BALTIMORE (Stockpickr) -- All eyes are on earnings season to start Monday, as investors hope that new earnings calls could help buoy stocks this week, just like they hit the brakes on the correction last week.
Must Read: Warren Buffett's Top 10 Dividend Stocks
So far, the earnings numbers have been overwhelmingly positive. Of the 86 S&P 500 components that have already reported their earnings to Wall Street, three-quarters have reported earnings that beat analysts' expectations. And just as importantly, stock prices are reacting favorably to positive earnings surprises this quarter.
A bullish earnings environment can act like a rising tide that lifts all ships especially after a sharp selloff. And that's exactly why we're turning to a new set of "Rocket Stocks" worth buying this week.
For the uninitiated, "Rocket Stocks" are our list of companies with short-term gain catalysts and longer-term growth potential. To find them, I run a weekly quantitative screen that seeks out stocks with a combination of analyst upgrades and positive earnings surprises to identify rising analyst expectations, a bullish signal for stocks in any market. After all, where analysts' expectations are increasing, institutional cash often follows. In the last 270 weeks, our weekly list of five plays has outperformed the S&P 500's record run by 81.59%.
Best Chemical Companies To Invest In 2016: Marketo Inc (MKTO)
Marketo, Inc. (Marketo), incorporated on December 17, 2009, provides cloud-based marketing software platform that enables organizations to engage in modern relationship marketing. The Company��s software platform is designed to enable the execution, management and analytical measurement of marketing activities, helping organizations to acquire new customers. The Company��s platform includes marketing automation, social marketing, sales insight and revenue analytics. Its customer base includes 2,000 customers across a range of industries, including business services, consumer, financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, media, technology and telecommunications. The Company provides its solutions on a subscription basis. Effective December 19, 2013, Marketo Inc acquired Insightera Ltd.
The Company designs, builds and markets a suite of integrated applications to address the needs of modern marketing professionals. The Company��s customers use these applications individually and in combination to streamline and automate marketing processes; develop, retain and extend customer relationships, and measure the positive impact on revenue of marketing programs. Its platform and suite of applications is hosted and delivered over the Web using a cloud-based, or software as a service (SaaS) model, and is built using a multi-tenant architecture. The Company markets and sells its enterprise applications as: Marketo lead management, which includes the core Marketo platform, plus all of the marketing automation capabilities available on the platform; Marketo social marketing, which enables social media campaigns, such as referrals, sweepstakes, and other customer engagement campaigns, and also includes features to add social marketing extensions to traditional marketing campaigns; Marketo sales insight, which provides insights to salespeople about their customers and prospects, and Marketo revenue cycle analytics, which is a suite of analytic tools, analyzers, and ad hoc reporting capabilities taki! ng advantage of its time-series analytics engine.
The Company has built a suite of applications that run on its platform. The applications include marketing automation, social marketing, sales insight and revenue analytics. Marketing automation provides a set of capabilities for marketers to create, automate, and track personalized multi-channel marketing campaigns and relationship-marketing workflows. It includes functionality for marketers to finely segment their prospect and customer database based on collected demographic and behavioral data; generate custom Web pages without programming; send batch and individual personalized marketing messages over email, short message service (SMS) text, and other channels; streamline the entire process of running online (e.g., webinar) and offline (e.g., trade show) marketing events, and to execute multi-step lead nurturing and relationship-marketing campaigns that can run over days, weeks, or months.
Social marketing enables marketers to run social media marketing campaigns, as well as to an increase traditional marketing campaigns with a social marketing aspect in order to amplify marketing messages across social networks. Its solution lets marketers add intelligent social sharing buttons to existing Web content and videos; publish new Facebook pages with the touch of a button; build social engagement applications, such as polls, sweepstakes, and referral offers to engage their audience and promote social cross-posting, and increase existing customer and prospect information with social profiles and sharing behavior.
Sold on a per-seat basis, the Company offers sales insight application to customers utilizing Microsoft dynamics customer relationship management (CRM) or salesforce.com as their CRM system. Revenue Analytics provides a range of ways to help companies understand the correlation between marketing programs and revenue outcomes, and includes: a library of operational reports detailing e-mail and landing page per! formance,! Web activity, and lead performance; intuitive analyzers that show the influence of marketing on individual customer outcomes; analytics that compute and illustrate the impact, effectiveness and return on investment of marketing programs individually and in aggregate, and an ad-hoc report builder for completely customized reports and dashboards.
The Company competes with Act-On, Eloqua, Aprimo, HubSpot, SAS Institute, Unica, ExactTarget, Responsys, Silverpop, Oracle Corporation and SAP AG.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Lee Jackson]
The Lazard trading desk said that active traders may want to look at software stocks that still had unusually high short interest. Those included Concur Technologies (NASDAQ: CNQR), Tangoe Inc. (NASDAQ: TNGO), Jive Software (NASDAQ: JIVE), Marketo Inc. (NASDAQ: MKTO), VeriSign Inc. (NASDAQ: VRSN) and VMware Inc. (NYSE: VMW). Stocks with high short interest can explode to the upside if the company gets back on track and short sellers are forced to cover.
- [By Evan Niu, CFA]
What: Shares of Marketo (NASDAQ: MKTO ) have dropped like a rock today, down by as much as 12% following an analyst downgrade.
So what: UBS dropped its rating on the marketing software maker from "neutral" to "sell," while keeping its $22 price target unchanged. The firm is concerned about Marketo's valuation, since shares have nearly doubled in less than two months since going public at $13.
- [By Zacks Investment Research]
Marketo (MKTO) is a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) and has been public since late May. That time horizon has allowed analysts a few chances to increase their estimates.
- [By gurujx]
Marketo Inc (MKTO): SVP & CFO Frederick Ball Sold 50,000 Shares
SVP & CFO of Marketo Inc (MKTO) Frederick Ball sold 50,000 shares on 09/18/2013 at an average price of $33.99.
Top 10 Warren Buffett Companies To Own In Right Now: Alcobra Ltd (ADHD)
Alcobra Ltd is an Israel-based Biopharmaceutical company. It focuses on the development and commercialization of a proprietary drug, MG01CI, to treat Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), a common and morbid neuropsychiatric condition in children and adults. Adult ADHD is associated with increased health risks and healthcare costs, higher divorce rates, lower levels of socioeconomic attainment, lower academic achievement, unemployment and work place deficits, increased risks for motor vehicle accidents, greater likelihood of additional psychiatric disorders, increased criminal activity and incarceration, and higher rates of substance use and abuse. MG01CI product has completed phase two studies. Advisors' Opinion:- [By MONEYMORNING.COM]
For example, a phase 3 clinical trial on metadoxine extended release as a treatment for adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) will be finishing up at the end of this year. Positive data could give the stock a huge boost.
- [By Roberto Pedone]
A biopharmaceutical stock that's starting to trend within range of triggering a big breakout trade is Alcobra (ADHD), which is engaged in the development and commercialization of its proprietary drug, MG01CI, to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. This stock has been on fire so far in 2013, with shares up huge by 126%.
If you take a look at the chart for Alcobra, you'll notice that this stock has been trending sideways and consolidating over the last month and change, with shares moving between $14.78 on the downside and $18.75 on the upside. Shares of ADHD have now started to uptrend a bit over the last few weeks, with shares moving higher from its low of $15.05 to its recent high of $18.45 share. That move has started to push shares of ADHD within range of triggering a big breakout trade above the upper-end of its recent sideways trading chart pattern.
Traders should now look for long-biased trades in ADHD if it manages to break out above its 50-day moving average of $17.79 a share, and then once it takes out some more key overhead resistance levels at $18.45 to $18.75 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 74,869 shares. If that breakout triggers soon, then ADHD will set up to re-test or possibly take out its next major overhead resistance levels at $22 to $24 a share. Any high-volume move above those levels will then give ADHD a chance to re-test or possibly take out its all-time high at $26.96 a share.
Traders can look to buy ADHD off any weakness to anticipate that breakout and simply use a stop that sits right below some near-term support levels at $16.17 to $15.05 a share, or around $14.78 a share. One could also buy ADHD off strength once it starts to clear those breakout levels with volume and then simply use a stop that sits a comfortable percentage from your entry point.
Top 10 Warren Buffett Companies To Own In Right Now: Bank of Communications Co Ltd (BKFCF)
Bank of Communications Co., Ltd. is principally engaged in banking and related financial services. The Bank's business is divided into four segments: personal banking, including personal savings, bank card, personal lending, payment and settlement, investment services, insurance services and wealth management; corporate banking, comprised of cash management, supplying chain financing, investment banking, financial institutional banking and asset custody services; international banking, consisting of foreign exchange wealth management, document settlement, remittance and bill services, trade finance and offshore banking, and e-banking, including personal online banking, enterprise online banking, mobile banking, telephone banking and self-help banking. Advisors' Opinion:- [By MARKETWATCH]
LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) -- Hong Kong stocks inched lower early Friday, with mainland Chinese banks and energy shares among the weak spots. The Hang Seng Index (HK:HSI) lost 0.1% to 22,824.44, with the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index down 0.4%, even as the Shanghai Composite (CN:SHCOMP) rose 0.1%. Concerns about the fiscal health of the top mainland lenders loomed again over the shares, with Bank of China Ltd. (HK:3988) (BACHY) down 0.9%, Bank of Communications Co. (HK:3328) (BKFCF) 1.3% lower, and China Construction Bank Corp. (HK:939) (CICHF) off 0.7%. In the energy sector, Cnooc Ltd. (HK:883) (CEO) gave up 0.9% after posting a 17% gain in third-quarter revenue but not reporting its profit for the period. Its peers also lost ground, as China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. (HK:386) (SNP) and PetroChina Co. (HK:857) (PTR) fell 1% apiece. On the upside, China Unicom Hong Kong Ltd. (HK:762) (CHU) added 1.6% after announcing a gain of more than 50% for its quarterly profit compared to a year earlier. Rival China Mobile Ltd. (HK:941
- [By MARKETWATCH]
HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- Hong Kong stocks opened lower Tuesday, after China's central bank reportedly drained 48 billion yuan ($7.9 billion) from the money market on Tuesday through bond-repurchase agreements. The Hang Seng Index (HK:HSI) moved lower by 0.3%. Banks retreated, as China Merchants Bank Co., (HK:3968) (CIHHF) declined 2.2%, Bank of Communications Co. (HK:3328) (BKFCF) fell 1.6%, China Minsheng Banking Corp. (HK:1988) (CMAKY) lost 1.4%, and China Citic Bank Corporation (HK:998) (CHCJY) dropped 1.2%. China's Dongfeng Motor Group Co. (HK:489) , currently in negotiations to buy a stake in PSA Peugeot Citroen, suspended trading of its H-shares in Hong Kong markets. The state-owned car maker didn't clarify the reason in the announcement. On Monday, the company said in a filing that its commercial-vehicle unit has been served with a request for arbitration by a Brazilian firm, which is seeking damages of approximately 1.67 billion Brazilian reals ($700 million) for Dongfeng's failure to establish a joint venture with the firm. On the mainland, the Shanghai Composite Index (CN:SHCOMP) gave up 0.5% to 2,125.54.
Top 10 Warren Buffett Companies To Own In Right Now: ICTV Brands Inc (ICTV)
ICTV Brands Inc, formerly International Commercial Television Inc. (ICTV), incorporated on June 25, 1998, sells various consumer products via infomercials and through other channels. The Company produces long-form infomercials and short-form advertising spots and sells its brands of advertised products directly to its viewing audience. In addition, the Company sells products via televised shopping networks, the Internet, and retail distribution channels. As of December 31, 2011, the Company sold these products domestically and internationally. The Company's primary product categories are health and beauty, diet and fitness, and leisure and toy products. Products the Company owns or has certain rights to and that the Company is marketing or plan to markets include Health and Beauty Products, which consist of Derma Wand and DermaVital Hydra Infusion Treatment, and additional products-various categories, which consists of Smart Stacks, Slender Lift, BetterBlocks, Glo-B��s and Strike N�� Set.
Health and Beauty Products
DermaWand is a skin care appliance. The DermaWand is sold and marketed with DermaVital skin care products, which are offered with a monthly continuity program. On November 9, 2011, ICTV began airing a Derma Wand long-form infomercial. As of December 31, 2011, the DermaWand infomercial aired 579 times on both national cable stations. DermaVital is a product that allows water to penetrate the skin's surface, thus re-hydrating the deeper layers. DermaVitalT is offered to DermaWand buyers through the United States direct response television (DRTV) and Internet distribution channels as a monthly continuity program, and to home shopping network (HSN) customers as an add on product to their DermaWand purchase.
Additional Products-Various Categories
Smart Stacks is a storage system. In February 2012, the Company tested Slender Lift on a televised home shopping channel. The test consists of one airing of approximately eight minutes and generated! sales of approximately 200 units. BetterBlocks is a plastic toy building system. BetterBlocksTM has been sold mainly through DRTV, mail order catalogues, retail and the television shopping channel quality value convenience (QVC). During the year ended December 31, 2011, the Company sold BetterBlocks product on the Internet. On March 14, 2012, the Company completed the execution of an agreement with Hutton Miller LLC for the production of one and two minute direct response television commercials to be aired on major the United States children's cable channels, featuring Glo-B's. Glo-B'sTM is a toy building block system that bends, moves, shapes and curves. Glo-B's are designed for children three + years. Strike N' Set is a fishing lure system manufactured by MBCT Global Ventures, LLC. In January 2011, ICTV began production of these infomercials and in July 2011 ran the United States media test of the product.
The Company competes with Thane International Inc. and Guthy-Renker Corp.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Jake Mann]
Looking to 2015, I will be watching Crossroads Systems Inc (NASDAQ: CRDS) closely as their StrongBox tape library offering has started experiencing growth, coupled with their IP assets (both '972 and non-'972 portfolios). Further, I will be watching ICTV Brands Inc (OTC: ICTV)'s new product offerings and how DermaWand fairs internationally as well as in Rite Aid stores nationwide...
Top 10 Warren Buffett Companies To Own In Right Now: Omeros Corporation(OMER)
Omeros Corporation, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, engages in discovering, developing, and commercializing products targeting inflammation, coagulopathies, and disorders of the central nervous system. Its product candidates are derived from its proprietary PharmacoSurgery platform that is designed to improve clinical outcomes of patients undergoing arthroscopic, ophthalmological, urological, and other surgical and medical procedures. The company?s lead PharmacoSurgery product candidates include OMS103HP, a Phase 3 clinical program evaluated for OMS103HP?s safety and ability to improve postoperative joint function and reduce pain following arthroscopic partial meniscectomy surgery, and arthroscopic anterior cruciate ligament; OMS302, a Phase 2b clinical trial completed product candidate for use during ophthalmological procedures, including cataract and other lens replacement surgery; and OMS201, a Phase 1/Phase 2 clinical trial completed program for use durin g urological surgery. It also engages in developing proprietary compositions that comprise peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma agonists for the treatment and prevention of addiction to substances of abuse. The company?s pipeline of preclinical product development programs includes Plasmin for Surgical and traumatic bleeding; PDE7 for addictions and compulsive disorders, and movement disorders; MASP-2 for macular degeneration, ischemia-reperfusion injury, transplant surgery, and radiation injury; and PDE10 for Schizophrenia. Omeros Corporation was founded in 1994 and is based in Seattle, Washington.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Monica Gerson]
Omeros (NASDAQ: OMER) shares fell 2.80% to $8.32 in the pre-market trading. Omeros shares have dropped 9.80% over the past 52 weeks, while the S&P 500 index has gained 16.18% in the same period.
- [By John Udovich]
Last week had been a busy week for biotech IPOs and follow-on offerings plus news from small cap biotech stocks like Omeros Corporation (NASDAQ: OMER), Argos Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ: ARGS), Revance Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ: RVNC) and TNI BioTech (OTCMKTS: TNIB) that��s worth noting as a new trading week begins:�
Top 10 Warren Buffett Companies To Own In Right Now: Indochine Mining Ltd (IDC)
Indochine Mining Limited is an Australia-based company developing and discovering gold and silver projects. The Company��s flagship asset is the Mt Kare gold-silver project in the highlands of Papua New Guinea (PNG). Mt Kare gold-silver project is held through its wholly owned PNG subsidiary, Summit Development Limited. The deposit lies 15 kilometers from the giant Porgera gold mine, which contains approximately 30 million ounces of gold. The Company holds two packages of exploration leases in Cambodia with potential for the discovery of gold and copper deposits. The Company��s projects in Cambodia include Kratie and Ratanakiri. Its subsidiaries include Indochine Resources Limited, Indochine Resources (Cambodia) Limited, Asia Pacific Gold & Copper Company Limited, Asia Pacific Gold & Copper (Cambodia) Limited, Aries Mining Limited, Summit Development Ltd and Positive Developments Limited. Advisors' Opinion:- [By Analyse360Degree]
On Thursday, International Data Corporation (IDC) came out with its 2014 First Quarter Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker and shed some light on the ongoing trends in the global tablet market. The figures reported by the data giant, though not very encouraging, were strong enough to bring smile on the faces of some tablet manufacturers, but Apple (AAPL), forcing us to think if this particular consumer electronic space is getting sour for the tech giant. Let��s take a look at what��s going on.
Top 10 Warren Buffett Companies To Own In Right Now: Pinnacle Entertainment Inc.(PNK)
Pinnacle Entertainment, Inc. owns, develops, and operates casinos, and related hospitality and entertainment facilities in the United States. It operates casinos, such as L'Auberge du Lac in Lake Charles, Louisiana; River City Casino and Lumiere Place in St. Louis, Missouri; Boomtown New Orleans in New Orleans, Louisiana; Belterra Casino Resort in Vevay, Indiana; Boomtown Bossier City in Bossier City, Louisiana; and Boomtown Reno in Reno, Nevada. The company also operates River Downs racetrack in southeast Cincinnati, Ohio. As of May 26, 2011, it operated seven casinos and one racetrack. The company was formerly known as Hollywood Park, Inc. and changed its name to Pinnacle Entertainment, Inc. in February 2000. Pinnacle Entertainment, Inc. was founded in 1935 and is based in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Dan Radovsky]
Pinnacle Entertainment (NYSE: PNK ) has reached an agreement in principle with the Bureau of Competition of the Federal Trade Commission that would allow the company to complete its proposed acquisition of Ameristar Casinos (NASDAQ: ASCA ) , Pinnacle announced today.
- [By Grace L. Williams]
First up is Pinnacle Entertainment (PNK). CEO Anthony Michaal Sanfilippo bought 23,000 shares of the Las Vegas-based gaming company for $505,800. InsiderScore notes this is his first purchase in nearly two years and writes, ��After shares retreated more than 15% from a six-year high and with an activist hedge fund pushing the casino operator to spin off its real estate into a REIT, Sanfilippo stepped up with his first purchase. [He put] a fresh $500,000 into the stock at a price two times his cost basis of previous buys.��
- [By Sean Williams]
Time to make the switch
If I could name a sector that I'd certainly tread lightly around considering that consumers are tightening their wallets, it would be the casino sector. Casino companies rely on loose wallets and vacations to drive profits. This is why I feel it could be the time to say goodbye to casino and race track operator Pinnacle Entertainment (NYSE: PNK ) near its 52-week high.