In recent years, the phrase "seeking alpha" has come into vogue. This refers to the ability of a portfolio to outperform the broader market or a related set of benchmarks. Yet in light of the market's choppy start to the second quarter, it may be better to seek "beta."
What's beta? It's the measurement of how a stock tends to react to the broader market. A stock with a high beta -- say, of 2.0 -- means it will typically move up or down at twice the rate of the broader market. (You can find this figure on the StreetAuthority's Yaho o Finance page. Just enter in a stock symbol and click its "key statistics" page.)
Right now, it's time to focus on investments with low or even negative beta. That way, you'll sleep well at night -- or even profit -- if the market heads south.
Top 5 Electric Utility Companies For 2015: First Trust Exchange Traded Fund (FVL)
First Trust Value Line 100 Fund (the Fund) is a diversified closed-end management investment company. The Fund seeks to outperform the Standard & Poor's 500 Composite Stock Price Index (the S&P 500 Index) by adhering to a strategy of investing in a diversified portfolio of the 100 common stocks ranked number 1 in Value Line's Timeliness Ranking System. The Fund invests 80% of its net assets in the stocks that are ranked number one in the Value Line Timeliness Ranking System. As of March 31, 2006, the Fund had invested in sectors, such as household durables, metals and mining, specialty retail, oil and gas, software, machinery, hotels, restaurants and leisure, computers and peripherals, biotechnology, information technology services, and textiles, apparel and luxury goods.
As of March 31, 2006, the Fund's top 10 holdings were Palm, Inc., United INDL Corp., AAR Corp., Accenture LTD, Citrix Systems, Inc., Cymer Inc., Guess, Inc., Henry Jack & Assoc., Inc., Micrel Inc. and Molecular Devices Corp. The Fund had a large capitalization orientation to its portfolio holdings as of December 31, 2005. As of December 31, 2005, the 100 stocks in the portfolio consisted of large-cap stocks (34), mid-cap stocks (35) and small-cap stocks (31). During the year ended December 31, 2005, the Fund posted a net asset value (NAV) total return of 11.9% and a market value total return of 7.5%. This compared to a gain of 4.8% for the S&P 500 Index. The Fund's investment advisor is First Trust Advisors, L.P.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By David Trainer]
First Trust Value Line 100 ETF (FVL) is my worst-rated All Cap Blend ETF and Clarity Fund (CLRTX) is my worst-rated All Cap Blend mutual fund. FVL earns my Dangerous rating, while CLRTX gets my Very Dangerous rating.
- [By David Trainer]
First Trust Value Line 100 ETF (FVL) is in the Danger Zone this week. FVL is another example of a supposedly "passive" ETF that purportedly tracks an index but actually resembles an actively managed portfolio. FVL's methodology tracks an index, but it is an index in name only.
Top Net Payout Yield Companies To Buy Right Now: Network Exploration Ltd (NET)
Network Exploration Ltd. is an exploration and development-stage company. The Company�� principal business activities include the exploration of minerals in its mineral properties. It focuses on base and precious metal properties in North and South America. Its activities include the process of exploring its mineral properties, reviewing and subsequently acquiring mineral properties and conducting exploration programs to determine whether these properties contain ore reserves that are recoverable. The Picha copper-silver project is located within the Tertiary Volcanic Arc of Southern Peru. The Pistala project is located east of the NW-SE trending Incapquio fault system in the Department of Tacna, Southern Peru. The Company is in the business of mineral exploration in Canada, Chile and Peru. Network Exploration Chile Limitada is its wholly owned subsidiary. Advisors' Opinion:- [By Holly LaFon]
MSCI All Country World Index (Net) is an unmanaged index comprised of 44 country indices comprising 23 developed and 21 emerging market country indices and is calculated with dividends reinvested after de duction of withholding tax. The Index is a trademark of Morgan Stanley Capital International and is not available for direct investment.
- [By Damian Illia]
Although the company is overly relying on Afrezza, there is to say that MannKind has inked some deals in the recent past. These were primarily aimed to furthering its pipeline development but with less risk and with less research and development expenditure directly for the firm. In November, 2012 it signed a license agreement with Colby Pharmaceutical Company granting the latter exclusive rights to its early stage cancer program. Currently, the firm is also looking for partners regarding Afrezza. Last year in July, it entered one with Deerfield that ensured financing worth $160 million for MannKind. Also, in October 2012, the company raised $86 million (net) through the issuance of shares and has almost $120 million left under its credit facility. This has removed some concerned about a financial crisis in the company, although it hasn't done so throughly.
- [By Holly LaFon]
The MSCI World Index (Net) is a free float-adjusted market capitalization weighted index that is designed to measure the global equity market performance of developed markets. This benchmark calculates reinvested dividends net of withholding taxes using Luxembourg tax rates. This index is unmanaged and investors cannot invest directly in this index.
Top Net Payout Yield Companies To Buy Right Now: iShares J.P. Morgan USD Emerging Markets Bond ETF (EMB)
iShares JPMorgan USD Emerging Markets Bond Fund (the Fund) is a non-diversified fund. The investment objective of the Fund is to provide investment results that correspond generally to the price and yield performance of a specified benchmark index (the Underlying Index) representing a segment of emerging countries bond markets. The Fund seeks to achieve its objective by investing primarily in fixed-income securities that comprise the Underlying Index. The Fund operates as an index fund and will not be actively managed. The adverse performance of a security in the Fund�� portfolio will ordinarily not result in the elimination of the security from the Fund�� portfolio. The Fund is managed by Barclays Global Fund Advisors (BGFA), a subsidiary of iShares JPMorgan USD Emerging Markets Bond Fund (BGI).
The Fund generally will invest at least 90% if its assets in the securities of its Underlying Index. However, the Fund may at times invest up to 20% of its assets in certain futures, options and swap contracts, cash and cash equivalents, including money market funds advised by BGFA, as well as in high-yield corporate bonds not included in its Underlying Index. iShares JPMorgan USD Emerging Markets Bond Fund invests a substantial portion of its assets in the United States-denominated bonds issued by sovereign and quasi-sovereign entities of emerging market countries. The Fund may invest in short-term instruments, including money market instruments, on an ongoing basis to provide liquidity or for other reasons.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Saumya Vaishampayan]
The iShares J.P. Morgan USD Emerging Markets Bond Exchange-Traded Fund (EMB) fell 0.6% to end at $107.55. �
- [By Dan Caplinger]
Finally, beyond the Dow, the real damage is happening not in stocks but in other markets, especially bonds. PIMCO Total Return ETF (NYSEMKT: BOND ) is down 1.3%, proving to investors seeking safety that bond investments are far from a secure place to put your money these days. Emerging-market bond investments are taking even more damage, with iShares JPMorgan USD Emerging Markets Bond (NYSEMKT: EMB ) plunging 3.5%. When investors try to reduce their risk, the first place they look is in the more aggressive areas where they've put their money. The exodus from emerging markets in both stocks and bonds shows the fear that's rising among U.S. investors -- but that fear is motivated less by the prospects in those countries than by investors' desire to preserve hard-won profits dating back to 2009.
Top Net Payout Yield Companies To Buy Right Now: BMC Software Inc. (BMC)
BMC Software, Inc. develops software that provides system and service management solutions for enterprises in the United States and internationally. The company operates in two segments, Enterprise Service Management and Mainframe Service Management. The Enterprise Service Management segment offers service assurance solutions that manage availability and performance management, event management, service impact management, and capacity management; service automation solutions managing provisioning, configuration change, and compliance automation for servers, networks, applications, and databases; service support solutions, which manages service desk, incident management, service request management, problem management, asset management, service level management, change and release management, and identity management; and BMC Atrium that provides shared technologies that unify information and processes from disparate management tools, and assigns priorities to business servic es. It also offers consulting, implementation, integration, IT process design and re-engineering, and educational services related to its software products. The Mainframe Service Management segment provides mainframe data and performance management solutions that ensure the availability and reliability of the business critical data, applications, and systems; and enterprise workload automation solutions comprising CONTROL-M product line, a set of features enabling data centers to automate their complex workloads and critical business processes. The company serves manufacturers, telecommunication companies, educational institutions, retailers, distributors, hospitals, and other industries, as well as channel partners, including resellers, distributors and systems integrators directly. BMC Software, Inc. was founded in 1980 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Tim Brugger]
The next best growth by any of the top five ITOM vendors last year? BMC Software (NASDAQ: BMC ) was up a paltry 0�.9% year over year. Even IBM, the undisputed king of ITOM, grew a mere 0.8% in 2012. Granted, IBM's $3.28 billion in ITOM revenue in 2012 handily beats Microsoft's $1.48 billion, as does BMC's $1.92 billion, but the trend is clear: Microsoft is leveraging its enterprise and cloud computing customers better than its ITOM competitors.
Top Net Payout Yield Companies To Buy Right Now: Lincoln Electric Holdings Inc (LECO)
Lincoln Electric Holdings, Inc., incorporated in 1906, is a manufacturer of welding, cutting and brazing products. Welding products include arc welding power sources, wire feeding systems, robotic welding packages, fume extraction equipment, consumable electrodes and fluxes. The Company's product offering also includes computer numeric controlled (CNC) plasma and oxy-fuel cutting systems and regulators and torches used in oxy-fuel welding, cutting and brazing. The Company operates in five segments: North America Welding, Europe Welding, Asia Pacific Welding, South America Welding and The Harris Products Group. On July 29, 2011, the Company acquired Techalloy Company, Inc. and certain assets of its parent company, Central Wire Industries Ltd. On July 29, 2011, the Company acquired Applied Robotics, Inc. (doing business as Torchmate) (Torchmate). On January 31, 2011, the Company acquired SSCO Manufacturing, Inc. (doing business as Arc Products) (Arc Products). On March 11, 2011, the Company completed the acquisition of OOO Severstal-metiz: welding consumables (Severstal). In March 2012, the Company acquired Weartech International, Inc. In May 2012, the Company acquired Wayne Trail Technologies, Inc., a manufacturer of automated systems and tooling, serving a range of applications in the metal processing market. In November 2012, ITT Corp sold its shape cutting product lines, including the Burny and Kaliburn brands to the Company. In January 2013, the Company acquired Tennessee Rand, Inc.
The North America Welding segment includes welding operations in the United States, Canada and Mexico. The Europe Welding segment includes welding operations in Europe, Russia and Africa. The other two welding segments include welding operations in Asia Pacific and South America, respectively. The Harris Products Group includes the Company's global cutting, soldering and brazing businesses as well as the retail business in the United States. The arc welding power sources and wire feeding systems man! ufactured by the Company range in technology from basic units used for light manufacturing and maintenance to robotic applications for high volume production welding and fabrication. Three primary types of arc welding electrodes are produced: coated manual or stick electrodes; solid electrodes produced in coil, reel or drum forms for continuous feeding in mechanized welding, and cored electrodes produced in coil form for continuous feeding in mechanized welding.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Seth Jayson]
Lincoln Electric Holdings (Nasdaq: LECO ) is expected to report Q1 earnings on April 23. Here's what Wall Street wants to see:
The 10-second takeaway
Comparing the upcoming quarter to the prior-year quarter, average analyst estimates predict Lincoln Electric Holdings's revenues will grow 1.1% and EPS will grow 2.6%. - [By Seth Jayson]
Lincoln Electric Holdings (Nasdaq: LECO ) is expected to report Q2 earnings on July 29. Here's what Wall Street wants to see:
The 10-second takeaway
Comparing the upcoming quarter to the prior-year quarter, average analyst estimates predict Lincoln Electric Holdings's revenues will expand 1.8% and EPS will expand 9.9%.
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