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.