Top 10 Recreation Companies To Buy For 2015: Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (LGND)
Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated operates as a biotechnology company. It principally engages in the development and acquisition of royalty revenue generating assets. The company engages in the research, milestone, and royalty revenue activities resulting from its collaborations with pharmaceutical partners. The collaborations primarily include ongoing clinical programs at Bristol-Myers Squibb, GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Merck & Co., Cephalon, Inc, and Celgene. These partnered product candidates are being studied for the treatment of indications, such as thrombocytopenia, rheumatoid arthritis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, osteoporosis, menopausal symptoms, and Alzheimer?s disease. Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated receives royalties principally on sales of Avinza from Pfizer, Promacta from GlaxoSmithKline, and Viviant /Conbriza from Pfizer. The company through its subsidiary, CyDex Pharmaceuticals, Inc., offers four marketed products, as well as has one approved product, a portfolio of partnered drug development programs, an internal pipeline of proprietary drugs, and the Captisol drug formulation platform technology. Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated was formerly known as Progenx Inc. and changed its name in 1989. The company was founded in 1987 and is based in La Jolla, California.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Garrett Cook]
Healthcare shares dropped by 0.34 percent in the US market on Wednesday. Top losers in the sector included POZEN (NASDAQ: POZN), down 7.2 percent, and Ligand Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: LGND), off 5.5 percent.
- [By Garrett Cook]
Healthcare shares dropped by 0.34 percent in the US market on Wednesday. Top losers in the sector included POZEN (NASDAQ: POZN), down 7.57 percent, and Ligand Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: LGND), off 6.77 percent.
Top Net Payout Yield Stocks To Own For 2014: eGain Corp (EGAN)
eGain Corporation (eGain), formerly eGain Communications Corporation, incorporated in September 1997, provides multichannel customer service and knowledge management software for in-house or cloud deployment. The Company�� application suite, eGain Service, is available through both licensed and hosted models. It includes integrated applications for social customer service, Web self-service, e-mail management, paper and fax management, chat, co-browsing, short message service (SMS), call tracking and resolution, proactive notifications, cross-channel knowledge management, case management and service fulfillment. These robust applications are built on the eGain OpenCIH platform. The eGain OpenCIH platform enables end-to-end service process management and multichannel, multisite contact center management, and includes certified out of the box integrations with call center, content and business systems. Its applications and platform are built on a service-oriented architecture. It serves a global customer base across a range of industry sectors, including telecommunications, financial services, insurance, outsourced services, retail, technology, manufacturing and consumer goods.
Products and Services
eGain Service 9 is a customer service management solution. It consists of a multichannel customer interaction hub (CIH) platform, eGain OpenCIH Platform, and the eGain Web Customer Experience Suite and the eGain Unified Contact Center Suite, which includes applications for social customer service, Web self-service, and the contact center. The eGain OpenCIH Platform centralizes business rules, interactions, knowledge bases, workflow, analytics, administration and integrations in one common foundation. eGain Mail is a solution for processing inbound customer e-mails and providing mission-critical e-mail customer service. Secure messaging, lifecycle audits and real-time archival are some of the features that provide its customers e-mail management platform for their enterprises. Addi! tional modules include eGain Fax to route, track and respond to faxes with the same infrastructure that is used to handle e-mails and Web form submissions.
The Company�� eGain CallTrack is a phone call logging system. Together with eGain KnowledgeAgent, it provides an integrated solution for phone call logging, tracking and resolution, as well as follow-on task management for service fulfillment. eGain Chat gives contact center agents a range of tools for serving customers in real-time. eGain Chat supports two-way, follow me Web browsing so that agents and customers can lead each other to specific Web pages. Its eGain CoBrowse enables contact center agents to provide live collaboration options to online customers and prospects. It gives companies the ability to deliver real-time assistance. The capabilities include enabling the agent and the customer to fill out forms together, creation of business rules for specific Web pages, and allowing phone agents to provide experience by conducting a co-browse session.
The Company�� eGain SelfService is a solution supporting dynamic frequently asked questions (FAQs), topic-based browsing, natural language search, guided help, virtual assistant technology and case tracking. eGain SelfService offers multi-access self-service capabilities built on a collaborative knowledge management framework within eGain OpenCIH Platform. The modules of this solution are eGain Portals, eGain Guided Help and eGain MessageCenter. eGain Portals deliver a secure and personalized Web self-service gateway, through which customers can retrieve information. This online customer service portal delivers to customers the personal information they want, the way they want to see it, and when they want to see it. Customers can view FAQs, manage their own accounts, review open service tickets, and review their communications with the company within a secure, personalized environment. Its eGain Guided Help gives customers interactive access to the company�� knowl! edge base! , allowing them to find answers and troubleshoot problems by themselves at their convenience. It uses patented search and reasoning technology, coupled with natural language and advanced linguistic processing to search, suggest additional questions and recommend solutions.
The Company�� eGain MessageCenter enables secure and authenticated messaging between a business and its customers. eGain MessageCenter is a secure Web-based portal for customers to read confidential messages, including attachments. Based on a business-configurable option, agent responses to customer inquiries are automatically replaced with a dynamically generated universal resource locator (URL), which directs the customers to the eGain MessageCenter where they authenticate themselves to read the message details. Customers can also send messages to the business through this secure site. All messages are stored within the eGain Platform as part of the multichannel customer history. Its eGain Chatbot is used to create virtual assistants to engage Website visitors, answer their queries, escort them on the Website, and escalate seamlessly to live agents. Chatbots help deflect phone calls to Web self-service, provide memorable and brand-aligned customer service experiences, and increase online sales conversion.
The Company�� eGain Social helps a business monitor the Web and social media sites for conversations about itself. It enables the business to identify and respond to customer inquiries or complaints. It also helps harvest useful content from experts in these channels and develops it into knowledge base articles that can be shared with their other customers. Its eGain Adviser empowers agents handle complex customer interactions. Agents receive guided help for providing contextual up-sell and cross-sell, follow-on service fulfillment and value-added advice through conversations that are compliant with regulations. The solution includes a user interface, integrated workflow and interactive process guida! nce, powe! red by the eGain Inference Reasoning Engine.
The Company�� eGain KnowledgeAgent uses patented search and reasoning technology coupled with natural language and advanced linguistic processing to search, suggest additional questions, and recommend solutions. This solution, in conjunction with eGain Content Adapter, also allows agents to access information stored in external systems. Its eGain IVR enables phone self-service experiences by adding intelligence to interactive voice response, (IVR) and unifying it with other interaction channels, including Web self-service. It offers intelligent dialogs driven by eGain�� case-based reasoning technology and seamless movement across channels.
The Company�� eGain Notify is a flexible, easy-to-use application for managing and delivering automatic reminders, alerts, and updates at all stages of the customer relationship cycle. It is used to provide proactive customer service by sending alerts to customers through multiple interaction channels, such as e-mail, phone and SMS. Its eGain AutoClassify enables companies to increase response turnaround and improve problem resolution by categorizing and routing incoming e-mail and other inquiries. It can also be set up to provide auto-suggestions and auto-responses. eGain AutoClassify understands the customer�� issue and routes inquiries to queues based on categories and the confidence level assigned to those categories. Customer interactions can be placed into multiple independent categories.
The Company�� eGain AutoWorkflow enables businesses to automate complex fulfillment processes that require little or no agent interaction once initiated. Tasks initiated from either e-mails, Webforms, or time-driven processes are automatically handled using the capabilities of the eGain Workflow engine. Its eGain SME is an enterprise collaboration tool that allows subject matter experts (SMEs), to participate in the process of resolving customer queries. SMEs, both internal in the contact ! center an! d external in other departments or companies, are able to fully participate in both solving ongoing problems and suggesting new solutions for inclusion in the knowledge base.
The Company�� eGain Adapters include a set of out-of-the-box integration modules for connecting eGain applications with content repositories, call center telephony solutions, databases and business applications. Its offers three integration modules: eGain Content Adapter, eGain CTI Adapter, and eGain Data Adapter. Its eGain Widgets (Web and Mobile) provides contextual access to the knowledge base and customer accounts from various parts of the businesses��Websites, as well as mobile interfaces.
eGain OnDemand
eGain OnDemand, the software as a service version of the Company�� software suite, is a robust and scalable solution that is used by enterprises to build customer interaction hubs. It hosts applications on servers located in its third party SAS 70 Type II data center. The hosting solution allows rapid deployment of eGain products, including seamless secure access to customer�� in-house data systems; round the clock management of infrastructure, security, servers, operating systems and databases; management systems to monitor servers and applications allowing for availability and performance; easy migration from eGain OnDemand to in-house option and vice-versa. Its value-added services include e-mail spam and virus cleaning, post office services, virtual private networks, remote data access, encrypted backups, and test/reporting/warm spare servers.
eGain SLaaS
eGain SLaaS, the solution-as-a-service version of the Company�� software suite. It is designed to take the risk out of mission-critical customer interaction software deployments and enables companies to validate and realize business value with usage-based pricing and no long-term contracts.
Consulting and Education Services
The Company�� global professional services ! organizat! ion provides consulting and education services designed to facilitate customer success and build customer loyalty. Its consulting services group offers rapid implementation services, custom solution development and systems integration services. It provides these services independently or in partnership with systems integrators who have developed consulting expertise on its platform. The Company�� consulting strategy is to increase margins by providing customers with a range of pre-packaged solutions built on top of our product line.The Company�� education services group provides a range of basic and customized training programs to its customers and partners. Training programs are offered either in-person at the customer site, or at one of its global training centers.The Company�� education services strategy is to provide training and delivery methods for its customers and partners.
eGain Customer Support Service
The Company offers a range of support services designed to rapidly respond to inquiries. Its technical support services are available to customers globally under maintenance agreements. Its customer support service strategy is to provide customer support account managers for large enterprise customers. The customer support service team uses eGain�� own software suite to provide services to its customers through customer support service centers located in California, the United Kingdom, and India.
The Company competes with Art Technology Group, Inc., Avaya, Inc., Consona Corporation, Alcatel, InQuira, Inc., Kana Software, Inc., Live Person, Inc., nGenera Corporation, RightNow Technologies, Inc., Microsoft Corporation, Oracle Corporation, Salesforce.com Inc. and SAP Inc.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Monica Gerson]
eGain (NASDAQ: EGAN) shares fell 3.76% to reach a new 52-week low of $6.40. eGain's trailing-twelve-month ROE is -8.92%
Aeropostale (NYSE: ARO) shares tumbled 6.81% to reach a new 52-week low of $4.57. Aeropostale shares have dropped 65.05% over the past 52 weeks, while the S&P 500 index has gained 15.37% in the same period.
- [By John Udovich]
Small cap cloud contact software provider Five9 Inc (NASDAQ: FIVN) saw a small pop when it debuted in an IPO last Friday but its now trended back down to its debut price, meaning its worth taking a closer look at the stock along with some potential peers or benchmarks like Incontact Inc (NASDAQ: SAAS), eGain Corp (NASDAQ: EGAN) and LivePerson, Inc (NASDAQ: LPSN).
Top Net Payout Yield Stocks To Own For 2014: Stellus Capital Investment Corp (SCM)
Stellus Capital Investment Corporation is an externally managed, closed-end, non-diversified management investment company. The Company was formed to originate and invest primarily in private middle-market companies.
The Company is focusing on a variety of industry sectors, including business services, energy, general industrial, government services, healthcare, software and specialty finance. Its investment activities will be managed by its investment adviser, Stellus Capital Management. It intends to originate and invest primarily in private middle-market companies through first lien, second lien, unitranche and mezzanine debt financing.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Investing Caffeine]
DISCLOSURE: Sidoxia Capital Management (SCM) and some of its clients hold long positions in certain exchange traded funds (ETFs), but at the time of publishing SCM had no direct position in GS, SCHW, ICE, or any other security referenced in this article. No information accessed through the Investing Caffeine (IC) website constitutes investment, financial, legal, tax or other advice nor is to be relied on in making an investment or other decision. Please read disclosure language on IC Contact page.
- [By Investing Caffeine]
With the stock market reaching all-time record highs (S&P 500: 1900), you would think there would be a lot of cheers, high-fiving, and back slapping. Instead, investors are ignoring the sunny, blue skies and taking off their rose-colored glasses. Rather than securely sleeping like a baby (or relaxing during a three-day weekend) with their investment accounts, people are biting their fingernails with clenched teeth, while searching for a market boogeyman in their closets or under their beds.If you don�� believe me, all you have to do is pick up the paper, turn on the TV, or walk over to the office water cooler. An avalanche of scary headlines that are spooking investors include geopolitical concerns in Ukraine & Thailand, slowing housing statistics, bearish hedge fund managers (i.e., Tepper Einhorn, Cooperman), declining interest rates, and collapsing internet stocks. In other words, investors are looking for things to worry about, despite record corporate profits and stock prices. Peter Lynch, the manager of the Magellan Fund that posted +2,700% in gains from 1977-1990, put short-term stock price volatility into perspective:��ou shouldn�� worry about it. You should worry what are stocks going to be 10 years from now, 20 years from now, 30 years from now.��ather than focusing on immediate stock market volatility and other factors out of your control, why not prioritize your time on things you can control. What investors can control is their asset allocation and spending levels (budget), subject to their personal time horizons and risk tolerances. Circumstances always change, but if people spent half the time on investing that they devoted to planning holiday vacations, purchasing a car, or choosing a school for their child, then retirement would be a lot less stressful. After realizing 99% of all the short-term news is nonsensical noise, the next important realization is stocks are volatile securities, which frequently go down -10 to -20%. As much
Top Net Payout Yield Stocks To Own For 2014: Spansion Inc(CODE)
Codere, S.A. engages in the management of gaming machines, bingo halls, horse racing tracks, casinos, and off-track betting facilities in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Panama, and Uruguay. As of December 31, 2008, the company managed 54,818 slot machines and electronic bingo terminals, 137 bingo halls with 30,803 seats, 106 off-track betting facilities, 3 horse racing tracks, and 6 casinos. It also operated 15,963 AWP machines in approximately 10,886 bars and restaurants in Spain. Codere, S.A. was founded in 1980 and is headquartered in Alcobendas, Spain.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Jon C. Ogg]
Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: MU) was up over 4% at $14.59 and hit a new multiyear high of $15.27 earlier on Wednesday. SanDisk Corp. (NASDAQ: SNDK) is up right at 3% at $56.95 against a 52-week range of $38.47 to $63.97. Jefferies also reiterated its Buy rating and $21 price target for Micron. We are seeing similar gains in Spansion Inc. (NYSE: CODE), up 2.3% at $10.69, but we would warn that its 52-week range is $9.96 to $14.54. Wells Fargo initiated coverage with an Outperform rating and a $12 to $14 valuation.
- [By Tim Brugger]
Based on a review of "preliminary financial results," embedded systems solutions provider Spansion (NYSE: CODE ) has lowered its second quarter 2013 revenue and earnings guidance, the company announced today.
- [By Garrett Cook]
Technology shares jumped by 1.69 percent in today’s trading. Top gainers in the sector included Imperva (NYSE: IMPV), up 21.6 percent, and Spansion (NYSE: CODE), up 20 percent.
- [By GuruFocus]
George Soros (Trades, Portfolio) just reported his first quarter portfolio. He buys Citrix Systems Inc, Baker Hughes Inc, Comcast Corp, Spansion Inc, etc during the 3-months ended 03/31/2014, according to the most recent filings of his investment company, Soros Fund Management LLC. As of 03/31/2014, Soros Fund Management LLC owns 305 stocks with a total value of $10.1 billion. These are the details of the buys and sells.New Purchases: BHI, CODE, CTRP, CLI, AVB, COMM, CNQ, AGO, AUY, ATML, ASH, BXMT, CSTM, AEM, CMA, ARE, CHKP, AUQ, BEAV, CX, ADSK, AALCP, BLK, AIG, BIIB, ADEP, AMRI, ARWR, ATHX, BALT, BCRX, BEAT, CFX, CLFD, CUR, CODE,Added Positions: CTXS, CMCSA, CNP, ALTR, BRCD, CBS, CRM, CHTR, CCJ, CIEN, BIDU, ALLE, ABT, CDNS, ACT,Reduced Positions: AAPL, CCI, AMT, ABBV, AAL, BITA, AL, ANGI, ARIA, CBST, BA, BIRT, EXAR,Sold Out: C, BAC, CRI, AMZN, AGN, CF, BRCM, COTY, BMY, AMCX, CAR, A, ADBE, AFL,For the details of George Soros (Trades, Portfolio)'s stock buys and sells, go to http://www.gurufocus.com/StockBuy.php?GuruName=George+SorosThis is the sector weightings of his portfolio:Technology18.9%Energy14%Healthcare8.3%Consumer Defensive8.2%Communication Services8.1%Consumer Cyclical5.4%Industrials5.1%Basic Materials4.9%Financial Services2.5%Real Estate1.9%Utilities0.5%These are the top 5 holdings of George Soros (Trades, Portfolio)1. Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd (TEVA) - 10,310,041 shares, 5.4% of the total portfolio. Shares added by 10.67%2. Herbalife Ltd (HLF) - 4,901,337 shares, 2.8% of the total portfolio. Shares added by 52.9%3. EQT Corp (EQT) - 2,573,814 shares, 2.5% of the total portfolio. Shares added by 3.27%4. Adecoagro SA (AGRO) - 25,915,076 shares, 2.1% of the total portfolio.5. Halliburton Co (HAL) - 3,596,353 shares, 2.1% of the total portfolio. Shares reduced by 20.73%New Purchase: Baker Hughes Inc (BHI)George Soros (Trades, Portfolio) initiated holdings in Baker Hughes Inc. His purchase prices were between $51.82 and $65.27, with an estimated
Top Net Payout Yield Stocks To Own For 2014: Schweitzer-Mauduit International Inc.(SWM)
Schweitzer-Mauduit International, Inc. manufactures and sells paper and reconstituted tobacco products to the tobacco industry, as well as specialized paper products for use in various applications. It operates in two segments, Paper and Reconstituted Tobacco. The Paper segment primarily produces cigarette papers, such as lower ignition propensity papers, plug wrap papers, and base tipping papers to cigarette manufacturers that use to wrap various parts of a cigarette. It also offers commercial and industrial products, including lightweight printing and writing papers, battery separator papers, drinking straw wraps, filter papers, and other specialized papers to converters and other end-users or brokers. The Reconstituted Tobacco segment produces and sells reconstituted tobacco leaf, and wrapper and binder products to cigarette and cigar manufacturers. The company sells its products directly to customers in approximately 90 countries. Schweitzer-Mauduit International, Inc. was founded in 1995 and is headquartered in Alpharetta, Georgia.
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 Schweitzer-Mauduit International (NYSE: SWM ) , whose recent revenue and earnings are plotted below. - [By Tannor Pilatzke]
Schweitzer-Mauduit, Cigarette Paper Manufacturer (SWM) ��1995 Spin-off
This is the big winner of the portfolio of spin-offs and logically makes the most sense. The price has increased by around 500% since 1995, not including dividends. The Company manufactures and sells paper and reconstituted tobacco products to the tobacco industry as well as specialized paper products for use in other applications. The primary products in the group include cigarette, plug wrap and tipping papers, or Cigarette Papers, used to wrap various parts of a cigarette and reconstituted tobacco leaf, or RTL, which is used as a blend with virgin tobacco in cigarettes, reconstituted tobacco wrappers and binders for cigars. These products are sold directly to the tobacco companies or their designated converters in the Americas, Europe, Asia and elsewhere. Non-tobacco products are a diverse mix of products that includes low volume, high-value engineered papers as well as commodity paper grades produced to maximize machine utilization.
- [By Marc Bastow]
Specialty paper manufacturer and distributor Schweitzer-Mauduit (SWM) raised its quarterly dividend 20% to 36 cents per share, payable on Dec. 26 to shareholders of record as of Nov. 27.
SWM Dividend Yield: 2.78%
Top Net Payout Yield Stocks To Own For 2014: Destination Maternity Corporation(DEST)
Destination Maternity Corporation engages in the design and retail of maternity apparel. It offers casual and career wear, formal attire, lingerie, sportswear, and outerwear. As of September 30, 2011, the company operated 2,352 retail locations, including 658 stores in 50 states of the United States (U.S.), Puerto Rico, Guam, and Canada; and 1,694 leased departments located within department stores and baby specialty stores in the U.S. and Puerto Rico. It operates stores under the Motherhood Maternity, A Pea in the Pod, and Destination Maternity names. Motherhood Maternity brand serves the value-priced portion of the maternity apparel business with stores located in regional malls, strip and power centers, and central business districts. A Pea in the Pod brand serves the medium-priced and luxury portion of the maternity apparel business with stores located in regional malls, lifestyle centers, central business districts, and stand-alone stores. Destination Maternity brand provides Motherhood and Pea merchandise with stores located in regional malls and lifestyle centers. The company also sells its merchandise on the Internet through DestinationMaternity.com and brand-specific Web sites. In addition, Destination Maternity Corporation offers Two Hearts Maternity by Destination Maternity collection at Sears stores in the U.S. through a leased department relationship. Further, the company distributes its Oh Baby by Motherhood collection through a license arrangement at Kohl?s stores in the U.S. and through Kohls.com. Additionally, it had 66 international franchised locations comprised of 15 stand-alone stores in the Middle East and South Korea under the Destination Maternity name; and 51 shop-in-shop locations in India and South Korea. The company was formerly known as Mothers Work, Inc. and changed its name to Destination Maternity Corporation in December 2008. Destination Maternity Corporation was founded in 1980 and is headquartered in Philad elphia, Pennsylvania.
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 Destination Maternity (Nasdaq: DEST ) , whose recent revenue and earnings are plotted below. - [By Marc Bastow]
Maternity apparel designer and retailer Destination Maternity (DEST) raised its quarterly dividend 6.7% to 20 cents per share, payable on Mar. 28 to shareholders of record as of Mar 7.
DEST Dividend Yield: 2.96%
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