Shares of Crosstex Energy Inc. (NASDAQ: XTXI) are up more than 60% in the early afternoon on Monday and common units of Crosstex Energy LP (NASDAQ: XTEX) are up more than 35% following the announcement this morning that the two companies are teaming up with Devon Energy Inc. (NYSE: DVN) to form a new midstream master limited partnership and a publicly traded general partner firm. This is welcome news for shareholders in all three companies because the potential payout is likely to be well above what they��e used to.
The deal is essentially an acquisition by Devon although it is structured differently. The new companies have not been named yet but are expected to have an adjusted EBITDA of around $700 million in 2014.
The new companies will claim assets including 7,300 miles of gathering and transportation pipelines, 13 natural gas processing plants 6 liquids fractionators, barges, rail terminals, storage facilities, brine disposal wells, and a crude oil trucking fleet. These assets are scattered among many of the country�� high-production oil and gas regions, including the Barnett Shale, the Permian Basin, the Eagle Ford Shale, the Utica Shale, and the Marcellus Shale, among others.
Top Sliver Companies To Buy Right Now: Swedbank AB (SWDBY.PK)
Swedbank AB is the parent company of Swedbank. Swedbank consists of subsidiaries, associates and a joint venture. The Company operates in six business areas: Swedish Banking, Baltic Banking, International Banking, Swedbank Markets, Asset Management and Ektornet. On January 20, 2009, Swedbank Robur AB acquired Banco Fonder AB from Alfred Berg. In February 2010, the Company acquired a 15% equity stake in OAO Swedbank from European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). During the year ended December 31, 2009, Swedbank sold four branches to Sparbanken Nord, three branches to Sparbanken Dalsland, two branches to Sparbanken Rekarne, one branch to Tidaholms Sparbank and one branch to Sparbanken 1826.
Swedish Banking
Swedish Banking is engaged in offering a range of financial products and services to private customers, corporates, organisations and municipalities through close to 400 branches, as well as the telephone bank and Internet bank in Sweden. Swedbank�� products are also sold through the cooperating savings banks, which account for another 275 branches. The subsidiary in Luxembourg, with a representative office in Spain is included in the business area as well.
Baltic Banking
Baltic Banking offers a range of financial products and services to private and corporate customers in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. It offers its services through 226 branches, as well as the telephone bank and Internet bank.
International Banking
International Banking consists of operations outside Swedbank�� home markets, primarily the banking operations in Ukraine and Russia. In addition to Ukraine and Russia, the business area includes the branches in Denmark, Norway, the United States and China, as well as the representative office in Japan. The branch network in Ukraine, consists of 156 branches, serves both private and corporate customers. The Nordic branches offer corporate customers, mainly Swedish customers with operations in! the Nordic markets, a range of financial products and services.
Swedbank Markets
Swedbank Markets has operations in equity, fixed income and currency trading, corporate finance, as well as project, export and acquisition financing. In addition to its operations in Swedbank�� home markets, the business area includes the subsidiaries First Securities ASA in Norway and Swedbank First Securities LLC in New York.
Asset Management
Asset Management, which consists of the subsidiary Swedbank Robur Group, offers services in fund management, institutional and discretionary asset management in all of Swedbank�� home markets. Its customers include private customers, as well as institutions, foundations, municipalities, county councils and other investors. Its products are sold and distributed primarily by Swedish Banking and Baltic Banking and the savings banks in Sweden.
Ektornet
Ektornet is an independent subsidiary of Swedbank AB. It focuses on managing the Company�� repossessed assets and developing them over time. Most of the collateral consists of real estate, the part of which will be in the Baltic countries, though also in the Nordic region and the United States.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By David Hunkar]
Current Dividend Yield: 5.16%
Company: Swedbank AB (SWDBY.PK)
Sector: Oil, Gas & Consumable Fuels
Country: FranceCurrent Dividend Yield: 6.50%
Sector: Banking
Country: Sweden
Top 10 Trucking Companies To Invest In 2014: OceanFirst Financial Corp.(OCFC)
OceanFirst Financial Corp. operates as the holding company for OceanFirst Bank that provides community banking services to retail, government, and business customers primarily in Ocean, Monmouth, and Middlesex counties in New Jersey. Its deposit products include money market accounts, savings accounts, interest-bearing checking accounts, non-interest bearing accounts, and time deposits. The company?s loan portfolio comprises conventional first mortgage loans secured by one-to-four family residences, residential mortgage loans, commercial real estate loans, multi-family and land loans, and real estate construction loans; consumer loans, such as home equity loans and lines of credit; and commercial loans. In addition, it offers trust and asset management, and merchant check card services; and sells alternative investment products, including mutual funds, annuities, and life insurance. The company operates 22 branches, as well as a loan production office and a trust and weal th management office. OceanFirst Financial Corp. was founded in 1902 and is based in Toms River, New Jersey.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Garrett Cook]
In trading on Wednesday, financial shares were relative laggards, down on the day by about 0.24 percent. Top losers in the sector included IRSA Investments and Representations (NYSE: IRS), down 3.2 percent, and OceanFirst Financial (NASDAQ: OCFC), off 2.5 percent.
Top 10 Trucking Companies To Invest In 2014: Performant Financial Corp (PFMT)
Performant Financial Corporation (Performant), incorporated on October 8, 2003, provide technology-enabled recovery and related analytics services in the United States. The Company�� services help identify and recover delinquent or defaulted assets and improper payments for both government and private clients in a broad range of markets. The Company provides its services on an outsourced basis, where the Company handles many or all aspects of its clients��recovery processes. The Company derives its revenues from services for clients in a range of different markets. These markets include student lending and healthcare, as well as its other markets, which include delinquent state taxes and federal Treasury and other receivables. The Company�� clients include 12 of the 32 public sector participants in the student loan industry. In February 2012, it purchased a perpetual software license and computer equipment from HOPS, Inc.
Student Lending
The Company derives its revenues from the recovery of student loans. These revenues are contract-based and consist primarily of contingency fees based on a specified percentage of the amount the Company enables its clients to recover. The Company engages subcontractors to assist in the recovery of a portion of the client�� portfolio. It also receives success fees for the recovery of loans under Master Service Agreements (MSAs) and its revenues under MSA arrangements include fees earned by the activities of its subcontractors. The Company uses its technology to identify, track and communicate with defaulted borrowers on behalf of its clients to implement suitable recovery programs for the repayment of outstanding student loan balances.
The Company�� client�� contract with it to provide recovery services for large pools of student loans generally representing a portion of the total outstanding defaulted balances they manage, which they provide to us as placements on a periodic basis. The Company also restructures and r! ecovers student loans issued directly by banks to students outside of federal lending programs.
Healthcare
The Company derives revenues from the healthcare market primarily from its Recovery Audit Contractor (RAC), contract, under, which it is a prime contractor responsible for detecting improperly paid Part A and Part B Medicare claims in 12 states in the Northeastern United States. Revenues earned under the RAC contract are driven by the identification of improperly paid Medicare claims through both automated and manual review of such claims. The Company outsourced certain aspects of its healthcare recovery process to three different subcontractors.
Other
The Company derives revenues from the recovery of delinquent state taxes, and federal Treasury and other receivables, default aversion services for certain clients, including financial institutions and the licensing of hosted technology solutions to certain clients. For its hosted technology services, the Company licenses its system and integrates its technology into its clients��operations, for which it is paid a licensing fee. The Company�� revenues for these services include contingency fees, fees based on dedicated headcount to its clients and hosted technology licensing fees. The federal agency market consists of government debt subrogated to the Department of the Treasury.
For state and municipal tax authorities, the Company analyzes a portfolio of delinquent tax and other receivables placed with the Company, develop a recovery plan and execute a recovery process designed to maximize the recovery of funds. In some instances, it has also run state tax amnesty programs, which provide one-time relief for delinquent tax obligations, and other debtor management services for its clients. For the Department of the Treasury, it recovers government debt subrogated to it by numerous different federal agencies. The placements it has provided represent a mix of commercial and individual oblig! ations.
Data Management Expertise
The Company�� platform manages and stores large amounts of data throughout the workflow process. This includes both data it has compiled, as well as third-party data.
Data Analytics Capabilities
The Company�� data analytics capabilities screen and allocate massive volumes of recovery inventory. Upon receipt of each placement of student loans, the Company utilize its algorithms to assist its in determining the recovery process and the optimal allocation of recovery specialist resources for each loan. In the healthcare market, the Company analyze millions of Medicare claims to find potential correlations between claims data and improper payments.
Workflow Processes
The Company refers to the patented technology that supports its workflows as Smart Bins. The Company�� workflow processes integrate a range of functions that encompass each stage of a recovery process.
The Company competes with Health Management Systems, Inc., Connolly Consulting, Inc. and CGI Group.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Magic Diligence]
Much of United Online's appeal was due to its over 4% dividend yield, but the company announced in late January that it would be discontinuing its dividend to focus on growth initiatives. This follows itsNovember spin-off of FTD, which leaves United with 3 cash producing but declining businesses: Classmates.com, NetZero, and Juno. NetZero Mobile Broadband is an interesting product but one with a lot of competition from the carriers. Frankly, the dividend has been the main attraction for some time, and without it this is a declining company with a fair bit of debt. That does not make for the most attractive option. PASS.
Performant Financial (PFMT) - down 28.1%Performant earns fees for collecting delinquent student loans (about 60% of the business) and providing recovery services for improper Medicare payments (close to 30%). The recent sell-off in the stock seems due to comments from Sallie Mae regarding lower rehabilitation fees paid to Guarantee Agencies, which investors expect to "trickle down" to service providers like PFMT. The stock has been sold off dramatically on these assumptions. We should know more when the company reports earnings in the coming weeks, but this is one worth looking at more closely - the firm has been growing revenue at 30%+ rates. WORTHY OF CONSIDERATION.
- [By Roberto Pedone]
Performant Financial (PFMT) provides technology-enabled recovery and related analytics services in the U.S. This stock closed up 6.9% at $11.84 in Friday's trading session.
Friday's Volume: 310,000
Three-Month Average Volume: 261,916
Volume % Change: 60%From a technical perspective, PFMT soared higher here right off both its 200-day moving average of $11.02 and its 50-day moving average at $11.06 with decent upside volume. This move is quickly pushing shares of PFMT within range of triggering a major breakout trade. That trade will hit if PFMT manages to take out some near-term overhead resistance levels at $12.47 to $13.26 with high volume.
Traders should now look for long-biased trades in PFMT as long as it's trending above its 200-day at $11.02 and then once it sustains a move or close above those breakout levels with volume that's near or above 261,916 shares. If that breakout hits soon, then PFMT will set up to re-test or possibly take out its all-time high at $14.09. Any high-volume move above $14.09 will then give PFMT a chance to trend north of $15.
Top 10 Trucking Companies To Invest In 2014: Sevcon Inc (SEV)
Sevcon, Inc., incorporated on November 23, 1987, is engaged in the electronic controls business. Through wholly owned subsidiaries located in the United States, England, France, South Korea and Japan, the Company designs and sells, under the Sevcon name, microprocessor based controls for zero emission and hybrid electric vehicles. The controls are used to vary the speed and movement of vehicles, to integrate specialized functions and to prolong the shift life of vehicles��power source. It operates in two segments: electronic controls and capacitors. The electronic controls segment produces microprocessor based control systems for zero emission and hybrid electric vehicles. The capacitor segment produces special metalized film capacitors for sale to electronic equipment manufacturers.
The Company�� customers are manufacturers of on-road, off-road and industrial vehicles including automobiles, motorcycles, buses, fork lift trucks, aerial lifts, mining vehicles, airport ground support vehicles, utility vehicles, sweepers and other battery powered vehicles. Through another subsidiary located in the United Kingdom, the Company manufactures special metalized film capacitors for electronics applications. Approximately 94% of the Company�� revenues, during the fiscal year ended September 30, 2013, were derived from the controls business and 6% from the capacitor business.
The Company competes with Kollmorgen, Sauer Danfoss, Hitachi, the motors division of General Electric, Curtis Instruments Inc., Zapi SpA. and Iskra.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By CRWE]
Sevcon, Inc. (Nasdaq:SEV), a global manufacturer of drivetrain controls for electric and hybrid vehicles, reported its selection by Brammo, Inc., a global leader in the electric motorcycle industry, to supply Gen4 motor controllers for Brammo’s Empulse and Empulse R 100% electric motorcycles, which were launched on May 8, 2012.
Top 10 Trucking Companies To Invest In 2014: Ambassadors Group Inc. (EPAX)
Ambassadors Group, Inc. provides educational travel experiences and online education research materials worldwide. Its Ambassador Programs and Other segment offers educational travel services to students and professionals. The company�s BookRags segment provides online research in the form of book summaries, critical essays, study guides, lesson plans, film summaries, biographies, literary criticisms, and references to encyclopedia articles. It offers People to People Ambassador Programs for the development and conducting of programs to grade school and high school students; and for the development, marketing, and operation of programs for professionals, college students, and athletes. The company also provides People to People Student Ambassador Programs, which offer educational opportunities for grade school, middle school, and high school students to visit foreign destinations to learn about the history, government, economy, and culture of such countries, as well as pr ovides educational and entertaining travel experience. In addition, it offers People to People Sports Ambassador Programs; and People to People Leadership Summit and World Leadership Forum Programs that provide domestic travel experiences for grade school, middle school, and high school students emphasizing leadership, community involvement, and government education. The company also offers People to People Citizen Ambassador Programs, which provide professionals to travel abroad to meet and exchange ideas with foreign citizens. In addition, it offers Discovery Student Adventures, a teacher recruited student travel program that provides opportunities for grade school, middle school, and high school students to visit destinations emphasizing adventure and scientific exploration. Further, the company operates bookrags.com, an educational Website. Ambassadors Group, Inc. was founded in 1967 and is headquartered in Spokane, Washington.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By CRWE]
Ambassadors Group, Inc. (Nasdaq:EPAX), a leading provider of educational travel experiences, reported that its board of directors declared a quarterly dividend of $0.06 per share, which will be paid on June 7, 2012 to all common shareholders of record on May 24, 2012.
Top 10 Trucking Companies To Invest In 2014: OBA Financial Services Inc.(OBAF)
OBA Financial Services, Inc. operates as the bank holding company for OBA Bank that provides financial services to individuals, families, and businesses in the United States. The company offers various deposit accounts, including statement savings accounts, certificates of deposit, money market accounts, commercial and regular checking accounts, and individual retirement accounts. Its loan portfolio comprises one- to four-family residential mortgage loans, commercial real estate loans, home equity loans and lines of credit, commercial business loans, construction loans, and consumer loans. The company provides its services through a main office and four full-service branches located in Montgomery County and Howard County, Maryland; and Washington, D.C. OBA Financial Services, Inc. was founded in 1861 and is headquartered in Germantown, Maryland.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Tim Melvin]
Mr. Seidman also announced an increased stake in OBA Financial (OBAF) in Germantown, Md. He now owns a little over 8% of the six-branch bank and has publicly called for the sale OBAF. He was pretty blunt about his assessment of the bank in a letter to the board, which read:
- [By Tim Melvin]
NWBI stock trades at 1.12 times book value and serves a very attractive market. It would be a great acquisition for a bank looking to expand into the region, which includes part of the Marcellus Shale fields. Investors get paid to wait for good things to happen, as the dividend yield is currently 3.65%.
OmniAmerican Bancorp�(OBAF)It is very surprising to me that OmniAmerican Bancorp�(OBAF) hasn’t yet been bought out by another bank in the red-hot Texas banking market. The bank has 15 branches located in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex region and total assets of about$385 million of assets. It has held onto its capital, and the equity-to-asset ratio is more than 16. Non-performing assets are just 0.18% of total assets, so this is another financially solid bank.
Top 10 Trucking Companies To Invest In 2014: Coherent Inc.(COHR)
Coherent, Inc. provides photonics-based solutions for a range of commercial and scientific research applications worldwide. The company engages in designing, manufacturing, servicing, and marketing lasers, laser tools, precision optics, and related accessories. Its products are used in a range of applications, including microelectronics, scientific research and government programs, original equipment manufacturer components and instrumentation, and materials processing markets. The company markets its products primarily through a direct sales force, as well as through independent representatives. Coherent, Inc. was founded in 1966 and is headquartered in Santa Clara, California.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Brian Stoffel]
For decades, the standard technology in the laser industry has been the carbon-based laser. In reality, these lasers are still commonly used, and sold in bulk by the likes of Rofin-Sinar (NASDAQ: RSTI ) and Coherent (NASDAQ: COHR ) . They are used largely for precision cutting of large pieces of metal.
- [By Evan Niu, CFA]
What: Shares of Coherent (NASDAQ: COHR ) ran higher by as much as 16% after the company reported fiscal second-quarter earnings.
So what: Revenue in the quarter added up to $200.1 million, with adjusted earnings per share of $0.84. Both headline figures were ahead of consensus forecasts, which were perched at $198.2 million in sales and an adjusted profit of $0.80 per share. CEO John Ambroseo said demand in Coherent's commercial end markets improved, resulting in record bookings for materials processing.
- [By Brian Stoffel]
Rofin-Sinar (NASDAQ: RSTI ) , Coherent (NASDAQ: COHR ) , Newport (NASDAQ: NEWP ) , and JDS Uniphase (NASDAQ: JDSU ) all offer fiber-optic lasers as well.
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