Utilities that operate nuclear generation facilities have been hurt by pricing pressures created during the downturn in natural gas prices. As is evident in Exelon's (NYSE: EXC ) latest release, these pressures still exist. As a generator of base load energy, Exelon has found itself battling the likes of natural gas, solar, and wind power as all three forms continue to expand their reach within the nuclear segment. This triumvirate has caused a depression in the prices that Exelon is able to charge customers.
Friday will bring a direct comparison to Exelon when Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK ) reports, as it is the largest utility in the country and has a large nuclear presence in the Southeast. I expect that some margin pressure will be felt, but continued benefits from its own merger with Progress Energy should provide similar tailwinds as those Exelon experienced.
A trimmed dividend is leading to a fortress of a balance sheet
As the nation moves increasingly toward clean energy, Exelon is perfectly positioned to capitalize on having the largest nuclear fleet in North America. This strength, combined with an increased focus on balance sheet health and its recent merger with Constellation, places Exelon and its resized dividend on a short list of the top utilities. To determine if Exelon is a good long-term fit for your portfolio, you're invited to check out The Motley Fool's premium research report on the company. Simply click here now for instant access.
Top 5 Electric Utility Companies For 2015: Bed Bath & Beyond Inc.(BBBY)
Bed Bath & Beyond Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates a chain of retail stores. It sells a range of domestic merchandise, such as bed linens and related items, bath items, and kitchen textiles; and home furnishings, including kitchen and tabletop items, fine tabletop, basic housewares, general home furnishings, consumables, and certain juvenile products. The company also offers giftware, household products, and health and beauty care items; and infant and toddler merchandise. It operates stores under the names of Bed Bath & Beyond (BBB), Christmas Tree Shops (CTS), Harmon and Harmon Face Values (Harmon), and buybuy BABY. As of August 27, 2011, the company had a total of 1,155 stores, including 986 BBB stores, 70 CTS stores, 54 buybuy BABY stores, and 45 Harmon stores in 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Canada. It also operates two stores under the name of Home & More in the Mexico City through a joint venture. Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. was foun ded in 1971 and is based in Union, New Jersey.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Ben Levisohn]
Not that the market wasn’t without its losers. Bed Bath & Beyond�(BBBY) fell after it lowered its earnings forecasts, while JC Penney (JCP) dropped 16% after releasing a statement that praised its holiday sales but offered no numbers to back it up.
- [By Charley Blaine]
In addition, more than 370 stocks in the stocks in the S&P 500 are lower this month. Best Buy Co. (NYSE: BBY) is the biggest loser, down 37.3%. Sixty-four stocks in the Nasdaq-100 Index are down for the month, with Bed Bath & Beyond (NASDAQ: BBBY) the laggard, down 19.6 percent. Mighty Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), which reports its big fiscal-first-quarter results after the close, is down 2.7 percent.
- [By Anh HOANG]
Recently, Bed Bath & Beyond (NASDAQ: BBBY ) experienced a significant drop of as much as 13% due to its disappointing full-year outlook. After the drop, Bed Bath & Beyond is valued at only 13 times its forward earnings. Should investors stay away from the company because of the sluggish earnings outlook, or�is Bed Bath & Beyond a better buy with its lower market price than larger peers such as Target (NYSE: TGT ) and Macy's (NYSE: M ) ?
- [By Steve Heller]
A group of analysts over at BB&T price-compared a basket of 30 items between Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN ) and Bed Bath & Beyond (NASDAQ: BBBY ) , and found Bed Bath & Beyond to be victorious. On average, Bed Bath & Beyond's prices were 6.5% better than Amazon's, and after accounting for its ubiquitous 20% off coupons, the gap widened to 25%.
Top Diversified Bank Companies To Invest In 2014: Fifth Street Senior Floating Rate Corp (FSFR)
Fifth Street Senior Floating Rate Corp., incorporated on May 22, 2013, is a closed-end, non-diversified management investment company. The Company investment objective is to maximize the Company�� portfolio�� total return by generating income from its debt investments while seeking to preserve its capital. The Company intends to achieve its investment objective by investing primarily in senior secured loans, including first lien, unitranche and second lien debt instruments, that pay interest at rates, which are determined periodically on the basis of a floating base lending rate, made to private middle market companies whose debt is rated below investment grade, which the Company refer to collectively as senior loans. The Company�� investment adviser is Fifth Street Management.
The Company may also invest in senior unsecured loans issued by private middle market companies and, to a lesser extent, subordinated loans issued by private middle market companies and senior and subordinated loans issued by public companies. Under normal market conditions, at least 80% of the value of its net assets plus borrowings for investment purposes will be invested in floating rate senior loans. Senior loans pay interest at rates, which are determined periodically on the basis of the London-Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) plus a premium. Senior loans in which the Company expects to invest are made to United States and, to a limited extent, non- United States corporations, partnerships and other business entities which operate in various industries and geographical regions.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Marc Bastow]
Management investment company Fifth Street Senior Floating Rate Corp. (FSFR) raised its quarterly dividend 15% to 23 cents per share, payable April 15 to shareholders of record as of March 31.
FSFR Stock�Dividend Yield: 6.88%
Top Diversified Bank Companies To Invest In 2014: PIMCO Intermediate Municipal Bond Strategy Fund (MUNI)
PIMCO Intermediate Municipal Bond Strategy Fund, formerly, PIMCO Intermediate Municipal Bond ETF (the Fund), seeks to achieve its investment objective by investing at least 80% of its assets in a diversified portfolio of debt securities whose interest is, in the opinion of bond counsel for the issuer at the time of issuance, exempt from federal income tax (Municipal Bonds). Municipal Bonds are issued by or on behalf of states and local governments and their agencies, authorities and other instrumentalities. The Fund may only invest in the United States dollar-denominated investment grade debt securities, rated Baa or higher by Moody��, or equivalently rated by S&P or Fitch. It may invest 25% or more of its total assets in Municipal Bonds that finance similar projects, such as those relating to education, health care, housing, transportation and utilities. The Fund�� investment advisor is Pacific Investment Management Company LLC (PIMCO). Advisors' Opinion:- [By Mary Anne & Pamela Aden]
The ones we like best and recommend buying are the iShares 20+ year Treasury Bond (TLT), the iShares 10-20 year Treasury Bond (TLH), Proshares Ultra 20+ year Treasury (UBT) and Pimco Intermediate Muni Bond strategy ETF (MUNI).
Top Diversified Bank Companies To Invest In 2014: Peet's Coffee & Tea Inc.(PEET)
Peet?s Coffee & Tea, Inc. operates as a specialty coffee roaster and marketer of fresh roasted whole bean coffee and tea in the United States. It offers whole bean coffee and related products consisting of products for home brewing, tea, and packaged foods; and beverages and pastries. The company also provides brewing equipment for coffee and tea; paper filters and brewing accessories; and branded and non-branded cups, saucers, travel mugs, and serve ware. Peet?s sells its products through various channels of distribution, including grocery stores; home delivery, office, restaurant, and foodservice accounts; and company-owned and operated stores. As of January 2, 2011, it operated 192 retail stores in California, Colorado, Illinois, Oregon, Massachusetts, and Washington. The company was founded in 1966 and is headquartered in Emeryville, California.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Chris Hill]
In 2012, the Germany-based�Benckiser Group�spent $1.3B to buy Peet's Coffee & Tea, as well as Caribou Coffee. On Friday, Benckiser announced that it's buying European coffee maker Master Blenders for�around�$10 billion. In the United States, Benckiser is closing 15% of Caribou locations, and�converting 20% of the stores into Peet's (NASDAQ: PEET ) . In this installment of Motley Fool Money, our analysts discuss whether Benckiser's big bet on coffee poses a threat to Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX ) .
Top Diversified Bank Companies To Invest In 2014: TriQuint Semiconductor Inc.(TQNT)
TriQuint Semiconductor, Inc. provides radio frequency (RF) solutions and technology for communications, defense, and aerospace companies worldwide. The company designs, develops, and manufactures RF solutions with gallium arsenide (GaAs), gallium nitride, bipolar high electron mobility transistor, surface acoustic wave (SAW), temperature compensated surface acoustic wave, bulk acoustic wave (BAW), copper flip, and wafer level packaging technologies. The company offers an array of filtering, switching, and amplification products for RF, microwave, and millimeter-wave applications. It sells electronic components for mobile phones, including transmit modules, RF filters, power amplifiers and power amplifier modules, duplexers, switches, other RF devices, and integrated products to mobile device manufacturers. The company also offers signal amplification and filtering products, including a portfolio of GaAs microwave monolithic integrated circuits and transistors, and SAW and BAW filter components that support the transfer of voice, data, and video across wireless or wired infrastructure. Its network products comprise millimeter wave power amplifiers, frequency converters, and voltage controlled oscillators. In addition, the company provides defense and aerospace devices, including packaged products, die-level integrated circuits (ICs), microwave monolithic ICs, and multi-chip modules to military contractors serving the U.S. government for use in various communications and phased array radar programs, such as ship-based, airborne, and battlefield systems, as well as sat-com, electronic warfare, and guidance applications. Further, TriQuint Semiconductor, Inc. offers foundry services. The company sells its products through independent manufacturers? representatives, independent distributors, and direct sales staff. TriQuint Semiconductor, Inc. was founded in 1981 and is headquartered in Hillsboro, Oregon.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By FinanceGuru]
After reporting losses and falling short of estimates in the past year or so, TriQuint Semiconductor's (TQNT) last reported quarter and guidance did please investors. In the last six months, the stock has surged more than 65% as investors seem to be very hopeful that the much awaited turnaround is here and the company will soon be delivering profits. Let's analyze what's going to help the radio frequency chip manufacturer to deliver in the future.
- [By Lauren Pollock]
Activist investor Starboard Value L.P. nominated its own slate of six candidates to TriQuint Semiconductor Inc.'s(TQNT) board, claiming significant changes are needed to turn around the chip maker’s “prolonged underperformance.”
- [By Eric Volkman]
TriQuint Semiconductor (NASDAQ: TQNT ) is aiming to boost the value of its shares with a fresh repurchase scheme. The firm announced it has authorized the buyback of up to $75 million worth of its common stock. This will be bought "from time to time in the open market at prevailing market prices or through privately negotiated transactions at the discretion of Company management."
Top Diversified Bank Companies To Invest In 2014: Five Oaks Investment Corp (OAKS)
Five Oaks Investment Corp., incorporated on March 28, 2012, focused on investing in, financing and managing a leveraged portfolio of Agency and Non-Agency residential mortgage-backed securities, or RMBS, residential mortgage loans and other mortgage-related investments. The Company invests in both Agency RMBS and Non-Agency RMBS.
As of December 31, 2012, the Company�� portfolio consisted of Agency RMBS and Non-Agency RMBS. The Company is managed by Oak Circle Capital Partners LLC.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Jon C. Ogg]
Five Oaks Investment Corp. (NYSE: OAKS) was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse.
Marathon Oil Corp. (NYSE: MRO) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BofA/Merrill Lynch.
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