BALTIMORE (Stockpickr) --�Put down the 10-K filings and the stock screeners. It's time to take a break from the traditional methods of generating investment ideas. Instead, let the crowd do it for you.
>>5 Blue Chips Ready to Hike Their Dividends Again
From hedge funds to individual investors, scores of market participants are turning to social media to figure out which stocks are worth watching. It's a concept that's known as "crowdsourcing," and it uses the masses to identify emerging trends in the market.
Crowdsourcing has long been a popular tool for the advertising industry, but it also makes a lot of sense as an investment tool. After all, the market is completely driven by the supply and demand, so it can be valuable to see what names are trending among the crowd.
While some fund managers are already trying to leverage social media resources like Twitter to find algorithmic trading opportunities, for most investors, crowdsourcing works best as a starting point for investors who want a starting point in their analysis. Today, we'll leverage the power of the crowd to take a look at some of the most active stocks on the market today.
Hot Companies To Invest In Right Now: McDonald's Corporation(MCD)
McDonald?s Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a worldwide foodservice retailer. It franchises and operates McDonald?s restaurants that offer various food items, soft drinks, coffee, and other beverages. As of December 31, 2009, the company operated 32,478 restaurants in 117 countries, of which 26,216 were operated by franchisees; and 6,262 were operated by the company. McDonald?s Corporation was founded in 1948 and is based in Oak Brook, Illinois.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Dan Caplinger]
The Dow Jones Industrials (DJINDICES: ^DJI ) set their 13th record of the year on Wednesday, posting a 20-point advance that brought the average to within 24 points of the 17,000 level. Even as second-quarter earnings season looms large in the near future, investors are still paying close attention to economic data, and tomorrow's key report on the jobless rate and nonfarm-payroll jobs creation has the potential to move the Dow. Let's look at what investors are expecting tomorrow and how the results could affect Dow components Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT ) and McDonald's (NYSE: MCD ) in particular.
- [By Rick Aristotle Munarriz]
Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images From a new player in the fast food market cleverly attacking the leader's mascot to a social giant bringing out its inner shutterbug, here's a rundown of the week's smartest moves and biggest blunders in the business world. Twitter (TWTR) -- Winner There are limitations inherent with Twitter, and the 140-character cutoff is just scratching the surface. Twitter's had its monetization challenges because it's not as interactive with multimedia, but that's taking a step in the right direction this week with the hashtag hasher sprucing up its offerings for shutterbugs. Twitter will now allow Twitter users to tag fellow users in photographs. Twitter will also let someone include as many as four photographs in a single post. We live in visual times, and while Vine and Twitter's original photo platform are decent, it's great to see the dot-com darling take things up a notch. King Digital Entertainment (KING) -- Loser There are tens of millions of Candy Crush Saga players on any given day, but apparently most of them would rather be matching candy pieces than buying into the game's developer. Game creator King Digital Entertainment went public at $22.50 on Wednesday, and unlike many of the dot-com darlings that have pulled off blazing IPOs, the market spat the Candy Crush maker out. The stock opened lower and closed its first day of trading down 16 percent, at $19. It was easy to see this coming. Many key performance metrics had peaked at King during last year's third quarter. Oculus -- Winner Few figured that Facebook (FB) would rush into any big-ticket purchases after its $19 billion deal for Whatsapp, but then the social networking leader announced the purchase of Oculus for $2 billion. Oculus is a virtual reality headwear maker that started drawing attention as a Kickstarter campaign. Critics have pointed out that the backers of that crowdfunding campaign that raised $2.5 million on Kickstarter will get nothing out of this deal.
- [By Mark Yagalla]
Getting into the breakfast business is a direct challenge to McDonald's (NYSE: MCD ) and its breakfast menu.�Breakfast is a popular and profitable business for McDonald's. Matter of fact, McDonald's has been toying with the idea of offering breakfast around the clock. The new breakfast menu from Taco Bell looks to eat into some of McDonald's business and capture this important time of day. For us Fools, who doesn't love a good breakfast?
Hot Blue Chip Companies To Invest In Right Now: Apple Inc.(AAPL)
Apple Inc., together with subsidiaries, designs, manufactures, and markets personal computers, mobile communication and media devices, and portable digital music players, as well as sells related software, services, peripherals, networking solutions, and third-party digital content and applications worldwide. The company sells its products worldwide through its online stores, retail stores, direct sales force, third-party wholesalers, resellers, and value-added resellers. In addition, it sells third-party Mac, iPhone, iPad, and iPod compatible products, including application software, printers, storage devices, speakers, headphones, and other accessories and peripherals through its online and retail stores; and digital content and applications through the iTunes Store. The company sells its products to consumer, small and mid-sized business, education, enterprise, government, and creative markets. As of September 25, 2010, it had 317 retail stores, including 233 stores in the United States and 84 stores internationally. The company, formerly known as Apple Computer, Inc., was founded in 1976 and is headquartered in Cupertino, California.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Evan Niu, CFA]
Ever since reporting earnings in April, Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL ) has been on a mean rally. After bottoming out at $385 shortly before the release, shares have promptly rallied over $75 in just over two weeks.
- [By Doug Ehrman]
Having bounced nicely off their recent low below $400 per share, Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL ) shares have been heading higher ever since. The question that investors now want answered is whether the stock can reach $500 and beyond anytime soon. While competition for the iPhone from Google (NASDAQ: GOOG ) Android devices and for the iPad from Microsoft, particularly given the recent news that Microsoft may be acquiring Nook Media from Barnes & Noble, are factors, the single biggest threat to Apple's race to $500 is the broader market. If the market can avoid a correction, Apple has a chance. If not, it's likely to put the next century mark on hold for at least a few months.
- [By Jeff Reeves]
What can you say about JCPenney (JCP) that the numbers don�� already show? The stock has simply imploded since 2011, after former Apple (AAPL) retail guru Ron Johnson made changes that scared away customers in droves. Not only is revenue down 9% in the last year, but its down a staggering 33% since fiscal 2011!
- [By Daniel Sparks]
Next to the iPhone, the iPad ranks second among Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL ) most important product lines. iPad sales account for approximately 20% of the company's revenue. The Mac ranks lower, at about 12.5% of revenue. The iPad segment is crucial to Apple's business, and for more reasons than its share of revenue. On that note, it's time for a brief rumor roundup of Apple's upcoming iPad refresh.
Hot Blue Chip Companies To Invest In Right Now: International Business Machines Corporation(IBM)
International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) provides information technology (IT) products and services worldwide. Its Global Technology Services segment provides IT infrastructure and business process services, including strategic outsourcing, process, integrated technology, and maintenance services, as well as technology-based support services. The company?s Global Business Services segment offers consulting and systems integration, and application management services. Its Software segment offers middleware and operating systems software, such as WebSphere software to integrate and manage business processes; information management software for database and enterprise content management, information integration, data warehousing, business analytics and intelligence, performance management, and predictive analytics; Tivoli software for identity management, data security, storage management, and datacenter automation; Lotus software for collaboration, messaging, and so cial networking; rational software to support software development for IT and embedded systems; business intelligence software, which provides querying and forecasting tools; SPSS predictive analytics software to predict outcomes and act on that insight; and operating systems software. Its Systems and Technology segment provides computing and storage solutions, including servers, disk and tape storage systems and software, point-of-sale retail systems, and microelectronics. The company?s Global Financing segment provides lease and loan financing to end users and internal clients; commercial financing to dealers and remarketers of IT products; and remanufacturing and remarketing services. It serves financial services, public, industrial, distribution, communications, and general business sectors. The company was formerly known as Computing-Tabulating-Recording Co. and changed its name to International Business Machines Corporation in 1924. IBM was founded in 1910 and is based in Armonk, New York.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Rex Crum]
IBM Corp. (IBM) �shares rose almost 2% to $193.14.
- [By Geoff Gannon]
Warren Buffett mentioned doing this before his recent investment in IBM (IBM). Basically, he wanted to know why people would be likely to prefer IBM to competitors and why they stay with IBM. In his CNBC interview, Buffet seems to say there is a certain tendency to bet on the known quantity when it comes to IT providers. He especially mentions this in regard to foreign companies. It was interesting to see Buffett mention doing this kind of scuttlebutt with IBM ��because in past interviews he's said that while he used to do all the Phil Fisher scuttlebutt ��he'd gotten to the point (by the 1990s and 2000s) where he kept Phil Fisher�� principles in mind but he could basically make a decision just from reading public reports.
- [By Matt Thalman]
When the Dow falls more than 100 points, it's usually easy to find a few losers. This morning, I talked about why American Express, Du Pont, and Caterpillar were all lower;�click here to read about those stocks, or continue reading to learn about�JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM ) , AT&T (NYSE: T ) , and IBM (NYSE: IBM ) .
Hot Blue Chip Companies To Invest In Right Now: Chevron Corporation(CVX)
Chevron Corporation, through its subsidiaries, engages in petroleum, chemicals, mining, power generation, and energy operations worldwide. It operates in two segments, Upstream and Downstream. The Upstream segment involves in the exploration, development, and production of crude oil and natural gas; processing, liquefaction, transportation, and regasification associated with liquefied natural gas; transportation of crude oil through pipelines; and transportation, storage, and marketing of natural gas, as well as holds interest in a gas-to-liquids project. The Downstream segment engages in the refining of crude oil into petroleum products; marketing of crude oil and refined products primarily under the Chevron, Texaco, and Caltex brand names; transportation of crude oil and refined products by pipeline, marine vessel, motor equipment, and rail car; and manufacture and marketing of commodity petrochemicals, plastics for industrial uses, and fuel and lubricant additives. It a lso produces and markets coal and molybdenum; and holds interests in 13 power assets with a total operating capacity of approximately 3,100 megawatts, as well as involves in cash management and debt financing activities, insurance operations, real estate activities, energy services, and alternative fuels and technology business. Chevron Corporation has a joint venture agreement with China National Petroleum Corporation. The company was formerly known as ChevronTexaco Corp. and changed its name to Chevron Corporation in May 2005. Chevron Corporation was founded in 1879 and is based in San Ramon, California.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Sara Murphy]
For example, Chevron (NYSE: CVX ) is embroiled in a take-no-prisoners battle with its shareholders over a $19 billion lawsuit in Ecuador for its pollution of that country's rainforests. Last year, in connection with the Ecuador debacle, more than a third of Chevron's shareholders voted to strip the CEO of his other role as chairman of the board. Investors also continue to propose resolutions requesting greater transparency from Chevron on its decision-making process with regard to entering countries with poor human rights records. These salvos from shareholders are becoming increasingly difficult for companies to ignore.
Hot Blue Chip Companies To Invest In Right Now: Philip Morris International Inc(PM)
Philip Morris International Inc., through its subsidiaries, engages in the manufacture and sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products in markets outside of the United States. Its international product brand line comprises Marlboro, Merit, Parliament, Virginia Slims, L&M, Chesterfield, Bond Street, Lark, Muratti, Next, Philip Morris, and Red & White. The company also offers its products under the A Mild, Dji Sam Soe, and A Hijau in Indonesia; Diana in Italy; Optima and Apollo-Soyuz in the Russian Federation; Morven Gold in Pakistan; Boston in Colombia; Belmont, Canadian Classics, and Number 7 in Canada; Best and Classic in Serbia; f6 in Germany; Delicados in Mexico; Assos in Greece; and Petra in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. It operates primarily in the European Union, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Canada, and Latin America. The company is based in New York, New York.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Robert Stephens]
Philip Morris
The 4.4% yield offered by Philip Morris� (NYSE: PM ) �is well-covered at 1.5x, which seems to be very sensible and shows that the company is not over-extending itself when it comes to payments to shareholders. This makes the income from the stock even more sustainable and highlights its potential as a sound defensive play. - [By Garrett Baldwin]
As the world's second-largest tobacco company, Philip Morris International (NYSE: PM) is an ideal sin stock.
And with numbers like these, it's also an ideal way to play global growth...
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