Hot Telecom Companies To Buy Right Now

Hot Telecom Companies To Buy Right Now: Verizon Communications Inc.(VZ)

Verizon Communications Inc. provides communication services. The company operates through two segments, Domestic Wireless and Wireline. The Domestic Wireless segment offers wireless voice and data services; and sells equipment in the United States. The Wireline segment provides voice, Internet access, broadband video and data, Internet protocol network, network access, long distance, and other services in the United States and internationally. The company serves consumer, business, and government customers, as well as carriers. As of December 31, 2010, its network covered a population of approximately 292 million and provided service to a customer base of approximately 94.1 million. The company was formerly known as Bell Atlantic Corporation and changed its name to Verizon Communications Inc. in June 2000. Verizon Communications Inc. was founded in 1983 and is based in New York, New York.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Matt Thalman]

  A few Dow losers today
  Shares of Verizon (NYSE: VZ  ) are down 0.2% this afternoon on the news that Vodafone -- its joint-venture partner in Verizon Wireless -- hasoffered $9.6 billion for German cable television company Kabel Deutschland. Earlier reports have indicated that Kabel is not interested in that price, but this looks like a good place for the two companies to start talking. This is likely hurting Verizon because Vodafone has a 45% stake in Verizon Wireless, and this deal may put a higher price tag on that share if Verizon wants to make a buyout deal.

• [By Gaurav Seetharam]

  But Mr. Henderson's insights convinced me that the tag team of Verizon (NYSE: VZ  ) and Oracle (NYSE: ORCL  ) is a far better play. He famously wrote that "if a firm is outside the top three, it should attempt to improve its position through consolidation or by shifting the basis of competition," (my emphasis). Right now, th! e basis of competition is price, but only because new developments haven't been taken into account.

• [By Dan Dzombak]

  AT&T stock has struggling a bit, up 10% this year versus a 15% gain for the Dow. In its wireless segment, the company is facing tough competition from a variety of players. The tough competition showed in AT&T'sresults this past quarter. AT&T lost 69,000 subscribers and missed on revenue expectations, which fell 1%.Verizon (NYSE: VZ  ) , through Verizon Wireless, has been taking market share and wants to use its good results to buy out Vodafone's45% stake in Verizon Wireless T-Mobile USAalso appears to be getting stronger as it tries to merge with MetroPCS and tries out a new pricing strategy that it hopes will help it take market share. New entrants also appear to be trying to get into the wireless game with DISH Networkand Softbank bidding for Sprint (NYSE: S  ) .

• [By Tom Taulli]

  Big competitors for BCE include Rogers Communications (RCI) and Telus (TU), though it also faces niche players such as Public Mobile, Wind Mobile and Mobilicity. Until recently, there was buzz that Verizon (VZ) might enter the market by buying up the latter two, though VZ apparently scrapped plans for Canadian expansion until 2014.

source from Top Penny Stocks For 2015:http://www.seekpennystocks.com/hot-telecom-companies-to-buy-right-now.html

Top 5 Net Payout Yield Stocks To Watch Right Now

Top 5 Net Payout Yield Stocks To Watch Right Now: NYSE Euronext Inc.(NYX)

NYSE Euronext, through its subsidiaries, operates securities exchanges. It operates various stock exchanges, including the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), NYSE Arca, Inc., and NYSE Amex LLC in the United States; and five European-based exchanges that comprise Euronext N.V. ? the Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, and Lisbon stock exchanges, as well as the NYSE Liffe derivatives markets in London, Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, and Lisbon. The company?s Derivatives segment provides access to trade execution in derivatives products, options, and futures; offers clearing services for derivative products; and sells and distributes market data and related information. NYSE Euronext?s Cash Trading and Listings segment engages in offering access to trade execution in cash trading and settlement of transactions in European markets; obtaining new listings and servicing existing listings; selling and distributing market data and related information; and providing regulatory services. Its Info rmation Services and Technology Solutions segment operates sell side and buy side connectivity networks for its markets and for other market centers, and market participants in the United States, Europe, and Asia; provides trading and information technology software and solutions; sells and distributes market data and related information to data subscribers for proprietary data products; and offers asset management services, and consultancy services to exchanges and liquidity centers. The company is headquartered in New York, New York.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Maureen Farrell]

  Now, their major rivals -- the New York Stock Exchange (NYX) and Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500) -- are expected to be the big winners in the next hot IPO: Twitter.

source from Top Penny Stocks For 2015:http://www.topstocksforum.com/top-5-net-payout-yield-stocks-to-watch-right-n! ow.html

Angie Herbers’ Firm to Merge With Wealth Management Marketing

After a “four-year, overnight merger” process, Angie Herbers Inc., led by Angie Herbers, and Wealth Management Marketing Inc., led by Kristen Luke, are merging to form a new, as-yet-unnamed company with 14 employees that will be based in San Diego.

Herbers, whose firm was founded 12 years ago (and who has been writing for Investment Advisor and ThinkAdvisor for nearly that long; view her most recent writings here), made that quip in an interview Thursday in which she explained the rationale for the merger and the offerings to advisors that the merged company will provide.

The merger is one of equals, with Herbers holding half of the new company’s stock and Luke holding the other 50%. “It’s a true merger,” said Herbers, “creating a new brand and a new name,” which will be rolled out either late this year or early in 2015. Herbers will be managing partner; she and her four employees will move from Manhattan, Kansas, to San Diego, where Wealth Management (founded in 2008) and its 10 employees (including Luke) is based.

“Kristen and I have worked with mutual clients for more than four years,” Herbers said, and “lots of clients told us we should merge; it took us four years for us to say ‘You’re right’” to those clients.

For clients, Herbers said, normally “I would come in at the very beginning and develop a strategy” to help create “great people, processes and procedures, M&A or a succession plan,” but then would refer to Luke’s firm for fulfilling an advisory firm’s marketing strategy.

“I was referring all this business to Kristen, and then we’d work together,” says Herbers, and that’s when clients would say “Why not work together under one firm that offers it all? Once we said yes, it became easy to put together” the merger.

Herbers admits, however, that while she helped “facilitate over 100 mergers” for her advisor clients, “it’s different when it’s your own.”

Why the merger? Herbers says she’s doing it “for myself and my employees and my clients,” since “the missing piece [at her firm] has always been the marketing strategy.” Moreover, she feels strongly that “the competitive landscape of the advisory industry is changing,” which means that for advisors “it’s harder to get new clients from referrals only,” which necessitates a rigorous marketing strategy. “I either had to do this as an advocate for my clients,” Herbers aid, “or send all that business to Kristen.”

Herbers says “our ultimate objective is to be the leading business management firm for independent advisors — for marketing, operations, recruiting and human capital, M&A and succession planning.”

So what’s the plan for two consultants? “We have a clear operational plan that will be rolled out in 2015. We don’t want to do it too fast; we’re asking our clients to change with us, so we need to give clients time to get used to having one firm” to work with.

The toughest part of the process turned out to be the most rewarding, she said. “I was worried” about asking the employees to relocate halfway across the country, Herbers said. “I offered moving packages, and they all agreed,” she says, which served as a “validation of what I worked all my career to accomplish: happy employees. It was the best moment of my professional life.”

---

Check out Should You Be Managing People? How to Tell by Angie Herbers on ThinkAdvisor.

Top High Dividend Companies To Buy For 2015

Top High Dividend Companies To Buy For 2015: Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLE)

Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund (the Fund) seeks to provide investment results that correspond to the price and yield performance of the Energy Select Sector of the S&P 500 Index (the Index). The Index includes companies that primarily develop and produce crude oil and natural gas, and provide drilling and other energy-related services.

The Fund utilizes a passive or indexing investment approach to invest in a portfolio of stocks that seek to replicate the Index. The Funds investment advisor is SSgA Funds Management, Inc.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By David Fabian]

  After a frightening dip in January, that tested the 200-day moving average, the Energy Select Sector SPDR (NYSE: XLE) has rocketed to new all-time highs. In fact, XLE has now gained over four percent in the month of April and more than 13 percent since its February low.

source from Top Penny Stocks For 2015:http://www.seekpennystocks.com/top-high-dividend-companies-to-buy-for-2015.html

Is Verizon Stock a Buy After Its Recent Record Move?

With shares of Verizon (NYSE:VZ) trading around $46, is VZ an OUTPERFORM, WAIT AND SEE, or STAY AWAY? Let's analyze the stock with the relevant sections of our CHEAT SHEET investing framework:

T = Trends for a Stock’s Movement

Verizon is a provider of communications, information, and entertainment products and services to consumers, businesses, and governmental agencies. It operates in two primary segments: Verizon Wireless and Wireline. Verizon Wireless's communications products and services include wireless voice, data services, and equipment sales, which are provided to consumer, business, and government customers across the United States. Wireline's communications products and services include voice, Internet access, broadband video and data, Internet protocol network services, network access, long distance, and other services.

Verizon plans to sell between $45 billion and $49 billion in bonds to finance its $130 billion buyout of Vodafone's (NASDAQ:VOD) 45 percent stake in Verizon Wireless. The eight-part record bond offering could begin as soon as Thursday, according to sources who spoke to Bloomberg. The offering will consist of fixed-rate debt with maturities ranging between three and 30 years and two sets of floating-rate securities, sources said.

T = Technicals on the Stock Chart Are Mixed

Verizon stock has been part of an uptrend over the last several years. In the last few months, the stock has been pulling-back and heading towards opening prices for the year. Analyzing the price trend and its strength can be done using key simple moving averages. What are the key moving averages? The 50-day (pink), 100-day (blue), and 200-day (yellow) simple moving averages. As seen in the daily price chart below, Verizon is trading above its below key averages which signal neutral to bearish price action in the near-term.

(Source: Thinkorswim)

Taking a look at the implied volatility (red) and implied volatility skew levels of Verizon options may help determine if investors are bullish, neutral, or bearish.

	Implied Volatility (IV)	30-Day IV Percentile	90-Day IV Percentile
Verizon Options	22.83%	70%	69%

What does this mean? This means that investors or traders are buying a very significant amount of call and put options contracts as compared to the last 30 and 90 trading days.

	Put IV Skew	Call IV Skew
October Options	Steep	Average
November Options	Steep	Average

As of today, there is an average demand from call buyers or sellers and high demand by put buyers or low demand by put sellers, all neutral to bearish over the next two months. To summarize, investors are buying a very significant amount of call and put option contracts and are leaning neutral to bearish over the next two months.

On the next page, let’s take a look at the earnings and revenue growth rates and the conclusion.

E = Earnings Are Rising Quarter-Over-Quarter

Rising stock prices are often strongly correlated with rising earnings and revenue growth rates. Also, the last four quarterly earnings announcement reactions help gauge investor sentiment on Verizon’s stock. What do the last four quarterly earnings and revenue growth (Y-O-Y) figures for Verizon look like and more importantly, how did the markets like these numbers?

	2013 Q2	2013 Q1	2012 Q4	2012 Q3
Earnings Growth (Y-O-Y)	14.06%	15.25%	-107.21%	14.29%
Revenue Growth (Y-O-Y)	4.32%	4.17%	5.66%	3.92%
Earnings Reaction	-1.51%	2.76%	0.58%	2.37%

Verizon has seen rising earnings and revenue figures over the last four quarters. From these numbers, the markets have mostly been happy with Verizon’s recent earnings announcements.

P = Average Relative Performance Versus Peers and Sector

How has Verizon stock done relative to its peers AT&T (NYSE:T), T-Mobile (NASDAQ:TMUS), Sprint (NYSE:S), and sector?

	Verizon	AT&T	T-Mobile	Sprint	Sector
Year-to-Date Return	7.33%	1.51%	27.21%	16.31%	10.38%

Verizon has been an average relative performer, year-to-date.

Conclusion

Verizon provides communications products and services through a variety of mediums to consumers and companies around the world. The company is involved in a record-breaking bond offering that is being used for the purchase of Vodafone’s stake in Verizon Wireless. The stock has not been doing well in the last several months as it continues to pull-back. Over the last four quarters, investors have mostly been happy as earnings and revenues have been rising. Relative to its peers and sector, Verizon has been an average year-to-date performer. WAIT AND SEE what Verizon does this coming quarter.

Anadarko Mozambique Sale to Speed Company’s U.S. Shale Projects

Independent oil and gas firm Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (NYSE: APC) on Sunday announced the sale of a 10% stake in a natural gas development block offshore of Mozambique to India's state-controlled energy company ONGC Videsh for $2.64 billion in cash. Anadarko now owns 26.5% working interest in the project and is the operator.

The most interesting thing about this transaction is what Anadarko plans to do with the cash it gets from ONGC. The company said it plans to use the proceeds from the sale to "accelerate" development in its U.S. shale oil and liquids plays.

Anadarko is building its cash hoard, which totaled nearly $4.6 billion at the end of June, in order to develop its liquids plays in the United States. We noted last week in our report on companies spending the most to find oil that Anadarko plans to spend $5.5 billion this year to boost its U.S. oil production. This asset sale should help accomplish that, as well as giving the company some room to raise its anemic 0.8% dividend yield.

Hot Chemical Companies To Buy For 2015

Analysts have put a consensus price target of $111 on Anadarko's stock, which is roughly 23% higher than Friday's closing price and about 20% higher than the 52-week high. Shares are trading up 3.3% in the premarket on Monday, at $92.79 in a 52-week range of $65.82 to $92.79.

4 Things You Should Know About Pre-Approved Credit Card Offers

Alamy

Spam email is easy to ignore, delete, or shuffle off to some forgotten corner of your inbox. But physical junk mail is a bit tougher to disregard -- especially when it's a big, bulky envelope from a bank with a pre-approved credit card offer. But just because we see them all the time doesn't mean we know exactly what we're dealing with. Here are some facts you need to know about those pre-approved credit card offers filling up your mailbox. They Don't Hurt Your Credit ... Until You Apply. Most people understand that when you apply for a credit card, mortgage or other loan, the potential lender will check your credit score to see if you qualify. And that inquiry will temporarily lower your score. So if an offer is "pre-approved," does that mean they've done an inquiry and hurt your credit? Well, here's the good news: The "pre-approval" process doesn't actually involve checking your credit report. "You are not 'pre-approved,' you are conditionally approved," explains John Ulzheimer, credit expert at CreditSesame.com. "The reason your name ended up on the list is that they will go to credit reporting agencies and buy those lists." In other words, they sent you that offer because they have a rough idea of where you fall on the credit score spectrum. But this is a "soft inquiry" that doesn't hurt your score; they won't pull your actual credit report unless you apply for the card. You Still Might Get Rejected. So here's the bad news: Since they didn't actually pull your credit report before sending you that offer, you're not as "pre-approved" as it says on the envelope. When you mail in the offer and the bank checks your credit, there's a chance that you won't get approved for the card. This happens more often than you might think, often because the recipients of those offers messed up their credit between when they got put on the pre-approved list and when they actually apply for the card. "If you look at the low-end cards [for people with poor credit], as low as 80 percent of people who are pre-approved actually get approved," says Greg Lull of CreditKarma. "Especially in the low-credit space, a lot can change in six months." If you've got good credit and you're getting a lot of offers for rewards cards, your chances of getting approved are much greater -- more like 95 percent, because people in that range are less prone to making mistakes like late payments. Rather than getting outright rejected for the card, Ulzheimer says it's likely they'll just approve you for a card with terms that aren't as great as you expected. Many of those letters will give you a range of interest rates and credit limits for which you're pre-approved, and your actual credit score will determine where you fall on that spectrum. So what if you apply for one of these pre-approved offers, and then get a card with worse terms -- say, a higher interest rate or a restrictive credit limit? In that case, you could always cancel the card, but that could give a bit of a ding to your credit score: You still have the hard inquiry from the credit check, but now you don't have the benefit of the improved utilization ratio that you get from having more credit. Our advice? First, call up the customer service number on the back of the card and threaten to cancel the account if they don't give you better terms. You Should Probably Shred Them We say "probably" because these offers don't include critical financial information that can be used for identity theft. And without your Social Security number, no one can grab an offer out of your mailbox, fill it out and get a credit card in your name. But there's still a risk of identity theft here. "It is a good idea to go ahead and shred it," says Gerri Detweiler of Credit.com. "I don't think it's the most popular form of identity theft ... But there's a fair amount of ID theft that occurs among family members." A thief rifling through your trash probably won't have the requisite information to get a credit card in your name. But your teenage child or your brother-in-law who's crashing on your couch might be able to dig up your Social Security number, fill out the application and then run roughshod over your credit history with a card in your name. So if you don't want those offers, tear them up or shred them before you throw them out. Or, on second thought... You Can Opt Out of Getting Them Just as there's a do-not-call list for telemarketers, so too can you opt out of receiving credit card offers. It's pretty simple: Just go to OptOutPrescreen.com and tell the major credit bureaus that you'd like them to stop putting you on the lists that they give to banks. You can opt out for five years, or permanently. There are lots of reasons why you might do this. Maybe you're concerned about identity theft. Maybe you care about the environment and don't like how many trees get killed by banks trying to sign you up for credit cards. Or maybe you just think it's a pain in the neck to have to tear up credit card offers. But if you're considering getting a new credit card in the near future, you may want to stay on the list and apply for your next credit card through one of these offers. While there's no guarantee you'll be approved, your chances are certainly better than if you're just browsing the Internet for cards that look good and applying at random. "The average person only gets approved for 30 pecent of the credit cards they apply for, and then you've got that hard inquiry but didn't get credit," points out Lull. By contrast, if you're responding to a pre-approved offer, you already know that you've got a good chance of getting approved.

How Does Toyota Motor Corp. Plan to Build Cars for Future Generations?

The world of cars as its stands today will undergo a sea change in the next 20 years, and only those automakers that are able to turn this change into opportunity will survive. Oil and gas major BP's "Energy Outlook 2035" and other studies throw up some pretty amazing predictions:

Hybrids would rule the market by 2035, constituting 67% of sales. Plug-in-hybrids and electric vehicles, or EVs, will take around 7% of the market share in 2035. Sales of conventional vehicles will decline by around 75%. Low-emission vehicle market will expand by 30.3% between 2012 and 2017. 

These facts indicate that green cars could be the future of the auto industry, and it's difficult to think about eco-freindly cars without thinking of Toyota (NYSE: TM  ) . The Japanese auto major was the first to mass produce a hybrid, the Prius, back in 1997, and is a leader in the field. It has a fleet of electric vehicles, and is pioneering fuel cell vehicle technology. Let's take a look at Toyota's playbook.

Source: Toyota

Hybrids
Toyota is the biggest seller of hybrids; global sales reached more than 6 million by end of 2013. It sold 2,302,000 hybrids in North America since the first-generation Prius was launched here in 2000. Over the years, Toyota has customized the Prius to suit American tastes -- the car has grown bigger in size, offers more features, and is available in several models.

Though there's no doubting Prius' cult status in hybrid circles, its aging looks have faced flak and has put a mild brake on its growth. Honda (NYSE: HMC  ) Accord overtook Prius in the first quarter of this calendar year by a small margin (around 293 units) to get to the top sales position in California, America's green car capital.  

To keep competition at bay, Toyota is constantly revving up things. The company will redesign the Prius for the 2015 model year -- the car will sport better looks and may create some new records with fuel economy. Edmunds.com expects combined mileage to touch 55 miles per gallon.

At the Frankfurt Autoshow in Europe last year, Toyota displayed its hybrid line up, ranging from Yaris, Auris, Auris Touring Sports, to the Prius plug-in hybrid. The company is a leader in hybrid in Europe with Toyota and Lexus brands holding 75% of the market share. 

Source: Toyota

The automaker has an aggressive plan for the future as it looks to launch 15 new or refurbished hybrid models globally. This will add to the 23 hybrid Toyota and Lexus models it boasts of. The company is leveraging on the envious lead it has taken over all other automakers.

EVs
Electric vehicles go one step up on hybrids in reducing CO2 emissions. Toyota has introduced a plug-in Prius 2014, adding to its EV offerings that include the RAV4 EV, and is even testing wireless recharging.

RAV4, Source: Toyota

Though Toyota has its share of electric vehicles, the shortcomings of the battery-enabled powertrains and a lukewarm response from buyers to EVs made the company constrain its future plans. The unpopularity has even led the Obama administration to drift from its plan to have 1 million EVs on the U.S. roads by 2015.

Knowing Toyota, it couldn't have just stopped at the pitfalls -- it has a viable Plan B, which brings us to fuel cells.

FCV
Toyota is betting big on fuel cell technology and has put in extensive research and resources into it. In simple words, a fuel cell is like a power plant where hydrogen and oxygen mix together to produce electricity. The advantages of fuel cell vehicles compensate for the major disadvantages of the battery-run EV:

It can cover a longer range and is competitive with hybrid and conventional models. It can refuel in the same time taken by a gasoline car -- five minutes.

Toyota debuted its FCV Concept in the Tokyo Motor Show in November and at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January. The car can go 300 miles on full tank, catch speed up to 60 miles per hour in 10 seconds, and get refueled in three to five minutes. It will go on sale in 2015. Honda is also ready to launch its own hydrogen car for the masses in 2015, and both Japanese automakers are looking to sell around 1,000 cars each annually according to Japanese news agency, Nikkei.

The hydrogen cars will be launched in the American, European and Japanese markets, with a price tag in the range of $50,000-$100,000. Nikkei has reported that prices could be at the higher end of the range but the carmakers are trying to get it down to a more affordable level with time. If Toyota can do with the FCV Concept what it did with the Prius, it can get a head start over its peers.

Top 10 Tech Stocks To Own Right Now

Wrapping up
Toyota is quick to identify trends and capitalize on them. The carmaker knows that hybrids are here to stay and so it's going at the segment full bore, to take lead at such a level that leaves competitors gasping. While it's still early to predict the future, Toyota's shift from EVs to FCVs could be another example of its foresight. And all this while it keeps adding to revenues and profits.

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Did Piketty get it wrong? Analysis questions author's data

  Thomas Piketty on his book 'Capital' NEW YORK (CNNMoney) This is how they argue in economics: over spreadsheets.

On one side is Thomas Piketty, author of the best-selling tome "Capital in the Twenty-First Century." He argues that wealth inequality is growing and "threatens to generate extreme inequalities that stir discontent and undermine democratic values," and published the data behind his conclusions online.

Piketty's book became a best-seller.

His adversary is Chris Giles, economics editor of the Financial Times.

Giles claimed his analysis of Piketty's spreadsheets contain serious factual inaccuracies that undercut Piketty's conclusions in "Capital."

He gets numbers wrong, inexplicably changes others, employs "seemingly arbitrary adjustments" to formulas, mixes results from different years and commits a series of other data faux pas, Giles wrote in a lengthy post on Friday.

"When I have tried to correct for these apparent errors, a rather different picture of wealth inequality appeared," the post reads.

"The combined result of all these problems is to make wealth concentration among the richest in the past 50 years rise artificially," Giles explained. "The conclusions of Capital in the 21st [C]entury do not appear to be backed by the book's own sources."

Piketty fired back in a letter posted by the Financial Times.

"If there was any! thing to hide, any 'fat finger problem', why would I put everything on line?" he wrote.

His data comes from 20 different countries and stretches back as far as the 1700s. That means it is imperfect and varies, he explained, requiring "a number of adjustments to the raw data sources" for consistency.

"I have tried in the context of this book to make the most justified choices and arbitrages about data sources and adjustments," Piketty wrote. "I have no doubt that my historical data series can be improved and will be improved in the future."

The book has been described as an unlikely best seller -- a 700 page analysis originally written in French and put in print by an academic publisher.

But the book hit shelves at just the right time: as a dispute over wealth distribution and wages has sparked political debate and protests in the U.S. and other countries.

Fed weighs how it will raise interest rates

With the economy and job market picking up, the Federal Reserve is beginning to study how it will raise interest rates even while the financial system is flush with Fed money, according to Fed meeting minutes released Wednesday.

The minutes of the April 29-30 meeting show the central bank is shifting its attention from a bond-buying stimulus program that is expected to be phased out this year to the challenge of raising interest rates as the economy and inflation accelerate.

"Participants generally agreed that starting to consider the options for normalization at this meeting was prudent," the minutes say.

Since the financial crisis, the Fed has bought more than $3 trillion in government bonds in an effort to inject money into the banking system and lower long-term interest rates to stimulate economic activity. Eventually, the securities will come off the Fed's balance sheet as they mature or the central bank sells them but that could take years.

Meanwhile, many Fed policymakers have predicted the central bank will begin raising its benchmark short-term interest rate — near zero since the crisis — sometime next year. But ensuring that those rate hikes succeed in controlling inflation by triggering increases in bond yields, bank interest rates and other borrowing costs can be challenging with so much cash sloshing around the banking system.

The Fed is weighing several tools to raise interest rates in the broader economy, including increasing the interest the central bank pays banks to park money at the Fed. Fed officials are also considering reverse repurchase agreements, or reverse repos, in which the Fed effectively borrows money from banks overnight at a fixed interest rate to sop cash from the financial system.

New York Fed chief William Dudley said in a speech Tuesday that reverse repos would put a floor under money market rates.

Another option is a "term deposit facility" in which the Fed would pay banks a higher interest rate to keep their money at the! central bank for a longer period.

The minutes indicate that the Fed made no decisions last month on which options it will choose.

"Because the Federal Reserve has not previously tightened the stance of policy while holding a large balance sheet, most participants judged that the Committee should consider a range of options and be prepared to adjust the mix of its policy tools as warranted," the minutes say.

Some policymakers said the Fed should better explain its plan to keep interest rates unusually low even after unemployment returns to normal levels, the minutes show. Fed Chair Janet Yellen has said that rates will remain low in part because the deep scars left by the recession may continue to hamper growth.

And "a number" of Fed officials suggested the Fed should provide more information on how long it will maintain its unusually large balance sheet.

At the meeting, the Fed agreed to further cut its monthly purchases of Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities to $45 billion to $55 billion. Yellen recently told Congress she expects the purchases to be halted sometime in the fall.

In a post-meeting statement, the Fed said the economy had gained momentum after adverse winter weather slowed activity early in the year--a view echoed in the minutes. But the minutes indicate that some policymakers "remarked that it was too early to confirm that the bounceback in economic activity would put the economy on a path of sustained above-trend economic growth."

There’s Still Ample Demand for Aussie LNG

Russia's $400 billion deal to supply natural gas to China likely has the sponsors of some of the more marginal liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects squirming. Despite the eye-popping figures associated with the contract, most observers believe there will still be ample demand for Australian LNG, both in China as well as in the rest of Asia.

To be sure, Australia's ramp-up in this area is not beyond reproach. Indeed, at an energy conference in Canada this week, the CEO of Malaysian state-owned energy giant Petronas chided the Canadian government for its approach to LNG by citing Australia's experience.

He said that Canada should heed "pivotal lessons" from Australia and not make some of the same mistakes that occurred Down Under, though he failed to get into policy specifics. While the Australian LNG space has seen more than $200 billion committed to investments over the past decade and has another seven major projects under construction, companies have suffered significant cost overruns ranging from 15 percent to 50 percent.

Most of that is a result of the rising labor and equipment costs fueled by the record investment in Australia's resource boom. The latter also helped keep the Australian dollar above parity with the US dollar until last year, and the relatively strong aussie compounded the expense of operating there.

Even so, as the seven aforementioned export projects come on line between 2014 and 2017, Australia will eventually overtake Qatar as the world's largest LNG exporter, with the country's nameplate LNG capacity jumping from 24 million metric tons per year in 2013 to more than 80 million metric tons per year by 2017.

But now that China has secured a significant amount of natural gas at a favorable price, the question remains how this deal will affect global LNG prices. After all, the relatively high price of LNG bound for Asia has attracted plenty of competitors! .

Australia certainly has an abundant supply of natural gas and proximity to Asia, but the high cost of doing business there, though now falling, could still undermine the economics of some projects, while causing prospective development to be tabled.

Production from prolific shale plays has created a veritable glut of cheap natural gas in the US and Canada, which has helped keep prices low in North America, recently near USD4.39 per MMBtu.

By contrast, the Asian supply of natural gas has failed to keep pace with growing demand, which means the region must import significant quantities of LNG. As such, there's a huge spread between prices of North American natural gas and LNG that's shipped to Asia.

For instance, the forward price of the generic contract for LNG scheduled for delivery to northeast Asia in the next month is currently USD14.40, though that price was as high as USD18.95 last November. And China currently pays USD15 per MMBtu for Australian LNG, according to the Australian Financial Review.

The opportunity to exploit the pricing differential between these two markets has prompted numerous energy companies to pile into the LNG export arena.

Still, these projects and their associated contracts are so massive and complex that they can first take many years to negotiate and then at least several more years to build. For instance the deal between Russia and China was only consummated after about 10 years of negotiations, which included prior supply agreements with pricing a perpetual sticking point–until now.

Western efforts to isolate Russia both financially and politically for its involvement in Ukraine's political crisis may have caused it to finally make the pricing concessions necessary to overcome the impasse.

According to Leslie Palti-Guzman, a senior energy analyst at New York-based Eurasia Group, political fallout from the Ukraine crisis threatened Russian access to Western credit in the short term, while likely eroding Russia�! ��s share! of the European gas market in the long term.

Moscow's sudden financial needs coalesced with China's aggressive environmental strategy to curb emissions by switching from coal to gas-fired power generation–the country wants cleaner-burning natural gas to account for 10 percent of its fuel mix by 2020, up from 6 percent currently. As a bonus, both countries also get to demonstrate their political and economic independence from Western powers.

The deal signed between Russia's state-controlled OAO Gazprom and the state-owned China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) encompasses a 30-year contract to supply 38 billion cubic meters (bcm) per year, with the potential to expand pipeline capacity to 61 bcm per year.

Although the two countries did not disclose many of the terms of the deal, including pricing, analysts estimate China will be paying around USD10 per MMBtu, which is far less than the cost of LNG imports and may be even somewhat cheaper than gas supplied to China via an existing pipeline from Turkmenistan. Not only that, this price is lower than the USD12 per MMBtu reportedly necessary for Gazprom to break even when accounting for pipeline construction.

In exchange for this rock-bottom pricing, it's believed that China will prepay about USD22 billion in order to help finance the construction of about 4,000 kilometers of pipelines, which are expected to cost about USD55 billion altogether.

Even though the numbers involved appear staggering, Australian LNG should still enjoy robust demand.

For one, both Japan and South Korea are also major importers of LNG, while China also remains in play. Because of the Middle Kingdom's enormous and growing energy demand, its contract with Russia only covers a slim percentage of future energy demand.

By 2020, China is projected to consumer around 420 bcm per year, which means that roughly two years after gas starts flowing from Eastern Siberia to China, the imports under this contract will only account for about 9! percent ! of the country's demand. And the International Energy Agency forecasts China's natural gas demand will quadruple by 2035.

China's insatiable demand means that it can't rely on any one country for supply. Indeed, the country intends to fulfill its energy needs by diversifying among a number of different countries and even has ownership stakes in LNG projects in both Australia and Canada.

And while there's plenty of speculation about what China will be paying for Russian gas, some industry experts note that we'll never actually know these figures and that, therefore, it will be difficult for them to affect LNG pricing. Additionally, the Eastern Siberia gas fields tied to this contract are so remote that they can really only serve China. So that also means this deal might not set much of a precedent for LNG pricing.

In the end Australia boasts one other attraction that Russia does not: dependability. Both China and Russia have a history of deep mistrust, and the Chinese are understandably wary of Russia's reliability as an energy supplier, given how they've behaved in other contexts.

Following the deal's announcement, Woodside Petroleum's (ASX: WPL, OTC: WOPEF) CEO Peter Coleman echoed this sentiment, "The Chinese have been very good over time at managing security of supply, so I don’t believe they are going to over-commit to any one particular source of gas over time." While one of Woodside's LNG projects has a contract to supply China with gas, most of its other projects and marketing efforts are oriented toward Japan.

Mr. Coleman said that while China is an important part of the LNG story, it's not the whole story, particularly given the rapid development of LNG import facilities in new markets such as Vietnam and the Philippines, and as some traditional LNG exporters become net importers.

Australian LNG should continue to be a source of long-term growth for the country. And with the aussie trading at a more reasonable level, it will ! become mo! re affordable to undertake new projects there.

Home Depot Shares Limp After Earnings Disappoint

Like many retailers, Home Depot Home Depot cited winter weather as one culprit for earnings that didn't measure up to expectations Tuesday.

The home improvement chain recorded net earnings of $1.4 billion, on sales that rose 2.9% to $19.7 billion. Earnings per share of $1.00 were up 20.5% from 83 cents a year ago, but 96 cents when excluding a net gain tied ot selling a piece of the company's stake in HD Supply HD Supply Holdings. The latter figure was shy of the consensus Wall Street call for earnings of 99 cents per share.

"The first quarter was impacted by a slow start to the spring selling season," Chairman and CEO Frank Blake said in Home Depot's earnings release. "But we had solid results in non-weather impact markets and expect our sales for the year to grow in line with the guidance we previously provided."

That guidance calls for fiscal 2014 sales to grow 4.8% from a year earlier. Home Depot also hiked its earnings per share guidance to $4.42 for the year, 17.6% higher than the prior fiscal year and inclusive of $3.75 billion in share repurchases intended for the balance of 2014.

Citi analyst Kate McShane called the retailer's comparable store sales growth, which came in at 2.6% and 3.3% for U.S. stores, "softer than anticipated" in a note Tuesday morning, but said the results were not as weak as feared given quarter's harsh winter weather.

"The reaffirmation of guidance gives us some comfort that spring related sales may have been deferred…and were not lost entirely," McShane added.

Canaccord Genuity analyst Laura Champine expressed similar confidence that the weather impact will only hurt Home Depot in the short term, but warned that the stock is also lacking some of the tailwinds that helped it rally sharply in the past few years.

"Shares are not receiving the strong push from housing market recovery that they had from 2012 to 2013," Champine wrote Tuesday morning. "Recent housing market data suggest momentum is decelerating, including total turnover down for three straight months and home prices declining or flat on a sequential basis for four consecutive months after a year of gains."

Shares of Home Depot fell 1.3% Tuesday morning. Rival Lowe's Cos Lowe's Cos, which is set to report earnings Wednesday, was down 1.1% in pre-market trading. Both stocks have lost more than 8% in 2014.

HD data by YCharts

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Tech Banquet Gone Before Investors Get a Bite

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Technology is always eating its young. This week's leaked information on an Apple (AAPL)-Beats Electronics deal points to what would be only the latest in a string of exciting new companies gobbled up before then went public.  

Small investors don't get a taste of many such deals, either on the front end or the back end. They won't learn about it until the bubble pops and supposedly safe investments crash.

Systems like Crowdfunder, which offer small investors the chance to get in on the ground floor of start-ups, claim they can plug the gap. But Stanford research indicates nearly 90% of venture capital investments fail. 

Want to fight those odds? If you don't, you may not get a sniff of today's hot deals. Back in the 1990s, venture capitalists quickly took investments public in order to cash in on their successes and recycle the money. But that carried significant downside. After the dot-com bubble popped, small investors had to eat some failures, like Pets.com, Webvan, and CMGI. Some, like Priceline (PCLN) and Amazon  (AMZN), returned to glory, but that came years later, and these were the exceptions rather than the rule. I personally remember getting stuck with one such "investment," when a site I was writing for, which had been acquired by Andover.Net, was in turn acquired by a company called VA Linux in early 2000. I was offered stock options, which I should have flipped, but instead I held the shares and rode them to disaster. Lesson learned. But will I ever get a chance to apply it? These days venture capital has merged into private equity, which does its own forms of financial engineering. Private equity companies don't need to recycle their cash like VCs do. They are large enough to take over, not just large private companies, but public ones as well. As a result many start-ups now routinely get multiple rounds of capital, each at a higher valuation. As these companies mature, private equity will take a bigger position, so the VCs can recycle their cash, but the company may still not come public. Whether or not it they become profitable, today's tech start-ups can also be recycled into larger tech companies as never before. During 2013, for instance, Apple made 13 acquisitions, including four in the mapping area, two in semiconductors, and a company called WiFiSlam involved in something called "indoor location." 

Stock quotes in this article: PCLN, AMZN, AAPL, GOOG, FB, YHOO 

Google (GOOG) made 18 acquisitions during the same year, including seven in the area of robotics alone. Facebook (FB) bought nine companies. Amazon mainly stayed out of it, buying only three firms. 

Yahoo! (YHOO) topped them all, taking over 26 companies in 2013. Tumblr was the biggest deal at $1.1 billion, but CEO Marissa Mayer also splashed out $50 million for Qwiki video production, $40 million for Xobni, a customer relationship management company, and $30 million for Summly, a news aggregator, and its 17-year old founder, Nick D'Alosio. 

Some of these were doubtless "acqui-hires," bought in order to gain the teams running them rather than the products they were producing. Acqui-hire companies are often closed once they're acquired.

Some of the biggest techs, notably Google, now have their own venture capital units which let them create their own start-ups, like Uber, practically from scratch, and bring them to multi-billion dollar valuations without selling out. In 2014, the hits just keep on coming. Big tech is taking out small, successful tech and you're not getting a taste of any of it. Oculus Rift was bought by Facebook. Google, which had backed Nest, bought it. At this writing, Apple is still considering a $3.2 billion deal to buy Beats, which makes headphones and runs a streaming music service, Beats Music. Beats' last funding round, $60 million in March, was headed by Ukranian-born industrialist Len Blavatnik. The latest rumor is the deal will be announced at next month's WorldWide Developer Conference. Time thinks Amazon could swoop in but given the few acquisitions the company has made so far, that seems unlikely. Thus, if there is a tech bubble, small investors are not profiting from it. Many of the IPOs filed in the last month had nothing to do with technology. They include several energy-related companies, a bank and a company that buys and operates farms in the Pacific Northwest.  So when this latest tech bubble pops, how will you know? Maybe when your Google shares collapse, weighed down by buying out the private equity boys who sold them their garbage. Or maybe it will just be the sound of a slow leak, as your safe investments are burdened by acquisition dilution.  >>Read More:

WWE Gets Smacked Down

5 Things Apple Doesn't Want You to Know

Pinterest, Uber Eye Fresh Funding on Sky-High Valuations At the time of publication the author owned shares of GOOG, AAPL and AMZN. This article represents the opinion of a contributor and not necessarily that of TheStreet or its editorial staff.

Stock quotes in this article: PCLN, AMZN, AAPL, GOOG, FB, YHOO 

You Can Make Money in Stocks (Especially These Three) No Matter What Rates Do

It's commonly held wisdom that stock markets go to heck in a hand basket when interest rates rise. So, the thinking goes, you'd be better off selling ahead of time before that happens.

No doubt it's tempting to head for the hills with rates at historical lows, but it pays to do your research before you hit the "sell" button.

The three companies I'm going to show you today, for example, can actually benefit from rising rates.

First, let's take an "Econ 101" look at the impact interest rates can have on stocks, especially when rates start rising...

How This Urban Legend Got Started

Like most urban legends, there's a grain of truth when it comes to interest rates and your money. That's because interest rates are quite literally a reflection of the time value of money. When rates are rising, the cost of borrowing goes up. When rates are falling, money gets cheaper.

Economic theory tells us that more expensive money decreases the amount of money in circulation because customers tighten up while cheaper money increases the amount of money at work. That's why the Fed, which subscribes to this theory, has kept rates so low for so long. Team Bernanke and now Team Yellen want to ensure there's money available and, by implication, that people borrow enough to keep it moving and the economy in recovery mode.

Practically speaking, you see this in everything from credit card statements to home mortgages. As rates rise, the propensity to borrow declines and there's less discretionary money spent. But as they fall, consumers head out to spend based in good part on borrowing that has "stimulated" the system. Personally, I think it's a sad state of affairs that debt has become so critical to our way of life, but that's really a story for another time.

What you need to know today is how the relationship I've just described impacts stock prices.

Companies are valued based on earnings. And earnings, in turn, are a function of the time value of money associated with all future cash flows. Loosely speaking, therefore, the more a company earns, the higher the expected stock price is ahead.

Theoretically, if rates rise that means money is getting more expensive so the cost of debt rises and revenue from customers drops. Earnings then take a nose dive and, not surprisingly, so do stock prices which, in turn, makes stock ownership less desirable.

Here's where it gets sticky.

By stimulating the economy and keeping rates so low for so long at the same time, the Fed is clearly fanning inflationary embers while seemingly acting to keep rates low. Every dollar the Fed kicks into the system diminishes the value of every other dollar already out there.

Ultimately rates will have to rise to compensate for the lost value, goes the argument for millions of investors.

Take Winners on the Overlooked Rising Rate Bounce

But here's the thing. You don't just immediately jump from a slight increase in "Treasury yields that's barely noticeable on a ten-year chart to hyperinflation even when it's the worry du jour," according to Jim Cramer in his book Getting Back To Even.

As we talk about so frequently, there has to be growth first. More to the point, there's also got to be a real, meaningful rise in interest rates to affect the markets on anything more than a short- term basis.

Look, you and I both know that rates will eventually rise. That's a harsh reality that our political leaders don't understand, which is why they're constantly kicking the can down the road and spending our country into oblivion.

But pulling your money out of the markets preemptively when we haven't had real interest rate hikes based on growth yet is a mistake. It's one thing to take heed of the lessons that led up to the Financial Crisis and entirely another to fall prey to erroneous conclusions by keeping your finger on the sell button or hitting it too early.

That's not to say the thinking isn't compelling - it is, especially since it's based on the intense emotional distress of the Financial Crisis. It's just not in your best interest. Ask anybody who sat out the rally off March 2009 lows. They've missed an amazing 273% S&P 500 run to new all-time record highs.

And that brings me to what happens when rates actually do rise.

Believe it or not, stocks have rallied for nearly two full years following the first interest rate hike according to Sadoff Investment Management and Fed data.

Here's something else.

Since 1929, the average increase in short-term rates is 107% before the markets falter. Practically speaking, this means the 10-year Treasury yield would have to rise from a July 2012 of 1.53% to 3.16% before we hit the threshold. That's another 61 basis points or 23.9% above where the yield is today, according to Bloomberg.

So how do you invest until then?

Plenty of Great Investment Runway Ahead

First, you miss 100% of the shots you never take, and what I mean by that is that you stand to gain nothing if you aren't in the markets. DALBAR data shows that the average investor may be 200% to 300% behind the markets because they are prematurely trying to time the markets. Ouch!

The Fed has made it very clear that it won't be raising rates until mid-next year at the earliest and only if Yellen gets comfortable with progress in the meantime. So, barring an economic meltdown or global market reset, we've got some runway in front of us.

My preference is definitely for "global challengers" with strong cash flow, experienced management, and powerful brands in the meantime. Examples include ABB Ltd (ADR) (NYSE: ABB), Becton Dickinson and Co. (NYSE: BDX), and American Water Works Company Inc. (NYSE: AWK) that are drawn from our Money Map Report recommendations. Not only are these companies and others like them tapped into global money flows that continue unabated, but these types of companies can actually benefit from rising rates rather than get crushed by them. Remember, earnings... earnings... earnings!

Second, new highs are inevitably accompanied by short-term market noise, so it's not uncommon to get some give and take as the markets digest the implications of record price levels. In fact, I'd bet on it.

Make sure you have trailing stops in place ahead of time to protect profits and your capital in the event there is a hiccup. My suggestion is that 25% below your entry price is a pretty good place to start. You can always tighten that up if you like, but that's really splitting hairs. Protection against the unexpected at all times is the issue. [Editor's Note: You can track your trailing stops much more easily now. Money Morning Members have access to the best deal (in the world) on TradeStops. Learn more.]

If you don't like trailing stops, consider using options or a specialized inverse fund to protect your money and take the sting out of any short-term market movements that catch others by surprise.

Third, you want to be constantly hunting for new opportunities. I am sure your parents instructed you on the importance of "buy low and sell high." So wading in on pullbacks when everybody else is heading for the exits makes sense as a path to bigger profits...

...especially when the markets could run for a lot longer than interest rate doomsters think.

IA 25 2014: The Threat (or Non-Threat) of Robo-Advisors—Slideshow

It may be reassuring to hear that the big tech experts on our list this year don’t think robo-advisors are too much of a threat. If the only thing you do for your clients is asset allocation, you might need to take a look at your value proposition, but many of our IA 25 honorees agreed that robo-advisors could be an opportunity for advisors to provide services on a broader scale.

That doesn’t mean advisors can lull themselves into a false sense of security. Make no mistake, robo-advisors are a disruptive force. Just because they won’t take away your business doesn’t mean they won’t change it.

Click through the following slides to hear from the IA 25 honorees who shared their thoughts on these new competitors, a topic that, as Editor-in-Chief Jamie Green said, “came up unbidden so often that I began to bring it up on purpose.”

Bernie Clark

Executive Vice President, Schwab Advisor Services

Clark feels robo-advisors will exist as a “complement” to traditional advisors. “We’ve done a lot of work that shows most individuals still want a relationship” with a human advisor, he told Editor-in-Chief Jamie Green.

Clark suggested the solution may be for advisors to use some of the robo-advisors’ modeling tools “in their practices,” especially for “clients below their minimums or children of clients.”

If that doesn’t assuage advisors’ concerns about the competitive threat robo-advisors pose, he pointed out that online advice hasn’t had to perform in difficult markets. “If we have five years of the markets heading straight up,” robo-advisors “will do well; if we have three years up and two years down,” investors “will want to talk to somebody.”

(Photo: Tom McKenzie)

Dan Skiles

President, Shareholders Service Group

Robo-advisors may be able to provide simple advice cheaply, but Skiles reminded Editor-in-Chief Jamie Green that your clients have complex lives. “Life is not consistent; questions come up throughout the year that you never anticipated.” Robo-advisors provide a consistent investing experience, but human advisors “are there for those questions.”

For example, Skiles ticked off some issues that advisors help solve for their clients: staying knowledgeable about cost-basis legislation, how to pay for health care, whether the timing is right to do a Roth IRA rollover. He asked, “Can a robo-advisor answer those?”

Yes, if an advisor’s practice is “all about investments, maybe you should be concerned.” If you do more for your clients, though, but have had to turn some away because they don’t meet your minimums, maybe this is an opportunity. “I’d encourage advisors who’ve been raising their minimums year after year to think about a different offering that allows them to serve people with less money,” Skiles said.

Best Income Companies To Buy Right Now

Joel Bruckenstein and David Drucker

Founders, Technology Tools for Todoay (T3)

If an advisor isn’t providing much more than asset allocation services, “yeah, I think you’re in trouble,” Bruckenstein told Executive Managing Editor Danielle Andrus, “because robo-advisors are offering those kinds of services, if not for free, for next to nothing.” However, “most good advisors provide many, many services that go beyond just asset allocation.”

Drucker was magnanimous about robo-advisors. He said, “There’s room in the industry for all different sizes of players and all different types of players. We were told about 10 or 15 years ago that by now the industry would be all large shops, and smaller practitioners wouldn’t be able to survive. I think that’s been disproved.”

Skip Schweiss

President, TD Ameritrade Trust Company; Managing Director, Advisor Advocacy & Industry Affairs, TD Ameritrade Institutional

Schweiss said even more than regulation, advisors should maybe be more concerned about what “the rise of the online advice providers.”

“I’ve been in this industry serving advisors since 1989, and for as long as I have been doing this, advisors have told me ‘We can’t serve middle America,’” Schweiss told Editor-in-Chief Jamie Green.

Instead, those lower-net-worth people are “served by the IBD rep or by the insurance broker or a mutual fund company. Now we’re getting an answer to that need” with robo-advisors. “

If advisors don’t think robo-advisors can compete with the gentle touch of a trusted advisor, Schweiss reminded us, “At what point did Barnes & Noble not see Amazon as a threat?”

However, just because it happened to them doesn’t mean it will happen to you—after all, “Turbo Tax didn’t eliminate accountants, and WebMD didn’t kill doctors”—but that doesn’t mean you can ignore robo-advisors as a competitor.

AdviceIQ: 6 ways to save for retirement

If you're like most people, you probably haven't saved enough to retire. Especially if you're older than 35, it's time to get serious. So here are 6 steps to follow:

Some people foolishly think the future will take care of itself. If you own a business, maybe you think your business will provide ample money in your future (maybe it will, maybe it won't). You might contribute to a retirement-savings plan at work and nurse a vague idea of how much to save. That won't cut it.

According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI), almost half (49%) of workers remain unsure if they save enough for a comfortable retirement. One in seven retirees also voices little confidence about retirement nest eggs.

Reasons for this lack of confidence vary but include fuzzy planning. One in five workers believes retirement requires saving 20% to 29% of his or her income and nearly a quarter (23%) think retirement needs 30% or more. Incredibly, just 2% of workers and 4% of retirees say saving or planning for retirement is the most pressing financial issue facing most Americans.

Start with a financial plan. The EBRI survey shows that only 46% of workers formallycalculate retirement savings. Without a target you can't know exactly how much to save. A financial plan won't tell you if you save enough money but it can say if you're headed in the right direction.

Let's say you create a financial plan and then see you only have a 50% chance of retiring with your current lifestyle; you better make some changes. (If it looks like your chances are better than 99%, relax.) Get a target and start moving toward it.

Notably, EBRI reports that fewer than a quarter (23%) of workers and 28% of retirees seek investment advice from a professional financial advisor.

Pay yourself first. This old adage in financial planning hinges on making sure you automatically save money out of your paycheck or invest it straight from your checking account, unseen. If you never see the money, you won't spend it.

Many do spend it. Meeting day-to-day expenses head the list of reasons that workers don't contribute to an employer's plan, according to EBRI. More than half (55%) of workers and 39% of retirees also report a problem with debt – and only half can come up with $2,000 to meet unexpected needs within the next month.

Use your company's retirement plan. If your company matches your contributions to a retirement plan, take full advantage: The match equals free money.

In some retirement plans, you don't even set up an investment account – your employer does it for you as well as sets up a transfer from your paycheck to your investment account. Almost too easy to be true.

Save half of any raise. You can't spend the entire raise. Fight temptation and start increasing your savings with 50% socked away automatically.

Upgrade your skills at work. If you want to make more money, improve how you do what you do (an improvement usually up to you). Then you can demand more money in your paycheck and can really afford to save 50% of extra money.

Be disciplined about saving. Saving for retirement is a marathon. If you save consistently for a long time, you wake up one day near or at retirement and find a big pot of money waiting for you.

You can use that pot as a safety net and decide to continue working or you declare it time to move on to the next chapter. Point is, disciplined saving gives you choices.

MORE: Sheri Iannetta Cupo on how to avoid piecemeal investing

MORE: Jim Blankenship on figuring capital gains taxes

MORE: Lewis J. Walker on the tax bite getting bigger

Josh Patrick is a founding principal of Stage 2 Planning Partners in South Burlington, Vt., and a member of the AdviceIQ Financial Advisors Network, which is a USA TODAY content partner offering financial news and commentary. Its content is produced independently of USA TODAY.

Wall Street Bulls Salvage a Win

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- At least the bulls salvaged a win on Friday after three days of market selloff.

The DJIA gained 44.50 points to close at 16491.31 while the S&P 500 gained 7 to close at 1877.86. Even the Nasdaq rose 21.29 at the close to finish at 4090.59. The Russell 2000, the big loser this year so far, finished up 6.92 at 1102.91.

So, are the indexes back and ready for more upside gains next week? Not so fast. Friday saw nothing more than a short-term oversold bounce. The trading volume on Friday was not bad but substantially less than Thursday's down volume.

Most of the Friday's gains were most noticeable in the momentum technology stocks. That is the sector where the short hedge funds have been hiding out and covering their short positions. Keep in mind that the majority of those momentum stocks are in Trend Bearish territory. Apple (AAPL), Netflix (NFLX), Zillow (Z) and Amazon (AMZN) all closed to the upside. The volume was on the light side for those stocks. Trading next week should be interesting. Of the four major indexes, not one has an oversold condition. If the momentum chasers had not turned this market green on Friday, Monday could have shown an oversold signal with a lower open. However, that is not the case so I am cautious and looking for more downside early next week to give that oversold signal that I am looking for. Another sector that has entered into Trend Bearish territory is the SPDRs Select Sector Financial ETF (XLF). This is not surprising because of my "Growth Slowing" view of the economy. As a matter of fact, with the 10-year bond yield bearish (and now being confirmed by the XLF) along with inflation accelerating, it is easy to see why we are in a Growth Slowing economy. So, stay cautious and focus on these macro indicators to understand where this market is and where it may be headed. The Russell 2000 is down almost 10% from its March highs. The Nasdaq is down 6% from its March high. Pay attention and forget about the old Wall Street pundits. The game has changed. The old indicators are not as useful any longer. On Friday I covered my Yandex (YNDX) short on red in early trading for a nice gain and also sold my Exco Resources (XCO) long position for a nice gain. I started a new long position in a small-cap stock Female Health Company (FHCO). This was flagged with an extraordinarily oversold signal. All of my stock trades are timestamped at www.strategicstocktrades.com. A 93.71% success rate. At the time of publication, the author was long FHCO. This article represents the opinion of a contributor and not necessarily that of TheStreet or its editorial staff. >>Read more: Marijuana Stock Warning From the SEC >>Read more: Yum! Brands Is Cheap and Delicious

Stock quotes in this article: AAPL, NFLX, Z, AMZN, XLF, YNDX, XCO, FHCO 

Sallie Mae Fined $96 Million for Bilking Military on Student Loans

Sallie Mae, the servicer of federal and private student loans, must pay $96.6 million in restitution and penalties to the Department of Justice and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. for systematically violating the legal rights of U.S. servicemembers.

The DOJ said Tuesday that the federal government filed its first lawsuit against owners and servicers of student loans for violating the rights of servicemembers eligible for benefits and protections under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA).

The FDIC announced the same day that it determined that Sallie Mae violated federal law prohibiting unfair and deceptive practices in regards to student loan borrowers by: Inadequately disclosing its payment allocation methodologies to borrowers while allocating borrowers' payments across multiple loans in a manner that maximizes late fees; and misrepresenting and inadequately disclosing in its billing statements how borrowers could avoid late fees.

The FDIC orders require Sallie Mae Bank and Navient Corp. to pay civil penalties totaling $6.6 million and to pay restitution of approximately $30 million to harmed borrowers.

The three entities must also fund a $60 million settlement fund with the DOJ to provide remediation to servicemembers.

SLM Corp. (commonly known as Sallie Mae ) spun off its loan servicing operation on April 30 into a separate, publicly traded entity now called Navient Corp.

Navient is the entity that owns approximately $140 billion in federal and private student loans and services loans on behalf of Sallie Mae and other parties, such as the U.S. Department of Education. In total, Navient services $300 billion. Sallie Mae is a bank that originates private education loans and offers savings accounts, certificates of deposit and money market accounts. Sallie Mae owns approximately $6.5 billion of private education loans.

A Navient spokesperson explained that as part of today’s settlement, Sallie Mae will pay $3.3 million in fines to the FDIC; Navient is responsible for funding all other liabilities related to these consent orders, including the $60 million referenced in the Department of Justice’s news release and the $30 million in restitution under the consent order from the FDIC.

The United States’ complaint alleges that three defendants, collectively known as Sallie Mae, engaged in “a nationwide pattern or practice, dating as far back as 2005, of violating the SCRA by failing to provide members of the military the 6% interest rate cap to which they were entitled.”

The complaint further alleges that defendants Sallie Mae Inc. and SLM DE Corp. also violated the SCRA by improperly obtaining default judgments against servicemembers.

Holly Petraeus, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau assistant director, Office of Servicemember Affairs, said in a statement that she has been “concerned for some time about the way that military personnel are treated by their student loan servicers.”

Sallie Mae, she continued, “gave servicemembers the runaround and denied them the interest-rate reduction required by law. This behavior is unacceptable. And it’s particularly troubling from a company that benefits so generously from federal contracts.”

A 2012 report from the CFPB found that servicemembers faced serious hurdles in accessing their student loan benefits, including the provisions of the SCRA which caps the interest rate on pre-existing student loans and other consumer credit products at 6% while the servicemember is on active duty.

“Servicers were not providing them with clear and accurate information about their loan repayment options,” the report found. The CFPB said that it has “heard from military borrowers, including those in combat zones, who were denied interest-rate protections because they failed to resubmit unnecessary paperwork.” These kinds of obstacles, the report said, “prevent servicemembers from taking advantage of the full range of protections they have earned through their service to this country.”

The CFPB says that it has partnered with the Department of Defense to create better awareness of the rights and options for servicemember student loan borrowers. The CFPB also developed a guide for servicemembers who have student loans. The guide contains clear information on the various ways student loans can be repaid. The Bureau began accepting student loan complaints in March 2012. Servicemembers who have an issue with their servicers should submit a complaint to the CFPB.

---

Check out JPMorgan Pledges $20M for Veteran Initiatives on ThinkAdvisor.

More homes are beyond reach of middle class

Rising home prices and stagnant incomes are pushing home ownership beyond the reach of middle-class Americans in more cities, a new study finds.

In 20 of the 100 largest metro areas, a majority of homes on the market are not affordable for middle-income buyers, according to a study released Tuesday by real estate research firm Trulia. A year ago, most homes for sale were unaffordable in just one in 10 metro areas.

A home is considered affordable, by Trulia's definition, if total monthly costs after a 20% down payment — including mortgage, insurance and property taxes — are less than 31% of a region's median household income.

Rising home prices and interest rates, combined with modest wage increases, have chipped away at affordability over the past year, says Trulia Chief Economist Jed Kolko. Monthly payments for an average home cost 20% more than a year ago, he says.

"Affordability is worsening," Kolko says. "Prices are still rising faster than wages and income."

By historical standards, homes are still relatively affordable as the nation continues to recover from the 2007 housing crash. Nationally, home prices late last year were 20% above their 2011 nadir but 21% below their 2006 peak, according to CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indexes out Tuesday. Interest rates remain low. And buying is cheaper than renting in all of the 100 metro areas, Trulia's study found.

But since May 2013, the share of affordable homes has declined in 98 of those markets. Only Rochester, N.Y., and Hartford, Conn., had slight increases.

In a a separate report released Tuesday, the Federal Housing Finance Agency said it wants to make home ownership more accessible to low- and moderate-income families. The agency said it expects Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which the FHFA regulates and which finance most mortgages, "to assess whether there are additional opportunities to reach underserved creditworthy borrowers."

Affordability varies widely across the USA. In the San Francisco area, just! 14% of homes for sale are affordable for middle-class buyers, down from 20% a year ago. Even more telling: just 44% of the technology hotbed's sales inventory is within reach of average residents with graduate degrees, who typically have higher incomes.

Seven of the 10 least affordable markets are in California. Rounding out the bottom 10 are the New York City area, where 25% of for-sale homes affordable; Fairfield County, Conn., 37%; and Honolulu, 39%.

Several metro areas had particularly steep drops in affordability the past year. In Denver, the share of affordable homes tumbled to 50% from 67%. The portion dropped to 29% from 43% in Ventura County, Calif., and to 48% from 62% in San Antonio.

At the other end of the spectrum, five of the 10 most affordable areas are in Ohio. In Akron, 86% of homes for sale are affordable. In Gary Ind., 83% meet the criteria; in Columbia, S.C., 82%.

A big reason housing is expensive in many areas is a dearth of new home construction. Land for development is limited and building regulations are onerous in parts of coastal California, south Florida and the Northeast, while property is more widely available in the Midwest and South, Kolko says.

Existing home inventories are also low in part because the foreclosure crisis has eased, thinning the stock of low-priced homes on the market.

Don't worry about Ford's earnings miss

Late last month, Ford Motor Company (ticker: F) reported Q1 adjusted EPS of $0.25, which missed the average analyst estimate of $0.31. This followed up on Ford's guidance (provided late last year) for a profit decline in 2014.

That said, For

d's Q1 performance was a lot better than its earnings showed. This allowed Ford to maintain its full-year guidance for pre-tax profit of $7-$8 billion. Moreover, Ford's multiple key product launches in 2014 will put it in position to produce record earnings in 2015.

Areas of strength

While Ford's overall earnings performance fell short of expectations, the company posted very good results in two key regions: Europe and Asia-Pacific. In Europe, sales volume grew 11%, and revenue grew 18% thanks to a rebound in the auto market and favorable currency fluctuations. This helped Ford reduce its pre-tax loss in Europe from $425 million to $194 million.

Most importantly, Ford is slowly regaining market share in Europe. This, combined with the company's plans to close its underutilized factory in Genk, Belgium, at the end of 2014, puts it in on track to return to profitability in Europe next year.

Meanwhile, Ford posted a $291 million profit in the Asia-Pacific region last quarter, whereas it lost money in Q1 2013. This represented an outstanding 11.1% operating margin.

Ford's strong performance in the Asia-Pacific region was mainly attributable to its surging market share in China. In China, Ford's wholesale volume climbed 45% last quarter, driven by continued strength in the compact car segment and a strong line-up of crossovers and SUVs.

CFO Bob Shanks warned that Asia-Pacific profits would not be quite so high for the rest of the year. The company is opening new factories in the region later this year, and those will bring start-up costs that did not exist in Q1. However, looking ahead a few years, the Asia-Pacific region will become a major contributor to Ford's overall profitability.

The two big headwinds

Ford ! faced two major headwinds last quarter that more than offset the improvements in Europe and Asia-Pacific. First, in North America, Ford increased its warranty reserves by about $400 million. This was a non-cash charge based on a change in Ford's estimates of the likelihood and cost of future recalls.

While the warranty reserve accrual was not exactly a one-time charge, Ford executives noted that the size of the accrual was unusually large. If Ford's cars require fewer recalls in the next several years, some or all of this amount could be reversed.

Second, Ford recorded a $400 million charge last quarter to reflect the change in the value of its balance sheet caused by currency devaluations in South America, primarily in Venezuela. These two unusual factors (along with a smaller headwind from extreme weather in North America) reduced Ford's pre-tax profit by about $900 million. Without these headwinds, Ford's earnings would have grown year over year.

Foolish final thoughts

Ford has certainly lost some momentum in North America this year because of more aggressive pricing and new product launches by some of its rivals. However, by and large, it is in good shape considering where it is in the product cycle: Ford plans to launch 16 new vehicles in North America in 2014, compared to just five last year.

The launch of the 2015 Ford F-150 later this year will be particularly critical for returning Ford to profit growth in North America. The new F-150 is expected to offer a big improvement in fuel economy because of its higher use of lightweight aluminum, which could potentially allow Ford to increase its already-strong pickup profit margin.

A rebound in Ford's profitability in North America -- combined with its growing momentum in Europe and Asia -- will position the company for strong profit growth next year. Patient investors will be the beneficiaries.

The Motley Fool is a USA TODAY content partner offering financial news, analysis and commentary designed to help peo! ple take ! control of their financial lives. Its content is produced independently of USA TODAY.

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How do Shorter Film Showings Affect Theaters?

Thanks to visionaries like Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Reed Hastings, and Larry Page, the way we view, interact, and process data has changed and this includes all of the major industries within technology and entertainment. Today, it's a mobile world, yet the one industry that remains unchanged is very much the movie industry. According to DreamWorks Animation (NASDAQ: DWA  ) CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, this could spell trouble, especially for the likes of Carmike Cinemas (NASDAQ: CKEC  ) , Regal Entertainment (NYSE: RGC  ) , and AMC Entertainment Holdings (NYSE: AMC  ) .

A Beverly Hills confession
At the Milken Global Conference in Beverly Hills, DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg made headlines when he predicted that a three-week theatrical window would exist in the future. According to the CEO, the entire business of movies is going to change, and we will see a new era when movies play for just three weeks at theaters for $15. Then, cable providers will have a turn for $4.99 followed by streaming for $1.99.

As a result of this foreseen change, Katzenberg's company is making large investments and increasing its focus on the digital and TV space, which movie titans have often neglected in favor of box-office hauls. Obviously, if DreamWorks is ahead of the curve in seeing this transition then this could bode well for shareholders. For traditional movie theater companies, this change might even be better news.

Does a 3 week term have that much impact?
According to Katzenberg, 98% of movies make 95% of their revenue in the first three weeks after their launches. Therefore, this logic suggests that movie theaters might actually benefit from such an industrywide change, in three different ways.

Most theaters have large screens for new movie releases and as those films die down the theaters move them to smaller screens, which rarely sell out. By limiting films to only three weeks, consumers might feel a sense of urgency to get to the theaters, and this should also keep theaters packed with new movies and lead to higher concession sales.

Also, this could lead to shorter wait times for blockbuster movies. The Avengers 2 is a great example of this as it is not due out for another year, and then will follow the next Superman installment, followed by Justice League in, perhaps, 2018. We could also throw a 2016 release date for Avatar 2 into the equation, far past the original showings. The studios film most of these movies in a matter of months, but they often take 12 months or longer to make it onto film. Hence, fewer movies at the theaters equals more capacity for them, which might consequently allow films to make it to the theaters in less time.

Lastly, ticket prices will be higher. If 95% of revenue is generated by 98% of films in three weeks anyway, then a $15 ticket price will nearly double the current $7.96 average ticket price. Once more, this means more money in the pockets of everyone involved.

So which companies benefit?
While Katzenberg insinuates the need to prepare for such changes, it really appears that they could be great for the industry and theaters in general.

Carmike is a company that saw its revenue per screen increase 6.6% in 2013 and its attendance rise 2.4%. Looking ahead, expectations call for it to grow revenue 12% this year, and at 20 times next year's earnings, it might be an interesting stock to watch.

Like Carmike, Regal has seen its admissions and concessions rise. Also like Carmike, Regal is beefing up its total number of screens. However, at 14 times forward earnings and with similar growth, Regal might actually be a better bet than Carmike.

With that said, AMC hasn't shared the good fortunes of Carmike and Regal. Its admissions revenue did rise 3.6% last year but this mainly resulted from price increases, as the company has faced slowing traffic. AMC is a very large company, which became a public company late last year, but does not have the growth of its peers. Thus, at 15 times earnings, investors might find more upside in Carmike, and especially Regal.

Final thoughts
For the first time in a long time, it now appears that the movie industry will undergo some major changes, which might actually benefit theaters. With that said, it's possible that such changes won't occur, but Katzenberg's theories make sense.

Therefore, as with all industries, certain investments within them are better than others. In this particular scenario, Regal looks to be cheap and growing fast, and is strengthening its position in theaters. Hopefully, these changes mean more packed theaters, and if so, Regal is well positioned to reap the rewards.

Your cable company is scared, but you can get rich
You know cable's going away. But do you know how to profit? There's $2.2 trillion out there to be had. Currently, cable grabs a big piece of it. That won't last. And when cable falters, three companies are poised to benefit. Click here for their names. Hint: They're not Netflix, Google, and Apple. 

 

Miami is one of U.S.' top hot spots for climate…

Miami and other parts of south Florida, where streets routinely flood at lunar high tides, comprise one of the nation's most vulnerable hot spots for climate change.

"It's remarkable. We get calls from people asking: "It didn't rainm so why is my street underwater?'" says Broward County Commissioner Kristin Jacobs, noting the region's decades-old system to drain water is now causing it to bubble back up.

"I have a photo of a man swimming — doing the backstroke — in his cul de sac," she says, adding that 30% of her county — just north of Miami — is 5 feet or fewer above sea level.

Jacobs attended the White House's release Tuesday of the National Climate Assessment, a massive study by scientists that finds rising temperatures are already affecting the United States. It notes climate impacts vary by region and says Miami — along with New Orleans, Tampa, Charleston, S.C., and Virginia Beach — is most at risk for sea-level rise.

STORY: Cities in U.S. will absorb the heat of climate change

As the Earth's temperature warms, so do the seas, because warmer water takes up more room than cooler water. Globally, sea level has risen about 8 inches since reliable record-keeping began in 1880 and is most likely to rise another 1 to 4 feet — and possibly even 6 feet — by 2100, the report says.

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That's bad news for the highly-developed coasts of Florida's southern tip, where land is flat, low-lying and swampy. It relies on a mostly gravity-fed system of canals to drain the marshes, but there's not much incline to let gravity do its work.

"The underlying rock is limestone, which allows groundwater to seep in," says Leonard Berry, director of Florida Atlantic University's Center for Environmental Studies, noting he's seen even swanky cars like Lamborghinis flooded. He says the porous bedrock makes it difficult to build a sea wall that will keep out sa! ltwater intrusion, because such a barrier would have to go down at least 60 feet.

"Trillions of dollars of investments...are going to be vulnerable," Berry says, especially since the region is prone to hurricanes that can bring storm surges made worse by sea level rise.

The region also has a disproportionate share of elderly residents, many ironically drawn to Florida for its balmy weather, says Vicki Arroyo, executive director of the Washington,D.C.-based Georgetown Climate Center. She says the elderly, more susceptible in heat waves and less apt to relocate in storms, were hardest hit when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005.

Even a sea-level rise of 6 inches will be costly in South Florida. "That will happen in the next two to three decades," says Ben Strauss of Climate Central, a Princeton-based non-profit group that used federal data to create its Surging Seas database. The region's most likely rise in sea level will range between 5 and 13 inches by 2040 and between 7 and 20 inches by 2050, according to projections by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) based on tidal data in Key West.

So by mid-century, Strauss says there's at least a 78% chance of severe flooding of at least 2 feet above the high-tide line.

Sea levels are rising more quickly in other places, notably Virginia's Norfolk area, but Strauss says South Florida is so vulnerable because of its topography, population and pricey infrastructure. His group ranks Miami-Dade and Broward as the two U.S. counties with the most residents living on land less than 4 feet above the local high tide.

In fact, Miami has the dubious honor of ranking first among cities worldwide for number of residents, 4.8 million, at risk of coastal flooding by 2070, according to a 2012 report by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, an international group.

Berry says a sea-level rise of a few inches might not do much elsewhere, but a 2011 study by his univer! sity foun! d it could overwhelm the area's flood-control systems that are often more than 50 years old. The study expects more saltwater will seep into underground sources of drinking water, forcing cities to abandon wells near the ocean and drill new ones.

To prepare for such problems, the region's four counties — Miami-Dade, Broward, Monroe and Palm Beach — banded together in 2010 to form the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact, which has agreed to dozens of mitigation measures.

Top 5 Oil Service Companies To Own For 2014

Top 5 Oil Service Companies To Own For 2014: Arrow Electronics Inc. (ARW)

Arrow Electronics, Inc. provides products, services, and solutions to industrial and commercial users of electronic components and enterprise computing solutions worldwide. It operates in two segments, Global Components and Global Enterprise Computing Solutions. The Global Components segment distributes electronic components and related services to original equipment manufacturers and contract manufacturers. This segment provides online catalogs for electronic components; cloud-based design tools that expedite product development cycles; factory-direct end-of-life product inventory; reverse logistics; and electronics asset disposition solutions to redeploy, remarket, and recycle technology assets. Its products and services include semiconductor products and related services; passive, electro-mechanical, and interconnect products consisting primarily of capacitors, resistors, potentiometers, power supplies, relays, switches, and connectors; computing and memory; and other p roducts and services. The Global Enterprise Computing Solutions segment provides enterprise and midrange computing products, services, and solutions to value-added resellers; and unified communications products and related services, as well as cloud computing, security, and networking services. It also offers a suite of online supply chain tools. The company's customers include manufacturers of consumer and industrial equipment, telecommunications products, automotive and transportation, aerospace and defense, scientific and medical devices, and computer and office products, as well as value-added resellers of enterprise computing solutions. The company was founded in 1935 and is headquartered in Englewood, Colorado.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Monica Wolfe]

  Arrow Electronics Inc (ARW)

  FPA Capital's third largest stock ho! lding is in Arrow Electronics. The guru holds on to a total of 1,515,500 shares of Arrow, representing 1.51% of the company's shares outstanding and 9.2% of his total portfolio.

• [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 Arrow Electronics (NYSE: ARW  ) , whose recent revenue and earnings are plotted below.

source from Top Stocks Blog:http://www.topstocksblog.com/top-5-oil-service-companies-to-own-for-2014.html