Although European equities are generally cheaper than ours, Europe's rebound likely will be modest and prolonged. As a result, we advise a conservative approach, advises Philip Springer of Personal Finance.
First, focus on companies with strong global franchises that will benefit from European improvement without overdependence on that outcome.
Second, seek reasonably valued, lower-volatility stocks that pay good dividends, to dampen your investment risk.
If Europe's economic recovery continues, companies providing consumer goods there should be among the first to benefit.
Growth Portfolio holding Diageo (DEO) is the world's largest producer of premium spirits and offers numerous wine and beer brands, with total annual sales of $18 billion.
Leading Diageo brands include Johnnie Walker, Crown Royal, J&B, Buchanan's, Windsor, and Bushmills whiskies, Smirnoff, C卯roc and Ketel One vodkas, Captain Morgan, Baileys, Jose Cuervo, Tanqueray, and Guinness.
Hot Computer Hardware Stocks To Own Right Now: Makism 3D Corp (MDDD)
Makism 3D Corp., incorporated on May 4 2010, is a three dimensional (3D) printer manufacturing company. The Company produces consumer and professional grade 3D printers. The Company�� flagship product, branded as the Wideboy family of printers, offers packaging designed to fit any office or professional space.
Its 3D printers utilize British and German engineered components. Its printers are assembled in Cambridge (United Kingdom).
Advisors' Opinion:- [By James E. Brumley]
Well, as it turns out, the snake that bit L&L Energy, Inc. (NASDAQ:LLEN) and Sovereign Lithium Inc. (OTCMKTS:SLCO) didn't end up biting Makism 3D Corp. (OTCMKTS:MDDD). And in retrospect, that's probably how it should be. Indeed, the fact that MDDD didn't even come close to suffering the same fate as SLCO or LLEN did may be the biggest assurance Makism 3D fans could hope for that the company is everything it says it is.
Top Computer Hardware Stocks To Invest In Right Now: George Risk Industries Inc (RSKIA)
George Risk Industries, Inc. (GRI), incorporated on February 21, 1961, is engaged in the design, manufacture and sale of computer keyboards, push button switches, burglar alarm components and systems, pool alarms, thermostats, EZ Duct wire covers and water sensors. GRI is a diversified manufacturer of electronic components, consisting of the security industries variety of door and window contact switches, environmental products, proximity switches and custom keyboards. The Company operates in two segments: security alarm products and security alarm products GRI�� security burglar alarm products comprise approximately 84% of net revenues and are sold through distributors and alarm dealers/installers. These products are used for residential, commercial, industrial and government installations. Its products include security products/ magnetic reed switches, data entry peripherals, pushbutton switches, custom engraved keycaps and proximity sensors.
The security segment has approximately 3,000 customers. One of the distributors, ADI accounts for approximately 40% of the Company's sales of these products. The keyboard segment has approximately 800 customers. Keyboard products are sold to original equipment manufacturers to their specifications and to distributors of off-the-shelf keyboards of proprietary design. GRI owns and operates its main manufacturing plant and offices in Kimball, Nebraska with a satellite plant 40 miles away in Gering, Nebraska.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Geoff Gannon] >Ark Restaurants (ARKR). When I bought them - and even now - I think their return on buyback would be high and I'd be in favor of it. However, the stocks are illiquid and their free cash flow relative to the dollar value of freely traded shares is not high. As a result, I'm always in favor of RSKIA and ARKR buying back stock. But, I understand it's very hard for them to do in practice unless there is a meaningful holder who signals he wants out of the stock.
My approach to buybacks is pretty simple. One, I prefer them. Two, I look at the share count history over the last 10 to 20 years as my guide to what the company might do in the future - I want a pattern of predictable behavior. Generally, that means a continuously shrinking share count that shrinks in bull markets and bear markets, panics and recessions and booms and busts and so on. Three, if I'm a buyer of the stock - then the company should be a buyer of its own stock. No questions asked on that one. If the stock is good enough for me to buy it's clearly good enough for the company to buy. Finally, I look for the return on buyback. I tend to focus on the earning power the company is buying relative to the net cash it is spending. If a company has cash on its balance sheet, the amount of net cash consumed by a buyback will be less than it appears because I will end up with a greater percentage ownership of the resulting balance sheet as well as the income statement.
I want the return on buyback to always be at least 10%. As a rule, the average company will only get returns on its buybacks of 10% or higher if it pays less than 15 times normal earnings. In special cases - fast growing companies, companies where free cash flow vastly exceeds reported income, etc. - it is possible that buybacks above 15 times earnings will return more than 10%. It almost never makes sense for a company to buy back stock at over 25 times earnings. So, for most companies, under 15 times earnings is the green zone for bu
- [By Geoff Gannon] n. When it traded around $4.50 (it�� now more like $7.50 a share) it was a net-net with a good business and a moat. There were risks ��customer concentration for one ��and it was no blue chip. There was no diversification of product lines, customers, geography, industry, etc. It was closely tied to U.S. construction activity.
All this means it was no blue chip. Not that it didn�� have a moat. I felt it did. And certainly not that it wasn�� a high quality business. It demonstrably was (unleveraged returns on tangible equity were around 30%). And it was a net-net. In fact, it was a net cash stock at one time.
So they do happen. But they are rare. The usual distinction with net-nets is not between companies like that ��companies which may have a moat, do earn good returns on capital, etc. ��but between companies that are legitimate and illegitimate businesses.
A legitimate business is ��in my mind ��a historically profitable one. It is likely to have positive retained earnings (there are exceptions to this rule ��but it�� a good first check). It should have more years of profits (6 or more) than losses in the last 10 years. And it should be self-financing.
Compare this to an illegitimate business. The least legitimate businesses are those that ��while publicly traded ��have never turned a profit and can�� self finance. They may be net-nets ��but they are net-nets because they have issued stock in the past and then seen their share prices drop. Retained earnings are often negative.
There are other factors to consider. Is the business old or young? Is depreciation ��and other accounting ��especially conservative or aggressive? Are taxes especially conservative or aggressive? And is share issuance dilutive or not.
I think a legitimate business tends towards LIFO accounting, quicker depreciation, higher taxes paid as a percentage of reported income, and lower share issuance. There are exceptions. Many
Top Computer Hardware Stocks To Invest In Right Now: Imation Corp (IMN)
Imation Corp. (Imation) is a global scalable storage and data security company. The Company�� portfolio includes tiered storage and security offerings for business and products designed to manage audio and video information in the home. The Company�� global brand portfolio includes the Imation brand, the Memorex brand, the XtremeMac and MXI Security brands. Imation is also the exclusive licensee of the TDK Life on Record brand. Its three product categories include traditional storage, secure and scalable storage, and audio and video information. It operates in four geographic segments: Americas, Europe, North Asia and South Asia. On February 28, 2011, it acquired all of the assets of Encryptx Corporation. On June 4, 2011, it acquired the assets of MXI Security, from Memory Experts International Inc. On October 4, 2011 it acquired the secure data storage hardware assets of IronKey Systems Inc. In December 2011, it acquired the data deduplication technology from Nine Technology.
The Americas segment includes North America, Central America and South America. The Europe segment includes Europe and parts of Africa. North Asia segment includes Japan, China, Hong Kong, Korea and Taiwan. The South Asia segment includes Australia, Singapore, India, the Middle East and parts of Africa.
Imation brand products include magnetic tape media, recordable compact discs (CDs), digital versatile Discs (DVDs) and Blu-ray discs, flash products and hard disk drives. The Imation brand includes the DataGuard Data Protection Appliances, InfiniVault Storage appliances and removable disk technology (RDX) removable hard disk storage systems. Imation Defender products include secure storage flash drives and external hard drives. Imation brand products are sold throughout the worldwide and target the commercial user and individual consumer. Imation Defender products include secure storage flash drives and external hard drives. TDK Life on Record brand products include recordable CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray d! iscs, flash drives, tape cartridges, headphones and computer speakers which are sold to commercial customers and individual consumers. TDK Life on Record brand products is sold throughout the world.
XtremeMac brand products include cases, chargers and audio solutions to protect, power and play Apple iPad, iPod, iPhone and other devices. XtremeMac products are developed for Apple enthusiasts and are available worldwide. Its MXI Security brand includes secure storage flash drives and external hard drives, as well as software solutions to help manage portable security devices on the network.
Traditional Storage
The Company�� optical media products consist of CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray recordable media. It sells Blu-ray discs, which are used primarily for recording high-definition video content. Its recordable optical media products are sold through a variety of retail and commercial distribution channels and sourced from manufacturers primarily in Taiwan and India. Optical storage capacities range from 650 megabyte CD-R (recordable) and CD-RW (rewritable) optical discs to 9.4 gigabyte double-sided DVD optical discs and Blu-ray discs with 25 gigabyte to 100 gigabyte of capacity. Its optical media is sold throughout the world under brands it owns or controls, including Imation, Memorex and TDK Life on Record and under a distribution agreement for the Hewlett Packard brand.
The Company�� magnetic tape media products are used for back-up, business and operational continuity planning, disaster recovery, near-line data storage and retrieval and for mass and archival storage. Other traditional storage products include primarily optical drives and audio and video tape media.
Secure and Scalable Storage
Secure storage products and software include universal serial bus (USB) flash drives and external hard drives designed to meet the security standards to protect data at rest with Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) validation, pa! ssword an! d biometric authentication, including biometric USB drives, encrypted and biometric hard disk drives, secure portable desktop solutions and software solutions. It also sells standard USB flash drives and external hard disk drives throughout the world under its Imation, Memorex and TDK Life on Record brands. It sources these products from manufacturers primarily in Asia and the United States and sell them through a variety of retail and commercial distribution channels around the world. Scalable storage products include data protection appliances, such as DataGuard network attached storage backup appliances and InfiniVault active archive appliances.
Audio and Video Information
The Company�� audio and video information products include Apple iPad, iPod and iPhone accessories, headphones, CD players, alarm clocks, portable boom boxes, moving picture experts group layer-3 audio (MP3) players, and speakers sold under the Memorex, TDK Life on Record and XtremeMac brands. It designs products to meet user needs and source these products from manufacturers throughout Asia.
The Company competes with Maxell, JVC, Sony, Verbatim, Fuji, HP, SanDisk, Lexar, PNY and Kingston.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By John Udovich]
As cyber theft and hacking continues to grow, mir or small cap stocks like Splunk Inc (NASDAQ: SPLK), Imation Corp (NYSE: IMN) and Staffing 360 Solutions Inc (OTCBB: STAF)�are some overlooked, indirect or just plain interesting plays on cybersecurity that investors might want to take note of:
- [By Geoff Gannon] g>4. Tuesday Morning (TUES)
5. Pacific Biosciences (PACB)
6. Maxygen (MAXY)
7. Westell (WSTL)
8. Volt Information Sciences (VISI)
9. Yasheng Group (YHGG)I don�� love that list. I like the 14 past picks in the Ben Graham Net-Net Newsletter�� model portfolio much better. The newsletter only owns 1 of those 9 net-nets. Remember, we have 9 net-nets out of the 14 picked for the newsletter that are trading below where we picked them. So, obviously I like those 9 net-nets a lot better than these 9 net-nets.
Like I said, I wouldn�� encourage you to buy those nine net-nets shown here ��even if you��e looking to put a lot of money into net-nets. Instead you should look at your favorite net-nets ��or the net-nets in the Ben Graham: Net-Net Newsletter ��and use them as a buy list you are constantly placing orders from month after month.
Building a diversified collection of net-net through many months of purchasing is a better way to invest a lot of money in net-nets than trying to focus on the biggest net-nets.
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Top Computer Hardware Stocks To Invest In Right Now: Mitek Systems Inc (MITK)
Mitek Systems, Inc. (Mitek), incorporated in 1986, is engaged in the development, sale and service of software solutions related to mobile imaging applications and intelligent recognition software. Mitek is applying its technology and in image correction, optical character recognition and intelligent data extraction to mobile devices. Using Mitek Mobile Apps, camera-equipped smartphone users can deposit checks, pay bills, save receipts and fax documents. Users simply take a picture of the document and its products corrects image distortion, extracting relevant data, routing images to their desired location, and processing transactions through users��financial institutions. It has developed and deployed Mobile Deposit, a software application that allows users to deposit a check using their smartphone camera. It has developed and deployed Mobile Receipt, a receipt archival and expense report application, and Mobile Phax, a mobile document faxing application. Its Mobile Photo Bill Pay, a mobile bill paying application that allows users to pay their bills using their smartphone camera. During fiscal year ended September 30, 2010 (fiscal 2010), it had one operating segment based on its product and service offerings.
IMagePROVE Technology Products
Using IMagePROVE, the Company has a suite of business productivity applications for camera-equipped smartphones, including the iPhone and selected BlackBerry, Android and Windows Mobile handsets. It has four products that use its IMagePROVE technology Mobile Deposit, Mobile Receipt, Mobile Phax and Mobile Photo Bill Pay. Its products are used in the financial services industry. It has secured sales partnerships with system integrators for the financial services industry, including Fiserv, FIS, NCR, Jack Henry, Wausau, BankServ, RDM, J&B Software and Bluepoint Solutions.
The Company�� Mobile Deposit is the smartphone application allows banks to accept check deposits through photos of checks taken with camera-equipped smart! phones. Mobile Deposit allows users to make deposits by photographing the front and back of a check and submitting the item electronically to their bank from their smartphone. Its Mobile Receipt is designed to convert the photo of a receipt taken with a smartphone into an image and with a single touch, converts the data into a professional looking expense report. Mobile Phax allows user to take a photo of any letter sized document or page and send it as a portable document format (PDF) file to any e-mail address or fax machine.
The Company�� Mobile Photo Bill Pay allows users to take pictures of their bills with their smartphone cameras and its Mobile Photo Bill Pay product correct image distortion, reading relevant data and processing the transactions through the users��banks. The payment is made electronically by debiting the users checking account and using existing online bill pay systems. With Mobile Photo Bill Pay, users can submit electronic payments from their smartphones without having to write checks, lick stamps, visit a payment location or even use their personal computers.
ImageNet Intelligent Character Recognition Toolkits
The Company�� ImageNet products are designed to provide remittance processing, proof of deposit and lock box processing applications. Its products are used to reduce manual labor by automatically extracting amounts and routing information from checks and distinguishing between common document types, such as personal and business checks, substitute checks, pre-authorized drafts and other document types specified by customers. It sells ImageNet suite of products to its channel partners, who resell them as integrated components of their solutions and services. Its ImageNet suite of products includes ImageNet Prep & ID, ImageNet Payments, ImageNet Data Capture and ImageNet Signatures.
ImageNet Prep & ID is a software toolkit that is designed to provide automatic form information document (ID), form registration and fo! rm/templa! te removal. Image Net Prep & ID reduces the image size by removing information, such as pre-printed text, lines, and boxes; leaving only the filled-in data. ImageNet Payments allows for the automatic reading of machine and hand print information found on scanned documents and forms from any structured form, as well as bank documents, such as checks, deposit slips, and remittance coupons. ImageNet Payments integrates technology components from the CheckReader product that it licenses from a vendor that is designed to read rates of the currency and legal amounts of checks drawn on the United States and Canadian financial institutions.
ImageNet Data Capture is a software toolkit that captures data from types of unstructured business documents. ImageNet Data Capture is used in data capture applications where data must be found and extracted from documents that have no pre-determined format or layout, but share common data elements. ImageNet Data Capture is designed to locate this data on documents using contextual, positional, format and keyword specific information. It has supplied ImageNet Data Capture as a stand alone application programming interface (API) to several original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in the document processing field. ImageNet Signatures is a software toolkit that locates, extracts and verifies signatures in any document. It encodes each signature and compares it with encoded reference examples rather than comparing actual images. Its image analytics encode 60 characteristics of each signature, which allows for accurate signature fraud detection.
FraudProtect Systems
The Company�� FraudProtect System is an automated software application designed to allow banks to detect check fraud from forged signatures and counterfeit checks, as well as the detection of pre-authorized drafts and payee name alterations. Its FraudProtect suite of products includes FraudProtect SDK, PADsafe and PayeeFind. Its FraudProtect SDK is a toolkit designed to detect c! heck frau! d and forgery using image analytics to uncover inconsistencies and alterations in checks as they are processed by banks. These products are sold to OEMs and system integrators and can detect forged or illegally modified checks. Its PADsafe product detects fraudulent preauthorized drafts (PADs). PADsafe automatically identifies PADs from checks, and then notifies the user of fraudulent transactions, reducing and preventing the unauthorized withdrawal of funds. Its PayeeFind product is designed to prevent payee-altered checks from clearing.
ImageScore
ImageScore is the Company�� Check 21 readiness solution for any financial institution that truncates or uses check images in an accounts receivables conversion environment. Integrated solution providers for financial institutions can also buy ImageScore to enhance their products. ImageScore is designed to analyze check images to provide the usability and information needed to help financial institutions act in accordance with regulatory and industry mandates.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By U.S. News]
In at least one Texas bank and one Ohio credit union, 3D video banking is currently undergoing testing, according to TheFinancialBrand.com, a website for bank and credit union marketing executives. Three-dimensional video banking is similar to a consumer video conference with a bank representative –- only in this case, the executive looks like a living, breathing person sitting across from you. Thanks to theater surround sound, the representative also sounds as if they're in the same room. And since the consumer is interacting with a real person and not an automated hologram, the experience apparently isn't much different than the real thing. Banking and managing money isn't what it used to be. The 1970s and 1980s brought us the rise of the ATM. Consumers became acquainted with online banking during the 1990s and the first decade of the 2000s. The 2010s are shaping up as the era of mobile banking. That was underscored Sept. 10-11 in New York City when Mitek Systems Inc. (MITK), a San Diego-based technology company, debuted its Mobile Photo Account Opening product at Finovate, a trade show where banking tech products are often unveiled. The product allows consumers to open a bank account within 60 seconds. If you have your bank's app, you can use your smartphone's camera to take a photo of the front and back of your driver's license, and presto, your new checking, savings or credit card account is open. Here's a look at other financial products and services personal financial experts think we'll be using in the future. Within 10 years. "The economic payments system will begin to 'know us,' either through biometrics, optical sensor or facial recognition," says Joshua Siegel, managing principal of StoneCastle Partners, a New York-based asset management firm that invests in banks. That's already happening to some extent with smartphones –- the new Apple (AAPL) iPhone 5S, for example, uses fingerprint scanning to unlock the phone. Meanwhile, some fi
- [By James E. Brumley]
Anybody who was lucky enough to get into a Recon Technology, Ltd. (NASDAQ:RCON) position before October 7th, then congratulations - you're up big-time. Now get out. Instead, a better use of that capital is Mitek Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:MITK). While RCON is overbought and ripe for a pullback, MITK is itching to stage a breakout.
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