Top Investments For 2014

A little over a month ago, owning Mast Therapeutics, Inc. (NYSE: MSTX) was nothing but pure misery. Shares plunged from $0.63 to $0.43 in one day, when details of a dilutive public offering were unveiled. As is so often the case though, the market may have overshot with the selling effort that KO's MSTX. Though putting more shares 'out there' mathematically meant existing shareholders would have to share more of the company's upside with newcomers, what's slowly coming to light is that the inflow of new cash is still more advantageous to those prior shareholders; the company would progress little without it.

MSTXis a micro cap biotech name, primarily known for its work on a drug simply known as MST-188. The lead candidate in the Mast Therapeutics pipeline is a treatment for ischemic tissue injury, or predominantly, a drug aimed at the complications that often stem from sickle cell disease. The company's also got two other drugs in the hopper, both aimed at cancer. Neither is in Phase 3 testing though, and therefore not in a position to be a driving force for the stock.

10 Best Defense Stocks To Own Right Now: B.O.S. Better Online Solutions(BOSC)

B.O.S Better Online Solutions Ltd. provides radio frequency identification (RFID) and supply chain solutions to enterprises primarily in the Europe, the United States, the Far East, and Israel. Its RFID and Mobile Solutions division offers hardware products, including thermal and barcode printers; RFID and barcode scanners and readers; wireless, mobile, and forklift terminals; wireless infrastructure; active and passive RFID tags; and consumables, such as ribbons, labels, and tags, as well as BOS ID software platform for systems integrators to assemble applications for transfer to automatic ID data capture clients. This division also develops applications comprising BOS LIVESTOCK, a software application that enables management, tracking, support, and planning of livestock day-to- day operations; BOS CarID, a solution to identify and track vehicles for a range of transportation-related settings; BOS STOCK, a data collection solution for logistics management in stores and wa rehouses; and BOS Mfgr., a production line tracking solution. The company?s Supply Chain Solutions division distributes electronic components, such as active, passive, electro-mechanical, and microwave components, as well as full access networks equipment for IT and telecommunications; and communication servers, multi-protocol print servers, server adapters, USB products, switches, fiber optics equipment, ADSL and XDSL routers, modems, VoIP, storage equipment, and ATM devices. This division also offers components consolidation services to the aerospace, defense, medical, and telecommunications industries, as well as enterprise clients; engages in the inventory and quality control management of components entering production lines; and provides warehouse management services for ongoing projects. B.O.S Better Online Solutions Ltd. sells its products through direct sales, sales agents, and integrators. The company was founded in 1990 and is headquartered in Rishon LeZion, Isra el.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Paul Ausick]

  Big Earnings Movers: B.O.S. Better Online Solutions Ltd. (NASDAQ: BOSC) is up 71% at $7.54.

  Stocks on the Move: Ingersoll-Rand is down 22.2% at $55.54 after completing a spin-off of Allegion plc. Canadian National Railway Co. (NYSE: CNI) is down 48.6% at $57.78 following a 2-for-1 stock split. Camtek Ltd. (NASDAQ: CAMT) is up 38.9% at $5.71.

Top Investments For 2014: Titan Company Ltd (TITAN)

Titan Company Limited, formerly Titan Industries Limited, is engaged in manufacturing of watches/accessories, jewelry, precision engineering and eyewear. The Company has four divisions: watches/accessories, jewelry, precision engineering and eyewear. As of March 31, 2012, the Company had 332 World of Titan stores. As of March 31, 2012, the Company had over three business units in Bangalore, India, a manufacturing unit at Hosur and three assembly plants located in the north of India. The brands under the watches/accessories division include: Titan, Sonata, Fastrack, Xylys and others. Tanishq is Titan�� line of jewelry with a range of jewelry, studded with diamonds or colored gems in 18-karat gold, 22-karat gold and platinum jewelry. Under eyewear division, there is a brand named Titan Eye plus. The precision engineering division includes machine building and automation solutions and tooling solutions. In March 2013, Titan Properties Ltd. was amalgamated with the Company. Advisors' Opinion:

• [By James Miller Phd]

  Peers like Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) and Oracle Corp. (ORCL) present strong competition in the could-based CRM market, and have been enhancing their companies through various acquisitions such as recently acquired Nimbula, Eloqua Inc., RightNow Technologies and Taleo Corp from Oracle, or MarketingPilot and Netbreeze from Microsoft. Competition is moreover expected to increase with the introduction of Microsoft Dynamics CRM software (Titan). Nevertheless, Salesforce has also been strengthening its product portfolio and expanding within the cloud based CRM services.

Top Investments For 2014: Lincoln Educational Services Corporation(LINC)

Lincoln Educational Services Corporation provides post-secondary education services in the United States. The company offers degree and diploma programs for recent high school graduates and working adults in the areas of studies, such as health science, automotive technology, skilled trades, business and information technology, and hospitality services. As of December 31, 2011, it had 19,204 enrolled students. The company operates 46 schools in 17 states under Lincoln Technical Institute, Lincoln College of Technology, Lincoln College of New England, Nashville Auto-Diesel College, and Euphoria Institute of Beauty Arts and Sciences brand names, as well as offers online programs. Lincoln Educational Services Corporation was founded in 1946 and is headquartered in West Orange, New Jersey.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Jon C. Ogg]

  Teradyne will replace Scholastic Corp. (NASDAQ: SCHL) in the S&P MidCap 400, and Scholastic will replace Lincoln Education Services Corp. (NASDAQ: LINC) in the S&P SmallCap 600. Lincoln Education Services currently ranks 600th in the S&P SmallCap 600 and is no longer representative of the small cap market space.

Top Investments For 2014: VeriSign Inc.(VRSN)

VeriSign, Inc. provides Internet infrastructure services to various networks worldwide. The company provides domain name registry services and infrastructure assurance services. It offers registry services that operate the authoritative directory of various .com, .net, .cc, .tv, and .name domain names, as well as the back-end systems for various .jobs and .edu domain names; and network intelligence and availability services that provide infrastructure assurance to organizations comprising Verisign iDefense security intelligence services, managed domain name system services, and distributed denial of service mitigation. VeriSign, Inc. was founded in 1995 and is headquartered in Reston, Virginia.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Jake L'Ecuyer]

  VeriSign (NASDAQ: VRSN) was down, falling 6.13 percent to $52.02 after the company reported Q4 results.

  Commodities
  In commodity news, oil traded up 0.62 percent to $98.45, while gold traded up 0.40 percent to $1,262.20.

• [By Ben Levisohn]

  That leaves just five big losers that have kept on losing. Those would be Darden Restaurants (DRI), which has dropped 0.1% to $46.23 at 3:29.p.m., Jacobs Engineering Group (JEC), which has fallen 0.1% to $53.21, VeriSign (VRSN), which has declined 0.3% to $48.66, Express Scripts (ESRX), which is off 0.4% at $69.08, and Urban Outfitters (URBN), which has slipped 1.2% to $33.45.