Oil and natural gas producer Vanguard Natural Resources (NASDAQ: VNR ) likes to go against the grain. While most of its peers have been focused on acquiring or developing oil-rich assets, Vanguard has been shopping in the clearance isle and stocking up on natural gas. It's a move that could pay off handsomely in a couple of years as the supply and demand balance for natural gas begins to shift.
Vanguard's business model is pretty simple. It buys up oil and gas reserves and then locks in the margins of the future production by hedging it for the long term. In its most recent natural gas acquisitions, the company was able to pick up dirt cheap assets that will earn a fair profit on the production over the next few years. However, over the longer term, those assets could turn out to be a real gem as the supply and demand imbalance for natural gas begins to shift. The following slide breaks down those fundamentals:
Source: Vanguard Natural Resources Investor Presentation (link opens a PDF).
Top Semiconductor Companies To Own In Right Now: Mcdermott International Inc (MDR)
McDermott International, Inc. (MII),incorporated on August 11, 1959, is a engineering, procurement, construction and installation (EPCI) company. The Company is focused on designing and executing complex offshore oil and gas projects worldwide.
The Company provides fully integrated EPCI services; it delivers fixed and floating production facilities, pipeline installations and subsea systems from concept to commissioning. Its business segments consist of Asia Pacific, Atlantic, Caspian and the Middle East. On March 19, 2012, the Company completed the sale of its former charter fleet business, which operated 10 of the 14 vessels.
Asia Pacific Segment
Through the Company�� Asia Pacific segment, it serves the needs of customers primarily in Australia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand. Project focus in this segment includes the fabrication and installation of fixed and floating structures and the installation of pipelines and subsea systems. The majority of its projects in this segment are performed on an EPCI basis. Engineering and procurement services are provided by its Singapore office and are supported by additional resources located in Chennai, India and Houston, Texas. The primary fabrication facility for this segment is located on Batam Island, Indonesia. Additionally, through its equity ownership interest in a joint venture, the Company has developed a fabrication facility located in China.
The Company competes with Allseas Marine Contractors S.A.; Daewoo Engineering & Construction Co., Ltd.; EMAS Offshore Pte Ltd.; Heerema Group; Hyundai Heavy Industrial Co., Ltd.; Nippon Steel Corporation; Saipem S.P.A.; Samsung Heavy Industries Co., Ltd.; Sapura Kencana Petroleum; Subsea 7 S.A.; Swiber Holdings Ltd., and Technip S.A.
Atlantic Segment
Through the Company�� Atlantic segment, it serves the needs of customers primarily in the United States, Brazil, Mexico, Trinidad and West Africa. Project focus in this s! egment includes the fabrication and installation of fixed and floating structures and the installation of pipelines and subsea systems. Engineering and procurement services are provided by its Houston office, and its New Orleans office provides marine engineering capabilities to support its global marine activities. The primary fabrication facilities for this segment are located in Morgan City, Louisiana and Altamira, Mexico.
The Company competes with Allseas Marine Contractors S.A.; Dragados Offshore Mexico, S.A.; Gulf Island Fabrication Inc.; Heerema Group; Helix Energy Solutions Group, Inc.; KBR, Inc.; Kiewit Corporation; Saipem S.P.A.; Subsea 7 S.A., and Technip S.A.
Middle East Segment
Through the Company�� Middle East segment, which includes the Caspian region, it serves the needs of customers primarily in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.), Kuwait, India, Azerbaijan, Russia, and the North Sea. Project focus in this segment relates primarily to the fabrication and offshore installation of fixed and floating structures and the installation of pipelines and subsea systems. The majority of its projects in this segment are performed on an EPCI basis. Engineering and procurement services are provided by its Dubai, U.A.E., Chennai, India and Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia offices and are supported by additional resources from its Houston and Baku, Azerbaijan offices. The primary fabrication facility for this segment is located in Dubai, U.A.E.
The fabrication facilities in each segment are equipped with a variety of heavy-duty construction and fabrication equipment, including cranes, welding equipment, machine tools and robotic and other automated equipment. Project installation is performed by construction vessels, which the Company owns or leases and are stationed throughout the various regions and provide structural lifting/lowering and pipelay services. These construction vessels are supported by its multi-function vessels and chart! ered vess! els from third parties to perform a wide array of installation activities that include anchor handling, pipelay, cable/umbilical lay, dive support and hookup/commissioning.
The Company competes with Hyundai Heavy Industrial Co. Ltd.; Keppel Corporation; Larsen and Toubro Ltd (India); National Petroleum Construction Company (Abu Dhabi); Saipem S.P.A.; Technip S.A.; and Valentine and Swiber Holdings Ltd.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Jake L'Ecuyer]
Equities Trading DOWN
Shares of McDermott International (NYSE: MDR) were down 6.97 percent to $7.55 after the company reported a Q4 loss of $1.37 per share on revenue of $517.3 million. It also withdrew its previous outlook. Capital One Financial downgraded the stock from Equalweight to Underweight and cut the price target from $8.00 to $6.00. - [By Sean Williams]
Digging the chance for a rebound
If you've been keeping your eye on the oil and gas drilling sector lately, you'd be hard pressed to find poorly performing companies, but offshore services company McDermott International (NYSE: MDR ) is one of the few that fits the bill. - [By Roberto Pedone]
One under-$10 engineering player that's trending very close to triggering a big breakout trade is McDermott International (MDR), an engineering, procurement, construction and installation company engaged on designing and executing complex offshore oil and gas projects. This stock has been hit hard by the bears so far in 2013, with shares off by 31%.
If you take a look at the chart for MDR, you'll notice that this stock recently gapped down sharply from close to $9 a share to its recent low of $6.68 a share with heavy downside volume. Following that move, shares of MDR have started to rebound off that $6.68 low, and the stock is now starting to move within range of triggering a major breakout trade.
Traders should now look for long-biased trades in MDR if it manages to break out above some near-term overhead resistance at $7.74 a share with high volume. Look for a sustained move or close above that level with volume that hits near or above its three-month average action of 4.33 million shares. If that breakout triggers soon, then MDR will set up to re-fill some of its previous gap down zone from August that started near $9 a share. If MDR gets into that gap with volume, then this stock could easily hit $9 to $10 a share.
Traders can look to buy MDR off weakness to anticipate that breakout and simply use a stop that sits right below some near-term support levels at $7.04 o around its recent low of $6.68 a share. One can also buy MDR off strength once it takes out $7.74 a share with volume and then simply use a stop that sits a comfortable percentage from your entry point.
Best Investments In 2014: Red Lion Hotels Corporation(RLH)
Red Lion Hotels Corporation, a hospitality and leisure company, engages in the ownership, operation, and franchising of midscale, full, select, and limited service hotels under the Red Lion brand. As of June 30, 2011, its hotel network comprised of 44 hotels located in 8 states and 1 Canadian province, with 8,457 rooms. The company also offers ticketing services and promotion and presentation of entertainment productions, as well as provides ticketing inventory management systems, call center services, and outlet/electronic channel distribution for event locations. In addition, it has direct ownership interest in a retail mall in Kalispell, Montana, as well as involves in the real estate investments. The company was formerly known as WestCoast Hospitality Corporation and changed its name to Red Lion Hotels Corporation in September 2005. Red Lion Hotels Corporation was founded in 1937 and is based in Spokane, Washington.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Laura Brodbeck]
Monday
Earnings Releases Expected: Sotheby�� (NYSE: BID), Otelco (NASDAQ: OTEL), Rackspace Hosting, Inc. (NYSE: RAX), Red Lion Hotels Corporation (NYSE: RLH) Economic Releases Expected: Italian industrial production, Mexican industrial production, Portuguese trade balanceTuesday
Best Investments In 2014: Kennametal Inc. (KMT)
Kennametal Inc. manufactures and supplies tooling, engineered components, and advanced materials consumed in production processes worldwide. The company operates in two segments, Industrial and Infrastructure. It offers standard and customized technologies for metalworking, such as metal cutting tools, tooling systems, and services, as well as materials, including cemented tungsten carbide products, super alloys, coatings, and investment castings. It also manufactures and markets a line of tool holders, tool-holding systems, and rotary-cutting tools by machining and fabricating steel bars and other metal alloys; and tungsten powders, tungsten heavy alloys, tungsten carbide materials, and tungsten carbide cutting tools. In addition, the company produces compacts and metallurgical powders; products made from tungsten carbide or other hard materials that are used for custom-engineered and applications, including mining and highway construction; and engineered components and s urface technology solutions with proprietary metal cladding capabilities, as well as process technology and materials that focus on component deburring, polishing, and effecting controlled radii. The Industrial segment serves customers primarily in the aerospace, defense, transportation, and general engineering market sectors, as well as the machine tool industry; and offers its products and services for use in the manufacture of engines, airframes, automobiles, trucks, ships, and various types of industrial equipment. The Infrastructure segment serves customers in energy and earthworks sectors who support primary industries, such as oil and gas; power generation; food and beverage; chemicals; underground, and surface and hard-rock mining, highway construction, and road maintenance. The company sells its products through direct sales force; network of independent distributors and sales agents; and Internet. Kennametal Inc. was founded in 1938 and is headquartered in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Monica Wolfe]
Kennametal (KMT)
Richard Snow (Trades, Portfolio)�� fifth largest position is in Kennametal where he holds on to 1,872,839 shares of the company�� stock. This position represents 3.3% of his total portfolio as well as 2.41% of the company�� shares outstanding.
Best Investments In 2014: Cyberonics Inc (CYBX)
Cyberonics, Inc. (Cyberonics), incorporated in 1987, is a medical device company. The Company is engaged in the design, development, sales and marketing of implantable medical devices that provide a neuromodulation therapy, vagus nerve stimulation therapy (VNS Therapy), for the treatment of refractory epilepsy and treatment-resistant depression (TRD) and other device solutions for the management of epilepsy.VNS Therapy System includes an implantable pulse generator to provide stimulation to the vagus nerve; a lead that connects the generator to the vagus nerve; equipment to assist with implantation surgery; equipment to assist with setting the stimulation parameters for each patient; instruction manuals, and magnets to suspend or induce stimulation manually. The VNS Therapy pulse generator and lead are surgically implanted into patients generally during an outpatient procedure. The VNS Therapy System consists of a pulse generator, a bipolar lead, a programming wand and software and a tunneling tool.
The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the Company's VNS Therapy System in July 1997 for use as an adjunctive therapy in epilepsy patients over 12 years of age for reducing the frequency of partial onset seizures that are refractory or resistant to antiepileptic drugs. Regulatory bodies in Canada, the European Economic Area, certain countries in Eastern Europe, Russia, South America, Africa, Australia and certain countries in Asia, including Japan, China and Taiwan, have approved the VNS Therapy System for the treatment of epilepsy, many without age restrictions or seizure-type limitations. In July 2005, the FDA approved the Company's VNS Therapy System for the adjunctive long-term treatment of chronic or recurrent depression for patients 18 years of age or older who are experiencing a depressive episode and have not had an adequate response to four or more adequate anti-depressant treatments. Regulatory bodies in the European Economic Area, Canada and Israel have approv! ed the Company's VNS Therapy System for the treatment of chronic or recurrent depression in patients who are in a treatment-resistant or treatment-intolerant depressive episode without age restrictions.
In February 2011, the Company announced FDA approval of its fifth generation generator, the AspireHC generator. In August 2011, the Company announced that the Company discovered a hardware-related design issue with the AspireHC Model 105 and AspireSR (Seizure Response) Model 106 generators. In December 2011, the FDA approved the Company's re-designed AspireHC generator, and the Company resumed its limited commercial release of the generator in the United States.
Pulse Generator
The pulse generator is an implantable, programmable signal generator designed to be coupled with the bipolar lead to deliver mild electrical pulses to the vagus nerve. The pulse generator is a battery-powered device. Before or upon depletion of the battery, the pulse generator may be removed and a new generator implanted in a short, outpatient procedure. The Model 102 (Pulse), Model 102R (Pulse Duo ), Model 103 (Demipulse), Model 104 (Demipulse Duo) and Model 105 (AspireHC), are the VNS Therapy pulse generators the Company offers and are similar in design and manufactures to a cardiac pacemaker.
Bipolar Lead
The bipolar lead conducts the electrical signal from the pulse generator to the vagus nerve. The lead incorporates electrodes, which are self-sizing, minimizing mechanical trauma to the nerve. The lead's two electrodes and anchor tether wrap around the vagus nerve, and the connector end is tunneled subcutaneously to the upper chest area, where it attaches to the pulse generator. The Company offers three lead models in the United States. The leads are available in two inner spiral diameter sizes to ensure optimal electrode placement on different-sized nerves.
Programming Wand and Software
The Company's programming wand and software are us! ed to int! errogate the implanted pulse generator and to transmit programming information from a handheld computer to the pulse generator via an inductive coupling. Programming capabilities include modification of the pulse generator's programmable parameters (pulse width, amplitude and frequency and stimulation ON and OFF intervals) and storage and retrieval of telemetry data.
Tunneling Tool
The tunneling tool is a single use, sterile, disposable surgical tool designed to be used during surgical placement of the bipolar lead. The tool is used for subcutaneous tunneling of the lead between the nerve site in the neck and the pulse generator site in the upper chest area.
Accessory Pack
The accessory pack includes two resistor assemblies used to test the function of the device prior to implantation, the bipolar lead tie-downs and one hex screwdriver. The patient kit includes two magnets, one watch-style and one pager-style.
The Company competes with Medtronic, Inc., NeuroSigma Inc. and CerboMed GmbH.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By James E. Brumley]
Investors who were hoping things would work out for epilepsy treatment company Cyberonics, Inc. (NASDAQ:CYBX) can cross CYBX off their list of epilepsy-oriented stocks to buy, as they did with Acorda Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:ACOR) about a month ago. ACOR saw its epilepsy drug Plumiaz rejected by the FDA in early May, while CYBX announced this morning that the coming fiscal year's (beginning in April) revenue would be weaker than first expected as sales of its epileptic control implant device didn't look quite as promising as hoped.
- [By Benjamin Shepherd]
The rise of public health services, improvements in sanitation and access to clean drinking water have led to a huge improvement in human life expectancy, which has jumped from only about 30 years five centuries ago to more than 75 years in most industrialized countries today.
Advances in medical science have also played a major role, such as the development of antibiotics to treat once deadly infections, surgical interventions to correct once fatal injuries and medications to treat chronic conditions.
We have yet to reach the limit of human ingenuity and today the trend is towards harnessing technology to break the reliance on long-term medication usage to treat chronic conditions. One area where huge strides are being made in that direction is the treatment of epilepsy.
Epilepsy is the fourth most common neurological disease in the world, affecting more than 9 million people in developed countries alone, and epileptics have a mortality rate more than 25 times higher than the general population. The costs associated with dealing with the disease run in excess of $13.5 billion in the US alone.
The disease is typically treated using a drug regime that includes several pills a day, including anti-convulsants and sedatives which can have unpleasant side effects. Drug therapy is typically successful in controlling seizures in about 70 percent of patients, but about a third of those who don�� respond to medication find themselves undergoing surgery to essentially remove the area of the brain triggering the seizures.
Cyberonics (NSDQ: CYBX) is making headway into an alternative treatment for the disease, called vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) therapy, which can reduce the number or even eliminate the need for the drugs epileptics depend upon and requires only minor surgery.
During an outpatient procedure conducted under general anesthesia, two small incisions are made, one in the upper chest area and the other in the neck. At t - [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 Cyberonics (Nasdaq: CYBX ) , whose recent revenue and earnings are plotted below.
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