When Supersize Me --�a documentary about the health problems one man got from eating nothing but McDonald's (NYSE: MCD ) fast food -- came out in 2004, McDonald's almost immediately stopped using the term. People no longer wanted to "supersize" their meals.
Not surprisingly, there was a sharp increase in the company's healthy eating index corresponding to about the same time. Sadly, according to a study by the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, McDonald's and its cohorts still haven't done a good enough job of improving the quality of what is being served to customers.
A 14-year study yields minimal improvements
Back in 1997, researchers sampled food offerings from McDonald's, Berkshire Hathaway's�Dairy Queen, PepsiCo's�Taco Bell (now owned by Yum!), Yum! Brands' (NYSE: YUM ) KFC, and Wendy's (NASDAQ: WEN ) , among others.
5 Best Industrial Disributor Stocks To Invest In 2015: Take-Two Interactive Software Inc.(TTWO)
Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. publishes, develops, and distributes interactive entertainment software, hardware, and accessories worldwide. The company develops and publishes software titles for various gaming and entertainment hardware platforms, including PlayStation3 and PlayStation2 computer entertainment systems, PlayStation Portable system, Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system, and Wii and DS systems, as well as for the personal computer and games for Windows. It offers products through its wholly owned labels Rockstar Games and 2K, which publishes titles under 2K Games, 2K Sports, and 2K Play. The company, through its subsidiary, Jack of All Games, also distributes software, hardware, and accessories in North America. Its proprietary brand franchises include Grand Theft Auto; Sid Meier's Civilization; Max Payne; Midnight Club; Manhunt; Red Dead Revolver; Bully; BioShock; Sid Meier's Railroads!; Sid Meier's Pirates!; Carnival Games; and Top Spin, as wel l as licensed brands comprise the sports games Major League Baseball 2K; NBA 2K; and NHL 2K. The company sells its software titles to retail outlets through direct relationships with large retail customers and third party distributors. Its customers include mass merchandisers, specialty retailers, video stores, electronics stores, toy stores, national and regional drug stores, and supermarket and discount store chains. The company was founded in 1993 and is headquartered in New York, New York.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Wallace Witkowski]
Stock in Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. (TTWO) �declined 4.4% to $19.72 on moderate volume as investors also weighed a quarterly earnings beat with a poor outlook.
Best Quality Stocks To Buy For 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 Evan Niu, CFA]
This was inevitable. With Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL ) continued share weakness as Google (NASDAQ: GOOG ) keeps on marching higher, the search giant was bound to overtake the Mac maker in one important valuation metric: enterprise value.
Best Quality Stocks To Buy For 2014: Ball Corporation (BLL)
Ball Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, supplies metal packaging to the beverage, food, and household products industries worldwide. It offers aluminum and steel beverage containers for producers of beer, carbonated soft drinks, mineral water, fruit juices, energy drinks, and other beverages. The company also provides two-piece and three-piece steel food containers and ends for packaging vegetables, fruit, soups, meat, seafood, nutritional products, pet food, and other products, as well as aerosol cans, paint cans, custom and specialty containers and decorative steel tins. In addition, the company provides various aerospace systems comprising spacecraft, instruments and sensors, radio frequency and microwave technologies, data exploitation solutions, and other aerospace technologies and products, as well as offers technical services and products to government agencies, contractors, and commercial organizations for a range of information warfare, electronic warfar e, avionics, intelligence, training, and space systems needs. Ball Corporation was founded in 1880 and is headquartered in Broomfield, Colorado.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Jonas Elmerraji]
$9 billion packaging company Ball Corp. (BLL) has actually been a spectacular performer in 2014 -- shares are up 25% since the beginning of the year. But don't worry if you missed the move so far; Ball is headed for more upside before the end of the year. And it's all thanks to one of the most basic price patterns in our playbook...
Ball has been bouncing its way higher in a well-defined uptrending channel, in this case since the start of May. Every test of trendline support has provided investors with a low-risk buying opportunity for shares of Ball, and shares are bouncing off of support for an eighth time this week. It makes sense to buy this support bounce.
Waiting for a bounce off of support is a critical test for two big reasons: it's the spot where shares have the furthest to move up before they hit resistance, and it's the spot where the risk is the least (because shares have the least room to move lower before you know you're wrong). Remember, all trend lines do eventually break, but by actually waiting for the bounce to happen first, you're ensuring BLL can actually still catch a bid along that line before you put your money on shares.
Must Read: 10 Stocks Carl Icahn Loves in 2014
- [By Monica Gerson]
Ball (NYSE: BLL) is expected to report its Q3 earnings at $0.93 per share on revenue of $2.26 billion.
United Stationers (NASDAQ: USTR) is projected to post its Q3 earnings at $0.99 per share on revenue of $1.33 billion.
- [By Rich Duprey]
Food and beverage packaging specialist Ball� (NYSE: BLL ) �has launched a�cash tender offer�for its 7.125% senior notes maturing in 2016.�The company is offering $1,053.22 in total for each $1,000 in principal value of the notes, plus accrued and unpaid interest. All told, the issue has an aggregate principal amount of $375 million.
Best Quality Stocks To Buy For 2014: PostRock Energy Corporation(PSTR)
PostRock Energy Corporation, an integrated independent energy company, engages in the acquisition, exploration, development, production, and transportation of oil and natural gas in the United States. It operates in two segments, Oil and Gas Production, and Natural Gas Pipelines. The Oil and Gas Production segment primarily focuses on the development of coal bed methane in the Cherokee basin and the Marcellus Shale in Appalachian Basin, as well as has oil properties in Central Oklahoma. As of December 31, 2009, it had approximately 51.9 billion cubic feet equivalent (Bcfe) of estimated net proved reserves; development rights to approximately 516,184 net acres; and operated approximately 2,849 gross wells in the Cherokee Basin. It also had approximately 44,507 net acres of oil and natural gas producing properties with estimated proved reserves of 18.9 Bcfe and approximately 498 gross wells in Appalachian Basin; and had 65 gross wells, development rights to approximately 1,4 80 net acres, and estimated net proved reserves, 3.9 Bcfe in Central Oklahoma. The Natural Gas Pipelines segment involves in transporting, gathering, treating, and processing natural gas. It owns and operates a natural gas gathering pipeline networks of approximately 2,173 miles in the Cherokee Basin and 183 miles in the Appalachian Basin; and a 1,120 mile interstate natural gas pipeline, which transports natural gas from northern Oklahoma and western Kansas to the metropolitan Wichita and Kansas City markets. The company is headquartered in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Eric Volkman]
LeBlanc is a veteran energy industry CFO. He has filled that role at East Resources -- now a unit of Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE: RDS-A ) -- as well as�PostRock Energy (NASDAQ: PSTR ) , and Range Resources, among others.
Best Quality Stocks To Buy For 2014: E*TRADE Financial Corporation(ETFC)
E*TRADE Financial Corporation, a financial services company, provides online brokerage and related products and services primarily to individual retail investors under the E*TRADE Financial brand in the United States. It offers trading products and services, including automated order placement and execution of the U.S. equities, futures, options, exchange-traded funds, and bond orders; sweep deposit accounts; access to E*TRADE Mobile Pro to trade stocks and transfer funds between accounts, as well as to monitor real-time investment, market, and account information; access to Power E*TRADE Pro, a desktop trading software for active traders; an open applications programming interface for third-party and independent software developers; margin accounts; cross boarder trading; access to international equities; research and trade idea generation tools; and E*TRADE Community that utilizes social media to offer a platform to customers. The company also provides access to the inve stor resource center that provides an aggregated view of its investing tools, market insights, independent research, education, and other investing resources; advisory services through Online Advisor; fixed income tools to identify, evaluate, and implement fixed income investment strategies; access to Retirement QuickPlan calculator that provides action plan on personal retirement savings; one-on-one portfolio recommendations and personalized plans; managed investment portfolio advisory services; unified managed account advisory services; individual retirement accounts; access to non-proprietary exchange-traded funds and mutual funds; investing and trading educational services through online videos, Web seminars, and Web tutorials; and deposit accounts, including checking, savings, and money market accounts. In addition, it provides software and services for managing equity compensation plans for corporate customers. The company was founded in 1982 and is headquartered in Ne w York, New York.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By victorselva]
The Charles Schwab Corporation (SCHW) is a savings and loan holding company. The company is engaged, through its subsidiaries, in securities brokerage, banking, money management, and financial advisory services. Its subsidiaries include Charles Schwab & Co. (a leading discount broker-dealer), Charles Schwab Investment Management (a mutual fund investment advisor) and Charles Schwab Bank.In this article, let's take a look at this brokerage firm and try to explain to investors the reasons this is an apparently appealing investment opportunity.The FocusThe company provides financial services to individuals and institutional clients through two segments: Investor Services and Institutional Services. The Investor Services segment provides retail brokerage and banking services to individual investors. The Institutional Services segment provides custodial, trading, and support services to independent investment advisors. The Institutional Services segment also provides retirement plan services, specialty brokerage services, and mutual fund clearing services. The company seeks to meet the financial services needs of investors, advisers and employers. It focuses on building client loyalty with the goal of attracting new clients and serving them. Additionally, Schwab麓s strengths through shared core processes and technology advances which help create services that are scalable and consistent with the business.Interest Rates, Capital Structure and Debt-to-Capital RatioThe results are dependent on short-term interest rates, as 37% of its top line came from net interest income in the first quarter of 2014.The broker has been making significant efforts to become less dependent on interest rates, which we expect Federal Reserve will raise them in late 2014 or 2015. Also, the company麓s plan is to reach a low-cost capital structure and targets a long-term debt-to-total financial capital ratio of less than 30%.Lucrative Derivatives Trading In 2011, the company acquired Compl
- [By Bryan Murphy]
It almost seems impossible to believe that a new online-trading firm could find itself shoulder-to-shoulder with the likes of Charles Schwab Corp. (NYSE:SCHW), TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. (NYSE:AMTD), and E-TRADE Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:ETFC). All three of those companies have been around since the mid-90's, and got into the online-trading game at the exact right time (when the world wide web just exploded into existence), and having secured their places at the top three spots in terms of the industry's North American market share, it's tough to imagine any other name chipping away at AMTD, ETFC, or SCHW and becoming as big as these three iconic names. It's possible, however, when the opportunity is right. Well, the opportunity is right for one such name, and that budding company's odds of growth just got a whole lot better today.
- [By David Hanson and Matt Koppenheffer]
In this segment of The Motley Fool's everything-financials show, Where the Money Is, banking analysts Matt Koppenheffer and David Hanson discuss�quarterly results from�E*TRADE (NASDAQ: ETFC ) , the future of online brokers, and the threat of the big banks.
Best Quality Stocks To Buy For 2014: Federal-Mogul Corporation(FDML)
Federal-Mogul Corporation supplies powertrain and safety technologies worldwide. The company?s Powertrain Energy segment offers powertrain components, such as engine pistons, piston rings, piston pins, cylinder liners, camshafts, valve seats and guides, and ignition products under the Federal-Mogul, AE, Champion, Goetze, Nural, and Daros brand names. Its Powertrain Sealing and Bearings segment provides dynamic seals, bonded piston seals, combustion and exhaust gaskets, static gaskets and seals, rigid heat shields, engine bearings, industrial bearings, bushings and washers, sintered engine and transmission components, and metallic filters, as well as polymer bearings primarily under the Federal-Mogul, Deva, Fel-Pro, FP Diesel, Glyco, Metafram, Metagliss, National, Payen, and Poral brand names. The company?s Vehicle Safety and Protection segment offers brake disc pads, brake linings, brake blocks, element resistant systems protection sleeving products, flexible heat shield s, brake system components, chassis products, windshield wipers, fuel pumps, and lighting products under the Federal-Mogul, Abex, Anco, Bentley-Harris, Beral, Champion, Ferodo, Moog, ThermoQuiet, and Wagner brands. Its Global Aftermarket segment provides aftermarket products to distributors, retail parts stores, and mass merchants who distribute these products to professional service providers and do-it-yourself consumers under the Abex, AE, ANCO, Beral, Carter, Champion, Fel-Pro, Ferodo, FP Diesel, Glyco, Goetze, MOOG, National, Necto, Nural, Payen, Sealed Power, ThermoQuiet, and Wagner brand names. The company serves original equipment manufacturers of automotive, as well as light, medium and heavy-duty commercial vehicles; and agricultural, marine, rail, aerospace, off-road, and industrial applications, as well as the aftermarket sector. The company was founded in 1899 and is headquartered in Southfield, Michigan. Federal-Mogul Corporation is a subsidiary of Icahn Enterpr ises L.P.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Rich Smith]
Southfield, Mich.-based Federal-Mogul (NASDAQ: FDML ) already has one chief executive officer, but as the Russians like to say, "Too much is better than not enough" -- so today, the company hired another.
- [By Patrick Morris]
Honeywell (NYSE: HON ) announced today that Federal-Mogul (NASDAQ: FDML ) has agreed to purchase portions of its brake friction business in the automotive and industrial sectors for $155 million. Honeywell has more than 2,000 global employees in its Friction Material business, which is headquartered in Germany.�
- [By abirk]
On Jan.7, Honeywell announced the sales of its friction materials business, which makes brake pads, to Federal-Mogul Corp. (FDML) for $155 million. The company�� transportation systems division will get a boost from this deal. Further, to support critical infrastructure improvement at the industrial facility, with an aim to save energy, Honeywell and the U.S. army recently announced a $61 million infrastructure improvement project at the Rock Island Arsenal Joint Manufacturing Technology Center (JMTC). The project will be completed by the first half of 2017.
- [By John Udovich]
Auto parts retailers like large cap O'Reilly Automotive Inc (NASDAQ: ORLY) and mid cap Advance Auto Parts, Inc (NYSE: AAP)�along with small cap auto parts stock Federal-Mogul Corp (NASDAQ: FDML) have been a bright spot on the economy as consumers try to stretch the lives of their automobiles or vehicles in the bad or uncertain economy. In fact, Investors Business Daily has recently noted that the�average age of cars on the road is about 11.5 years and that�� of course good news for auto parts retailers while�any uptick in sales or production of auto parts in general�will be good for companies like Federal-Mogul Corp. With that in mind, here�is a look at�how these three auto parts retailers or auto parts stocks are taking investors for a ride in a good way:
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