Top Prefered Stocks To Own For 2014

Biotech company VIVUS (NASDAQ: VVUS  ) has struggled to pick up sales of its obesity medication Qsymia since the drug was launched in September. Last quarter, the company reported a mere $4.1 million in total revenue, and its massive selling, general, and administrative costs weighed heavily on its bottom line. In an effort to encourage both physician and patient adoption, VIVUS has not only established two free trial programs, but has also launched the "Q and Me" mobile app, whose aim is to help patients comply with their prescribed weight loss treatment, track food intake, and set exercise goals.

While Qsymia was the first obesity medication to hit the market in more than a decade, VIVUS' app wasn't the first to help patients manage their weight. Recently, Motley Fool health-care analyst Max Macaluso spoke with Dr. Domenica Rubino, a weight-management expert and representative of The Obesity Society. In the following video, Dr. Rubino discusses technologies that can be used to help track and manage weight loss. A transcript follows the video.

Top 10 Diversified Bank Companies For 2015: Vanguard Consumer Staples Etf (VDC)

Vanguard Consumer Staples ETF (the Fund), formerly known as Vanguard Consumer Staples VIPERs, is an exchange-traded share class of Vanguard Consumer Staples Index Fund. The Fund employs a passive management or indexing investment approach designed to track the performance of the Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) US Investable Market Consumer Staples Index (the Index). The Index is an index of stocks of large, medium and small United States companies in the consumer staples sector, as classified under the Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS). This GICS sector is made up of companies whose businesses are less sensitive to economic cycles. It includes manufacturers and distributors of food, beverages and tobacco, as well as producers of non-durable household goods and personal products. It also includes food and drug retailing companies, as well as hypermarkets and consumer supercenters.

The Fund attempts to replicate the Index by investing all, or substantially all, of its assets in the stocks that make up the Index, holding each stock in approximately the same proportion as its weighting in the Index. The Fund also may sample its target Index by holding stocks that, in the aggregate, are intended to approximate the Index in terms of key characteristics, such as price/earnings ratio, earnings growth and dividend yield.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Chris Versace, Editor, PowerTrend Brief and PowerTrend Profits]

  That, to me, says they're going to favor inelastic goods over elastic ones, so when you think of the things that we need each and every day, toilet paper, toothpaste, deodorant, shampoo, household cleansers, that sort of thing, that's what brings me into (XLP) and (VDC).

Top Prefered Stocks To Own For 2014: Home BancShares Inc.(HOMB)

Home BancShares, Inc. operates as a holding company for the Centennial Bank that provides various commercial and retail banking, and related financial products and services to businesses, real estate developers, investors, individuals, and municipalities. It offers various deposit products, including checking, savings, and money market accounts, as well as certificates of deposit. The company also offers commercial real estate, construction and land development, commercial and industrial, residential real estate, agricultural, and consumer loans. In addition, it provides Internet banking and voice response information, cash management, overdraft protection, direct deposit, safe deposit boxes, the United States savings bonds, and automatic account transfers services. Further, the company provides trust services focusing on personal trusts, corporate trusts, and employee benefit trusts, as well as writes insurance policies for commercial and personal lines of businesses. As of December 31, 2010, it operated 49 branches in Arkansas, 9 branches in the Florida Keys, 6 branches in central Florida, 3 branches in southwest Florida, and 29 branches in the Florida Panhandle. Home BancShares, Inc. is headquartered in Conway, Arkansas.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Sean Williams]

  What: Shares of Home BancShares (NASDAQ: HOMB  ) , the holding company of Centennial Bank, jumped as much as 13% after receiving an analyst upgrade.

Top Prefered Stocks To Own For 2014: Quiksilver Inc.(ZQK)

Quiksilver, Inc. designs, develops, produces, and distributes apparel, footwear, accessories, and related products. The company offers shirts, walkshorts, T-shirts, fleece, pants, jackets, snowboard wear, footwear, hats, backpacks, wetsuits, watches, eyewear, and other accessories to men, women, boys, girls, toddlers, and infants under the brand Quiksilver. It also provides sportswear, swimwear, footwear, backpacks, snowboard wear, snowboards, bedroom furnishings, and other accessories for girls, toddlers, and infants under the brand Roxy. In addition, the company offers skateboard shoes, snowboard boots, sandals, and apparel for young men and juniors under the brand DC. Further, it provides skateboard products, and snowboards and accessories under the brands Hawk, Lib Technologies, and Gnu. The company sells its products in approximately 90 countries in the Americas, Europe, and the Asia/Pacific, through surf shops, skateboard shops, snowboard shops, select department sto res, independent specialty or active lifestyle stores, and specialty chains, as well as through its 770 owned or licensed company stores. Quiksilver, Inc. was founded in 1976 and is headquartered in Huntington Beach, California.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Wallace Witkowski]

  Shares of Quiksilver Inc. (ZQK) �declined 5.1% to $7.30 on moderate volume after the skateboarding and surfing apparel maker posted a wider-than-expected quarterly loss on revenue that fell short of estimates.

Top Prefered Stocks To Own For 2014: Reynolds American Inc(RAI)

Reynolds American Inc. (RAI), through its subsidiaries, manufactures and sells cigarette and other tobacco products in the United States. It offers cigarettes under the brand names of CAMEL, PALL MALL, WINSTON, KOOL, DORAL, SALEM, MISTY, and CAPRI; and cigarettes and other tobacco products under the NATURAL AMERICAN SPIRIT brand name, as well as manages various licensed brands, including DUNHILL and STATE EXPRESS 555. The company also provides smokeless tobacco products, including moist snuff under GRIZZLY and KODIAK brand names; pasteurized tobacco under CAMEL Snus brand name; milled tobacco under the brand name of CAMEL Dissolvables; other tobacco products, such as little cigars under WINCHESTER and CAPTAIN BLACK brand names; and roll-your-own tobacco under the brand name of BUGLER. RAI sells its products primarily through distributors, wholesalers, and other direct customers, including retail chains, as well as distributes its cigarettes to public warehouses. The compan y was founded in 1875 and is headquartered in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Rupert Hargreaves]

  E-cigs, widely considered to be the "next big thing" in the world of big tobacco with sales eventually outpacing those of traditional cigarettes, are running into trouble. With�big tobacco companies like Altria (NYSE: MO  ) , Reynolds American (NYSE: RAI  ) , and Lorillard (NYSE: LO  ) falling over themselves to get in on the action, regulators have started to take notice.

• [By Ben Levisohn]

  Merger activity has been good news for both acquirer and acquired, so why shouldn’t tobacco get in the game? It might be, as reports suggest that Reynolds American (RAI) could be making a play for Lorillard (LO).

• [By MONEYMORNING.COM]

  Overhyped Products That Failed No. 9: Smokeless Cigarettes. Concern over the health hazards from cigarette smoking led R.J. Reynolds (NYSE: RAI) to invest $325 million in the1980s to create a breakthrough product - a smokeless cigarette dubbed "Premier." Instead of burning the tobacco, it simply heated it. That got rid of 70% of the carbon monoxide and all of the tar, but with one unfortunate consequence: Premier tasted awful and "smelled like burning garbage," according to Advertising Age. Within four months of its debut in 1989, Premier was history.

• [By Teresa Rivas]

  The Street may not have been excited about the official announcement of a merger between Reynolds American (RAI) and Lorillard (LO), but Morgan Stanley thinks that there is too much pessimism �about the potential deal.

Top Prefered Stocks To Own For 2014: Digital Brand Media & Marketing Group Inc (DBMM)

Digital Brand Media & Marketing Group Inc. (DBMM), formerly RTG Ventures, Inc., incorporated on September 29, 1998, designs and executes digital marketing strategies across multiple ad platforms and social media networks for a broad array of clients to help each of them establish a uniform brand identity across the digital universe. Digital Clarity is a Digital Marketing Agency that has been at the forefront of online marketing.

The Company is engaged in search engine marketing, Web design, social media including digital analysis, the Company works with both brands and medium sized companies to help leverage online brand presence and new customer acquisition strategy. Digital Clarity also delivers consultancy and strategy planning for both client companies and advertising agency partners. Pay per click (PPC) (also called Cost per click) is an Internet advertising model used to direct traffic to websites, where advertisers pay the publisher (typically a Website owner) when the ad is clicked. With search engines, advertisers typically bid on keyword phrases relevant to their target market. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a Website or a Web page in search engines via the natural or un-paid (organic or algorithmic) search results. In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it receives from the search engine's users. Email marketing is a form of direct marketing which uses email as a means of communicating commercial or fund-raising messages to an audience.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Peter Graham]

  Last Friday, small cap Digital Brand Media & Marketing Group Inc (OTCMKTS: DBMM) surged 22.22% while Blue Water Global Group Inc (OTCBB: BLUU) sank 18.42% and Medina International Holdings, Inc (OTCMKTS: MIHI) sank 50%. However, one of these small caps (Blue Water Global Group) appears to be reversing course in early morning trading today. So with it and the rest of these small cap stocks either sink or swim in trading this week? Here is a closer look to help you decide on an investing or trading strategy:

Top Prefered Stocks To Own For 2014: Sector SPDR Trust SBI Interest (XLK)

Sector SPDR Trust SBI Interest, formerly Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund, seeks to provide investment results that correspond to the price and yield performance of the Technology Select Sector of the S&P 500 Index (the Index). The Index includes companies primarily involved in industries, such as information technology (IT) consulting, semiconductor equipment and products, computers and peripherals, diversified telecommunication services and wireless telecommunication services.

It utilizes a passive or indexing investment approach to invest in a portfolio of stocks that seek to replicate the Index. Sector SPDR Trust SBI Interest's investment advisor is SSgA Funds Management, Inc.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Tom Aspray]

  It is also surprising that the Select Sector SPDR Technology (XLK) is one of the worst performers so far in 2013 as it is up just 17% so far this year. So which sectors look the best for the long term and which appear to show the best intermediate-term opportunities?

• [By Jon C. Ogg]

  4. Cyclical stocks outperform defensive stocks – This puts consumer discretionary, energy, financials, industrials, technology and materials all doing better than consumer staples, healthcare, telecom, and utilities. Doll also prefers a free cash flow yield to dividend yield and dividend growth over dividend yield.

  ETF Recommendation(s): Financial Select Sector SPDR (NYSEArca: XLF), Technology Select Sector SPDR (NYSEArca: XLK), Market Vectors Oil Services ETF (NYSEArca: OIH)… Avoid Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR (NYSEArca: XLP) and Utilities Select Sector SPDR (NYSEArca: XLU).

  5. Dividends, stock buy-backs, capex, and M&A all increase at a double-digit rate – This is led by a lot of cash flow, underleveraged balance sheets, and possible great places to use cash. The argument for higher cap-ex is as follows: “Pent-up demand and aging of plant, equipment and technology argue for increases in those key areas.”