Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Top 5 Clean Energy Companies To Invest In Right Now

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Top 5 Clean Energy Companies To Invest In Right Now: Premier West Bancorp(PRWT)

PremierWest Bancorp operates as the holding company for PremierWest Bank that provides a range of financial products and services to small and medium-sized businesses, professionals, and retail customers in southern and central Oregon and northern California. It generates various deposit products, including regular checking and savings accounts, money market accounts, individual retirement accounts, negotiable order of withdrawal accounts, time deposits, and certificates of deposit. The company originates various commercial and real estate loans; construction loans for owner-occupied and investment properties; and secured and unsecured consumer loans. It also offers safe deposit facilities, traveler?s checks, money orders, and automated teller machine services. In addition, the company offers investment brokerage services to its customers through a third-party broker-dealer arrangement, as well as through independent insurance companies for the sale of investment and insu rance products, such as stocks, bonds, mutual funds, annuities, and other insurance products. As of December 31, 2009, it had a network of 48 full service branch offices, as well as 10 other office locations. The company was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in Medford, Oregon.

Top 5 Clean Energy Companies To Invest In Right Now: Transcontinental Realty Investors Inc.(TCI)

Transcontinental Realty Investors, Inc. acquires, develops, and owns residential and commercial real estate properties through acquisitions, leases, and partnerships in the United States. The company leases apartment units to residents; leases office, industrial, and retail space to various for-profit businesses, as well as to local, state, and federal agencies; and leases trade show and exhibit space to temporary, as well as long-term tenants. In addition, its real estate properties consist of commercial properties, including office buildings, industrial warehouses, and shopping centers; apartments; and new properties, such as apartment homes. Further, the company invests in unimproved land and apartment development and construction, and mortgage loans on real estate, including first, and wraparound and junior mortgage loans. Additionally, it originates its mortgage loans, and acquires existing mortgage notes directly from builders, developers, and property owners, as wel l as through mortgage banking firms, commercial banks, and other qualified brokers. As of September 30, 2008, its properties consisted of 29 commercial buildings, including 20 office buildings, 5 commercial warehouses, and 4 retail centers; 51 apartment communities; and 7,425 acres of developed and undeveloped land. The company was founded in 1983 and headquartered in Dallas, Texas.

Top 10 Growth Stocks To Invest In 2014: Argent Mining Corp (AMG.V)

AM Gold Inc., an exploration stage company, engages in the exploration and development of mineral properties. It explores primarily for gold and copper ores. The company holds a 100% interest in the Pinaya gold-copper project comprising 35 mineral concessions covering approximately 19,200 hectares located in the southeast of the city of Lima, Peru; and an 80% interest in the Red Mountain gold project consisting of 52 mineral property claims covering approximately 3,600 hectares located in the central Yukon Territory, Canada. It also holds a 100% interest in 2 grassroots gold projects, the La Mamita property, which consists of a single concession and covering an area of approximately 1,000 hectares; and Minas Lucho property that comprises 4 mineral concessions covering an area of approximately 2,400 hectares, both located in Peru. The company was formerly known as Acero-Martin Exploration Inc. and changed its name to AM Gold Inc. in June 2010. AM Gold Inc. is based in Vanco uver, Canada.

Top 5 Clean Energy Companies To Invest In Right Now: Cougar Logistics Corpn Ltd (F86.SI)

MYP Ltd., an investment holding company, provides shipping agency, terminal operations, warehousing, and logistics services in Singapore. It offers agency services comprising vessel, marketing, and documentation support services; terminal operations, such as handling various vessel types and stevedoring services; and specialized services, including the supervision of loading/discharging operations, vessel stowage pre-planning, and coordinating with masters and agents for vessel turn-around and dispatch. The company also handles door-to-door shipment of plant and machinery, heavy and over-sized cargoes on land and on sea, and hazardous/classified/military cargoes. In addition, it provides logistics and warehousing services consisting of international sea/airfreight forwarding, door-to-door delivery, vessel/aircraft charter, customs clearance and documentation, arranging for certificate of origin, carnet shipment, cross trade shipment, project management, and packing and re- packing of spare parts and container stuffing, as well as distribution, warehousing, and storage services. Further, the company handles strategic projects comprising delivering, hoisting, joining, and installation of escalators/autowalks for elevator and escalator companies. MYP Ltd. is based in Singapore.

Top 5 Clean Energy Companies To Invest In Right Now: Multi-chem Limited (M06.SI)

Multi-Chem Limited, an investment holding company, provides printed circuit board (PCB) manufacturing services primarily in precision drilling to PCB fabricators in Singapore, the People�s Republic of China, and internationally. It offers mechanical and laser drilling, and routing services. The company also distributes a range of specialty chemicals for surface treatment, electroless copper plating, tin/tin lead stripping, and micro-etching; and PCB-related materials and equipment, such as plating systems, pulse rectifiers for copper plating, copper anodes and tin anodes for electroplating, entry and back-up materials for drilling, non-woven brushes to ensure clean copper surface with suitable roughness, dry film and liquid photoresist, CCL and prepreg, tacky rollers, tack cloth/wipes, and cleaning machine to remove foreign particles on PCBs. In addition, it distributes hardware and software relating to Internet and network products, including Internet security, WAN optim ization, network management, and video conferencing products, as well as provides installation, maintenance, and related technical services for such products. Further, the company offers software consultancy and implementation services. Multi-Chem Limited was founded in 1985 and is headquartered in Singapore.

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Can Cutting-Edge Insulin Hold Off Cheap Generics?

The Motley Fool's health-care show Market Checkup focuses this week on diabetes, one of America's growing health-care concerns. There are two versions of this chronic disease, the more prevalent being type 2 diabetes, which makes up about 95% of all cases. Because of the overwhelming patient population, type 2 diabetes receives the majority of attention from Big Pharma companies.

Diabetes is no small problem. In 2010, one in 10 adults had diabetes, and more troubling, more than one in four senior citizens suffered from it. Diabetes is the seventh leading cause of death, and there are 2 million new cases in America every year, leading analysts to project spending on diabetes to approach $60 billion in just five years. And this isn't just an American problem: 370 million suffer from diabetes around the world.

In this video, health-care analysts David Williamson and Max Macaluso discuss the cutting edge of insulin treatments, including a new long-acting insulin by Sanofi. The pharma currently dominates the insulin market, but generic competition is on the way. Watch as David and Max discuss whether Sanofi's newest insulin in development, U300, can use better performance to hold on to the company's market share. 

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Monday, July 29, 2013

As Regions' Site Goes Dark, Banks Need to Take Cyber Attacks More Seriously

Bank hacktavists are at it again, and this time Regions Financial (NYSE: RF  ) was the target. The large regional bank's website was down part of the day last Friday, and the bank confirmed that it had been the victim of a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. Online customers were unable to access their accounts, or if they could, found that their login information or debit card transactions were being denied.

Although Region's site seemed to be up and running by late Friday, these kinds of attacks are becoming the norm, and are striking regional banks more often. Are banks truly taking these attacks seriously, and what are they doing to protect themselves?

How dangerous?
Cyber attacks on websites, particularly the DDoS-type of disruption, first began in 2001. Back then, sites like eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY  ) and Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO  ) were targeted, possibly in an attempt to disrupt e-commerce. Since then, groups like Izz ad-Din-as-Qassam or groups tied to the Iranian government have staged assaults on the websites of big banks like Bank of America (NYSE: BAC  ) , Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC  ) , and Citgroup (NYSE: C  ) , as well as large regionals such as BB&T (NYSE: BBT  ) and PNC Financial.

While these service interruptions are considered inconvenient for customers and costly to banks, it is unclear just how important it is to banks to fight these onslaughts. When American Banker surveyed banks at the end of the first quarter, only slightly over 50% responded that such attacks were a critical threat to the financial system's security.

Recently, al-Qassam reemerged after a break, threatening more mayhem. American Banker quoted an analyst from Intuit (NASDAQ: INTU  ) , a business and financial software provider, as noting that DDoS attacks "have less of an impact" on banks' business than those designed to hide more nefarious cyber activities. Another analyst from NSS Labs, an information and security research and advisory firm, stated that DDoS assaults in and of themselves don't really cost banks much, though they are inconvenient for customers.

Of course, banks can't know when an attack is merely disruptive, and when it may be covering for criminal activity. Security company Symantec (NASDAQ: SYMC  ) has commented that these assaults have become a way for hackers to distract banks while funds are illegally withdrawn. Though most of the thefts have occurred in Europe, where attacks have progressed from website outages to actual bank heists, at least one U.S. bank, Citigroup, disclosed some losses due to cyber thievery earlier this year.

Banks, regulators at odds
But even DDoS website disruptions can frustrate customers, chipping away at the trust between banks and consumers -- which is the very intention of al-Qassam. 

Though banks have thrown millions of dollars at the problem, it continues unabated. Recently, federal regulators have been nudging banks to do a better job at preventing these assaults, causing bankers to bristle. After all, they say, when countries like Iran are behind these attacks, shouldn't the government pitch in to help?

The recent Quantum Dawn 2 test, administered by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association and involving 50 financial entities, attempted to test banks' responses to these assaults. Though it was declared a success, it tested only human reactions to a simulated threat, not the security of the financial system's cyber infrastructure.

Some of the larger banks are becoming more concerned about the dangers of cyber assaults, and Wells Fargo has acknowledged that DDoS attacks are likely a method for hackers to test banks' security before more sophisticated onslaughts take place. With that kind of threat looming, banks need to bump up staffing, as well as network security, according to regulators. JPMorgan Chase  (NYSE: JPM  ) , for instance, has over 600 workers that are trained specifically in security issues -- and plans to add more.

All of this costs money, but there seems to be no alternative, and time is of the essence: al-Qassam has vowed to launch a new offensive very soon. Banks need to take these DDoS incidents more seriously before these attacks evolve into outright robbery.

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Sunday, July 28, 2013

GM Will Have to Put Its Pickups on a Diet

GM's new Chevy Silverado is already selling very well, but it'll need changes to comply with tough new fuel-economy rules. Photo credit: General Motors.

General Motors (NYSE: GM  ) is in the process of launching its all-new Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups, and the early word is that they're very good trucks. But GM is already planning the next Silverado and Sierra, and a new report suggests that they'll be very different trucks.

For one thing, they'll be a lot lighter, a necessary change to meet tough new fuel-economy regulations. In this video, Fool contributor John Rosevear shares the latest on GM's plans to make its big pickups much more efficient and looks at how rival Ford (NYSE: F  ) is likely to respond.

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