Dow Chemical Co.(DOW) hasn’t quieted activist shareholders with its plans to carve up the company, announced in early December.
Activist investor Dan Loeb, the founder of the hedge fund Third Point, revealed Tuesday morning that he holds a new stake in Dow Chemical. In a letter to investors released on the Harvest Exchange, a website for sharing investor ideas, he noted that Dow Chemical is currently Third Point’s largest current stake,, but didn’t disclose his actual position.
In early December, Dow announced plans to exit low-margin performance�chemical operations, but for Third Point, that’s not enough. The hedge funds is calling for a more dramatic split of�the units that turn oil and gas into chemicals from the unit that makes
higher-margin specialty chemicals used in agriculture, food, pharmaceuticals,�and electronics.
Top 5 Rising Companies To Watch For 2015: Hillenbrand Inc(HI)
Hillenbrand, Inc. designs, manufactures, distributes, and sells funeral service products to licensed funeral directors operating licensed funeral homes. The company?s products include burial caskets, cremation caskets, containers, vaults, urns, and selection room display fixturing for funeral homes, as well as other personalization and memorialization products and services, including Web-based applications, and the creation and hosting of Websites for licensed funeral homes. It markets its products under the Batesville and Options brand name through direct sales force in the United States, Puerto Rico, Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and Australia. The company also designs, produces, markets, sells, and services bulk solids material handling equipment and systems for various industrial markets, including plastics, food, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, power generation, coal mining, pulp and paper, frac sand, industrial minerals, agribusiness, recycling, wood and forest pr oducts, and biomass energy generation. It offers feeders and pneumatic conveying equipment under the K-Tron brand name; and size reduction equipment, such as hammer mills, double-roll crushers, wood and bark hogs, chip sizers, screening equipment, pneumatic and mechanical conveying systems, storage/reclamation systems, and specialty crushers and other equipment under the Pennsylvania Crusher, Gundlach, and Jeffrey Rader brand names. In addition, the company manufactures dry material separation machines that sort dry, granular products based on the particle?s size serving various industries, including frac sand, potash, urea, phosphates, chemical, agricultural, plastics, and food processing. The company sells its material handling equipment and systems worldwide through a combination of a direct sales force, and a network of independent sales representatives and distributors. Hillenbrand, Inc. was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in Batesville, Indiana.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By GURUFOCUS]
Hillenbrand Inc. (HI), a diversified industrial company, makes and sells business-to-business products and services for various industries worldwide. Dec. 4, the company increased is quarterly dividend 1.3% to $0.1975 per share. the dividend is payable Dec. 31, 2013, to shareholders of record at the close of business on Dec. 17, 2013. The yield based on the new payout is 2.8%.
- [By Laura Brodbeck]
Tuesday
Earnings Expected: Buffalo Wild Wings, Inc. (NASDAQ: BWLD), Hillenbrand Inc (NYSE: HI), Sirius XM Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) Economic Releases Expected: German retail sales, French consumer confidence, German unemployment rate, eurozone CPI, eurozone PPI, US trade balance, US redbookWednesday
Hot Stocks To Watch Right Now: Dyax Corp.(DYAX)
Dyax Corp., a biopharmaceutical company, engages in the discovery, development, and commercialization of novel biotherapeutics for unmet medical needs in the United States. The company utilizes its proprietary drug discovery technology, known as phage display, to identify antibody, small protein, and peptide compounds. It markets KALBITOR (ecallantide) for the treatment of acute attacks of hereditary angioedema (HAE) in patients 16 years of age and older. Dyax Corp. also provides KALBITOR Access program, which offers treatment support service for patients with HAE and their healthcare providers. In addition, the company is developing a pipeline of 17 product candidates, including 4 product candidates in Phase III clinical trial, 4 product candidates in Phase II clinical trial, and 9 product candidates in Phase 1 clinical trial for the treatment of atherosclerosis, multiple sclerosis, and oncology diseases. Further, it provides library licenses to use its phage display libr aries in connection with their internal therapeutic development programs; performs funded research for various collaborators; and offers patent licenses to other biopharmaceutical and pharmaceutical companies to use its phage display patents to discover and develop biologic compounds for use in specified fields. The company has strategic partnership agreement with Defiante Farmaceutica S.A. to develop and commercialize subcutaneous ecallantide for the treatment of HAE and other therapeutic indications in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and Russia; an agreement with CMIC Co., Ltd to develop and commercialize subcutaneous ecallantide for the treatment of HAE and other angioedema indications in Japan; and an license and collaboration agreement with Cubist Pharmaceuticals, Inc. to develop and commercialize the formulation of ecallantide for the reduction of blood loss during surgery in North America and Europe. Dyax Corp. was founded in 1989 and is headquartered in Cambri dge, Massachusetts.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Jake L'Ecuyer]
Dyax (NASDAQ: DYAX) shares tumbled 10.39 percent to $9.10 after the company priced 8 million shares at $9.25 per share.
Raptor Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: RPTP) was down, falling 10.04 percent to $13.31 after the company reported Q4 results. Raptor Pharmaceutical posted a Q4 loss of $0.20 per share, versus the projected loss of $0.16 per share.
- [By Jake L'Ecuyer]
Leading and Lagging Sectors
In trading on Tuesday, healthcare shares were relative leaders, up on the day by about 1.35 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Allergan (NYSE: AGN), up 15.7 percent, and Dyax (NASDAQ: DYAX), up 12.5 percent. Energy shares dropped around 0.06 percent in today's trading.
Hot Stocks To Watch Right Now: The NASDAQ OMX Group Inc.(NDAQ)
The NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc. provides trading, clearing, exchange technology, securities listing, and public company services worldwide. It offers trading across various asset classes, including cash equities, derivatives, debt, commodities, structured products, and exchange traded funds; capital formation solutions; financial services and exchanges technology; market data products; and financial indexes, as well as clearing, settlement, and depository services. The company also provides broker services comprising technology and customized securities administration solutions, such as back-office systems to financial participants. In addition, it offers global listing services; technology solutions for trading, clearing, settlement, and information dissemination; and facility management integration, surveillance solutions, and advisory services, as well as develops and licenses NASDAQ OMX branded indexes, associated derivatives, and financial products. As of December 31, 2010 , a total of 2,778 companies listed securities on The NASDAQ Stock Market. The NASDAQ OMX Group supports the operations of approximately 70 exchanges, clearing organizations, and central securities depositories. The company was formerly known as The Nasdaq Stock Market, Inc. and changed its name to The NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc. in February 2008. The NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc. was founded in 1971 and is based in New York, New York.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Jon C. Ogg]
Do you remember the Flash Crash? NASDAQ OMX Group (NASDAQ: NDAQ) is proving yet again why there still needs to be some human control and interaction over the vast numbers of shares trading each day. The only good news is that this is not the same sort of halt from a Flash Crash.
- [By Hibah Yousuf]
In a report outlining the growing operational risks at trading exchanges, S&P said the noticeable increase in technical snafus could trigger ratings downgrades for major operators like NYSE Euronext (NYX), Nasdaq OMX (NDAQ) and BATS Global Markets over the next few years.
- [By Reuters]
Richard Drew/AP WASHINGTON -- The total value of the claims that market makers can recover after suffering losses due to Nasdaq OMX Group's (NDAQ) botched handling of Facebook Inc.'s (FB) initial public offering is $41.6 million, the exchange operator said Friday. The claims figure, which was calculated by Wall Street's industry-funded watchdog the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority -- better known as Finra -- falls short of the $62 million that Nasdaq had initially set aside to repay brokerages that lost money. Nasdaq said the figure is lower in part because some claims didn't qualify for compensation under its plan. The main reason for the lower figure, however, was because one firm opted to try to recover funds through arbitration. The announcement didn't name the brokerage, which was UBS (UBS). UBS has pegged its losses from the glitch-ridden IPO at $350 million and was vocal in its decision to file an arbitration demand which claimed Nasdaq had violated a contract agreement. U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet, however, blocked the bank's arbitration proceeding over the summer on several grounds, including a determination that the bank's claims didn't fall within the scope of the arbitration provision in their services agreement. Facebook's problematic debut on the Nasdaq exchange on May 18, 2012, resulted from a systems failure that prevented the timely delivery of order confirmations and left more than 30,000 Facebook orders stuck in Nasdaq's system for more than two hours. Many brokerages were left in the dark wondering if their trades went through. Major market makers estimated they lost collectively up to $500 million in the IPO. Nasdaq devised a plan to compensate firms up to $62 million, and laid out the criteria for how firms can be eligible to file claims. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved the compensation plan in March, and Finra was put in charge of processing the claims for restitution. Several months after ap
Hot Stocks To Watch Right Now: Active Power Inc.(ACPW)
Active Power, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, designs, manufactures, and markets critical power quality solutions. It provides various products that deliver continuous clean power; and protects customers from voltage fluctuations, such as surges and sags, and frequency fluctuations, as well as offer temporary power to bridge the gap between a power outage and the restoration of utility power. The company offers the CleanSource UPS, a battery free uninterruptible power supply (UPS) system that integrates UPS electronics and flywheel energy storage system into one compact cabinet. Active Power, Inc. also provides the CleanSource DC, a battery-free replacement for lead-acid batteries used for bridging power; CoolAir products; and GenSTART, a battery-free starting modular system for customer?s diesel generator. In addition, it offers continuous power systems, which incorporates its UPS products with switchgear and a generator sold in a containerized package, and markete d under the PowerHouse brand name. Further, the company provides customer support services, including infrastructure needs assessment, vetting and validation, alignment with business objectives, system design, deployment, and start-up and commissioning, as well as service, support, and monitoring. It serves data centers, manufacturing, technology, broadcast and communications, financial, utilities, healthcare, government, and airport industries. The company sells its products through direct sales force, manufacturer?s representatives, distributors, strategic IT partners, and original equipment manufacturer partners in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Asia Pacific, and North America. Active Power, Inc. was founded in 1992 and is headquartered in Austin, Texas.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Roberto Pedone]
Another under-$10 electrical components and equipment player that's starting to move within range of a near-term breakout trade is Active Power (ACPW), which designs, manufactures and markets power solutions that provide business continuity and protect customers in the event of an electrical power disturbance. Its products deliver clean power, protecting customers from voltage fluctuations. This stock has hasn't done much so far in 2013, with shares off by 6.7%.
If you take a look at the chart for Active Power, you'll notice that this stock recently formed a double bottom chart pattern at $2.82 to $2.80 a share. Since forming that bottom, shares of ACPW have started to uptrend and move back above its 50-day moving average of $2.94 a share. That move is quickly pushing shares of ACPW within range of triggering a near-term breakout trade.
Market players should now look for long-biased trades in ACPW if it manages to break out above some near-term overhead resistance levels at $3.14 to $3.23 a share with high volume. Look for a sustained move or close above those levels with volume that hits near or above its three-month average action of 87,166 shares. If that breakout hits soon, then ACPW will set up to re-test or possibly take its next major overhead resistance levels at $3.65 to $3.76 a share. Any high-volume move above those levels will then give ACPW a chance to tag its next major overhead resistance levels at $4 to $4.20, or even $4.50 a share.
Traders can look to buy ACPW off any weakness to anticipate that breakout and simply use a stop that sits right below its 50-day moving average at $2.94 a share, or near its double bottom zone at $2.80 a share. One can also buy ACPW off strength once it clears those breakout levels with volume and then simply use a stop that sits a comfortable percentage from your entry point.
Hot Stocks To Watch Right Now: U.S. Energy Corp.(USEG)
U.S. Energy Corp. engages in the acquisition, exploration, holding, sale, and/or development of mineral properties. It primarily explores for molybdenum, and other base and precious metals. The company holds interests in Mount Emmons property that covers approximately 9,311 acres located in Gunnison County, Colorado. It also holds interests in oil and gas properties located in Williston Basin North Dakota and Gulf Coast region. In addition, the company holds interests in geothermal properties. Further, it develops multifamily apartment project in Gillette, Wyoming. As of December 31, 2009, its estimated proved reserves were approximately 1,086,203 BOE. The company was founded in 1966 and is based in Riverton, Wyoming.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Roberto Pedone]
US Energy (USEG), an independent energy company, focuses on the acquisition and development of oil and gas producing properties in the continental U.S. This stock closed up 6.9% to $3.53 in Thursday's trading session.
Thursday's Range: $3.29-$3.53
52-Week Range: $1.45-$4.06
Thursday's Volume: 116,000
Three-Month Average Volume: 219,710From a technical perspective, USEG bounced sharply higher here right off some near-term support at $3.27 and back above its 50-day moving average of $3.45 with lighter-than-average volume. This stock recently formed a triple bottom chart pattern at $3.32, $3.21 and $3.27. Since finding buying interest at those levels, shares of USEG are now spiking higher and moving within range of triggering a near-term breakout trade. That trade will hit if USEG manages to take out some near-term overhead resistance levels at $3.65 to $3.80 with high volume.
Traders should now look for long-biased trades in USEG as long as it's trending above some key near-term support levels at $3.27 or at $3.21 and then once it sustains a move or close above those breakout levels with volume that hits near or above 219,710 shares. If that breakout hits soon, then USEG will set up to re-test or possibly take out its 52-week high at $4.06. Any high-volume move above that level will then give USEG a chance to tag its next major overhead resistance levels at $4.60 to $5.
Hot Stocks To Watch Right Now: Computer Task Group Inc (CTG)
Computer Task Group, Incorporated (CTG), incorporated on March 11, 1966, is an information technology (IT) solutions and staffing company with operations in North America and Europe. CTG provides IT services to its clients, which includes IT Solutions and IT Staffing. During the year ended December 31, 2011, the Company had six operating subsidiaries: Computer Task Group of Canada, Inc., providing services in Canada; and Computer Task Group Belgium N.V., CTG ITS S.A., Computer Task Group IT Solutions, S.A., Computer Task Group Luxembourg PSF, and Computer Task Group (U.K.) Ltd., each were providing services in Europe. Services provided in North America are performed by CTG. It provides services to all of the markets, which it serves. The services provided encompass the IT business solution life cycle, including phases for planning, developing, implementing, managing, and maintaining the IT solution. In February 2013, it acquired etrinity from i-Cros Nv of Antwerp, Belgium.
The Company promotes its services through four vertical market focus areas: technology service providers; healthcare, which includes services provided to healthcare providers, health insurers (payers), and life sciences companies; energy, and financial services. At December 31, 2011, CTG provided IT services to approximately 300 clients in North America and Europe. In North America, the Company operates in the United States and Canada. In Europe, the Company operates in Belgium, Luxembourg, and the United Kingdom.
IT Solutions
CTG�� services in IT solution area include helping clients assess their business needs and identifying the IT solutions. The services delivered by the Company include the selection and implementation of packaged software and the design, development, testing, and integration of new systems, and the development and implementation of customized software and solutions designed to fit the needs of a specific client or vertical market. Also included in IT Solutions is Trans! itional Application Management (TAM).
In 2011, the healthcare market accounted for most of CTG�� TAM business. In 2011, CTG continued to invest in new IT solutions development, primarily targeted to the healthcare market, which support cost reductions and productivity improvements. In 2011, several healthcare solutions under development moved from the pilot stage of testing using live data into the sales process as completed tools. These solutions include medical fraud, waste, and abuse detection and reduction, medical care and disease management, and group insurance underwriting risk assessment. The Company has developed software to support these offerings. These solutions support both the healthcare provider and payer markets.
IT Staffing
The Company recruits, retains, and manages IT talent for its clients, which are technology service providers and companies with multiple locations and need for external IT resources. The Company also supports companies and organizations that need to augment their own IT staff on a flexible basis. It provides IT talent services on a temporary or long-term basis. CTG�� recruiting organization works with customers to define their staffing requirements. The primary focus of the Company�� staffing business is a managed services model that provides clients with support through supply models customized to client needs, resource management support, vendor management programs, and a automated recruiting process and system. During 2011, its IT staffing service generated 63% of its total revenue.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Anna Prior]
Information technology staffing and solutions company Computer Task Group Inc.(CTG) cut its outlook for its second-quarter and full-year results, primarily due to higher medical costs.
- [By Seth Jayson]
Computer Task Group (Nasdaq: CTG ) reported earnings on July 22. Here are the numbers you need to know.
The 10-second takeaway
For the quarter ended June 28 (Q2), Computer Task Group missed estimates on revenues and met expectations on earnings per share.
Hot Stocks To Watch Right Now: The Children's Place Retail Stores Inc.(PLCE)
The Children's Place Retail Stores, Inc. operates as a children's specialty apparel retailer in North America. It provides apparel, accessories, and shoes for children from newborn to 10 years of age. The company designs, contracts to manufacture, and sells merchandise under The Children's Place brand name. It serves the wardrobe needs of girls and boys, baby girls and boys, and newborn. As of January 28, 2012, the company operated 1,049 The Children's Place stores, including 732 stores located in malls, 140 in strip centers, 135 in outlet centers, and 42 street stores; and an Internet store at childrensplace.com. The Children's Place Retail Stores, Inc. was founded in 1969 and is based in Secaucus, New Jersey.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Seth Jayson]
Calling all cash flows
When you are trying to buy the market's best stocks, it's worth checking up on your companies' free cash flow once a quarter or so, to see whether it bears any relationship to the net income in the headlines. That's what we do with this series. Today, we're checking in on Children's Place Retail Stores (Nasdaq: PLCE ) , whose recent revenue and earnings are plotted below. - [By Jake L'Ecuyer]
The Children's Place Retail Stores (NASDAQ: PLCE) shares tumbled 6.62 percent to $51.08 after the company reported an 18% drop in its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings and issued a weak outlook.
- [By Anna Prior]
Among the companies with shares expected to actively trade in Thursday’s session are Children's Place Retail Stores Inc.(PLCE), Costco Wholesale Corp.(COST) and Staples Inc.(SPLS)
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