It’s hard to imagine that renowned money manager Michael F. Price learned the ropes as a $200-a-week research assistant for his mentor Max Heine at Heine Securities, starting in 1974. Price bought the company as sole owner in 1988, according to Forbes. By 1996, Price had increased the value of the funds he managed to over $17 billion before selling the company to Franklin Securities for $670 million.
An expert value investor, Michael Price manages his own personal wealth through his private firm, MFP Investors LLC, a value focused hedge fund that he founded in 1998. MFP Investors has around $1.6 billion under management. On the 2012 Forbes 400 list, Guru Michael F. Price was ranked 328th richest. His net worth is around $1.25 billion, as of September 2013.
Price has a value based approach to investing. He buys stock in undervalued or out-of-favor small cap companies that are a good value. According to Price, a potential investment is best evaluated through a simplified focus on equity and debt. He once told Columbia students that everything else had been invented by Wall Street as a rip off and to generate fees. Price looks at a company’s balance sheet and reads the fine print on the financials. He once commented that he focuses on the steak and not the sizzle, figuring out what is cheap and buying it.
Top 10 Promising Companies For 2015: Panera Bread Company(PNRA)
Panera Bread Company, together with its subsidiaries, owns, operates, and franchises retail bakery-cafes in the United States and Canada. Its bakery-cafes offer fresh baked goods, sandwiches, soups, salads, custom roasted coffees, and other complementary products, as well as provide catering services. The company also manufactures and supplies dough and other products to company-owned and franchise-operated bakery-cafes. As of March 29, 2011, it owned and franchised 1,467 bakery-cafes under the Panera Bread, Saint Louis Bread Co., and Paradise Bakery & Cafe names. The company was founded in 1981 and is based in St. Louis, Missouri.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Rich Duprey]
Although Chipotle Mexican Grill (NYSE: CMG ) and Panera Bread (NASDAQ: PNRA ) have become shorthand for fast casual dining, and are seen as the reason fast food restaurants are fast losing sales, there may be a different culprit at work -- one that, until now, has been surreptitiously siphoning off sales.
- [By AlphaStreetResearch]
Buffalo Wild Wings (BWLD) has been a hot growth stock, but this company has plenty of room to run higher as the firm continues to execute its domestic and international growth strategy. This is a company with huge potential in Restaurant and Services sector as the company's customer base continues to grow and remain loyal. Below is our introduction into its business model, it's strengths, and the buying opportunity that currently exists for Buffalo Wild Wings. Wall Street has not yet realized the full potential of this company as it continues to be seen as a seasonality play in this space. The company continues to prove this stigma wrong. The company has a market cap of $2.06 Billion and reports the next quarter on October 21, 2013. With this in mind, we value Buffalo Wild Wings at $123.00 by year-end of 2013 and $138.00 by May 1, 2014, an increase of 28% from current levels. We strongly feel that this company has the potential to see major upside over the next year and we could see the stock continue to run like Chipotle (CMG) or Panera (PNRA) in recent history. Dining and entertainment demand is growing and Buffalo Wild Wings continues to take market share, as the company has some of the best customer retention rates and average ticket sales in the sector. We will later highlight:
- [By Ben Levisohn]
Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG) has gained 1.6% to $425.84 after it was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight by Morgan Stanley, while Panera Bread (PNRA) has fallen 1.7% to $161.25 after the investment bank downgraded it to Equal Weight from Overweight.
Top Small Cap Stocks To Own Right Now: Hot Topic Inc.(HOTT)
Hot Topic, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates as a mall- and Web-based specialty retailer in the United States. The company operates Hot Topic and Torrid store concepts, as well as an e-space music discovery concept, ShockHound. Its Hot Topic stores sell music/pop culture-licensed merchandise, including tee shirts, hats, posters, stickers, patches, postcards, books, novelty accessories, CDs, and DVDs; and music/pop culture-influenced merchandise comprising women?s and men?s apparel and accessories, such as woven and knit tops, skirts, pants, shorts, jackets, shoes, costume jewelry, body jewelry, sunglasses, cosmetics, leather accessories, and gift items for young men and women primarily between the ages of 12 and 22. The company?s Torrid stores sells casual and dressy jeans and pants, fashion and novelty tops, sweaters, skirts, jackets, dresses, hosiery, shoes, intimate apparel, and fashion accessories for various lifestyles for plus-size females primarily betw een the ages of 15 and 29. As of July 30, 2011, it operated 636 Hot Topic stores in 50 states, Puerto Rico, and Canada; 145 Torrid stores; and Internet stores, hottopic.com and torrid.com. The company was founded in 1988 and is headquartered in City of Industry, California.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Marshall Hargrave]
In May True Religion (TRGL) announced a buyout offer from TowerBrook Capital for $826 million. Also in May, Rue21 decided to sell itself to Apax Partners for $2.2 billion. Before that, in March, Hot Topic (HOTT) announced that Sycamore Partners was buying out it out for $600 million.
Top Small Cap Stocks To Own Right Now: OCZ Technology Group Inc(OCZ)
OCZ Technology Group, Inc. designs, develops, manufactures, and distributes computer components for computing devices and systems worldwide. It primarily offers solid state drives, flash memory storage, memory modules, thermal management solutions, AC/DC switching power supply units, and computer gaming solutions. The company?s products are used in industrial equipment and computer systems; computer and computer gaming solutions; mission critical servers and high end workstations; personal computer (PC) upgrades to extend the useable life of existing PCs; high performance computing and scientific computing; video and music editing; home theatre PCs and digital home convergence products; and digital photography and digital image manipulation computers. OCZ Technology Group, Inc. offers its products to retailers, on-line retailers, original equipment manufacturers, systems integrators, and distributors. The company was founded in 2002 and is headquartered in San Jose, Califo rnia.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Rich Duprey]
The not-so-great and wonderful OCZ
There was no company-specific news that caused solid-state-drive maker OCZ Technology (NASDAQ: OCZ ) to fall almost 8% Wednesday. But an article that appeared on Seeking Alpha �questioning whether the company had six months or less to live before it filed for bankruptcy seemed to coincide with its fall.
Top Small Cap Stocks To Own Right Now: KongZhong Corporation(KONG)
KongZhong Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, provides wireless interactive entertainment, media, and community services to mobile phone users in the People's Republic of China. It also involves in the development, distribution, and marketing of consumer wireless value-added services, including wireless application protocol, multimedia messaging services, short messaging services, interactive voice response services, and color ring back tones. In addition, it offers interactive entertainment services, such as mobile games, pictures, karaoke, electronic books, mobile phone personalization features, entertainment news, chat, and message boards; and through Kong.net offer news, community services, games, and other interactive media and entertainment services; and sells advertising space in the form of text-link, banner, and button advertisements. Further, the company develops and publishes mobile games, including downloadable mobile games and online mobile games cons isting of action, role-playing, and leisure games. As of December 31, 2009, it had a library of approximately 300 internally developed mobile games. Additionally, it develops online games; and provides consulting and technology services, as well as media and net book services. The company was formerly known as Communication Over The Air Inc. and changed its name to KongZhong Corporation in March 2004. KongZhong Corporation was founded in 2002 and is headquartered in Beijing, the People?s Republic of China
Advisors' Opinion:- [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 Kongzhong (Nasdaq: KONG ) , whose recent revenue and earnings are plotted below. - [By Jake L'Ecuyer]
Top losers in the sector included China Unicom (Hong Kong) (NYSE: CHU), off 4.5 percent, and Kongzhong (NASDAQ: KONG), down 4.7 percent.
Top Headline
The Boeing Company (NYSE: BA) reported better-than-expected first-quarter profit. Boeing's quarterly profit declined to $965 million, or $1.28 per share, from a year-ago profit of $1.11 billion, or $1.44 per share. Its adjusted earnings surged to $1.76 per share compared to $1.73 per share. Its revenue climbed to $20.47 billion versus $18.89 billion. However, analysts were projecting earnings of $1.57 per share on revenue of $20.24 billion. For the full year, Boeing expects adjusted earnings of $7.15 to $7.35 per share. - [By Roberto Pedone]
One under-$10 wireless services player that looks poised for a big spike higher is KongZhong (KONG), which is a provider of WVAS and mobile games to mobile phone users and a wireless media company providing news, content, community and mobile advertising services through its wireless Internet sites in the PRC. This stock is off to a hot start in 2013, with shares up sharply by 53%.
If you take a look at the chart for KongZhong, you'll notice that this stock has been downtrending badly for the last two months, with shares plunging lower from its high of $14.92 to its recent low of $7.78 a share. During that downtrend, shares of KONG have been consistently making lower highs and lower lows, which is bearish technical price action. That move has now pushed shares of KONG into oversold territory, since its current relative strength index reading is 30.21. Shares of KONG are now starting to spike higher off its recent low of $7.78 a share and off its 200-day moving average of $7.95 a share. This spike could be signaling that the downside volatility for KONG is over in the short-term and the stock is ready to trend higher.
Traders should now look for long-biased trades in KONG if it manages to break out above some near-term overhead resistance at $8.50 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 519,857 shares. If that breakout triggers soon, then KONG will set up to re-test or possibly take out its next major overhead resistance levels at $10 to its 50-day moving average at $11.33 a share.
Traders can look to buy KONG off any weakness to anticipate that breakout and simply use a stop that sits right below some key near-term support at $7.78 a share. One can also buy KONG off strength once it takes out $8.50 a share with volume and then simply use a stop that sits a comfortable percentage from your entry point.
Top Small Cap Stocks To Own Right Now: EZchip Semiconductor Limited(EZCH)
EZchip, a fabless semiconductor company, engages in the development and marketing of Ethernet network processors for networking equipment. Its products include network processor chips, evaluation boards and network-processor based systems, and development software toolkits. The company offers network processors for use in forming the silicon core of networking equipment, such as switches and routers; and for voice, video and data integration in various applications. Its network processors are single-chip solutions, which enable its customers to design multi-port line cards, such as processing and classification engines, traffic managers, media access controllers, as well as a range of specialized hardware blocks that accelerate various functions. The company offers Evaluation systems which enable customers to test NPU-based systems; and toolkits that assist customers in creating, verifying, and implementing solutions based on its network processors. It provides a library f eaturing data plane code for a range of applications, which include Metro Ethernet protocols, Multi-Protocol Label Switching, IPv4 and IPv6 routing, Access Control Lists, GPON/EPON OLT functionality, Network Address Translation, and Server Load Balancing. The company sells its products directly, and through contract manufacturers and distributors to network equipment vendors. It markets its products in Israel, China, Hong Kong, the Far East, Canada, the United States, and Europe. The company was formerly known as LanOptics Ltd. and changed its name to EZchip Semiconductor Ltd. in July 2008. EZchip Semiconductor Ltd. was founded in 1989 and is based in Yokneam, Israel.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Lisa Levin]
EZchip Semiconductor (NASDAQ: EZCH) surged 9.38% to $26.13. The volume of EZchip Semiconductor shares traded 407% higher than normal. EZchip Semiconductor reported better-than-expected Q1 results.
Top Small Cap Stocks To Own Right Now: Achillion Pharmaceuticals Inc.(ACHN)
Achillion Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company, engages in the discovery, development, and commercialization of treatments for infectious diseases. The company focuses on the development of antivirals for the treatment of chronic hepatitis C; and the development of antibacterials for the treatment of resistant bacterial infections. Its drug candidates for the treatment of chronic HCV include ACH-1625, a protease inhibitor, which is in phase IIa clinical trial for the treatment of chronic HCV; ACH-2684, a pangenotypic protease inhibitor, which is in phase I clinical trial for the treatment of chronic HCV infection; and NS5A inhibitors for the treatment of chronic HCV infection, including ACH-2928, which is to enter a phase I clinical trial, as well as various additional NS5A inhibitors in preclinical development. Its pipeline of product candidates also includes ACH-702 and ACH-2881 for drug resistant bacterial infections; elvucitabine for HIV infection; and AC H-1095 for HCV infection. The company was founded in 1998 and is based in New Haven, Connecticut.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By John Udovich]
While Intercept Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ: ICPT) surged earlier this year and Achillion Pharmaceuticals, Inc (NASDAQ: ACHN) has surged this week after Merck & Co. Inc (NYSE: MRK) agreed to purchase hepatitis stock�Idenix Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ: IDIX) at a 239% premium, it seems the herd has realized that small cap Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ: CNAT) is also a liver disease stock as shares suddenly surged 56.69% on no apparent company news. But just what is�Conatus Pharmaceuticals and is it worth taking a chance on?
- [By Lauren Pollock]
Among the companies with shares expected to actively trade in Monday’s session are Achillion Pharmaceuticals Inc.(ACHN), Active Network Inc.(ACTV) and Harvest Natural Resources Inc.(HNR)
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