Since spinning off AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV ) at the beginning of the year, Abbott Laboratories' (NYSE: ABT ) stock has done pretty well, rising over 13%. The company announced first-quarter financial results on Wednesday. How will these results impact Abbott's nice stock run?
Results
The numbers looked pretty good. Adjusted earnings for the first quarter came in at $0.42 per diluted share. That amount was near the high end of Abbott Laboratories' previous guidance and narrowly beat the average analyst estimates of $0.41 per share.
Abbott reported total sales for the first quarter of $5.38 billion, up 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts, though, were expecting higher revenue of $5.41 billion.
The company confirmed its prior full-year 2013 adjusted earnings guidance of $1.98 to $2.04 per share. GAAP earnings projections for the full year are $1.39 to $1.45 per share. Abbott also estimated that second-quarter adjusted earnings would be in the $0.43 to $0.45 per share range, with GAAP earnings for second quarter of $0.27 to $0.29 per share.
Best Companies For 2014: Cobham(COB.L)
Cobham plc engages in the development, delivery, and support of aerospace and defence technology and systems worldwide. The company operates in four segments: Cobham Aerospace and Security, Cobham Defence Systems, Cobham Mission Systems, and Cobham Aviation Services. The Cobham Aerospace and Security segment provides avionics and communication equipment, law enforcement and national security solutions, and satellite communication equipment for land, sea, and air applications. The Cobham Defence Systems segment offers technology for network centric and intelligence operations, as well as enables information to move around the digital battlefield with solutions for people and systems to communicate on land, sea, and air. The Cobham Mission Systems segment provides safety and survival systems; re fuelling and mission systems for jets, transport aircraft, and rotor craft; and remote controlled robots and bomb disposal vehicles for homeland security and military applications. C obham Aviation Services segment delivers aviation services for military and civil customers through military training, mission flight operations, outsourced commercial aviation, and aircraft engineering. The company serves original equipment manufacturers, government agencies, contractors, airlines, and other commercial customers. Cobham plc was founded in 1934 and is based in Wimborne, the United Kingdom.
Best Companies For 2014: Royal Gold Inc.(RGLD)
Royal Gold, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, acquires and operates precious metals royalties. The company owns royalty interests in various production, development, evaluation, and exploration stage projects, which explore for gold, silver, copper, lead, and zinc metals. It holds royalty interests in properties located in the United States, Argentina, Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Canada, Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Finland, Ghana, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, the Russia Federation, Spain, and Tunisia. The company was founded in 1981 and is based in Denver, Colorado.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Itinerant]
Barrick Gold also has obligations to pay Royal Gold (RGLD) a royalty on some of the precious metal output from the mine once operational; and more importantly, the company has given a completion guarantee to Silver Wheaton (SLW) as part of a deal that saw Silver Wheaton contribute $625M towards capex in 2009 in exchange to buy 25% of the produced silver for a discounted price of $3.90. If the mine is not completed by December 31, 2015, then Silver Wheaton has the right to ask for its money back. Silver Wheaton will be thinking of ways to manage its share of the disaster as confirmation has now been given that Pascua-Lama will not be completed by that dead line. For the moment, Silver Wheaton has extended the deadline by one year to December 31, 2016, and has reduced the guidance for 2017.
- [By Jon C. Ogg]
Royal Gold Inc. (NASDAQ: RGLD) was downgraded to Hold from Buy at BB&T Capital Markets.
Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT) was downgraded to Neutral from Positive with a price target that is up at $73 at Susquehanna.
- [By Eric Volkman]
Royal Gold (NASDAQ: RGLD ) is converting some of its namesake precious metal into cash for its shareholders. For its Q3, the company has declared a common stock dividend of $0.20 per share. This will be handed out on July 19 to shareholders of record as of July 5. That amount matches both of the firm's previous two distributions, the most recent of which was paid in April.
- [By Dave Kranzler]
Based on all these factors, not only am I more confident that Friday, June 28 marked the bottom of this brutal 2-year correction in the precious metals, but I am also confident that the next secular bull market move higher will take gold to a new record high. If you agree with my outlook, the best way to play a trading move is to get long GLD or long-dated calls on GLD. I also recommend that everyone who wants to preserve their wealth and use gold as an investment should accumulate physical gold and silver. You can express a leveraged view on gold by getting long Royal Gold (RGLD), which is a large gold mining royalty company that benefits on a "leveraged" basis as the price of gold moves higher.
Top Heal Care Companies To Buy For 2014: Porter Bancorp Inc.(PBIB)
Porter Bancorp, Inc. operates as the bank holding company for PBI Bank that provides commercial and personal banking products and services in Kentucky. The company?s deposit products include checking accounts, savings accounts, term certificate accounts, time deposits, negotiable order of withdrawal accounts, money market accounts, fixed rate certificates, and certificates of deposit. Its loan portfolio comprises residential mortgage, commercial, consumer, and agriculture loans; and real estate loans, including commercial and residential real estate, and real estate construction loans. The company also provides drive-through banking facilities, automatic teller machines, night depository, personalized checks, credit cards, debit cards, Internet banking, electronic funds transfers, domestic and foreign wire transfers, travelers? checks, cash management, vault services, loan and deposit sweep accounts, and lock box services. In addition, Porter Bancorp offers personal trus t services, employer retirement plan services, and personal financial and retirement planning services. As of July 28, 2011, it operated 18 full-service banking offices in Kentucky. The company was founded in 1988 and is headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky.
Best Companies For 2014: Groupon Inc (GRPN)
Groupon, Inc. (Groupon) is a local e-commerce marketplace that connects merchants to consumers by offering goods and services at a discount. Each day the Company e-mails its subscribers discounted offers for goods and services that are targeted by location and personal preferences. Consumers also access its deals directly through its Websites and mobile applications. The Company operates in two segments: North America, which represents the United States and Canada; and International, which represents the rest of its global operations. Customers purchase Groupons from the Company and redeem them with its merchants. As of September 30, 2011, the Company featured deals from over 190,000 merchants worldwide across over 190 categories of goods and services. Groupon primarily addresses the worldwide local commerce markets in the leisure, recreation, foodservice and retail sectors. In February 2012, the Company announced the launch of Groupon Thailand. In September 2012, it acquired Savored.
In May 2010, the Company acquired CityDeal Europe GmbH (CityDeal). In August 2010, the Company acquired Qpod.inc (Qpod). In November 2010, the Company acquired Ludic Labs, Inc., a company that designs and develops local marketing services. During the year ended December 31, 2010, the Company acquired Mobly, Inc. In February 2011, the Company launched Deal Channels, which aggregates daily deals from the same category.
The Company distributes a featured daily deal by e-mail on behalf of local merchants to subscribers. It offers daily deals from more than 40 national merchants, including Bath & Body Works, The Body Shop, Hyatt Regency, InterContinental Hotels, Lions Gate, Redbox, Shutterfly and Zipcar across subsets of the North American market. Daily deals that do not appear as a featured daily deal appear as Deals Nearby. Each Deal Nearby is summarized in fewer than 20 words next to the featured daily deal. Deals Nearby often extends beyond the subscriber's closest market or buying preferences.
National merchants also have used the Company�� marketplace as an alternative to traditional marketing and brand advertising. On August 19, 2010, the Company e-mailed and posted a Groupon daily deal offering $50 of apparel at Gap for $25 to 9.2 million subscribers across 85 markets in North America. It sold approximately 433,000 Groupons in 24 hours. Of the consumers who purchased Groupons, approximately 200,000 were new subscribers. As of September 30, 2011, it had 142.9 million subscribers to its daily e-mails.
Groupon NOW is a deal initiated by a merchant on demand and offered instantly to subscribers through mobile devices and its Website. Subsequent to the year ended December 31, 2010, the Company launched Groupon NOW in 25 North American markets. Deal Channels aggregate daily deals from the same category and are accessible through its Website and through e-mail alerts that subscribers sign up to receive. It offers Deal Channels in home and garden and event tickets and travel. Merchants can register their deals to be included in a Deal Channel. Subscribers can use Deal Channels to focus on deals that are of interest to them.
Self-Service Deals allows the Company�� merchants to use a self-service platform to create and launch deals at their discretion. The use of the platform is free and allows merchants to establish a permanent e-commerce presence on Groupon that can be visited and followed by subscribers. The Company receives a portion of the purchase price from deals sold through Self-Service Deals based on the extent to which it marketed the deal. In December 2010, it launched Self-Service Deals in selected North American markets.
Groupon Goods enables consumers to purchase vouchers for products directly from its Website. The Company e-mails deals for Groupon Goods weekly to a targeted subscriber base. The Company offers deals for a variety of product categories, including electronics, home and garden and toys. In September 2011, the Compa! ny launch! ed Groupon Goods in select North American and International markets.
Groupon Rewards enables consumers to unlock special Groupon deals from local merchants through repeat visits. Consumers earn reward points at participating merchants by paying with the credit or debit card they have registered with the Company. Merchants set the amount the consumer must spend to unlock a reward deal, and once a consumer is eligible to unlock a deal, it automatically notifies them. The Company distributes its deals directly through several platforms: a daily e-mail, its Websites, its mobile applications and social networks.
In December 2010, the Company partnered with Redbox to offer a daily deal to their user base and it acquired over 200,000 new customers through that offer and in March 2011, it partnered with eBay to offer a daily deal to their user base and it acquired over 290,000 new customers through that offer. The featured daily deal e-mail contains one headline deal with a full-description of the deal and often contains links to More Great Deals Nearby, all of which are available within a subscriber's market.
Visitors are prompted to register as a subscriber when they first visit its Website and thereafter use the Website as a portal for featured daily deals, Deals Nearby, national deals, and where available, Deal Channels and Self-Service Deals. Consumers also access the Company�� deals through its mobile applications, which are available on the iPhone, Android, Blackberry and Windows mobile operating systems. It launched its first mobile application in March 2010. The Company publishes its daily deals through various social networks and its notifications are adapted to the particular format of each of these social networking platforms.
Groupon competes with Google, Microsoft, Eversave, BuyWithMe and LivingSocial.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Dan Newman]
The investing hype that led Groupon� (NASDAQ: GRPN ) �to a $15 billion valuation has since abandoned the company. In a twisted irony wrapped in its own discount-oriented business, the company now trades for more than 50% off that value, at around $4 billion. However, Groupon is now a much different company since its IPO. While bears have written off the company based off its past hype, the company frantically searches for a solid business and just may have found a sustainable model.
- [By Douglas A. McIntyre]
Several�very well-known apps are not on either top five list, but�each must get millions of downloads a month. Twitter, weather apps, Pandora Media Inc. (NYSE: P), eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY), Gmail, Pinterest, Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), Skype and Groupon Inc. (NASDAQ: GRPN) already rule across the PC, tablet and smartphone “ecosystems.” None of these is likely to lose popularity, and some probably will gain more.
- [By Andrew Tonner]
It's been a wild ride for Groupon (NASDAQ: GRPN ) investors on the public markets. The company initially went public with about as much hype behind it as there ever has been, only to see that promise fade quickly. However, as its share price has reflected over the past few months, the company has gone a long way toward righting the ship and moving into a more stable future. In this video, Fool contributor Andrew Tonner breaks down the ongoing turnaround at the daily-deals monster and how, despite all the positivity, the company's shares still might be a tad too optimistic today.
- [By Eric Bleeker, CFA]
Seeing a stock that's fallen out of favor soar on the news of an executive departure isn't uncommon. For example,�Groupon� (NASDAQ: GRPN ) has more than�doubled�since the departure of CEO Andrew Mason in late February of this year. However, in the case of Zynga, Eric warns that the key problem with the company has been its products, and Mark Pincus is staying onboard as the head of Zynga's products. More so, he's a notorious micromanager who hasn't worked well with high-level executives brought in during the past couple of years. Investors hoping that Mattrick's hiring could solve the woes that have brought Zynga's stock back to earth could be disappointed.�
Best Companies For 2014: Argo Group International Holdings Ltd.(AGII)
Argo Group International Holdings, Ltd. underwrites specialty insurance and reinsurance products in the property and casualty market worldwide. The company?s Excess and Surplus Lines segment underwrites casualty, property, transportation, and binding authority for commercial enterprises, including restaurants, contractors, day care centers, apartment complexes, condominium associations, manufacturers, and distributors; and offers policies for medical facilities within the social services, miscellaneous healthcare, and long term care markets, as well as for lawyers, miscellaneous professions, employment practices, and real estate related accounts. This segment also provides package policies for environmental consultants and contractors, storage tanks, dry cleaners pollution liability, as well as other environmental related liability exposures; and coverage for architects and engineers, accountants, and insurance agents. Its Commercial Specialty segment offers property casu alty and surety coverages; and underwrites business coverage for small commercial businesses comprising office, retail operations, light manufacturing, services, and restaurants. This segment also provides general and automobile liability, automobile physical damage, property, inland marine, crime, public official?s and educator?s legal liability, employment practices, law enforcement liability, environmental and lawyers professional liability, student accident, police and firefighters accident, workers compensation, inmate medical, and tax interruption coverages. In addition, the company?s International Specialty segment covers claims arising from catastrophic events, such as hurricanes, windstorms, hailstorms, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, fires, industrial explosions, freezes, riots, floods, and other man-made or natural disasters. Further, its Syndicate 1200 segment underwrites property and non-U.S. liability insurance. The company was founded in 1986 and is based in Pembroke, Bermuda.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By CRWE]
Argo Group International Holdings, Ltd. (Nasdaq:AGII), an international underwriter of specialty insurance and reinsurance products, reported that its board of directors has declared a quarterly cash dividend of 12 cents per share on the company’s common stock.
Best Companies For 2014: China Unicom (CHU)
China Unicom (Hong Kong) Limited (Unicom), incorporated on February 8, 2000, is an integrated telecommunications operator in China providing mobile voice and value-added, fixed-line voice and fixed-line broadband, data communications and other telecommunications services to its customers. The Company operates in two business segments consisting of mobile services and fixed-line services. The Company is engaged in global system for mobile communications (GSM) and wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA) cellular business in 31 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions in China, the provision of fixedline voice, broadband and other Internet-related services, information and communications technology services, business and data communications services, and other related telecommunication value-added businesses. As of 30 June 2011, Unicom Group held 57.81% of the shares in the Company through China United Network Communications Limited (A Share Company), China Unicom (BVI) Limited and China Netcom Group Corporation (BVI) Limited, and Telefonica Internacional S.A.U. held 9.01% of the shares in the Company.
Mobile Business
Unicom�� mobile business consists of GSM and third generation (3G) mobile business. As of December 31, 2010, the Company had a total of 167.43 million mobile subscribers. As of December 31, 2010, its total number of mobile subscribers included 167.43 million. Unicom operates the 3G business based on the WCDMA technology nationwide in China. As of December 31, 2010, the total number of its 3G subscribers included 14.06 million, and had 1.35 million wireless data card subscribers, 2.41 million mobile television (TV) subscribers and over seven million mobile reading subscribers. During the year ended December 31, 2010, the total 3G voice usage was 55.47 billion minutes and the average data usage per subscriber per month was 178M. GSM mobile business primarily consists of GSM voice business and value-added business.
The Company�� mobile ! voice business enables its subscribers to make and receive phone calls with a mobile handset at any point within the coverage area of its mobile telecommunications networks. Its mobile voice business includes local calls, domestic long distance calls, international long distance calls, intra-provincial roaming, inter-provincial roaming and international roaming. As of December 31, 2010, the Company�� total number of GSM mobile subscribers was 153.37 million. Unicom offers a range of GSM value-added services nationwide, including short message service (SMS), Cool Ringtone (a personalized ring-back tone service), mobile Internet and other wireless information services. During 2010, a total of 78.31 billion SMSs were transmitted by its GSM mobile subscribers. As of December 31, 2010, the Company had a total number of 67.26 million subscribers to its Cool Ringtone service. In addition, as of December 31, 2010, it had a total number of 55.81 million mobile Internet subscribers.
Fixed-Line Business
Unicom is a fixed-line broadband and communications operator in northern China. The Company offers a range of fixed-line services nationwide in China, including fixed-line broadband services and data communications services; fixed-line voice services, include local and long distance fixed-line voice services and value-added services, and other services. The Company is a provider of fixed-line broadband services in its fixed-line northern service region. Unicom is a provider of data communications services in its fixed-line northern service region. It offers managed data products, such as those based on digital data networks (DDN), frame relay, asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) and Internet protocol-virtual private network (IP-VPN). The Company also offers leased line products, including domestic and international leased circuits. Its customers for these services include government entities, large financial institutions and other domestic and multinational businesses, Internet service prov! iders and! other telecommunications operators.
As of December 31, 2010, the Company had established business cooperation relationships with more than 160 overseas operators to provide various international data communications products and services, such as international voice and data services. During 2010, it continued to offer full-scale data communications services to international operators and domestic and international corporate customers. The Company�� fixed-line voice services consist of local voice, domestic long distance, international long distance, value-added, interconnection and personal handyphone system (PHS) services. In addition to fixed-line telephone voice services, it offers a range of value-added services on its fixed-line networks. The Company�� fixed-line, value-added services include Personalized Ring and caller identification services. Personalized Ring services enable its fixed-line subscribers to personalize the ring-back tone for incoming calls. As of December 31, 2010, the number of its Personalized Ring subscribers reached 23.79 million.
Interconnection and Roaming Arrangements
The Company earns interconnection fees for terminating or transiting calls that originate from other domestic telecommunications operators��networks and pay interconnection fees to other operators for calls originating from its networks that are terminated on their networks. It earns and pays such fees in respect of mobile calls, local and domestic and international long distance calls and Internet services, except for the interconnection by fixed-line subscribers calling its mobile subscribers in the same region where no interconnection fee will be charged.
The Company provides roaming services, which allow its subscribers to access its mobile services while they are physically outside of their registered service area or in the coverage areas of other mobile networks in other countries and regions with which it has roaming arrangements. As of April 30! , 2011, U! nicom had roaming arrangements for GSM international voice and SMS services with 242 operators in 521 countries and regions; GPRS international inbound data services with 179 operators in 400 countries and regions and for international GPRS outbound data services with 164 operators in 357 countries and regions, and 3G services with 104 WCDMA operators in 245 countries and regions.
Mobile Networks
The Company�� mobile network consists of cell sites, which are physical locations, each equipped with a base station that houses transmitters, receivers and other equipment used to communicate through radio channels with subscribers��mobile handsets within the range of a cell; base station controllers, which connect to, and control, the base stations, and mobile switching centers, which control the base station controllers and the routing of telephone calls. Its mobile network also consists of a transmission network, which links the mobile switching centers, base station controllers, base stations and the public switched telephone network. It has deployed GSM and WCDMA mobile networks. The Company�� GSM mobile network mainly operates at 900 megahertz. It has also deployed GSM technology that operates at 1,800 megahertz in metropolitan areas to supplement the capacity of its existing mobile network. As of December 31, 2010, the Company had approximately 329,000 GSM base stations.
The Company competes with China Mobile and China Telecom.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Evan Niu, CFA]
While China Mobile has never officially offered the device, the two smaller carriers do. China Unicom (NYSE: CHU ) was the first Chinese iPhone carrier in 2009, and China Telecom (NYSE: CHA ) followed suit in 2012. China Unicom and China Telecom have been consistently chipping away at China Mobile's lead in the lucrative market for 3G subscribers, a trend that has widely been attributable in part to the iPhone.
Best Companies For 2014: Century Aluminum Company(CENX)
Century Aluminum Company, through its subsidiaries, produces primary aluminum in the United States, China, and Iceland. The company offers high purity primary aluminum, molten aluminum, standard-grade ingots, extrusion billets, and other value-added primary aluminum products. It also holds a 40% joint venture interest in a carbon anode and cathode facility located in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of south China. The company was founded in 1981 and is headquartered in Monterey, California.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Pendulum]
Amid the challenges in the aluminum industry, Century Aluminum (CENX) has taken positive actions over the last few months. In June, it acquired the Sebree smelter in Kentucky. More importantly, it received approval for a new power contract at its Hawesville facility, which will improve its cost structure, and the company has similar plans for the new Sebree facility. These actions are reducing the company's cost of production and putting it in a better position to manage through the tough part of the aluminum price cycle. As a result of these actions, Century Aluminum's stock price has outperformed its peers. In this article, I will analyze the challenges in the aluminum industry and the positive impact of Century Aluminum's recent actions.
Best Companies For 2014: Utah Medical Products Inc.(UTMD)
Utah Medical Products, Inc. produces medical devices for the healthcare industry primarily in the United States and Europe. The company provides labor and delivery/obstetrics products, including fetal monitoring accessories, vacuum-assisted delivery systems, and other obstetrical tools, as well as neonatal intensive care products, such as DISPOSA-HOOD, an infant respiratory hood; DELTRAN PLUS, a blood pressure monitoring system; and GESCO, a biocompatible silicone catheter. It also offers umbilical vessel and artery, thermosensitive polyurethane, and peripherally inserted central venous catheters; enteral feeding devices; DIALY-NATE, a disposable peritoneal dialysis set; PALA-NATE, a silicone oral protection device; and MYELO-NATE for obtaining cerebral spinal fluid samples. In addition, the company provides gynecology/urology/electrosurgery products comprising LETZ System to excise cervical intraepithelial neoplasia; FINESSE electrosurgical generator; FILTRESSE evacuators ; EPITOME, an electrosurgical scalpel; PATHFINDER PLUS, an endoscopic irrigation device; LIBERTY system to treat and control urinary incontinence in women; ENDOCURETTE, a curette for uterine endometrial tissue sampling; TVUS/HSG-Cath to assess abnormal uterine bleeding; and LUMIN for manipulating the uterus. Further, it offers DELTRAN for blood pressure monitoring; and pressure monitoring accessories, components, and other molded parts. The company?s products are used in neonatal intensive care units, labor and delivery departments, and women?s health center in hospitals, as well as in outpatient clinics and physician's offices. It markets its products through direct sales representatives, independent manufacturers? representatives, specialty distributors, national hospital distribution companies, and other medical device manufacturers; and through other medical device companies and independent medical products distributors. The company was founded in 1978 and is headquar tered in Midvale, Utah.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Geoff Gannon]
Utah Medical Products (UTMD)
There are some interesting stories on that list. Buffett watchers know The Washington Post. Ben Graham fans know National Presto. Anyone who follows net-nets is familiar with Micropac. If you��e a high ROC investor you��e probably come across Utah Medical Products (operating margins are over 30%). Atrion has one of the most interesting histories of value creation starting in the 1990s. And Arden is a grocer that earns a 15% return on equity in a bad year.
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