Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Top 5 Building Product Companies For 2014

Initial public offerings (IPOs) have skyrocketed so far in 2014, particularly for new biotech firms. According to the Financial Times, eight biotech firms raised a total of more than $500 million last week alone.

Here�� a look at two IPOs from last week that were not biotech firms and two of the biotechs��IPOs.

Ladder Capital Corp. (NYSE: LADR) priced its offering of 13.25 million shares on Wednesday night at $17, at the mid-point of its expected range of $16 to $18 a share. Underwriters have a 30-day option on an additional 1.99 million shares. Ladder raised approximately $226 million in the IPO. Shares opened Thursday at around $16.50 but finished the first day of trading at $16.99. They closed Friday at $17.30. Ladder is a commercial real-estate finance firm that uses a proprietary platform to originate conduit loans. It bundles the loans and sells them commercial backed mortgage securities (CMBS).

Continental Building Products Inc. (NYSE: CBPX) priced its IPO on Tuesday night at $14, below the expected range of $16 to $18 a share. Shares opened at $14.52 on Wednesday and hit an intraday high of $17.74 on Thursday. They closed on Friday at $17.30. The company raised $165.2 million on the offering of 11.8 million shares. The company makes and sells gypsum board to the construction industry.

Hot Dividend Stocks To Invest In Right Now: Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri AS(TKC)

Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri A.S. engages in establishing and operating a global system for mobile communications network in Turkey. It provides mobile voice, and Internet services over its mobile communications network; voice services, which include wireless telephone services on a prepaid and postpaid basis; mobile Internet and 3G services; consumer services; Telco services; TV and video services; music services; infotainment services; social community and other services; and mobile financial services The company also offers Turkcell enablers and platforms; corporate (B2B); corporate telco; authentication; location based; mobile marketing; machine-to-machine communications; and international roaming services. In addition, it provides Mobile Signature, a GSM service that enables customers to sign electronic documents and transactions with a legally-accepted digital signature using GSM SIM cards; and Mobile Billboard, which enables brands to reach their targeted customers . As of December 31, 2010, the company had approximately 23.3 million prepaid subscribers and 10.1 million postpaid subscribers. It sells its products and services through its distribution network consists of distributors, Turkcell distribution centers, corporate solution centers, non exclusive dealers, Turkcell communication centers, Turkcell stores, and consumer electronic Chains, as well as points of sale for prepaid airtime, including ATMs, POS, Web, call centers, supermarkets, and kiosks. The company was founded in 1993 and is headquartered in Istanbul, Turkey. Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri AS is a subsidiary of Turkcell Holding A.S.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Lisa Levin]

    Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri AS (NYSE: TKC) shares reached a new 52-week low of $12.74. Turkcell's trailing-twelve-month EPS is $1.40.

    Posted-In: 52-Week LowsNews Movers & Shakers Intraday Update Markets

  • [By Jake L'Ecuyer]

    Leading and Lagging Sectors
    Telecommunications services shares gained around 0.83 percent in the US market on Monday. Top gainers in the sector included China Telecom Corp. (NYSE: CHA),Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri AS (NYSE: TKC), and China Unicom (Hong Kong) Limited (NYSE: CHU). In trading on Monday, basic materials shares were relative laggards, down on the day by about 0.75 percent.

  • [By Jake L'Ecuyer]

    Leading and Lagging Sectors
    Telecommunications services shares gained around 0.83 percent in the US market on Monday. Top gainers in the sector included China Telecom Corp. (NYSE: CHA), Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri AS (NYSE: TKC), and China Unicom (Hong Kong) Limited (NYSE: CHU). In trading on Monday, basic materials shares were relative laggards, down on the day by about 0.75 percent.

Top 5 Building Product Companies For 2014: Boral Ltd (BLD)

Boral Limited (Boral), is engaged in the manufacture and supply of building and construction materials in Australia, the United States and Asia. The Company�� operating segments include Construction Materials & Cement, Building Products, Boral Gypsum, and Boral USA. The Construction Materials & Cement is engaged in quarries, concrete, asphalt, transport, landfill, property, cement and concrete placing. The Building Products segment is engaged in Australian bricks, roof tiles, masonry, timber products and windows. The Boral Gypsum involves Australian and Asian plasterboard. The Boral USA is engaged in Bricks, cultured stone, roof tiles, fly ash, concrete and quarries. Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Eric Lam]

    Ballard Power (BLD), which designs and manufactures hydrogen fuel cells, slumped 15 percent to C$1.42, the biggest decline since March. The company yesterday said it will sell about 9 million units at $1.40 a unit for proceeds of about $12.6 million. The cash generated will be used to fund working capital, support growth and general corporate purposes, the company said.

Top 5 Building Product Companies For 2014: XO Group Inc (XOXO)

XO Group Inc. (XO Group), formerly The Knot, Inc., is a media and technology company. The Company is engaged in the business of weddings, pregnancy and everything in between, providing young women with the information, products and advice to guide them through the transformative events of their lives. Its family of brands began with the wedding brand, The Knot, and it also include WeddingChannel.com, The Nest, The Bump and Ijie.com. XO Group has its presence in all media from the Web to social media and mobile, magazines and books, and video - and social platforms. XO Group has businesses in online sponsorship and advertising, registry services, ecommerce and publishing.

The Company has a network of Websites under several different brands, TheKnot.com, the wedding Website, WeddingChannel.com, the wedding registry site and wedding vendor review site with nearly 350,000 reviews, TheNest.com, a site for newlyweds and new couples, and TheBump.com, a pre-natal and pregnancy Website. These sites offer content and services tailored to the engaged, newly married, and pregnant audiences. Weddings, nesting, and first-time pregnancy are information-intensive events requiring research, planning, and decision-making.

The sites provides future brides and grooms with databases that draw on thousands of articles about weddings, including planning advice, etiquette, Q&As, real wedding stories, tips on getting engaged, fashion, beauty, grooms, the wedding party, and honeymoons. TheNest.com offers information and resources on merging bank accounts and making dinner, with searchable databases for recipes, home decor, and real estate. For couples who are getting ready for a baby, the same urgent need for information surfaces, which the Company provides at TheBump.com with baby naming tools, nursery decor ideas, and a host of health and development-related information. Each of the content areas offers articles, ideas, hundreds of photo slideshows, and videos, all covering a wide range of styles,! perspectives, budgets, traditions, lifestyles and ethnicities.

Active Community Participation and Social Networking

The community areas on XO Group websites generate member involvement through message boards, blogs, and personalized interactive services. Women who are planning their weddings actively seek forums to exchange ideas and ask questions. The community areas feature 24-hour activity.

User-Generated Content

Through blogs, message boards, and photo-posting features, all XO Group sites feature many forms of user-generated content related to the particular interests of its audience. Recent brides post wedding photos, vendor reviews, and their own wedding advice for future brides. Recent home purchasers post home-buying stories, before and after photos, and photos of their own home decor ideas. Pregnant women post chronicles of their pregnancies, reviews of their doctors, photos of their nurseries, and stories of their newborns at key developmental stages.

Interactive Tools

TheKnot.com offers, personalized wedding planning tools, including checklists, budgeters, guest list managers, calendars, and reminder services. An online scrapbook gives users the ability to save favorite dresses, articles, photos, vendors, honeymoons, wedding supplies, and other planning information. After a couple�� wedding day, these personalized tools are automatically converted to its newlywed Website, TheNest.com, to help them organize their new life as a married couple. The guest list manager is used to track thank-you notes, and couples receive an entirely new checklist and budgeter to help them organize their newlywed to-dos and finances. On TheBump.com, it offers checklists, budget tools, a baby name tool, and tools to track everything from ovulation to breastfeeding. These tools are also available on mobile platforms, which provide its users the ability to modify budgets and check off tasks from the convenience of their mobile phones. !

The Company offers personal pregnancy and baby websites through TheBump.com. XO Group Websites offers tools to assist with shopping for key elements of a wedding. Its wedding planning sites highlight a searchable bridal gown database with more than 5,000 gown images from over 200 designers, plus searchable databases for bridesmaid, mother-of-the-bride, and flower girl dresses, bridal accessories, engagement and wedding rings and tuxedos. The sites also offer search tools for honeymoon resorts, jewelry, and tabletop products. Local Resource Listings

The local resource areas on XO Group websites provide access to the local wedding market through online regional guides that host nearly 21,000 local vendors who display over 28,000 profiles, highlighting offerings for reception halls, bands, florists, caterers and other wedding-related products and services across 85 local markets in North America.

One-Stop Registry Shopping Service

WeddingChannel.com is the registry site online. Its patented registry aggregation service offers couples and their guests one place to view all their gift registries via a registry system that searches approximately 4.5 million registries from many retail partners, including Macy��, Crate & Barrel, Williams-Sonoma, Bed, Bath & Beyond, Target, Amazon.com, Tiffany & Co., JCPenney and others. TheBump.com uses the same patented registry aggregation service to focus on baby registries, including Target, Buy Buy Baby, Diapers.com, Pottery Barn Kids and more.

The Company integrates informative content with online shops that feature an array of attendant gifts, favors, and supplies that relate to the wedding itself, as well as apparel, toys, gifts, and other goods for babies. It sells directly to consumers through its integrated shopping destinations, The Knot Wedding Shop, the WeddingChannel Store and The Bump Baby Shop. These online stores offer over 4,000 products, including cocktail napkins, wedding bubbles and bells, candy! and cook! ies, ring pillows, toasting flutes, reception decorations, table centerpieces, goblets and glasses, garters, and unity candles.

Broadband Video Content

The Knot TV is a continuous video stream that includes a range of wedding content, including shows about choosing a creative cake, hiring the videographer, planning dream honeymoons and learning about real weddings across the country. It produces video on demand content for The Knot, The Nest, and The Bump brands, covering everything from wedding fashion to home tours to mommy advice. The Knot TV On Demand provides video content from bridal fashion runway shows for brides to watch when they want, including programs on the trends in dresses, silhouettes, necklines, and accessories. Its video content is also distributed to MSN.com video, YouTube, and Sling Media. The Knot TV also features live programming with limited runs of The Knot LIVE, a weekly magazine format show.

Informative E-mail

Members of XO Group Websites subscribe to newsletters and e-mail updates, many of which are targeted with information for members in a specific stage of the wedding planning process. Other newsletters and e-mails are focused on specific topics, including honeymoon deals and personalized e-mails containing relevant local information or offers, such as bridal events or dress sample sales. E-mails are also sent to members of The Nest and The Bump with sponsored promotions and information about their stage of pregnancy or the age of their newborn.

Niche Website Network and Sister Sites

The Company also owns and operates a network of targeted websites that offer services of interest to its core audience of engaged couples. These include niche weddings sites such as ChineseWeddingsbyTheKnot.com, BeachWeddingsbyTheKnot.com, GayWeddingsbyTheKnot.com and over 300 other sites tailored to the searched-for wedding destinations and themes. The sites features local listings, forums, real wedding photos an! d local p! lanning advice.

The Company sells both the national and local editions of The Knot Weddings magazines through newsstands, bookstores, and on its Website, and it distributes local editions of The Bump pregnancy guide to doctors��offices across the country. It also offers a library of books complementing the content on its lifestages websites.

The Knot Weddings National Magazine

It publishes The Knot Weddings magazine four times a year. It features hundreds of dresses from the industry�� top designers. Also featured is an array of photos of wedding party attire and accessories, including bridesmaid, mother-of-the-bride, and flower girl dresses, as well as veils, shoes, and tuxedos.

The Knot Weddings Local Magazines

It publishes regional wedding magazines semi-annually in 17 markets in the United States. The Knot�� regional magazines combine national editorial content with up-to-date, region-specific information, including sections featuring real weddings within the market, making these publications a must-have wedding planning companion for engaged couples.

The Bump Magazine

A pocketbook-sized magazine for first-time moms, The Bump magazine features local resources and modern advice from its editors and nationally-recognized experts.

The Company sells both the national and local editions of The Knot Weddings magazines through newsstands, bookstores, and on its Website, and it distributes local editions of The Bump pregnancy guide to doctors��offices across the country. It also offers a library of books complementing the content on its lifestages Websites. It publishes The Knot Weddings magazine four times a year.

The Company publishes regional wedding magazines semi-annually in 17 markets in the United States. The Knot�� regional magazines combine national editorial content with up-to-date, region-specific information, including sections featuring real weddings within the ! market, m! aking these publications a must-have wedding planning companion for engaged couples.

A pocketbook-sized magazine for first-time moms, The Bump magazine features local resources and modern advice from our editors and nationally-recognized experts. Distributed at no charge through OB/GYN offices in 20 markets nationwide, The Bump magazine is specifically designed to connect first-time parents with the information and resources they need to prepare for a baby. It publishes The Bump magazine semi-annually.

The Company offers a library of up-to-date wedding books authored by itsChief Content Officer Carley Roney and published by divisions of Random House and Chronicle Books. Its first three-book wedding planning series published by Random House�� Broadway Books includes The Knot Ultimate Wedding Planner, The Knot Complete Guide to Weddings in the Real World, and The Knot Guide to Wedding Vows and Traditions. These books feature information on everything a bride and groom need to know when planning their wedding and includes worksheets, checklists, etiquette, and answers to frequently asked questions. Its gift book series published by Chronicle Books includes The Knot Book of Wedding Gowns, The Knot Book of Wedding Flowers, The Knot Guide for the Mother of the Bride, and The Knot Guide for the Groom. Its second planning series, published by Random House�� Clarkson Potter, includes The Knot Guide to Destination Weddings, The Knot Book of Wedding Lists and The Knot Bridesmaid Handbook.

The Company offers a series of books for The Nest brand published by Clarkson Potter. The first book in the series, The Nest Newlywed Handbook, goes on the topics of interest to the newlywed, from changing its name to deciding how to divide up the daily chores. The second title, The Nest Home Design Handbook, is a four-color, photo-filled book on home decoration and design.

The Company competes with Brides magazine (published by Conde Nast), Bridal Guide (published by RFP LLC) ! and Marth! a Stewart Weddings.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Vera Yuan]

    For the calendar year-to-date, the Fund�� Investor Class returned +2.9% compared to +8.3% for the S&P 500 and +7.0% for the Russell 3000. DIRECTV (DTV) (+25% on AT&T�� buyout offer), Martin Marietta Materials (MLM) (+30% on its acquisition of Texas Industries) and Valeant Pharmaceuticals (VRX) (+12%, and in the news for its hostile takeover battle for Allergan) benefited from the robust deal environment in different ways. Interval Leisure (IILG) (-37%) was the largest detractor and one of our few companies where business value declined. Our earnings estimates fell roughly 15% when Interval announced that four large, multi-year corporate relationships renewed at less favorable rates in their timeshare exchange business. We think the stock has overreacted to this news, and the company continues to add strategically to its platform. Other small-cap stocks that detracted from year-to-date results included XO Group (XOXO) (-25%) and Redwood Trust (RWT) (-11%). Broader themes behind the relative shortfall include our overweight position in consumer discretionary companies (the weakest sector in the market year-to-date), our lack of near-term big winners in health care and technology (the strongest sectors in the market year-to-date) and our conservative portfolio positioning in the first half of the year. We are not pleased with recent results. It is natural for our concentrated investing style to be out of step with the market at times.

Top 5 Building Product Companies For 2014: diaDexus, Inc. (DDXS)

diaDexus, Inc. (diaDexus), incorporated on November 27, 1995, is a medical diagnostics company. The Company is focused on the development and commercialization of in vitro diagnostic products addressing unmet needs in cardiovascular disease. diaDexus�� product, the PLAC Test, helps identify individuals suffering a heart attack or stroke, the #1 and #3 causes of death, respectively in the United States. The PLAC Test measures Lp-PLA2, which is a vascular-specific inflammatory marker implicated in the formation of rupture-prone plaque.

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has developed an Lp-PLA2 inhibitor (darapladib) and is testing the drug in two large, global, Phase III clinical trials involving over 27,000 patients to determine if inhibition of the enzyme reduces cardiovascular events. The PLAC Test is a blood test, available nationally through clinical reference, hospital, and advanced cardiovascular diagnostic laboratories.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Peter Graham]

    Small cap stocks Pulse Network Inc (OTCBB: TPNI), Sterling Consolidated Corp (OTCBB: STCC) and diaDexus, Inc (OTCMKTS: DDXS) have or could start to sizzle for investors. However, I should also mention that two of these stocks have been the subject of paid promotions while a third apparently has not been, and could be the real deal. With that in mind, here is a closer look along with a quick reality check about all three small caps to help you decide whether they are hot or not:

  • [By Peter Graham]

    Small cap medical device or biotech related stocks Therapeutic Solutions International Inc (OTCMKTS: TSOI), diaDexus, Inc (OTCMKTS: DDXS) and Spherix Inc (NASDAQ: SPEX) have been getting some attention lately in various investment newsletters with the good news being that it appears none are the subject of paid promotions from stock promoters. So why are these three stocks all of a sudden getting some attention and what else do you need to know about them before you make a short or a long term bet on one? Here is a closer look at the whole picture and what you might be missing:

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