Electrochemical Corp., an advanced materials company, engages in the development, manufacture, marketing, and sale of high-technology digital and radio frequency/microwave printed circuit materials products principally for the telecommunications, Internet infrastructure, and high-end computing markets. It also provides advanced composite materials, parts, and assemblies for the aerospace markets; and involves in the design and manufacture of composite aircraft and space vehicle parts. The company?s printed circuit materials are used to fabricate complex multilayer printed circuit boards and other electronic interconnect systems, including back-planes, wireless packages, high speed/low-loss multilayers, and high density interconnects. It operates in North America, Europe, and Asia. The company was founded in 1954 and is headquartered in Melville, New York.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Rich Duprey]

  Printed-circuit materials maker�Park Electrochemical (NYSE: PKE  ) announced yesterday its second-quarter dividend of $0.10 per share, the same rate it's paid since 2009.

Top 5 Tech Companies To Invest In Right Now: Osiris Therapeutics Inc.(OSIR)

Osiris Therapeutics, Inc., a stem cell company, focuses on the development and marketing of therapeutic products to treat various medical conditions in the inflammatory, autoimmune, orthopedic, and cardiovascular areas. It operates in two business segments, Therapeutics and Biosurgery. The Therapeutics segment focuses on developing biologic stem cell drug candidates from a readily available and non-controversial source, adult bone marrow. The Biosurgery segment works to harness the ability of cells and novel constructs to promote the body's natural healing. This segment focuses on developing biologic products for use in surgical procedures. The company?s lead biologic drug candidate is Prochymal, which is in phase 2 and 3 clinical trails for various indications, including acute graft versus host disease (GvHD), Crohn's disease, acute myocardial infarction, type 1 diabetes, pulmonary disease, and gastrointestinal injury resulting from radiation exposure. Its biologic drug candidates also include Chondrogen, a preparation of adult mesenchymal stem cells that is in phase 2 clinical trials for osteoarthritis and cartilage protection. The company has collaboration agreements with Genzyme Corporation for the development and commercialization of Prochymal and Chondrogen in various countries except in the United States and Canada. It also has a partnership with Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation for the development of Prochymal as a treatment for the preservation of insulin production in patients with newly diagnosed type 1 diabetes mellitus. Osiris Therapeutics, Inc. was founded in 1992 and is headquartered in Columbia, Maryland.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Alexander Maxwell]

  One of the companies attempting to develop a better treatment for chronic diabetic foot ulcers is Osiris Therapeutics� (NASDAQ: OSIR  ) . Earlier this month, Osiris shares more than doubled as the company announced positive data for its CDFU drug Grafix. The study results were very impressive to say the least; the study was stopped early due to the overwhelming efficacy exhibited by the treatment. A main highlight is the fact that 62% of Grafix patients had their wound closed at 12 weeks, compared to only 21% of patients using conventional methods. Clearly, the efficacy in this endpoint was overwhelming. Grafix also achieved all of the secondary endpoints for the trial, and more importantly demonstrated a relatively benign safety record.�

• [By Maxx Chatsko]

  Additionally, stem cell therapies have remained elusive as the industry's ultimate Holy Grail. Osiris (NASDAQ: OSIR  ) received Canadian approval for the world's first stem cell drug, Prochymal, for children battling acute graft-versus-host disease, or GvHD, last year. The approval meant more symbolically than to the bottom line, but it definitely put the potential of stem cells front and center for investors.

• [By Lauren Pollock]

  Osiris Therapeutics Inc.(OSIR) said Friday a proposed ruling from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services won’t immediately affect reimbursements for its Grafix stem-cell product. The regenerative medicine company said Grafix will maintain its current reimbursement status — also called transitional pass-through status — potentially through late 2015.

Top 10 Oil Stocks To Buy For 2014: Electrovaya Inc Com Npv (EFL.TO)

Electrovaya Inc., together with its subsidiaries, engages in the design, development, manufacture, and marketing of batteries, battery systems, and battery-related products for the electric transportation, utility scale energy storage and smart grid power, consumer, and healthcare markets in Canada. It develops portable power technology products using its Lithium Ion SuperPolymer technology. The company offers battery systems for plug in hybrid electric vehicles, electric vehicles, and two-wheel vehicles, as well as for commercial truck and offroad applications; and PowerPad series of batteries for notebook computers and other mobile applications, as well as Scribble Tablet PC products for the health care industry. It also provides cells and battery modules; and intelligent battery management systems for automotive, utility-scale, and other integrated systems. The company was formerly known as Electrofuel Inc. and changed its name to Electrovaya Inc. in March 2002. Electro vaya Inc. was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in Mississauga, Canada.

Top 5 Tech Companies To Invest In Right Now: Innovative Solutions and Support Inc.(ISSC)

Innovative Solutions and Support, Inc. engages in the design, manufacture, and sale of flat panel display systems, flight information computers, and advanced monitoring systems in the United States and internationally. The company offers flat panel display systems, which can replace conventional analog and digital displays used in a cockpit to display information; and engine and fuel displays to convey information with respect to fuel and oil levels and engine activity, such as oil and hydraulic pressure and temperature. It also provides air data systems and components, including digital air data computers, integrated air data computers and display units, altitude displays, airspeed displays, and altitude alerters used to calculate and display various measures, such as aircraft speed, altitude, and rate of ascent and descent. The company offers its products to the Department of Defense, Department of the Interior, government agencies, defense contractors, airlines, commerc ial air transport carriers, aircraft modification centers, various original equipment manufacturers, as well as to corporate/general aviation markets. Innovative Solutions and Support, Inc. was founded in 1988 and is based in Exton, Pennsylvania.

Top 5 Tech Companies To Invest In Right Now: Silicon Image Inc.(SIMG)

Silicon Image, Inc. provides wireless and wired high-definition (HD) connectivity solutions that enable the distribution and presentation of HD content for consumer electronics, mobile, and personal computer (PC) markets. It delivers its technology via semiconductor and intellectual property products. The company?s consumer electronics products include high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) port processors, HDMI and mobile high-definition link (MHL) transmitters, MHL-to-HDMI bridges, and HDMI receiver products; PC products comprise MHL/HDMI-to-HDMI bridges and digital visual interface receivers; and storage products consist of a line of serial advanced technology attachment controllers used in PC, DVR, and network attached storage applications. Its products are deployed by the electronics manufacturers in various devices, such as desktop and notebook PCs, DTVs, Blu-ray disc players, and audio-video receivers, as well as mobile phones, tablets, and digital cameras. The company, through its subsidiaries, provides manufacturers comprehensive standards interoperability and compliance testing services; and acts as an agent for promoting and administering HDMI and MHL specifications, and for licensing the serial port memory technology memory interface specification. It sells its products to original product manufacturers worldwide through direct sales force, as well as through a network of distributors and manufacturer?s representatives. The company has operations in the United States, Taiwan, Japan, China, and Korea, as well as Europe and internationally. Silicon Image, Inc. was founded in 1995 and is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By John Udovich]

  We have recently added small cap video chip stock Pixelworks, Inc (NASDAQ: PXLW) to our SmallCap Network Elite Opportunity (SCN EO)�as it stands to benefit from the growth in connecting HD quality video across all mobile device platforms, as well as Smart TVs; but Silicon Image, Inc (NASDAQ: SIMG) and Sigma Designs, Inc (NASDAQ: SIGM) are also providing chips for the video or entertainment markets. Moreover, all three of these small cap stocks have recently reported earnings that might leave you feeling even more bullish.