5 Best Performing Stocks To Watch Right Now

Cigna (NYSE: CI  ) has a new CFO.

On Monday after close of trading, the Bloomfield, Conn.-based health insurer announced that Chief Financial Officer Ralph J. Nicoletti is leaving the company "for personal reasons." Simultaneously with that revelation, Cigna announced it is promoting Vice President of Finance Thomas A. McCarthy to the CFO's post. Effective July 12, McCarthy will take over responsibility for all of Cigna's financial operations and functions as well as for its investment management and strategic planning units.

In compensation for performing these tasks, McCarthy will be paid a $600,000 base salary, plus:

an annual bonus targeting $600,000 approximately $1.05 million in stock options vesting over three years approximately $1.05 million more in "strategic performance shares," likewise vesting over three years

Cigna values the entire annual compensation package at $3.3 million, but does not stop there. In addition to annual compensation, Cigna says it will award $1.3 million worth of additional long-term incentive awards, consisting of three installments of strategic performance shares paid out in progressively larger amounts from 2014 through 2016.

5 Best Performing Stocks To Watch Right Now: Towne Bank(TOWN)

TowneBank, through its subsidiaries, provides retail and commercial banking products and services in the Greater Hampton Roads region in southeastern Virginia. The company operates in three segments: Banking, Realty, and Insurance. The Banking segment provides various deposits products, including checking accounts, demand deposits, negotiable order of withdrawal accounts, savings accounts, money rate savings, certificates of deposit, and individual retirement accounts; personal loans, including secured and unsecured loans for financing automobiles, home improvements, education, and personal investments; commercial loans comprising secured and unsecured loans for working capital, business expansion, and equipment and machinery purchases; and fixed- and floating-rate mortgage loans, as well as real estate construction and acquisition loans. This segment also provides safe deposit boxes, cash management services, travelers? checks, direct deposit of payroll and social securi ty checks, and automatic drafts for various accounts, as well as Internet and on-call banking services. In addition, it offers documentation to accomplish tax deferral to investors; and financial, retirement, and estate planning services, as well as assistance on various investment options, including alternative investments, annuities, margin accounts, convertible bonds, and pension and profit sharing plans. The Realty segment provides residential real estate, resort property management, and commercial residential title insurance services, as well as originates mortgage loans. The Insurance segment provides life, property, casualty, and vehicle insurance services; travel, medical, and baggage protection insurance for travelers; and employee benefit programs, including medical, dental, vision, and disability insurance, as well as serves as an administrator for health care and dependent care flexible benefit plans. The company was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in Portsm outh, Virginia.

5 Best Performing Stocks To Watch Right Now: NetApp Inc.(NTAP)

NetApp, Inc. engages in the design, manufacturing, marketing, and technical support of networked storage solutions. It supplies enterprise storage and data management software, and hardware products and services. The company offers Data ONTAP, an operating system that supports storage area network (SAN) and network-attached storage (NAS) environments; storage efficiency technologies, including FlexVol, FlexClone, and Deduplication technologies; storage management and application integration software, such as OnCommand management software; fabric-attached storage unified storage systems, which support a range of data for users on various platforms; and virtual storage tier; V-Series network-based virtualization solutions that provide SAN and NAS access to the data stored in heterogeneous storage arrays. It also provides data protection software products, including Snapshot, SnapRestore, SnapVault, and Open Systems SnapVault techologies; MetroCluster products; and SnapMirror data replication solution. In addition, the company offers data retention and archive products, and Flash Cache modules; and storage security products for data security and key management in IP SAN, NAS, and tape backup environments; StorageGRID that enables intelligent data management and secure content retention; and professional services, global support solutions, and customer education and training. It serves energy, financial services, government, high technology, Internet, life sciences and healthcare services, manufacturing, media, entertainment, animation and video postproduction, and telecommunications industries. It offers its products in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Asia Pacific, and Japan. The company was formerly known as Network Appliance, Inc. and changed its name to NetApp, Inc. in March 2008. NetApp, Inc. was founded in 1992 and is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By James Rogers]

  After a couple of lackluster quarters, NetApp busted out decent third-quarter results and guidance last Wednesday, pointing to a turnaround in the storage maker's fortunes.

  The EMC(EMC) rival met Wall Street's estimates, and projected fourth-quarter revenue and earnings in line with analysts' expectations, much to investors' delight.

  "After missing Street expectations the last two quarters and turning many believers into skeptics, NetApp managed to turn in a solid quarter with balanced growth across products and geographies outside of U.S. Federal," noted ISI Group's Marshall, in his note.

  Marshall maintained his NetApp buy rating and raised his price target from $47 to $50.

  Speaking during a conference call to discuss the results, NetApp CEO Tom Georgens acknowledged that the company's major accounts have been a drag on revenue growth all fiscal year. "But we saw a bit of a rebound this quarter as the major accounts in all geographies other than U.S. public sector produced revenue growth in excess of fiscal year-to-date levels," he added.

  NetApp also explained that revenue from OEM partners such as IBM(IBM) and Fujitsu grew 6% sequentially, while sales of the company's own branded products were up 4% over the same period.

  Robert W. Baird analyst Jayson Noland says there's a lot for investors to like about NetApp. "We remain positive on NetApp's underlying market and continue to believe the company has competitive advantages," he explained, in a note released last week. "[NetApp is] well positioned for data center trends."

  Specifically, Noland highlighted NetApp's core competencies in Network Attached Storage (NAS) and the iSCSI networking protocol, which bode well for server virtualization, unified storage and the push towards 10-Gigabit Ethernet networks.

  Noland maintained his NetApp outperform rating and $50 price target.

  NetApp shares are up more than 16% this year, closing at $42.20 on Friday.

• [By Quickel]  

  The company is gaining significant market share over the past year due to a strong storage-optimization-based product positioning especially in virtual-server-related Storage deployments, ramping distribution and sales presence, and increasing penetration into the enterprise.

  The brokerage expects these growth drivers to continue driving share gains for NetApp and solidify its recently-achieved No.2 position in the Storage market.

  The analysts said: "Considering our belief that NTAP is strongly positioned in the strongest Storage growth markets, is gaining significant share at scale and has seen a significant reset in its earning power, we believe there is material potential upside in NTAP stock at current levels."

Hot Penny Stocks To Invest In Right Now: Xinyuan Real Estate Co Ltd(XIN)

Xinyuan Real Estate Co. Ltd., together with its subsidiaries, engages in residential real estate development in China. The company?s residential projects comprise various residential buildings that include multi-layer apartment buildings, sub-high-rise apartment buildings, or high-rise apartment buildings; auxiliary services and amenities, such as retail outlets, leisure and health facilities, kindergartens, and schools; and small scale residential properties. It also offers property management and other real estate related services, such as landscaping and installing intercom systems. In addition, the company leases properties, including an elementary school, a basement, three clubhouses, five kindergartens, and parking facilities. As of December 31, 2010, it had 21 completed projects with a total gross floor area (GFA) of approximately 2,049,460 square meters and comprising a total of 23,324 units, as well as 8 projects under construction with a total GFA of 1,804,946 sq uare meters. It primarily operates in seven tier II cities, comprising Hefei, Jinan, Kunshan, Suzhou, Zhengzhou, Xuzhou, and Chengdu. The company was founded in 1997 and is headquartered in Beijing, the People?s Republic of China.

5 Best Performing Stocks To Watch Right Now: Tyler Technologies Inc. (TYL)

Tyler Technologies, Inc. provides integrated information management solutions and services for the public sector with a focus on local governments in the United States and internationally. The company offers financial management solutions, including modular fund accounting systems for government agencies and not-for-profit entities; and utility billing systems to support the billing and collection of metered and non-metered services. It also provides financial management systems, such as specialized products to automate various city functions, including municipal courts, parking tickets, equipment and project costing, animal and business licenses, permits and inspections, code enforcement, citizen complaint tracking, ambulance billing, fleet maintenance, and cemetery records management; and student information systems and transportation solutions to K-12 schools, as well as software applications to manage public sector pension funds. In addition, the company offers integra ted suite of judicial solutions comprising court case management, court and law enforcement, prosecutor, and supervision systems to handle complex, multi-jurisdictional county, statewide implementations, and single county systems; systems and software to automate the appraisal and assessment of real and personal properties; tax applications for agencies that bill and collect taxes; and software applications that enable county governments to enhance and automate courthouse operations. Further, it provides subscription-based services, such as application service provider arrangements and other hosted service offerings, software subscriptions, and disaster recovery services; electronic document filing solutions for courts and law offices; professional IT services, including software and hardware installation, data conversion, training, and product modifications; and outsourced property appraisal services for taxing jurisdictions. The company was founded in 1966 and is headquart ered in Dallas, Texas.

5 Best Performing Stocks To Watch Right Now: Umeco Plc(UMC.L)

Umeco plc provides advanced composite materials primarily to the aerospace and defense, wind energy, recreation, and automotive industries. The company involves in the development, manufacture, and supply of structural materials, such as prepregs for components and tooling, adhesive films/pastes, cross-plied face sheets, and honeycomb flat panels. It also offers a range of process materials, including bagging films, release films, peel plies, release fabrics, breathers, bleeders, sealant tapes, pressure sensitive tapes, vacuum valves, and hoses for temperatures and resin systems, PMA structural foams, custom shaped heat-sealed vacuum bags for various applications, as well as materials for wind turbine applications; and rubber construction materials, such as re-usable vacuum bags, pressure bags, and intensifiers. In addition, the company designs and manufactures large scale composite tooling; and offers engineering training and consultancy services to the composites industr y. Further, it distributes polyester resin and glass fiber; consumable short shelf-life hazardous goods; and electronic test equipment for testing fuels and heavy oils in the petrochemical industry. The company operates in Europe, the United States, and internationally. Umeco plc is based in Leamington Spa, the United Kingdom.