The Federal Reserve will trim its monthly bond buying by $10 billion to $65 billion, sticking to its plan for a gradual withdrawal from departing Chairman Ben S. Bernanke's unprecedented easing policy.
“Labor market indicators were mixed but on balance showed further improvement,” the Federal Open Market Committee said Wednesday in a statement following a two-day meeting in Washington that was the last for Mr. Bernanke, who will be succeeded by Vice Chairman Janet Yellen on Feb. 1. “The unemployment rate declined but remains elevated.”
Policymakers pressed on with a reduction in the purchases intended to speed a recovery from the worst recession since the Great Depression, even after payroll growth slowed in December and amid a rout in emerging-market currencies. Some officials have expressed concern that the Fed's record $4.1 trillion balance sheet could help create asset-price bubbles.
Hot Growth Stocks To Buy Right Now: HealthStream Inc (HSTM)
HealthStream, Inc. (HealthStream), incorporated in September 27, 1990, provides Internet-based learning and research solutions for healthcare organizations. The Company�� learning products are used by healthcare organizations to meet a range of their training, certification, and development needs, while its research products provide the customers information about patients��experiences, workforce engagement, physician relations, and community perceptions of their services. HealthStream�� products and services are organized into two segments: HealthStream Learning and HealthStream Research. HealthStream�� customers include healthcare organizations, pharmaceutical and medical device companies, and other participants in the healthcare industry. Its customer base across both learning and research business units includes over 3,000 healthcare organizations (predominately acute-care facilities) throughout all 50 states of the United States. In March 2014, the Company acquired Health Care Compliance Strategies, Inc., a Jericho, New York-based company focused on interactive and engaging online compliance training for healthcare organizations.
The Company�� core learning product is the HealthStream Learning Center (HLC), its learning platform provided through the Internet through software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. As of December 31, 2012, HealthStream had approximately 3.1 million contracted, primarily hospital-based subscribers, to the HLC platform. It delivers educational and training courseware to its customers through the HLC platform. Its research products and service offerings include satisfaction surveys, data analyses of survey results, and other research-based measurement tools focused on patients, physicians, employees, and members of the community. The Company�� core research product is the Patient Insights survey.
HealthStream Learning & Talent Management
Within HealthStream Learning & Talent Management, the Company brings training, assessment and! education content together with administrative and management tools through its HLC , HCC, and HPC. It also offers a more streamlined version of the HLC, HealthStream Express, along with HealthStream Connect, a content delivery platform that is designed for the singular purpose of allowing access to its content libraries. These content libraries allow HLC platform customers to subscribe to an array of additional courseware. Additionally, through its Hospital Direct capability in the HLC, medical device companies can offer online training support for their products and sponsor continuing education directly to healthcare workers.
The Company�� learning management system supports healthcare administrators in configuring training to meet the needs of various groups of employees, modifying training materials, and documenting training completion. It offer training, implementation, and account management services to facilitate adoption of its platform. Offered via a SaaS model, its Internet-based platform and its courseware are hosted in a central data center that allows authorized subscribers Internet access to its services.
In addition to the HLC, the Company offers an array of platform extensions, each serving a function for hospitals and health systems. The Authoring Center is a platform extension that provides healthcare organizations the capability to create Internet-based courses by moving their existing course material online or self-authoring new material and electively sharing these materials with its other customers through a courseware exchange. It also offers Authoring Pro, an upgraded product, which includes a licensed image library, as an additional subscription to this product. The HealthStream Competency Center (HCC) is its SaaS-based platform extension for competency management solution for healthcare organizations, provides customers tools to assess competency and appraise performance.
SimCenter, the Company�� platform extension offer products and ! services ! focused on accelerating the global adoption of simulation-based learning by healthcare providers with a focus on improving clinical competencies and patient outcomes. The new venture offers healthcare organizations and medical and nursing schools worldwide a range of integrated SaaS applications that accelerate development and distribution of simulation content; enable enterprise-wide management of simulation centers, simulators, and programs, and support assessment of the effectiveness of simulation training as part of complete curricula.
The HealthStream Improvement Center is a SaaS-based platform extension related to its research offering. This extension is an online system for hospital leaders to optimize and accelerate the execution of improvement plans, including those based on results from its patient, employee, physician, and community surveys. The Improvement Center, a licensed technology, is one of a number of solutions from HealthStream Research that include a line of survey products, national benchmarks, HCAHPS Improvement Library, consulting services, and other support tools.
HealthStream Research
HealthStream Research complements HealthStream Learning�� product and service offerings by providing hospital-based customers with Patient Insights, Employee Insights, Physician Insights, and Community Insights surveys, data analyses of survey results, and other research-based measurement tools. Its services are designed to provide thorough analyses that provide insightful recommendations for change; benchmarking capability using its databases, and consulting services to identify solutions for its customers based on their survey results. Its survey and research solutions focus on providing valid data to assist its customers. In addition to collecting and reporting data, the Company provides analysis and consulting to help customers understand their survey results and the underlying impact on their business. It is with this insight that healthcare organizati! ons are a! ble to develop plans for improved performance that can be delivered through its learning solutions.
The Company competes with Cornerstone OnDemand, Healthcare Source, Oracle, SABA, SAP, SumTotal Systems, Avatar International, Gallup, National Research Corporation, Press Ganey Associates, Professional Research Consultants, Inc., Kenexa, Foresight, B-Line Medical, CAE/Meti, and EMS
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Jake L'Ecuyer]
Healthstream (NASDAQ: HSTM) was down, falling 4.28 percent to $25.94 after Northland Securities downgraded the stock from Outperform to Market Perform and lowered the target price from $43 to $30.
- [By Seth Jayson]
Calling all cash flows
When you are trying to buy the market's best stocks, it's worth checking up on your companies' free cash flow once a quarter or so, to see whether it bears any relationship to the net income in the headlines. That's what we do with this series. Today, we're checking in on Healthstream (Nasdaq: HSTM ) , whose recent revenue and earnings are plotted below. - [By Sean Williams]
What: Shares of HealthStream (NASDAQ: HSTM ) , an Internet-based talent management company that provides learning solutions to the health care industry, jumped as much as 16% after the company reported its second-quarter earnings results.
Hot Consumer Service Companies To Watch In Right Now: Empire State Realty Trust Inc (ESRT)
Empire State Realty Trust, Inc., incorporated on July 29, 2011, is a self-administered and self-managed real estate investment trust (REIT), which owns, manages, operates, acquires and repositions office and retail properties in Manhattan and the greater New York metropolitan area. The Company operates in two segments: real estate and construction contracting. As of June 30, 2013, the Company owned 12 office properties (including one long-term ground leasehold interest) encompassing approximately 7.7 million rentable square feet of office space, which were approximately 83.5% leased (or 86.2% giving effect to leases signed but not yet commenced as of that date). Seven of these properties are located in the midtown Manhattan market and encompass in the aggregate approximately 5.9 million rentable square feet of office space, including the Empire State Building. Its Manhattan office properties also contain an aggregate of 440,615 rentable square feet of retail space on their ground floor and/or lower levels. Its remaining five office properties are located in Fairfield County, Connecticut and Westchester County, New York, encompassing in the aggregate approximately 1.8 million rentable square feet.
The Company has entitled land at the Stamford Transportation Center in Stamford, Connecticut, adjacent to one of its office properties, that supports the development of an approximately 380,000 rentable square foot office building and garage, which refers to herein as Metro Tower. As of June 30, 2013, its portfolio also included four standalone retail properties located in Manhattan and two standalone retail properties located in the city center of Westport, Connecticut, encompassing 204,452 rentable square feet in the aggregate. As of June 30, 2013, its standalone retail properties were 100% leased in the aggregate. In addition, the Company has an option to acquire from affiliates of its predecessor two additional Manhattan office properties encompassing approximately 1.5 million rentable squar! e feet of office space and 153,209 rentable square feet of retail space at the base of the buildings.
The Empire State Building is the Company�� flagship property. The 102-story building consists of 2,701,938 rentable square feet of office space and 167,788 rentable square feet of retail space. The building also includes its observatory and broadcasting operations. The Company�� portfolio includes retail properties located in retail corridors in Manhattan and Westport, Connecticut. Tenants at 10 Union Square in Manhattan include Best Buy Mobile, Starbucks, A&P, Panera Bread, FedEx/Kinko��, Au Bon Pain, Chipotle Mexican Grill, and GameStop. In the greater New York metropolitan area, its portfolio includes high quality suburban office properties in densely populated metropolitan communities in Fairfield County, Connecticut and Westchester County, New York. tenants of the greater New York metropolitan area flagship Metro Center (at the Transportation Center in Stamford, Connecticut) include Thomson Reuters, Jefferies Group, Columbus Circle Investors, Torm Shipping, Olympus Partners, BP Energy, Tweedy, Browne Company and Susquehanna International.
The Company approximately has 242 million square feet of rentable space, which are contained within Midtown�� multi-tenant office buildings. Downtown Chicago and the Washington, D.C. CBD combine has a total of 230 million square feet of office space. Three-quarters 75.3% of Midtown�� office stock is classified as Class A with total square footage of 182 million square feet. The Company approximately has 43.9 million square feet of Midtown office space is counted as Class B stock, accounting for 18.2% of the total market. The remaining 6.5% of Midtown office space (15.8 million square feet) is categorized as Class C space. The Grand Central submarket is a office submarket in Midtown Manhattan with 44 million square feet and is located on the east side of Midtown Manhattan, to the north of Murray Hill and to the south of the Park ! Avenue co! rridor.
The West Side office submarket, located to the south and west of Central Park and including the area around Columbus Circle, consists of 25.8 million square feet of office space. Westchester County contains approximately 28.9 million square feet of office space and is split into six submarkets: White Plains CBD and non-CBD, Northern, Central, Eastern and Southern. The White Plains CBD is situated in south central Westchester County, along the Cross-Westchester Expressway (Interstate 287) corridor between the Sprain Brook Parkway and the Hutchinson River Parkway. The submarket consists of approximately 6.3 million square feet of office space and is defined to include the area south of Barker Avenue, north of Quinby Avenue, east of the Bronx River Parkway and west of South Broadway/Post Road. Westchester�� Eastern office submarket consists of 6.5 million square feet of space and is located to the east of White Plains, between New Rochelle and the Connecticut state border.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Jonas Elmerraji]
We're seeing a similar setup in shares of Empire State Realty Trust (ESRT), the $1.5 billion commercial landlord that counts Manhattan's Empire State Building among its 7.7 million leasable square feet of office space. ESRT is a relative newcomer to the public markets, trading for the first time back in October.
But just like PEB, Empire State is forming an ascending triangle setup -- in this case, with the resistance level to watch at $15.50. In fact, that $15.50 level has acted like a ceiling for shares five times now since last December; each of those times, shares have gotten swatted lower. That means that a breakout above $15.50 is a materially significant buy trigger.
When $15.50 does get taken out, I'd recommend keeping a protective stop at the 50-day moving average. That level has been a good proxy for ESRT's support line over the course of the whole pattern.
- [By Reuters]
John Moore/Getty Images NEW YORK -- Investors in the Empire State Building have filed a lawsuit accusing the real estate magnates who took it public of short-changing them $300 million by refusing to sell the iconic skyscraper at a premium price. According to a complaint filed Tuesday in a New York state court in Manhattan, Peter Malkin and his son Anthony put their own interests ahead of the building's investors by spurning all-cash offers of as much as $2.3 billion for the building and $1.4 billion for Empire State Building Associates, which held the title and master lease. Instead, the Malkins put the landmark building and 17 other properties into Empire State Realty Trust Inc., whose Oct. 1 IPO valued the property at just $1.89 billion and ESBA at just $1.1 billion, according to the complaint. The lawsuit by plaintiff Marc Postelnek seeks class-action status on behalf of more than 2,800 investors who hold shares in ESBA, which was created in 1961 and was supervised by a Malkin company, Malkin Holdings. It claimed the Malkins acted in bad faith by aborting a "bidding war" for the building, and instead enriched themselves by hundreds of millions of dollars through an IPO. "Given their positions of control and authority over the fate of the Empire State Building, the Malkins had a duty to act in the best interests of their investors," the plaintiffs' lawyer, John Rizio-Hamilton, a partner at Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann, representing Postelnek, told Reuters. "By failing to properly consider offers to maximize the building's value, the Malkins breached that duty." The lawsuit seeks to recover profit that building investors allegedly lost because of the Malkins' refusal to sell. Empire State Realty Trust, a real estate investment trust, is a successor to Malkin Holdings. "These claims are wholly without merit and we will respond to them in court," a spokeswoman for the REIT said Thursday. ESBA had been created by Lawrence Wien, the father
Hot Consumer Service Companies To Watch In Right Now: YRC Worldwide Inc.(YRCW)
YRC Worldwide Inc., through its subsidiaries, provides various transportation services worldwide. The company?s YRC National Transportation unit offers a range of services for the transportation of industrial, commercial, and retail goods, such as apparel, appliances, automotive parts, chemicals, food, furniture, glass, machinery, metal, metal products, non-bulk petroleum products, rubber, textiles, wood, and other manufactured products. It serves manufacturing, wholesale, retail, and government customers. As of December 31, 2009, it had 11704 owned tractors, 1239 leased tractors, 50083 owned trailers, and 3244 leased trailers. Its YRC Regional Transportation unit?s service portfolio includes regional delivery, which comprises next-day local area delivery and second-day services, consolidation/distribution services, protect-from-freezing and hazardous materials handling, and various specialized offerings; expedited delivery, that comprises day-definite, hour-definite, and time definite capabilities; inter-regional delivery; cross-border delivery; and operation of my.yrcregional.com and NewPenn.com, which are e-commerce Websites offering online resources to manage transportation activity. The company?s YRC Logistics units? service portfolio consists of distribution services that include flow through and pool distribution, dedicated warehousing, and value-added services; global services, which comprise international freight forwarding, customs brokerage, and value-added services; and transportation services, such as truckload brokerage, domestic freight forwarding, and transportation management. Its YRC Truckload unit provides customized truckload services on regional and national level through the use of company and team-based drivers. The company was founded in 1924 and is headquartered in Overland Park, Kansas.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Dan Caplinger]
But one reason why trucking stocks have done so well is that investors are starting to see the potential for consolidation in the industry. Long-beleaguered YRC Worldwide (NASDAQ: YRCW ) apparently made an offer to buy out peer Arkansas Best (NASDAQ: ABFS ) in May, and although Arkansas Best rebuffed the bid, it still points to the efficiency gains that smaller trucking and logistics companies could gain from combining forces.
Hot Consumer Service Companies To Watch In Right Now: Amalgamated Gold and Silver Inc (BCHS)
Amalgamated Gold & Silver Inc., formerly Balmoral FX Systems Inc, incorporated on November 13, 1992, is a development-stage company. The Company is a holding Company researching various opportunities for investment in gold and silver mining operations.
The Company is focused on gold and silver mining interests in the United States and Mexico. The Company has conducted or has attempted to conduct operations in several other industries and is concentrating all operations on the development.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Peter Graham]
Small cap mining stocks Discovery Minerals Ltd (OTCMKTS: DSCR), Zinco Do Brasil Inc (OTCMKTS: ZNBR) and Amalgamated Gold and Silver Inc (OTCMKTS: BCHS) have been getting some extra attention lately as one stock surged last Friday while the other two are or have been in the past, the subject of paid promotions. It goes without saying though that small cap mining stocks tend to be riskier than your average stock. But do these three small cap mining stocks have what it takes to produce a mother lode for investors? Here is a deeper dig into all three:
Hot Consumer Service Companies To Watch In Right Now: Central Goldtrust (GTU)
Central GoldTrust (GoldTrust) is a passive, self-governing, single purpose, closed-end trust. GoldTrust is a gold holding trust created to buy and hold substantially all of its assets in long-term holdings of gold bullion. The primary objective of GoldTrust is to provide a exchange-tradeable alternative for investors interested in holding an investment in gold bullion. All gold bullion owned by GoldTrust must be stored in Canada in the treasury vault facilities of a tier 1 Canadian chartered bank on an allocated and segregated basis.
GoldTrust holds long-term holdings of pure, unencumbered gold bullion, in 400 troy ounce international bar sizes, and does not speculate with regard to short-term changes in gold prices. At least 95% of the total net assets of GoldTrust should be held in gold with at least 90% in physical bullion and up to 5% in gold certificate form. The property of GoldTrust, as at December 31, 2011, was consisted of 698,496 fine ounces of gold bullion and 6,156 fine ounces of gold in certificate form for a total of 704,652 fine ounces. GoldTrust is almost entirely invested in pure refined gold bullion in international bar form. As at December 31, 2011, GoldTrust�� assets were made up of 98.1% gold.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Eric Parnell]
It also remains worthwhile to hedge stock allocations to protect against any major downside event along the way. This includes positions with low correlations such as the PIMCO Total Return ETF (BOND) or the PIMCO Global Advantage Inflation Linked Bond ETF (ILB). This also includes allocations that are likely to rally sharply in the event of a stock pullback but can also continue to rise along with the market such as long-term Treasuries (TLT) or Build America Bonds (BAB). And despite the recent thrashing they have endured, the precious metals complex including gold (GLD), silver (SLV), platinum (PPLT) and palladium (PALL) continue to provide attractive long-term portfolio diversification benefits. I remain long all of these metals via the Central GoldTrust (GTU), the Central Fund of America (CEF), the Sprott Physical Silver Trust (PSLV) and the Sprott Physical Platinum and Palladium Trust (SPPP).
Hot Consumer Service Companies To Watch In Right Now: Paradigm Resource Management Corp (PRDC)
Paradigm Resource Management Corp., formerly China Digital Ventures Corporation, incorporated on March 26, 2007, is a development-stage company. In April 2012, the Company acquired all of the mineral rights properties of ARNEVUT Resources Inc. (ARNEVUT). ARNEVUT is an exploration and mining company. ARNEVUT has an option to acquire majority control of the Island Mountain property from Gateway Gold Corporation (Gateway). The property consists of 53 unpatented lode mineral claims that consists of an area of 920 acres (372 hectares) situated near the northeast end of the Jerritt Canyon Trend. The East Canyon property is located in Elko County, Nevada and Box Elder County, Utah. Most of the claims are located in Box Elder County, Utah. The Zia Uranium property is nine miles northeast of Grants, New Mexico. The property contains uranium mineralization hosted by the Todilto Limestone and probable uranium mineralization hosted by sandstones of the Morrison Formation. These claims are wholly owned by ARNEVUT.
During the fiscal year ended September 30, 2011 (fiscal 2011), the Company had no revenue and operations. The principal business of the Company was its Web-based telecom and Internet protocol television (IPTV) businesses.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Peter Graham]
Small cap resource or green stocks Paradigm Resource Management Corp (OTCMKTS: PRDC), Extreme Biodiesel Inc (OTCMKTS: XTRM) and Pan Global Corp (OTCMKTS: PGLO) have all been getting some attention lately thanks in part to a few paid stock promotions. However, two of these small cap appear to be the subject of minimal paid promotion activity, but even a small paid promotion or investor relations campaign can increase a stock�� volatility. So do these three small cap resource or green stocks have what it takes to deliver some Christmas cheer for investors and traders alike? Here is a quick reality check:
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