Top 10 Stocks To Buy For 2017

High frequency economic reports will be not be among the key drivers of the capital markets in the week ahead. The light schedule, consisting mostly of industrial production in Europe, inflation for Scandinavia, and US retail sales, will have minimal impact on rate expectations.

A November rate Fed move was never very likely. The September employment report needed to be amazingly strong to boost the chances, and it was not. To overcome tradition, and the logistical difficulty of arranging a unscheduled press conference, without word leaking out, a greater sense of urgency would need to be present. Recent comments by the Fed's leadership, especially most recently Fischer and Dudley expressed no such thing.

Top 10 Stocks To Buy For 2017: Laredo Petroleum, Inc.(LPI)

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Ben Levisohn]

  After a rally for the ages, the price of oil is back over $50. But the biggest threat to oil might be more production from exploration & production companies drilling in the U.S. shale, say Credit Suisse analyst Mark Lear and team, who cut their ratings on Carrizo Oil & Gas (CRZO), Laredo Petroleum (LPI) and Sanchez Energy (SN). They explain why:

Top 10 Stocks To Buy For 2017: Corning Incorporated(GLW)

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Laurie Kulikowski]

  GLW, with its decline in revenue, underperformed when compared the industry average of 1.7%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenues fell by 10.6%. Weakness in the company's revenue seems to have hurt the bottom line, decreasing earnings per share.

   

• [By Laurie Kulikowski]

  CORNING INC has experienced a steep decline in earnings per share in the most recent quarter in comparison to its performance from the same quarter a year ago. This company has reported somewhat volatile earnings recently. We feel it is likely to report a decline in earnings in the coming year. During the past fiscal year, CORNING INC increased its bottom line by earning $1.73 versus $1.34 in the prior year. For the next year, the market is expecting a contraction of 20.2% in earnings ($1.38 versus $1.73).

   

• [By Dividend]

  Here are some of the highest yielding stocks:
  
  Corning (GLW) has a market capitalization of $21.38 billion. The company employs 28,700 people, generates revenue of $8.012 billion and has a net income of $1.728 billion. Corning��s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) amounts to $2.465 billion. The EBITDA margin is 30.77 percent (the operating margin is 16.16 percent and the net profit margin 21.57 percent).

• [By Laurie Kulikowski]

  We rate CORNING INC as a Buy with a ratings score of B. This is driven by a number of strengths, which we believe should have a greater impact than any weaknesses, and should give investors a better performance opportunity than most stocks we cover. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures, expanding profit margins and notable return on equity. We feel its strengths outweigh the fact that the company has had sub par growth in net income. 

• [By Laurie Kulikowski]

  The gross profit margin for CORNING INC is rather high; currently it is at 51.58%. Regardless of GLW's high profit margin, it has managed to decrease from the same period last year. Despite the mixed results of the gross profit margin, the net profit margin of 9.33% trails the industry average.

   

• [By Laurie Kulikowski]

  We believe 4K TV demand is ramping strongly, and management execution has been solid in our opinion. We also note the company's focus on increased shareholder returns. Overall, we see the stock as undervalued on an ex-cash P/E basis despite growing EPS faster than peers. 

Top 10 Stocks To Buy For 2017: Yandex N.V.(YNDX)

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Lee Jackson]

  Yandex N.V. (NASDAQ: YNDX) is the Google of Russia. It was very bold on the growing marketplace there, and its beta tests of a new back end have been very positive and should be rolled out soon. Deutsche Bank has a $38 price target, and the consensus is $40, in U.S. dollars.

• [By Monica Gerson]

  
  Benzinga's newsdesk monitors options activity to notice unusual patterns. These large volume (and often out of the money) trades were initially published intraday in Benzinga Professional . These trades were placed during Monday’s regular session.

  Pier 1 Imports Inc (NYSE: PIR) Dec16 5.0 Puts Sweep: 1191 @ ASK $0.80: 1354 traded vs 102 OI: $5.32 Ref Alcoa Inc (NYSE: AA) Jul16 9.5 Puts Sweep: 1494 @ ASK $0.13: 14k traded vs 6682 OI: $10.09 Ref Sarepta Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ: SRPT) Jul16 10.0 Puts: 3536 @ ASK $0.50: 5506 traded vs 54k OI: Earnings 8/4 $22.50 Ref Tableau Software Inc (NYSE: DATA) Jul16 47.5 Puts Sweep: 837 @ ASK $0.30: 995 traded vs 37 OI: Earnings 8/3 $50.60 Ref Yandex NV (NASDAQ: YNDX) Aug16 18.0 Puts Sweep: 532 @ ASK $0.30: 2143 traded vs 78 OI: Earnings 7/28 Before Open $22.02 Ref Wolverine World Wide, Inc. (NYSE: WWW) Aug16 22.5 Puts: 719 @ ASK $1.35: 1032 traded vs 0 OI: Earnings 7/19 $22.22 Ref Conn's Inc (NASDAQ: CONN) Jan17 5.0 Puts Sweep: 605 @ ASK $0.85: 1355 traded vs 3132 OI: $7.16 Ref

  Posted-In: Huge Put PurchasesNews Options Markets

Top 10 Stocks To Buy For 2017: Omega Protein Corporation(OME)

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Lisa Levin]

  Omega Protein Corporation (NYSE: OME) was down, falling around 20 percent to $17.47 after the company reported weaker-than-expected results for its fourth quarter.

Top 10 Stocks To Buy For 2017: Attunity Ltd.(ATTU)

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Jim Robertson]

  On Wednesday, our�Under the Radar Movers�newsletter suggested small cap Big Data stock Attunity Ltd (NASDAQ: ATTU) as a short trade:

  "Attunity has also been on the watchlist for a while. It's a straight-up momentum play Well, straight down momentum play. We're just getting on board the train after a brief lull in the downtrend. This one isn't going to be a monster-sized winner, but it's a high-odds, low-risk trade."

Top 10 Stocks To Buy For 2017: Talisman Energy Inc.(TLM)

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Jayson Derrick]

  On the other hand, the analysts are Underweight on Eni SpA (ADR) (NYSE: E), Repsol Oil & Gas Canada Inc (USA) (NYSE: TLM) and OMV AG given their asset bases, which offer an inferior risk to reward profile and limited differentiation in cost reductions.

Top 10 Stocks To Buy For 2017: Leucadia National Corporation(LUK)

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Ben Levisohn]

  We delved into Kraft Heinz’s (KHC) earnings beat, and explained the impact of Leucadia National’s (LUK) investment in National Beef on its earnings.

• [By Ben Levisohn]

  Lee offers 22 stocks that could benefit from the correlation trade: Western Digital (WDC), Xerox (XRX), First Solar, Ford Motor, Best Buy (BBY), PulteGroup (PHM), AutoNation (AN), Textron (TXT), Jacobs Engineering Group (JEC), Mosaic, BB&T (BBT), Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB),�Loews (L), Regions Financial (RF), KeyCorp (KEY), Comerica (CMA), Leucadia National (LUK), Zions Bancorp (ZION), Valero Energy (VLO), Marathon Oil, Cardinal Health (CAH), and Pepco Holdings (POM).

• [By Michael Hooper]

  When compared with similar companies, Berkshire Hathaway carries a premium over Markel� (NYSE: MKL  ) , valued at 1.15 times book value and a 20 forward P/E ratio; and Leucadia National� (NYSE: LUK  ) , valued at 1.10 times book value and a 7.16 trailing P/E.�

Top 10 Stocks To Buy For 2017: Plantronics Inc.(PLT)

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Lisa Levin]

  Shares of Plantronics Inc (NYSE: PLT) were down 25 percent to $33.36. Plantronics reported better-than-expected third-quarter earnings, but the company's revenue missed analysts' expectations. The company announced a new 1 million share buyback plan and issued a weak earnings forecast for the fourth quarter.

Top 10 Stocks To Buy For 2017: GRAVITY Co. Ltd.(GRVY)

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Lisa Levin]

  Gravity Co., LTD. (ADR) (NASDAQ: GRVY) shares shot up 111 percent to $9.61 after the company reported Q3 results. GRAVITY reported Q3 earnings of $0.74 per share on sales of $13.143 million.

Top 10 Stocks To Buy For 2017: Biogen Idec Inc(BIIB)

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Chris Lange]

  Biogen Inc. (NASDAQ: BIIB) had its short interest increase to 2.63 million shares from the previous 2.36 million. The stock closed Friday at $305.20, within a 52-week range of $223.02 to $333.65.

• [By Ben Levisohn]

  Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) now has a market cap of $308 billion dollars, just a smidgen less than that of Gilead Sciences (GILD), Biogen (BIIB), Mylan (MYL), Celgene (CELG) and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries (TEVA) combined. It’s time to sell, says Standpoint Research’s Ronnie Moas:

• [By Ben Levisohn]

  Piper Jaffray’s Joshua Schimmer and team offer their take on the Biogen (BIIB) takeover speculation that sent shares of the biotech giant soaring this afternoon:

  Bloomberg News/Scott Eisen

  Biogen�shares are trading higher on a WSJ report which indicates the company may have interest from prospective pharma buyers. The WSJ is one of the more credible sources for such speculation and is often a publication used to put companies ‘in play’, we believe. Because of its higher bar for sourcing M&A interest such as this, we think the report is a strategy being used to catalyze a potential deal. That said, we believe there are a number of challenges to be overcome for any transaction to materialize. As we have noted recently our outlook on BIIB is more optimistic, and there is now a new dynamic to the investment opportunity…

  Makes sense, mostly: One of our bigger frustrations with�Biogen has been the R&D investments which we see as a poor use of capital. A potential acquirer would have the potential to leverage the�Biogen cash flows more productively. Timing of the announcement relative to the CEO departure is a bit awkward as one wouldn’t want to switch horses in midstream of a potential acquisition but we assume the interest emerged in response to SMA data in the broader context of a frustrated investor base…

  Still biding our time: While it’s too dangerous to be Underweight�Biogen given the potential upside opportunities, we are still gauging whether the stock’s reaction to this news has limited upside substantially or represents too high a move given the challenges in consummating a transaction…For now we remain Neutral on shares as we wait to see how this plays out.

  RBC’s Michael Yee and team argue that Biogen “remains undervalued” and has “huge upside potential.” They explain why:

  The WSJ is reporting today that Biogen has drawn info