Top Shipping Companies To Own In Right Now

Investing Daily analysts have been bullish on FedEx Corp (NYSE: FDX) and current indicators show that a positive sentiment is still appropriate for the company.

See here and here�for more background on Federal Express from InvestingDaily.com experts.

Finding good stocks like FDX is becoming paramount, as winter gives way to spring. The S&P 500 is only up by one percent so far this year, and that�� after a plunge of negative 5.5 percent in January. Geopolitical upheaval in the Ukraine, high debt in key emerging market countries like China, and a sluggish US jobs market are all pulling down the US stock market right now.

In an interview with TheStreet.com this week, Dan Veru, Palisade Capital Management’s chief investment officer, says he expects the stock market to hold its uneven performance ��or three to six months.��br>
But FDX is showing all the signs of being the exception to the rule, and should see its stock price (about $137 per share this week) to rise above $155 per share this year. How so?

Take the company�� third-quarter financials. The firm doesn�� post its Q3 revenues until Wednesday, March 19, but there�� enough data out there to show that Fed Ex has survived a rough winter and is poised for upward growth for the remainder of the year.

The third quarter was a wild one for the nation�� second-largest shipping service. It included the all-important holiday shopping season, which wasn’t kind to Fed Ex and its arch rival UPS (NYSE: UPS), the top shipping services company in the US. The season included the worst winter weather conditions in years, which impacted the ability of delivery companies to ship client packages.

Still, the news looks upbeat for Fed Ex. Here�� what the company is expecting from its own financial projections:

Hot Shipping Stocks To Invest In Right Now: PerkinElmer Inc.(PKI)

PerkinElmer, Inc. provides technology, services, and solutions to the diagnostics, research, environmental, industrial, and laboratory services markets worldwide. The company operates in two segments, Human Health and Environmental Health. The Human Health segment develops diagnostics, tools, and applications to help detect diseases earlier, as well as accelerate the discovery and development of critical new therapies. This segment provides early detection for genetic disorders from pre-conception to early childhood, as well as digital x-ray flat panel detectors and infectious disease testing for the diagnostics market. It also provides a suite of solutions, including instrumentation for automation and detection solutions, in vitro and in vivo imaging and analysis hardware and software, and a portfolio of consumable products, such as drug discovery and research reagents that enable researchers to enhance the drug discovery process. The Environmental Health segment offers t echnologies and applications to facilitate the creation of safer food and consumer products, secure surroundings, and efficient energy resources. This segment provides analytical technologies that address the quality of environment, sustainable energy development, and ensure safer food and consumer products; analytical instrumentation for the industrial market, which includes the semiconductor, chemical, petrochemical, lubricant, construction, office equipment, and quality assurance industries; and laboratory services. The company markets its products and services directly through its own sales forces and distributors for customers, including pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, laboratories, academic and research institutions, public health authorities, private healthcare organizations, doctors, and government agencies. PerkinElmer, Inc. was founded in 1931 and is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Daniel Lauchheimer]

  Let us contrast this with TROV's progress. TROV has secured two critical partnerships -- with Illumina (ILMN), and PerkinElmer (PKI). Company filings on the ILMN deal don't provide much detail, but the filings with the PKI deal detail how PKI wants to use TROV's science to develop a new t assay to detect the presence of hepatocelluar carcinoma (HCC). While these two partnerships do not guarantee approval in any way, they do provide a solid validation for TROV's technology.

• [By David Goodboy]

  In other bullish news, TrovaGene entered into a material agreement with multibillion-dollar diagnostics technology leader PerkinElmer (NYSE: PKI) to jointly develop a test to determine a person's risk of developing hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The terms have not been disclosed, but PerkinElmer will make milestone payments to TrovaGene. 

• [By Ben Levisohn]

  The market erased early-morning losses after strong service-sector data confirmed that the US economy has managed to keep-on keeping-on, no matter what has happened overseas. PerkinElmer (PKI), Boeing (BA), and Keurig Green Mountain (GMCR) have gained, while Plug Power (PLUG) and Tyson Foods (TSN) have dropped.

Top Shipping Companies To Own In Right Now: Eurobank Ergasias SA (EUROB)

Eurobank Ergasias SA, formerly EFG Eurobank Ergasias SA, is a banking and financial services group located in Greece. It is organized into five segments: Retail, incorporating customer current accounts, savings, deposits and investment savings products, credit and debit cards, consumer loans, small business banking and mortgages; Corporate, incorporating direct debit facilities, current accounts, deposits, overdrafts, loan and other credit facilities, foreign currency and derivative products to corporate entities; Wealth Management, incorporating private banking services, including total wealth management, to medium and high net worth individuals, insurance, mutual fund and investment savings products, and institutional asset management; Global and Capital Markets, incorporating investment banking services including corporate finance, merger and acquisition and equity brokerage, as well as International. On December 27, 2013, it merged by absorption of the New TT Hellenic Postbank SA. Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Corinne Gretler]

  National Bank of Greece surged 24 percent and Eurobank Ergasias SA (EUROB) more than doubled. The lenders��planned merger has been postponed and not canceled, Bank of Greece Governor George Provopoulos said, after statements on April 8 that they will be recapitalized separately.

Top Shipping Companies To Own In Right Now: Hannover House Inc (HHSE)

Hannover House, Inc., formerly Target Development Group, Inc., is the parent company of Hannover House. Hannover House is a full service media company, specializing in the production and distribution of feature films onto the digital versatile disc (DVD) format for the North American retail marketplace. As of December 31, 2010, the Company had over 70 DVD titles in active distribution. In June 2012, the Company acquired nine feature films for video release in North America.

Retailers carrying Hannover House products include independently owned and operated retail video stores and book stores, including Barnes & Noble, Best Buy, Blockbuster Video, Borders Group, Fred Meyer Group, Hastings, SAM�� Club, Transworld Group and Wal-Mart. It also includes Internet retailers.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Peter Graham]

  Small cap tech or media stocks Thinspace Technology Inc (OTCMKTS: THNS), Beamz Interactive Inc (OTCBB: BZIC) and Hannover House Inc (OTCMKTS: HHSE) have been getting some extra attention lately, but it appears that only one of these stocks has been the subject of a paid promotion. Nevertheless, all three stocks have been busy with press releases trying to get the attention of investors or traders. So are these three small cap tech or media stocks worth your attention? Here is a closer look along with a reality check:

Top Shipping Companies To Own In Right Now: Western Digital Corp (WDC)

Western Digital Corporation (WD) is a provider of solutions for the collection, storage, management, protection and use of digital content, including audio and video. Its principal products are hard drives, which are devices that use one or more rotating magnetic disks (magnetic media) to store and allow access to data. Its hard drives are used in desktop and notebook computers, corporate and cloud computing data centers, home entertainment equipment and stand-alone consumer storage devices. In addition to hard drives, its other products include solid-state drives and home entertainment and networking products. The Company operates as the parent company of its hard drive business, Western Digital Technologies, Inc. Effective March 8, 2012, the Company acquired Viviti Technologies Ltd. In May 2012, the Company completed the divestiture of certain 3.5-inch hard drive assets to Toshiba Corporation. As part of its deal with Toshiba, WD also completed its purchase of Toshiba Storage Device (Thailand) Company Limited (TSDT), which manufactured hard drives.

The Company offers a line of storage devices. Its hard drives include 3.5-inch and 2.5-inch form factors, capacities ranging from 80 gigabytes to three terabytes, nominal rotation speeds up to 10,000 revolutions per minute, and interfaces, such as Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) and Serial Attached SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) (SAS). In addition, the Company offers a family of hard drives specifically designed to consume less power than standard drives, utilizing its WD GreenPower Technology. Its solid-state drives include 2.5-inch and Compact Flash form factors, capacities ranging from 1 gigabyte to 256 gigabytes, and interfaces, such as SATA and PATA.

Client Compute Storage Products

Client compute consists of hard drives and solid-state drives for desktop and mobile personal computers (PC��). During the fiscal year ended July 1, 2011 (fiscal 2011), it shipped 151 million hard drive clie! nt compute unit. Its client compute storage products include WD Caviar, WD Scorpio and WD Silicon Edge. WD Caviar family of hard drives is designed for use in desktop PCs. WD Scorpio family of hard drives is designed for use in mobile PCs. WD Silicon Edge family of solid-state drives is designed for both read-intensive client/consumer applications and write-intensive original equipment manufacturer (OEM) applications.

Client Non-Compute Storage Products

Client non-compute consists of branded products and consumer electronics products. Its hard drive client non-compute unit shipments were 46 million, during fiscal 2011.

Branded Products

Branded products consists of hard drives embedded into WD-branded external storage appliances with capacities ranging from 250 gigabytes to 8 terabytes and using interfaces, such as Universal Serial Bus (USB) 2.0, USB 3.0, external SATA, FireWire and Ethernet network connections. Certain branded products models include software that assists customers with back up, remote access and management of digital content. Branded products also include its home entertainment and networking products. Its branded products include My Book and WD Elements Desktop family of storage appliances. My Passport and WD Elements Portable family of storage appliances include WD ShareSpace, WD TV and WD Livewire.

My Book and WD Elements Desktop family of storage appliances are designed to add external capacity to desktops and digital video recorders (DVRs), allow for the transfer and storage of videos directly from certain camcorders, and connect to networks to simplify storage for consumers. My Passport and WD Elements Portable family of storage appliances are designed for external portability weighing less than one-half of a pound and allow for the transfer and storage of videos directly from certain camcorders. WD ShareSpace is a network-attached storage system designed for home office or small office applications. WD TV m! edia play! ers connect to a user�� television or home theater system and play digital movies, music and photos from an integrated hard drive, network hard drives, any of its WD-branded external hard drives, other USB mass storage devices or content services accessed over the Internet. WD Livewire, which enables consumers to use their existing electrical outlets to extend Internet connections throughout the home.

Consumer Electronics Products

WD AV family of hard drives is designed for use in products, such as DVRs and audio and video applications. WD AV drives deliver the characteristics CE manufacturers.

Enterprise Storage Products

Enterprise consists of hard drives for traditional enterprise and nearline storage applications, as well as solid-state drives for embedded applications. Its hard drive enterprise unit shipments were 10 million, for fiscal 2011. Its enterprise storage products include WD S25 hard drive, WD VelociRaptor, WD RE and WD SiliconDrive. WD S25 hard drive is designed for mission-critical enterprise server and storage applications, such as data centers and data arrays. WD VelociRaptor hard drive is designed for enterprise server and storage applications. This hard drive is also used in the high-end desktop PC market for applications including gaming, servers and advanced computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM) systems. WD RE family of hard drives is designed for nearline storage enterprise applications. WD SiliconDrive family of solid-state drives features fast read/write speeds in high capacities and is designed for embedded system OEM applications.

The Company competes with Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, Intel Corporation, Micron Technology, Inc., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Seagate Technology, STEC, Inc. and Toshiba Corporation.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Jonas Elmerraji]

  Hard-disk maker Western Digital (WDC) is another name that enjoyed market-crushing momentum last year, dishing out 94% gains to investors who bet on the computer storage stock this time last year. The computer storage business still has some enormous tailwinds pushing at its back right now, and those should continue to propel the world's biggest hard drive maker to new highs in the year ahead.

  Worldwide, demand for storage is increasing like never before. That's because, today, consumers carry around devices that record HD video and photos, store data-intensive applications, and store it all in the cloud. That means that storage is critical both on consumers' local PCs and on the server farms that continue to sprout up.

  For conventional hard drive makers, solid state drives represent the future. For now, their costs are keeping SSDs from all but the most performance-demanding tasks, but eventually it's likely they'll supplant HDDs as the standard storage medium. While that's been a threat to firms like WDC, recent acquisitions like STEC should help to boost Western Digital's SSD capabilities.

  Western Digital currently has a solid cash position: around $2.5 billion net of debt as of the most recent quarter. And that number is likely to be closer to $3 billion by the time next quarter rolls around. That's enough dry powder to pay for around 12.5% of WDC's current market capitalization right now, a fact that helps reduce the risk in shares after such a big run higher.

  If WDC can continue to use cash in a smart way, investors stand to keep benefiting.

Top Shipping Companies To Own In Right Now: Value Line Inc (VALU)

Value Line, Inc., incorporated on October 29, 1982, is engaged in producing investment periodicals and related publications and making available copyright data, including certain Ranking System and other information, to third parties under written agreements for use in third-party managed and marketed investment products. The Company operates in two segments: investment periodicals and related publications. During the fiscal year ended March 31, 2013 (fiscal 2013), the Company�� Wholly-owned operating subsidiaries include Value Line Publishing LLC, Vanderbilt Advertising Agency, Compupower Corporation (CPWR) and Value Line Distribution Center (VLDC). The Company markets under brands including Value Line, the Value Line Logo, The Value Line Investment Survey and The Most Trusted Name in Investment Research.

Investment Related Periodicals and Publications

The investment periodicals and related publications offered by Value Line Publishing LLC (VLP) covers a spectrum of investments, including stocks, mutual funds, options and convertible securities. The services generally fall into four categories include Comprehensive reference periodical publications; Targeted, niche periodical newsletters, and Current and historical financial databases. The services (The Value Line Investment Survey, The Value Line Investment Survey - Small and Mid-Cap, The Value Line 600, and The Value Line Fund Advisor Plus) provide both statistical and text coverage of a number of investment securities, with a focus placed on Value Line's research, analysis and statistical ranks. The Value Line Investment Survey is the Company's premier service, published each week and covering approximately 1,700 stocks.

The newsletters (The Value Line Special Situations Service, The Value Line Fund Advisor, The Value Line Convertibles Survey and The Value Line Options Survey) provide information on securities. The Company offers online versions of its products at the Company's Website, www.valueline.com. T! he Value Line Investment Survey is an investment periodical research product providing both timely articles on economic, financial and investment matters and analysis and ranks for equity securities. The Value Line Investment Survey is an investment periodical research product providing both timely articles on economic, financial and investment matters and analysis and ranks for equity securities. The Value Line Investment Survey - Small and Mid-Cap is an investment research product that provides short descriptions of and data for approximately 1,800 small and medium-capitalization stocks.

Value Line Investment Analyzer is a menu-driven software program with filtering, ranking, reporting and graphing capabilities utilizing over 350 data fields for range of industries and indices and for the approximately 1,700 stocks covered in VLP's publication, The Value Line Investment Survey. Value Line Investment Analyzer allows subscribers to apply more than 60 charting and graphing variables for comparative research. Value Line Mutual Fund Survey for Windows is a monthly CD-ROM or Internet product with weekly Internet updates. The program features powerful sorting and filtering analysis tools. It includes features, such as style attribution analysis, a portfolio stress tester, portfolio rebalancing, correlation of fund returns and hypothetical assets. For the Company's institutional customers, Value Line offers both current and historical data for equities, mutual funds, exchange traded funds (ETFs), and convertibles.

Value Line's Fundamental DataFile I contains fundamental data (both current and historical) on approximately 6,400 publicly traded companies that follow United States generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). Estimates and Projections DataFile offering contains the estimates from Value Line analysts on approximately 1,700 companies. Data includes earnings, sales, cash flow, book value, margin, and other popular fields. Projections are for the future one year, three ! year and ! five year periods. The Value Line Mutual Fund DataFile, covers more than 20,000 mutual funds with up to 20 years of historical data with more than 200 data fields. The Mutual Fund DataFile provides monthly pricing, basic fund information, weekly performance data, sector weights, and many other popular mutual fund data fields. The Value Line Research Center provides on-line access to select Company investment research products covering stocks, mutual funds, options and convertible securities, as well as special situation stocks.

Copyright Data Fees Programs

The Company has copyright data, which include certain ranking system information and other information used in third party products, such as unit investment trusts, variable annuities, managed accounts and exchange traded funds, which it distributes under copyright data agreements. The Company�� primary copyright data products have been structured as unit investment trusts, ETFs, annuity products and other types of managed products.

Investment Management Services

The Company through its wholly-owned subsidiary ESI, was the distributor for the Value Line Funds. State Street Bank is the custodian of the assets of the Value Line Funds and provides them with fund accounting and administrative services. Shareholder services for the Value Line Funds are provided by Boston Financial Data Services, an affiliate of State Street Bank.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Geoff Gannon] be cheap enough. It was an issue of Warren Buffett being confident enough to invest in IBM.

  By the way, let�� look at IBM�� past record:

  10-Year Average Return on Assets: 10.3%

  10-Year Annual Sales Growth: 2.8%

  10-Year Annual Asset Growth: 1.9%

  As you can see, IBM isn�� much of a growth company. But that doesn�� mean the shares can�� be growth shares. IBM has improved margins and bought back stock. That has led to a 20% annual increase in earnings per share compared to just a 3% annual increase in total revenue.

  So can we answer the question of why Warren Buffett is interested in companies like IBM and Norfolk Southern (NSC) rather than Hewlett-Packard and Value Line?

  Well, Value Line is obviously too small an investment for Buffett. But we��e using it as a stand in for all the publishers Buffett once loved but now shuns.

  Buffett is a return on investment investor. He isn�� exactly a growth investor or a value investor ��if by growth we mean total revenue growth and if by value we mean the company�� value as of today.

  Buffett wants to compound his money at the fastest rate possible. So he looks at how much of the company�� sales, assets, etc. he is getting. Basically, he looks at a price ratio. And then he looks into the company�� return on its own sales, assets, etc. When you take those two numbers together you get something very close to a rate of return.

  The last part you need to consider is the change in assets versus the change in sales (and earnings). Does the company need to grow assets faster than earnings?

  Or ��like See�� Candy ��can it grow sales a little faster than assets?

  Let�� take a look at Norfolk Southern as a good example of the kind of railroad Buffett would own ��if he didn�� own all of Burlington Northern.

  Norfolk Southern

  10-Year Average Return on Assets: 4.9%

  10-Year Annual Sales Growth: 6.0%

  10-Year Annual Asset Gr

• [By Geoff Gannon]

  If a company has an at risk business, it can allocate capital to other areas. Many successful companies no longer engage in the business they started in. If American Express (AXP) stayed in its original business, it wouldn't be around today. The same is true of IBM, MMM, and BRK.B. Some companies choose to pay large dividends or buy back stock while the business is failing rather than allocating capital into a different industry. Let's look at Value Line (VALU). Over the last 10 years, Value Line has paid out about 85% of the company's current market cap. It's a dying business. It had a decision to make. It could allocate capital to new areas inside the corporation, it could pay dividends, or it could buyback stock. It chose to pay dividends.

Top Shipping Companies To Own In Right Now: Oclaro Inc.(OCLR)

Oclaro, Inc. offers optical network components, modules, and subsystems to telecommunications equipment manufacturers. The company designs, manufactures, and markets products that generate, detect, amplify, combine, and separate light signals in telecommunications networks. It offers tunable laser products that include discrete lasers and co-packaged laser modulators; fixed laser products comprising discrete lasers and co-packaged laser modulators; lithium niobate external modulators; a portfolio of discrete receivers for metro and long-haul applications; small form factor pluggable transceivers; and transponder modules, which provide transmitter and receiver functions. Oclaro also provides Erbium doped fiber amplifiers, semi-custom product portfolio of multi-wavelength amplifiers, and narrow band mini-amplifiers; pump laser chips; and wavelength management products, including switching and routing solutions, multiplexing and signal processing solutions, and micro-optics a nd integrated modules. In addition, it offers dispersion compensation product family consisting of products that optically compensate for chromatic dispersion and dispersion degradation of transmission signals, including fixed and tunable products based on dispersion compensating fiber and cascaded etalons; and thin film filter products used for multiplexing and demultiplexing optical signals within dense WDM transmission systems, as well as markets advanced pump laser technology diodes. Further, the company sells low-power polarized products for optical mouse and finger navigation applications. It markets its products through direct sales and marketing organization, sales representatives, and resellers in Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Japan, and the United States. The company was formerly known as Bookham, Inc. and changed its name to Oclaro, Inc. in April 2009. Oclaro, Inc. was founded in 1988 and is headquartered in San Jose, Cali fornia.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Lisa Levin]

  Oclaro (NASDAQ: OCLR) shares touched a new 52-week high of $2.36. Oclaro shares have jumped 71.32% over the past 52 weeks, while the S&P 500 index has gained 31.67% in the same period.