10 Best Rising Stocks For 2014

When�The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month that the average CEO of a publicly traded American�company earns $10 million a year, did that number make you mad?

Madder than when you heard that the average member of Congress is taking home $174,000 a year, and drawing a $64,000 pension once out of office?

Well, here are a few numbers that might make you a bit less mad than the first story, and a bit more angry than the second:

On his first day of work, new University of Wisconsin basketball head coach Gary Andersen will begin receiving paychecks adding up to $1.8 million a year. Michigan State University head coach Tom Izzo is pulling down $3.7 million. And University of Kansas coach Bill Self and University of Louisville's Rick Pitino -- both get just under $5 million.

The most surprising fact of all: Because all of these schools are public universities, all of these head coaches are actually public employees. Therefore your tax dollars are going to pay their salaries.

10 Best Rising Stocks For 2014: Quantum Fuel Systems Technologies Worldwide Inc.(QTWW)

Quantum Fuel Systems Technologies Worldwide, Inc., an integrated alternative energy company, together with its subsidiaries, develops and produces propulsion systems, and renewable energy generation systems and services in the United States and internationally. The company?s Electric Drive and Fuel Systems segment offers electronic vehicle control systems to monitor and optimize electrical control strategies and/or gaseous fuel flow to drive systems to meet manufacturer?s and government hybrid electric, fuel cell, or engine requirements, as well as hybrid control software systems that optimize the operation of all hybrid and PHEV subsystems, including the engine, generator, motor, inverters, battery system, power converters, and charger; lithium ion battery control systems; inverters and motors as an integral subsystem to its drive systems; engines/generators and fuel cell power systems; fuel storage tanks; pressure regulators, fuel injectors, flow control valves, and ot her components to control the pressure, flow, and metering of gaseous fuels; and accessories, such as DC-DC converters, DC-AC inverters, electric air conditioning systems, and power steering pumps. It also offers vehicle design and prototype vehicle build, system integration, vehicle level assembly, training, repair/maintenance, and technical support services. The company?s Renewable Energy segment operates as a licensed electricity generator, developer, wholesaler, and builder of renewable electricity generation facilities. It owns and operates a 1.6 megawatt wind farm in Ontario, Canada; and has a portfolio of wind and solar farm projects that are in various stages of development in North America and the Caribbean with potential capacity of approximately 1,000 megawatt. Quantum serves automotive original equipment manufacturers, military and governmental agencies, aerospace industry, and other strategic alliance partners. The company was founded in 2000 and is headquarter ed in Irvine, California.

10 Best Rising Stocks For 2014: SanDisk Corporation(SNDK)

Sandisk Corporation designs, develops, and manufactures NAND flash memory storage solutions that are used in various consumer electronics products. The company offers removable cards under the SanDisk Ultra, SanDisk Extreme, and SanDisk Extreme PRO brands; embedded products under the iNAND brand; universal serial bus (USB) flash drives under the Cruzer brand; digital media players under the Sansa brand; solid state drives under the Lightning brand; and wafers and memory components. Its removable card products are used in a range of consumer electronics devices, including mobile phones, digital cameras, gaming devices, and laptop computers; and embedded flash products are used in mobile phones, tablets, ultrabooks, eReaders, global positioning system devices, gaming systems, imaging devices, and computing platforms. The company also provides high-capacity storage solutions, such as solid-state drives that are used in lieu of hard disk drives. It offers its products to the m obile phone, consumer electronics, and computing end markets through original equipment manufacturers, distributors, and retail sales channels in the Americas, the Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Japan. The company was formerly known as SunDisk Corporation and changed its name to SanDisk Corporation in August 1995. SanDisk Corporation was founded in 1988 and is headquartered in Milpitas, California.

Best Machinery Companies To Invest In 2014: Codexis Inc.(CDXS)

Codexis, Inc. engages in the production of custom industrial enzymes for use in the manufacture of biofuels, chemicals, and pharmaceutical ingredients. The company offers Codex Biocatalyst Panels and Kits to pharmaceutical companies that are engaged in drug development and the marketing of approved drugs to allow them to screen and identify possible enzymatic manufacturing processes for their drug candidates and their marketed products. It also provides enzyme screening services, enzyme optimization services, and enzymes, as well as supplies intermediates and active pharmaceutical ingredients to pharmaceutical companies. In addition, the company develops CodeXyme cellulase enzymes to convert cellulosic biomass, a non-food plant material into affordable sugars, which can then be converted into renewable fuels and chemicals; and CodeXol detergent alcohols that are used to manufacture surfactants, which are used as cleaning ingredients in consumer products, such as shampoos, liquid soaps, and laundry detergents. It intends to market CodeXyme cellulase enzymes to chemicals manufacturers; and CodeXol detergent alcohols as a drop-in substitute for the detergent alcohols market. The company has strategic collaborations with Royal Dutch Shell plc and Iogen Energy Corporation for the production of cellulosic ethanol from wheat straw and corn stover feedstocks. Codexis, Inc. was founded in 2002 and is headquartered in Redwood City, California.

10 Best Rising Stocks For 2014: Waddell & Reed Financial Inc. (WDR)

Waddell & Reed Financial, Inc., through its subsidiaries, provides investment management, investment product underwriting and distribution, and shareholder services administration to mutual funds, and institutional and separately managed accounts in the United States. The company acts as an investment adviser for institutional and other private investors, and provides sub advisory services to other investment companies; underwrites and distributes registered open-end mutual fund portfolios; distributes business partners� variable annuity products, and retirement and life insurance products to advisors channel customers; sells life insurance and disability products underwritten by various carriers; and offers fee-based asset allocation investment advisory products to advisors channel customers. It distributes investment products through independent financial advisors, broker/dealers, registered investment advisors, and various retirement platforms; and markets investment a dvisory services to institutional investors directly or through consultants. Waddell & Reed Financial, Inc. was founded in 1937 and is based in Overland Park, Kansas.

10 Best Rising Stocks For 2014: Xilinx Inc (XLNX)

Xilinx, Inc. (Xilinx), incorporated on February 5, 1984, designs, develops and markets programmable platforms. These programmable platforms have a number of components, including integrated circuits (ICs) in the form of programmable logic devices (PLDs), including Extensible Processing Platforms (EPPs); software design tools to program the PLDs; targeted reference designs; printed circuit boards, and intellectual property (IP), which consists of Xilinx and various third-party verification and IP cores. In addition to its programmable platforms, Xilinx provides design services, customer training, field engineering and technical support. The Company�� PLDs include field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), complex programmable logic devices (CPLDs) that its customers program to perform logic functions, and EPPs. Xilinx�� products are offered to electronic equipment manufacturers in end markets, such as wired and wireless communications, industrial, scientific and medical, aerospace and defense, audio, video and broadcast, consumer, automotive and data processing. The Company sells its products globally through independent domestic and foreign distributors and through direct sales to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) by a network of independent sales representative firms and by a direct sales management organization. In January 2011, the Company acquired AutoESL Design Technologies, Inc. In August 2012, the Company acquired embedded Linux solutions provider PetaLogix.

Product Families

The 7 series devices that comprise the Company�� 28-nanometer (nm) product families are fabricated on a high-K metal gate 28-nm process technology. These devices are based on an architecture, which enables design and IP portability and re-use across all families, as well as provides designers the ability to achieve the appropriate combination of I/O support, performance, feature quantities, packaging and power consumption to address a range of applications. The 7 series devices consist of! three families: Virtex-7 FPGA, Kintex-7 FPGAs and Artix-7 FPGAs. The Zynq-7000 family is the family of Xilinx EPPs. The Virtex-6 FPGA family consists of 13 devices and is the sixth generation in the Virtex series of FPGAs.

Virtex-6 FPGAs are fabricated on a high-performance, 40-nm process technology. There are three Virtex-6 families: Virtex-6 LXT FPGAs, Virtex-6 SXT FPGAs and Virtex-6 HXT FPGAs. The Spartan-6 family is the PLD industry�� 45-nm high-volume FPGA family, consisting of 11 devices in two product families: Spartan-6 LX FPGAs and Spartan-6 LXT FPGAs. The Virtex-5 FPGA family consists of 26 devices in five product families: Virtex-5 LX FPGAs for logic-intensive designs, Virtex-5 LXT FPGAs for high-performance logic with serial connectivity, Virtex-5 SXT FPGAs for high-performance DSP with serial connectivity, Virtex-5 FXT FPGAs for embedded processing with serial connectivity and Virtex-5 TXT FPGAs for high-bandwidth serial connectivity. Prior generation Virtex families include Virtex-4, Virtex-II Pro, Virtex-II, Virtex-E and the original Virtex family. Spartan family FPGAs include 90-nm Spartan-3 FPGAs, the Spartan-3E family and the Spartan-3A family. Prior generation Spartan families include Spartan-IIE, Spartan-II, Spartan XL and the original Spartan family.

Design Platforms and Services

The Company offers three types of programmable platforms. The Base Platform is the delivery vehicle for all of its new silicon offerings used to develop and run customer-specific software applications and hardware designs. The Base Platform consists of FPGA silicon; Integrated Software Environment (ISE) Design Suite design environment; integration support of optional third-party synthesis, simulation, and signal integrity tools; reference designs; development boards and IP. The Domain-Specific Platform targets one of the three primary Xilinx FPGA user profiles: the embedded processing developer; the DSP developer; or the logic/connectivity developer. The Market-S! pecific P! latform enables software or hardware developers to build and run their specific application or solution. Built for specific markets, such as automotive, consumer, aerospace and defense, communications, audio, video and broadcast, industrial, or scientific and medical, the Market-Specific Platform integrates both the Base and Domain-Specific Platforms.

During April 2012, Xilinx introduced the Vivado Design Suite. Vivado supports Xilinx 7 series FPGAs and Zynq EPPs. Xilinx and various third parties offer hundreds of no charge and fee-bearing IP core licenses covering Ethernet, memory controllers Interlaken and PCIe interface, as well as domain-specific IP in the areas of embedded, DSP and connectivity, and market-specific IP cores. The Company also offers development kits, including hardware, design tools, IP and reference designs. Xilinx offers a range of configuration products, including one-time programmable and in-system programmable storage devices to configure Xilinx FPGAs. These programmable read-only memory (PROM) products support all of the Company�� FPGA devices. Xilinx and certain third parties have developed and offer a ecosystem of IP, boards, tools, services and support through the Xilinx alliance program. Xilinx also works with these third parties to promote its programmable platforms through third-party tools, IP, software, boards and design services. Xilinx engineering services provide customers with engineering, ranging from hands-on training to full design creation and implementation.

The Company competes with Altera Corporation, Lattice Semiconductor Corporation and Microsemi Corporation.

10 Best Rising Stocks For 2014: Kansas City Life Insurance Company(KCLI)

Kansas City Life Insurance Company, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a financial services company that focuses on underwriting, selling, and administrating life and annuity insurance products in the United States. It offers individual insurance products, which include traditional insurance products, such as term insurance, whole life insurance, life disability, and accident and health products, as well as immediate annuity products, including various supplementary contract options; and interest sensitive insurance products that comprise universal life, variable universal life, fixed deferred annuities, variable annuities, and supplementary contracts without life contingencies. The company also provides group insurance products, such as life, dental, vision, and long-term and short-term disability products. In addition, it offers investment and broker-dealer services for proprietary and non-proprietary variable insurance products, mutual funds, and other securiti es. Kansas City Life Insurance Company markets its products through a sales force of independent general agents, agents, group brokers, and third-party marketing arrangements in 48 states and the District of Columbia. The company was founded in 1895 and is headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri.

10 Best Rising Stocks For 2014: Ascent Solar Technologies Inc.(ASTI)

Ascent Solar Technologies, Inc., a development stage company, focuses on commercializing flexible photovoltaic (PV) modules using its proprietary technology. The company intends to manufacture roll-format PV modules that use copper-indium-gallium-diselenide (CIGS) on a plastic substrate. Its proprietary manufacturing process deposits multiple layers of materials, including a thin-film of CIGS semiconductor material on a plastic substrate and laser patterns the layers to create interconnected PV cells or PV modules through monolithic integration process. The company would serve the building applied photovoltaic (BAPV) and building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) market, as well as specialty markets, such as defense, portable power, transportation, electronic integrated photovoltaic, and space and near-space. It has a strategic relationship with Norsk Hydro Produksjon AS to access customers in the BIPV/BAPV markets worldwide. Ascent Solar Technologies, Inc. was founded in 200 5 and is based in Thornton, Colorado.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Chuck]

  Ascent Solar Technologies, Inc.(NASDAQ: ASTI) closing price in the stock market Tuesday, Jan. 3, was $0.42. ASTI is trading -34.41% below its 50 day moving average and -50.53% below its 200 day moving average. ASTI is -89.37% below its 52-week high of $3.95 and 16.67% above its 52-week low of $0.46. ASTI‘s PE ratio is N/A and its market cap is $16.36M .

  Ascent Solar Technologies, Inc. is a development stage company. ASTI focuses on commercializing flexible photovoltaic (PV) modules using its proprietary technology. ASTI intends to manufacture roll-format PV modules that use copper-indium-gallium-diselenide (CIGS) on a plastic substrate.

10 Best Rising Stocks For 2014: Intellipharmaceutics International Inc.(IPCI)

Intellipharmaceutics International Inc. engages in the research, development, and manufacture of novel or generic controlled and targeted release oral solid dosage drugs. The company?s patented Hypermatrix technology is a multidimensional controlled-release drug delivery platform that can be applied to the development of various existing and new pharmaceuticals. It has a pipeline of products in various stages of development in therapeutic areas, including neurology, cardiovascular, and gastrointestinal tract, pain, and infection. The company?s lead generic product under development includes generic Focalin XR (dexmethylphenidate hydrochloride), an extended-release capsule for the treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Intellipharmaceutics has a license and commercialization agreement with Par Pharmaceutical, Inc. for the development and commercialization of generic Focalin XR. The company also has five generic products filed with the FDA, including a gene ric of Effexor XR (venlafaxine hydrochloride), an extended-release capsule for depression; Protonix (pantoprazole sodium), a delayed-release tablet for conditions associated with gastroesophageal disease; Glucophage XR (metformin hydrochloride), an extended-release tablet for managing type 2 diabetes; Seroquel XR (quetiapine fumarate), an extended-release tablet for the treatment of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depressive disorder; and Lamictal XR (lamotrigine), an extended-release tablet for the treatment of anti-convulsant for epilepsy. Its lead non-generic product under development is Rexista (oxycodone), an abuse- and alcohol-deterrent controlled-release oral oxycodone hydrochloride formulation for the relief of pain. The company also has a under late stage development product, such as Coreg CR (carvedilol phosphate), an extended-release capsule for hypertension and heart conditions. IntelliPharmaCeutics International Inc. was founded in 1998 and is based i n Toronto, Canada.

10 Best Rising Stocks For 2014: L Health Ltd(NSL.AX)

NSL Consolidated Limited engages in the exploration, development, and mining of iron ore projects in India. It holds interests in the Kuja and Mangal projects located in the south eastern Province of Andhra Pradesh. The company was formerly known as NSL Health Limited and changed its name to NSL Consolidated Limited in May 2009. NSL Consolidated Limited is based in West Perth, Australia.

10 Best Rising Stocks For 2014: Sun-Rype Products Com Npv (SRF.TO)

Sun-Rype Products Ltd. engages in the production, marketing, and sale of fruit-based beverages and food products under the SunRype brand in Canada and the United States. The company offers fruit snacks, concentrated and single strength juices, juice blends, and drinks. It also engages in the contract manufacturing of food and beverage products for other companies to distribute under their own brand or private label names; and produces and sells industrial ingredients, including bulk juice and juice concentrates. The company sells its products through grocery stores, club stores, mass merchandisers, smaller wholesalers, and drug stores, as well as retailers. The company was formerly known as BC Fruit Processors Ltd. and changed its name to Sun-Rype Products Ltd. in April 1959. Sun-Rype Products Ltd. was founded in 1946 and is headquartered in Kelowna, Canada.