Although I think the base Windows, Office, and server/tools businesses are still valuable, it's increasingly difficult to trust management to adequately execute or communicate their plan. So while I still think these shares are too cheap on a cash flow basis, it's likely going to take something more dramatic than another reorganization or stabilization in the PC business to get these shares closer to fair value.
SEE: A Primer On Investing In The Tech Industry
Disappointing Results Down The Line
Microsoft accomplished something relatively rare among tech companies with multiple lines of reporting segments ��the company missed everywhere. The misses weren't particularly large (at least among the revenue lines), but it's hard to come away from these earnings feeling good unless you believe it's just a transitional period for the company.
Best Cheap Companies To Own In Right Now: S&P GSCI(GD)
General Dynamics Corporation, an aerospace and defense company, provides business aviation; combat vehicles, weapons systems, and munitions; military and commercial shipbuilding; and communications and information technology products and services worldwide. Its Aerospace group designs, manufactures, and outfits various large and mid-cabin business-jet aircraft; provides maintenance, repair work, fixed-based operations, and aircraft management services; and performs aircraft completions for aircraft. The company?s Combat Systems group offers tracked and wheeled military vehicles, weapons systems, and munitions. Its product lines include wheeled combat and tactical vehicles; battle tanks and infantry vehicles; munitions and propellant; rockets and gun systems; and axle and drivetrain components and aftermarket parts. This group also manufactures and supplies engineered axles, suspensions, and brakes for heavy-load vehicles for military and commercial customers. The company Advisors' Opinion:
- [By Rich Smith]
Principal contractors, should the sales be approved, include Textron (NYSE: TXT ) for the helicopter sale and General Dynamics (NYSE: GD ) for the Strykers. No single principal contractor has been identified as associated with the spare parts sale, but both the HETTs and the HEMTTs, for example, are manufactured by Oshkosh (NYSE: OSK ) , while Britain's BAE Systems (NASDAQOTH: BAESY ) builds the recovery vehicles, howitzers, and M113s.
- [By Rich Smith]
The Department of Defense awarded a round dozen defense contracts Friday, worth just under $7.2 billion in aggregate. The bulk of the contracts -- $7 billion worth -- were split among eight small privately held firms scattered around New Jersey, Maryland, Indiana, and Virginia contracted to supply software and systems engineering services in support of the Army's Software Engineering Center. But a handful of better-known -- and, more importantly to investors, publicly traded -- companies won contracts as well. Namely:
- [By Chad Tracy]
Let's take a look at three stocks in the aerospace and defense sector that look more attractive at today's prices.
General Dynamics (NYSE: GD) General Dynamics is currently trading around $86 per share, which is close to its 52-week high of $87.85. Yet earnings support this valuation, and the company's forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio is only 11, compared with an industry average of 18. The current price to book value is 2.5. The company also carries very little debt, with a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.3.General Dynamics generates huge revenue through its contracts with the U.S. government. Its marine systems division owns three of the six submarine shipyards in the U.S. Long-term contracts with the U.S. government are estimated to be worth $78 billion for attack submarines and $140 billion for ballistic missile submarines.
- [By Rich Smith]
The U.S. Department of Defense wrapped up the workweek Friday with the announcement of nine new contracts, worth more than $791 million in total. A series of tech firms took the big prize, a near-half-billion-dollar contract to revamp the U.S. Army's enterprise business systems. But there were smaller winners as well. Among them:
Best Cheap Companies To Own In Right Now: Ford Motor Credit Company(F)
Ford Motor Company primarily develops, manufactures, distributes, and services vehicles and parts worldwide. It operates in two sectors, Automotive and Financial Services. The Automotive sector offers vehicles primarily under the Ford and Lincoln brand names. This sector markets cars, trucks, and parts through retail dealers in North America, and through distributors and dealers outside of North America. It also sells cars and trucks to dealers for sale to fleet customers, including daily rental car companies, commercial fleet customers, leasing companies, and governments. In addition, this sector provides retail customers with a range of after-sale vehicle services and products in the areas, such as maintenance and light repair, heavy repair, collision repair, vehicle accessories, and extended service contracts under the Ford Service, Lincoln Service, Ford Custom Accessories, Ford Extended Service Plan, and Motorcraft brand names. The Financial Services sector offers vari ous automotive financing products to and through automotive dealers. It offers retail financing, which includes retail installment contracts for new and used vehicles; direct financing leases; wholesale financing products that comprise loans to dealers to finance the purchase of vehicle inventory; loans to dealers to finance working capital, purchase real estate dealership, and/or make improvements to dealership facilities; and other financing products, as well as provides insurance services. Ford Motor Company was founded in 1903 and is based in Dearborn, Michigan.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By John Rosevear]
Strong results as BMW invests to keep pace with rivals
Earlier in May, BMW reported a $2.69 billion first-quarter profit that blew away analyst estimates. That's despite total sales that are significantly less than those of mass-market automakers like Ford (NYSE: F ) , which made $1.6 billion in the first quarter. The company reiterated its previous guidance, saying that 2013's full-year pre-tax profit would roughly match last year's despite worsening market conditions in Europe, BMW's home base.
10 Best Heal Care Stocks To Own Right Now: LifePoint Hospitals Inc.(LPNT)
LifePoint Hospitals Inc., through its subsidiaries, operates general acute care hospitals in non-urban communities in the United States. The company?s hospitals provide a range of medical and surgical services comprising general surgery, internal medicine, obstetrics, emergency room care, radiology, oncology, diagnostic care, coronary care, rehabilitation services, and pediatric services, as well as specialized services, such as open-heart surgery, skilled nursing, psychiatric care, and neuro-surgery. Its hospitals also offer outpatient services, including one-day surgery, laboratory, x-ray, respiratory therapy, imaging, sports medicine, and lithotripsy. As of December 31, 2009, LifePoint Hospitals owned or leased 47 hospitals with a total of 5,552 licensed beds in 17 states. The company was founded in 1997 and is headquartered in Brentwood, Tennessee. Lifepoint Hospitals Inc. (NasdaqNM:LPNT) operates independently of HCA Inc. as of May 11, 1999.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Keith Speights]
The fun wasn't just limited to the big three hospital operators. Lifepoint Hospitals (NASDAQ: LPNT ) stock jumped 5% on the CMS news, reflecting a $109 million market cap expansion. Likewise, Vanguard Health Systems (NYSE: VHS ) shares climbed 5%, bumping its market cap up by�$55 million.
Best Cheap Companies To Own In Right Now: Wendy's/Arby's Group Inc.(WEN)
The Wendy's Company operates as a quick-service hamburger company in the United States. The company, through its subsidiary, Wendy's International, Inc., operates as a franchisor of the Wendy's restaurant system. As of December 26, 2011, the Wendy's system comprised approximately 6,500 franchise and company restaurants in the United States and the United States territories, as well as in 26 other countries worldwide. The company was formerly known as Wendy's/Arby's Group, Inc. and changed its name to The Wendy's Company in July 2011. The Wendy's Company was founded in 1884 and is headquartered in Dublin, Ohio.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Jon C. Ogg]
We still have many key oil and energy companies reporting in the week ahead but we have now seen the sector leaders report earnings. Earnings previews have been prepared for the following stocks:
CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ: CME) Hertz Global Holdings Inc. (NYSE: HTZ) Kellogg Company (NYSE: K) DirecTV (NASDAQ: DTV) Office Depot Inc. (NYSE: ODP) and OfficeMax Incorporated (NYSE: OMX) Tesla Motors Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) T-Mobile US, Inc. (NYSE: TMUS) American Water Works Company Inc. (NYSE: AWK) Duke Energy Corp. (NYSE: DUK) QUALCOMM Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM) Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX) Whole Foods Market Inc. (NASDAQ: WFM) Groupon Inc. (NASDAQ: GRPN) Molycorp Inc. (NYSE: MCP) The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) Priceline.com Inc. (NASDAQ: PCLN) The Wendy’s Company (NYSE: WEN)CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ: CME) reports earnings on Monday morning. With all of the exchange mergers of the last decade this remains one of the dominant exchanges. Estimates are $0.73 EPS and $713.3 million in revenue. Keep in mind that this exchange is now worth $25 billion. At $74.70, the consensus analyst price target is only just barely higher at almost $75.50.
Best Cheap Companies To Own In Right Now: AeroVironment Inc.(AVAV)
AeroVironment, Inc. designs, develops, produces, and supports unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), and efficient energy systems for various industries and governmental agencies. Its UAS provide intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, including real-time tactical reconnaissance, tracking, combat assessment, and geographic data to the small tactical unit or individual war fighter. The UAS wirelessly transmit critical live video and other information generated by their payload of electro-optical or infrared sensors directly to a hand-held ground control system, enabling the operator to view and capture images during the day or at night on a hand-held ground control unit. AeroVironment also provides spare equipment, alternative payload modules, batteries, chargers, repair services, and customer support for the UAS. In addition, the company produces industrial productivity and clean transportation solutions for commercial and government customers, develops potential clean t ransportation solutions, and performs contract engineering services; offers PosiCharge electric vehicle charging systems for industrial electric material handling fleets, electric vehicle charging systems for passenger and fleet vehicles, and power cycling and test systems for developers and manufacturers of plug-in electric and hybrid vehicles, as well as battery packs, electric motors, and fuel cells; and supplies power cycling and test systems to research and development organizations that focus on developing electric propulsion systems, electric generation systems, and electricity storage systems. It supplies its UAS primarily to the organizations within the United States department of defense. AeroVironment, Inc. was incorporated in 1971 and is headquartered in Monrovia, California.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Rex Moore and Blake Bos]
The latest in drone and robotics technology was on display recently at the world's largest unmanned systems exhibition in Washington, D.C. California-based AeroVironment (NASDAQ: AVAV ) , which makes several unmanned aircraft systems, announced at the conference that a solar solution for its hand-launched Puma AE drone has extended its flight time from three to nine hours -- significantly longer than other small drones used in the field today.
- [By Rich Smith]
President Obama just released his 2014 proposed defense budget -- and it's chock-full of nada for investors in the fledgling drone/unmanned aerial vehicle industry. What does the lack of funding for drones portend for such manufacturers as General Atomics, Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC ) , �AeroVironment (NASDAQ: AVAV ) , and Textron (NYSE: TXT ) ?
- [By Rich Smith]
Shares of unmanned aerial vehicle specialist-cum-battery fast-charger equipment maker AeroVironment (NASDAQ: AVAV ) surged in early Wednesday trading, helped by kind words from a new investor that's just taken a substantial stake in the company.
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