Investopedia: The Salix Story Keeps Improving

Investors have a solid dozen investment options in Big Pharma and hundreds of biotechs to choose from, but the specialty pharmaceutical space has always been a little thin. That gives Salix Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq:SLXP) a little bit of scarcity value - it has excellent growth credentials but also some of the security that comes with patents and the requirement for rivals to go through the FDA approval process.

One Drug to Lead the Way  
One of the problems with specialty pharmaceutical companies like Salix, Forest Labs (NYSE:FRX), and Endo Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq:ENDP) is that they're often highly dependent on a very small number of drugs. For Salix, it's Xifaxam - a non-systemic antibiotic that works especially well in the GI system. Xifaxam is approved for traveler's diarrhea and hepatic encephalopathy (where it has orphan drug status) and currently contributes about two-thirds of the company's sales.

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Investopedia: Atmel's Investment Case Is Touch And Go

For years bears have been waiting for Atmel (Nasdaq:ATML) to come up with some sort of product to really stand out from the crowd. Now that they have it, the worries have shifted to whether the company may become too dependent on them and risk losing share to a host of would-be rivals. Although Atmel is not the safest pick in the chip space, several potential market rebounds could drive better results in 2012 and 2013.

Good Touch and Bad Touch  
Atmel's maXTouch solutions for touchscreen controllers have definitely spiced up its microcontroller business, though it is not the largest business yet. In this case the name is pretty self-explanatory; maXTouch chips allow for the touchscreen interfaces that are now so commonplace in smartphones and tablets. Atmel has garnered an early lead in this fast-growing market, in part due to technology good enough to get it in eight of the top 10 phones in early 2011.

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Investopedia: Can Fusion-IO Outrun The Tiger?

There is a saying that goes, "you don't have to be faster than the tiger, you just have to be faster than your slowest friend." That may be a constructive way of thinking about Fusion-IO (NYSE:FIO) today. There's no question that this is a high-growth tech stock with a huge multiple and huge expectations, but that has never stopped those tech stocks that can deliver the goods. (For more, see Earning Forecasts: A Primer.)

Big Data 2.0  
In some respects, what Fusion-IO seeks to do is relatively simple. In the same way that solid-state drives (SSD) have offered consumers considerably better performance than hard disk drives, Fusion-IO is trying to bring the advantages of flash/SSD memory to the enterprise data market.

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Investopedia: Currency All-Time Highs And Lows

There is little question that the end of the Bretton Woods system of fixed currency rates in the 1970s led to major changes in the global financial markets. Forex trading has become an enormous global market and it is hard to listen to an hour of financial news TV without hearing some mention of what's going on with the dollar. (The line between profitable forex trading and ending up in the red may be as simple as choosing the right account. For more, see Forex Basics: Setting Up An Account.)

Although fixed rates meant that for much of financial history the topic of forex rates was rather dry and academic, things have certainly changed since then. There has been a remarkable increase in trading volume and volatility and many major currencies have seen major swings in the floating market since 1990.


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Seeking Alpha: Will Exiting Energy Re-Energize Headwaters?

There was a point in time when Headwaters (HW) was an interesting play on clean(er) energy, what with its coal conversion, coal cleaning, and catalyst technologies. As it turns out, most of those energy opportunities really couldn't stand on their own merits and one by one fell to the wayside. Now the company stands as a debt-ridden building products company operating in one of the worst construction markets in living memory. While that sounds bad, and is indeed challenging, it looks like a series of asset sales will keep the company in place to benefit from that eventual rebound in construction activity.

Farewell To Ethanol, Coal Cleaning Next?
Headwaters started the year by announcing the sale of its 51% interest in the Blue Flint Ethanol LLC to its partner Great River Energy for $18.5 million. That was about 20% better than management had led the Street to believe and the added balance sheet flexibility is welcome.

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Will Exiting Energy Re-Energize Headwaters?

Seeking Alpha: Cummins - A Rockier Road In 2012?

Sometimes a company executes its plan so well that you almost forget that it still operates in a cyclical industry outside of its control. Such seems to be the case with diesel engine and power generator manufacturer Cummins (CMI). Although Cummins management has done a great job of emphasizing free cash flow growth and economic returns, to say nothing of international exposure that many companies dream of, the fact remains that several major markets are looking shaky or at best long in the tooth.

A Tale Of Three Fleets?
For the most part, major North American commercial truck builders like Navistar (NAV), PACCAR (PCAR) and Daimler have been pretty optimistic on the market conditions for new truck builds in 2012. Credit is pretty cheap and even if the trucking industry isn't going gangbusters, it still needs to update fleets.

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Cummins: A Rockier Road In 2012?

Seeking Alpha: Citi Earnings Show The Clouds And The Silver Lining

Almost like a game show, with each major bank that reports earnings, the true picture gets a little bit more clear. At this point, it's looking like the fourth quarter was a fair bit better for banks than Wall Street wanted to acknowledge. To what extent this helps Citigroup (C), though, is an open question - while there is still interesting long-range potential here, fourth quarter results highlight both how much further Citi needs to travel and how rocky that path may be.

Fourth Quarter Results - Which Numbers Matter?
When even relatively well-respect banks like JPMorgan (JPM) and M&T Bank (MTB) hand out messy earnings reports, you know it's a fairly common industry issue. Citigroup's earnings were no exception, as they contained the usual melange of charges, special items, and gains.

On the top line, though, Citi missed. Instead of the $18.5 billion that analysts expected, Citi produced about $17.2 billion. Core Citicorp revenue fell 11% (very much due to the trading and banking operations), while the Citi Holdings run-off arm saw reported revenue fall 1%.

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Citi Earnings Show The Clouds And The Silver Lining

Seeking Alpha: Tenneco Looks To Commercial Vehicles To Expand Markets, Margins

The past year may not have been especially great to auto and truck part manufacturers, but Tenneco (TEN) has fared worse than most. The company has been slow to realize the margin improvements that it has been promising for some time and analyst estimates have been heading steadily lower. All of that said, investors should not ignore the potential growth that could come as the company focuses on penetrating the commercial vehicle market.

A Leader In A Key Market
There is no question that the auto and truck markets are cyclical and Tenneco can do little about that basic fact. Nevertheless, countries around the world have gotten increasingly serious about emissions control and Tenneco is a leading name in emission control technologies for vehicles. Tenneco supplements this emissions business (which contributes about 70% of revenue) with a ride-control business that produces components like shocks, struts, and mounts.

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Tenneco Looks To Commercial Vehicles To Expand Markets, Margins

Seeking Alpha: 5 High Quality Large Med-Tech Names You Can Buy Today

It hasn't been easy to make money in medical device stocks over the past year. Volume growth has been stymied by a job market where people have lost health insurance coverage or cannot afford to take time off to recuperate from major procedures. At the same time, Department of Justice audits have forced hospitals to reexamine their reimbursement and device usage policies. If that wasn't enough, those same hospitals are pushing back on the sort of annual price increases that medical device companies once considered automatic.

Against that sluggish backdrop all is not lost. Hospitals may have over-implanted cardiac rhythm devices like ICDs and orthopedic devices like artificial hips, but long-term demographics and quality of life expectations still favor these businesses. What's more, many companies have harvested the cash flow of their existing businesses to invest in long-range R&D projects that could open up large markets in the years to come.

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5 High Quality Large Med-Tech Names You Can Buy Today

Investopedia: Zhongpin Could Be Hog Heaven For Investors

Although the scandals surrounding small Chinese stocks in 2010 and 2011 never crept as high as the huge companies like Petrochina (NYSE:PTR) or Lenovo (OTCBB:LNVGY.PK), Zhongpin (Nasdaq:HOGS) did come in for closer scrutiny and doubt. Although history suggests investors can never completely trust any company, hog producer Zhongpin may yet be a sound strategy for benefiting from improving standards of living in the PRC.

The Number Four Player in the Protein of Choice  
Zhongpin is the fourth-largest pork processor/packer in China, but holds less than 1% share of the hog slaughter market and the larger players will scarcely familiar to most readers in North America (Shanghui, China Yurun, and People's Food). With the top five producers holding less than 10% share, the Chinese market is a far cry from the highly concentrated U.S. market that is largely dominated by companies like Tyson (NYSE:TSN), Smithfield (Nasdaq:SFD), Seaboard (AMEX:SEB), Swift (owned by Brazil's JBS) and Cargill, where the top four companies have over 60% of the market.

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Investopedia: OM Group - Just Another Cheap Commodity Play, Or Something More?

At first glance, it probably seems fair that OM Group (NYSE:OMG) is trading at a low valuation. The company's cobalt business has seen significant price erosion in cobalt, the battery business is heavily weighted towards defense and aerospace, the electronics/chip business is terrible and the company doesn't seem to know what it wants to be.

Despite all of this, the company has good positions in growth markets, a well-respected new CFO and a relatively clean balance sheet. It is by no means the safest stock in the market today, but if OM Group can exercise on its apparent vision of becoming a leading player in multiple specialty chemical markets, the stock is too cheap today. (For more, see Earning Forecasts: A Primer.)

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Investopedia: Cascade Microtech - An Obscure Chip Recovery Play

Semiconductors and semiconductor equipment are sizable sub-sectors within the technology sector and investors are certainly not lacking in alternatives to play the eventual recovery in chips. One name that is likely not on most investors' lists is Cascade Microtech (Nasdaq:CSCD). This company is an interesting turnaround speculation; on one hand, it should be clearly leveraged to a healthier chip market and the expectations are low. On the other hand, even in the best of times this company has never been a top performer and there is the risk that the company languishes as a value trap. (For more, see Earning Forecasts: A Primer.)

Probing for Problems  

Cascade Microtech is largely in the business of helping chip companies find problems early enough to do something about them. Operating in the broadly-defined electrical measurement and test space, Cascade sells stations and cards designed to assess the performance of chips in the research and development (R&D), early production and post-production phases.

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Seeking Alpha: Hurco Delivers A Good Q4, But Europe's A Worry

Machine tool manufacturer Hurco (NASDAQ: HURC) continued to ride the wave of improving conditions in the global industrial economy during the fourth quarter. While the company still looks undervalued on the basis of its long-term prospects, investors in this under-followed capital equipment company may well worry about the order situation. If 2012 does see Europe tip over into recession, the timeline for Hurco to realize its potential will get that much longer.

Solid Results Across The Board
Hurco reported that its fourth-quarter revenue jumped 40% - topping the lone analyst estimate by about 8%. North America continues to be the growth leader, with sales up 60% this quarter on a 38% increase in unit shipments. Europe remains the largest part of its business, with sales up 39% and units up 18%. Asia-Pacific was disappointing this quarter, as revenue fell 4% on a 6% decline in volume.

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Hurco Delivers A Good Q4 But Europe's A Worry

Seeking Alpha: JPMorgan Earnings Disappointing, But Not Disastrous

If JPMorgan Chase's (JPM) fourth quarter earnings are a sign of things to come for other large banks, bulls on the largest financial stocks are going to have sit tight a while longer for real signs of progress. While the core lending and credit card businesses seem to be doing alright, the lucrative investing banking business was even weaker than expected, and JPMorgan is not yet posting especially high returns on its capital.

Readers should note that this article was written before the company's conference cal,l and is based upon the company's press release and earnings supplements.

A Miss On The Top
JPMorgan reported top-line results of $22.2 billion - missing the analysts' average guess by close to $1 billion. Although investment banking performance was expected to be bad, it was even worse in this quarter as fees and trading revenue both fell significantly. Although declines were broadly expected, investors will need to see earnings reports from rivals like Goldman Sachs (GS), Citigroup (C), Bank of America (BAC), and Morgan Stanley (MS) to get a real sense of how weak the market was, and how much (if any) share JPMorgan lost.

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JPMorgan Earnings Disappointing, But Not Disastrous

Investopedia: The Market May Have Already Given Steel Dynamics Its Due

I have made little secret of my admiration for Steel Dynamics (Nasdaq:STLD). I think it's one of the best-run steel companies in the world, and offers an excellent growth profile in an industry that seldom gets much credit for quality management or strategy. Unfortunately, I didn't follow my own advice to buy this stock about a quarter ago and now it looks like it may be too late. (For more, see Earning Forecasts: A Primer.)

Another Quarter, Another Warning  
One of the best signs that momentum is with a stock is that bad news doesn't really knock it off stride. To that end, Steel Dynamics warned the Street in December 2011 that the fourth quarter results weren't going to be as good as they hoped. As is often the case, what is true for Steel Dynamics is broadly true for Nucor (NYSE:NUE), and this larger mini-mill operator likewise announced a weaker fourth quarter would be coming.

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Investopedia: Cisco Not Dead Yet

Every Monty Python fan has their own particular favorite bit, but certainly one of the best-known comes from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" where John Young's character stubbornly proclaims to not be dead, despite the protestations and insistence of John Cleese's character. While this intro could apply to any number of once-great tech stocks, today's subject is Cisco (Nasdaq:CSCO). While Cisco has indeed made many missteps and missed some significant opportunities, this networking giant is most certainly not dead yet. (For more, see Earning Forecasts: A Primer.)


More Share than Many People Think
Not unlike Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT) in operating systems and consumer and business software, much is made of the share that Cisco is going to "inevitably" lose. That seems to fly in the face of the fact that Cisco presently enjoys high-60%'s share in switching, and more than 50% share in routing (with a considerably higher share in enterprise).

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Investopedia: SYNNEX - A Rising Player In A Brutal Business

The world has never especially loved middlemen, but it has never found a way to get on without them. In the business world, distributors of IT products like Synnex (NYSE:SNX) have long had to deal with razor-thin margins, ample competition, high working-capital needs and the threat that its customers and suppliers would work together to work around them. Although Synnex has all of these challenges, the company is doing well in growing margins and expanding its non-distribution business.

A Good Close to the End  
There are plenty of worries about the IT space these days, and warnings from companies like Juniper Networks (NYSE:JNPR) and Oracle (Nasdaq:ORCL) are doing little to help matters. When it comes to actually moving product, though, Synnex saw a very good fourth quarter.

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Investopedia: Miller Industries - A Great Little Company That No One Knows

Sometimes good opportunities literally drive past you on the highway and you take no notice of them. Take the case of tow trucks. If you drive, you probably see a few every week if not every day. But do you ever stop to think about who makes them, or whether there's any money to be made there in a stock portfolio? Investors who can live with the volatility and risk that goes with small-cap stocks should definitely take a look at Miller Industries (NYSE:MLR) - an industry leader that almost nobody seems to know about. (For more, see Earning Forecasts: A Primer.)

A Simple Business, Handled Well  
Miller Industries is the largest manufacturer of tow truck and vehicle recovery equipment, and the owner of well-known (within the industry, at least) brands like Century and Vulcan. Importantly, Miller does not actually manufacture the underlying trucks. Miller's bodies and equipment are mounted on third-party truck chassis like those made by Navistar International (NYSE:NAV), PACCAR (Nasdaq:PCAR), Daimler (OTCBB:DDAIF.PK) and Volvo (OTCBB:VOLVY.PK) and then sold to customers in the vehicle recovery basis.

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http://stocks.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2012/Miller-Industries--A-Great-Little-Company-That-Nobody-Knows-MLR-NAV-PCAR-OSK0112.aspx

Seeking Alpha: Hill-Rom Needs Bedrest, But Should Recover

If you're going to run a boring business in med-tech, you had better run it well or nobody will care about the stock. Hill-Rom (HRC) is undoubtedly in a boring business (hospital beds, movement products, surfaces, and so on), but the execution has been more mixed. Margins here are broadly inferior to many other durable equipment companies and the company has lost some of its strangle-hold on the market to Stryker (SYK). With management giving a disappointing early look at first quarter numbers and trimming full-year expectations, Hill-Rom's stock may be on its back for a little while.


Fiscal First Quarter Earnings Following A Trend
Hill-Rom announced late Tuesday that results for the first quarter were going to come in short of Wall Street expectations. Revenue apparently came in at about $381 million, matching the low end of the analyst range and representing just 2% constant currency growth. Earnings are also going to miss, with the company expecting $0.52 or $0.53 instead of the average estimate of $0.55.

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Hill-Rom Needs Bedrest, But Should Recover

Investopedia: Can Best Buy Find A Relevant Model?

Circuit City? Gone. Borders? Gone. Linens 'N Things? Gone. CompUSA? Gone (though the brand was acquired out of bankruptcy and lives on). So, Best Buy (NYSE:BBY), how ya feeling? Any fever, chills or loss of appetite? With plenty of analysts and commentators fighting over the shovel and the privilege of throwing the next scoop of dirt on its grave, it may surprise some to know that it hasn't actually fallen over. The question, though, is whether the failure of Best Buy is inevitable, preventable or altogether unlikely. (For related reading, see The 4 R's Of Investing In Retail.)  

A Bad Holiday Season?
Best Buy has already announced that U.S. same-store sales were slightly negative for the 2011 holiday season. There was poor performance in gaming, digital imaging and TVs, and solid sales in phones and appliances could not compensate for it. So, once again the question arises as to whether Best Buy can drive sales without deep discounting and whether its business model can withstand high discounting.


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