Best Information Technology Stocks To Invest In 2014

General Motors Headquarters. Courtesy of GM media photos.

General Motors (NYSE: GM  ) lags behind its crosstown rival Ford (NYSE: F  ) in one major aspect: profitability. Despite being far ahead in global sales, GM couldn't top Ford's bottom-line income during its first-quarter report. That's mainly because Ford has worked tirelessly on fixing its bottom line by cutting costs in its global operations ��and it's worked extremely well. GM is taking notes on Ford's success and has recently unveiled a state of the art $130 million data center that will be an information technology system to base its global decisions on. GM believes it will give the company what it needs to work faster and smarter to improve vehicle quality and profits. Let's look at why investors are excited and how much this could bring to GM's bottom line.

Better decisions equal better profits
Here's what GM Chairman and CEO Dan Akerson had to say in a press release: "Having a single nerve center for our global operations will get newer vehicle designs and technologies into our customers' hands quicker and improve the bottom line ... IT is back home where it should be, and it further drives unnecessary complexity from our businesses while improving our operational efficiency and better supporting our business strategy."�

10 Best Heal Care Stocks To Watch For 2015: Intercontinentalexchange Group Inc (ICE)

IntercontinentalExchange Group, Inc., incorporated on March 6, 2013, is a network of regulated exchanges and clearing houses for financial and commodity markets. The Company delivers transparent and accessible data, technology and risk management services to markets around the world through its portfolio of exchanges, including the New York Stock Exchange, ICE Futures, Liffe and Euronext. In February 2014, Intercontinentalexchange Group Inc completed the acquisition of Singapore Mercantile Exchange.

In November 2013, the Company announced the acquisition of NYSE Euronext. In November 2013, Financial Technologies (India) Ltd announced that Financial Technologies Singapore Pte. Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Financial Technologies (India) Ltd., sold its ownership in SMX (together with its wholly owned subsidiary SMX CC) to ICE Singapore Holdings Pte. Ltd., an entity owned by the Intercontinentalexchange Group Inc.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Sean Williams]

  InterContinentalExchange (NYSE: ICE  )
  Aside from being a menacingly long and type-challenging company name, IntercontinentalExchange, also known as ICE, could mark in intriguing buy candidate for investors if history continues to repeat itself.

• [By Lauren Pollock]

  Michael Kors Holdings Ltd.(KORS) will replace NYSE Euronext Inc.(NYX) in the S&P 500 after trading closes Friday as IntercontinentalExchange Inc.'s(ICE) deal to acquire NYSE is expected to close soon. Shares rose 3.3% to $78.90.

• [By Jayson Derrick]

  Analysts at Barclays maintained an Overweight rating on IntercontinentalExchange Group (NYSE: ICE) with a price target lowered to $234 from a previous $239. Shares lost 2.78 percent, closing at $196.55.

• [By Ben Levisohn]

  Just 14 stocks in the S&P 500 have gained today at 12:15 p.m. Tenet Healthcare (THC) has jumped 6.4% to $46.70–Fitch reaffirmed its credit rating yesterday. Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) after it launched a swap-trading platform.

Best Information Technology Stocks To Invest In 2014: CDI Corporation(CDI)

CDI Corp. provides engineering and information technology project outsourcing solutions and professional staffing services primarily in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. It operates in four segments: ES, MRI, Anders, and ITS. The ES segment provides engineering, design, project management, staffing, and outsourcing solutions to oil, gas, refining, alternative energy, power generation and energy transmission, chemicals, and heavy manufacturing industries; engineering, design, logistics, and staffing services to the defense industry, primarily in marine design, systems development, and military aviation support; engineering, design, project management, staffing, and facility start-up services to pharmaceutical, bio-pharmaceutical, and regulated medical services industries; and architecture, civil and environmental engineering, communication technology, and consulting services to governmental, educational, and private industry customers. The MRI segment opera tes as a global franchisor that does business as MRINetwork and provides the use of its trademarks, business systems, and training and support services to its franchisees who engage in the search and recruitment of executive, technical, professional, and managerial personnel for employment by their customers. It also provides training, implementation services, and back-office services to enable franchisees to pursue staffing opportunities. The Anders segment provides contract and permanent placement candidates to customers in the areas of architecture, building services, rail, commercial and industrial construction, consulting engineering, facilities management, interior design, surveying, and town planning. The ITS segment offers various information technology related services, which include staffing augmentation, permanent placement, outsourcing, and consulting. The company was founded in 1950 and is based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Rich Smith]

  Philadelphia-based CDI Corp. (NYSE: CDI  ) has won a $36 million contract to provide watercraft engineering and marine services to the U.S. Navy.

• [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 CDI (NYSE: CDI  ) , whose recent revenue and earnings are plotted below.

Best Information Technology Stocks To Invest In 2014: AcelRx Pharmaceuticals Inc.(ACRX)

AcelRx Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a specialty pharmaceutical company, focuses on the development and commercialization of therapies for the treatment of acute and breakthrough pain in the United States. The company develops ARX-01, a Sufentanil NanoTab PCA system, which completed Phase II clinical trial for acute post-operative pain. The Sufentanil NanoTab PCA system consists of sufentanil, a high therapeutic index opioid; NanoTabs, a non-invasive sublingual dosage form; and a handheld PCA device that enables simple patient-controlled delivery of NanoTabs in the hospital setting and eliminates the risk of programming errors. Its products also include ARX-02, a Sufentanil NanoTab BTP Management System that completed Phase II clinical trial for the treatment of cancer breakthrough pain; and ARX-03, a Sufentanil/Triazolam NanoTab, which completed Phase II clinical trial to provide mild sedation, anxiety reduction, and pain relief for patients undergoing painful procedures in a ph ysician?s office. The company was formerly known as SuRx, Inc. and changed its name to AcelRx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. in August 2006. AcelRx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. was founded in 2005 and is headquartered in Redwood, California.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Eric Volkman]

  AcelRx (NASDAQ: ACRX  ) has slapped a price tag on its recently announced common stock offering. The company's shares will be sold to the market in an underwritten public flotation at a cost of $11.65 apiece. The firm has also granted its underwriters a 30-day purchase option for up to an additional 570,000 shares.

• [By Roberto Pedone]

  Another stock that insiders are jumping into here in a big way is AcelRx Pharmaceuticals (ACRX), which is involved in the development and commercialization of therapies for the treatment of acute and breakthrough pain. Insiders are buying this stock into major strength, since shares are up a whopping 177% so far in 2013.

  AcelRx Pharmaceuticals has a market cap of $440 million and an enterprise value of $412 million. This stock trades at a premium valuation, with a price-to-sales of 145.48 and a price-to-book of 19.93. Its estimated growth rate for this year is 36.4%, and for next year it's pegged at 14.6%. This is a cash-rich company, since the total cash position on its balance sheet is $48.20 million and its total debt is $14.2 million.

  A beneficial owner just bought 850,000 shares, or about $9.9 million worth of stock, at $11.65 per share.

  From a technical perspective, ACRX is currently trending above both its 50-day and 200-day moving averages, which is bullish. This stock has been uptrending strong for the last six months, with shares exploding higher from its low of $4.31 to its recent high of $13.50 a share. During that move, this stock has been consistently making higher lows and higher highs, which is bullish technical price action. That move has now pushed shares of ACRX within range of triggering a major breakout trade.

  If you're bullish on ACRX, then look for long-biased trades as long as this stock is trending some key near-term support levels at $11.46 to $11.43 a share or above its 50-day at $10.06, and then once it breaks out above some near-term overhead resistance levels at $12.57 to its all-time high at $13.50 a share with high volume. Look for a sustained move or close above those levels with volume that hits near or above its three-month average volume of 637,219 shares. If that breakout hits soon, then ACRX will set up to enter new all-time-high territory above $13.50, which is bullish technical price action.

• [By Eric Volkman]

  AcelRx (NASDAQ: ACRX  ) is going to market for a fresh round of funding. The company announced it will float shares of its common stock in an underwritten public flotation. Additionally, the firm expects to grant the issue's underwriters a 30-day purchase option for up to an additional 15% of the total amount of the shares in the offering.

Best Information Technology Stocks To Invest In 2014: Medley Capital Corporation (MCC)

Medley Capital Corporation is a business development company. The fund seeks to invest in privately negotiated debt and equity securities of small and middle market companies. It targets private debt transactions ranging in size from $10 million to $50 million to borrowers principally located in North America. It structures its investments as first lien senior secured loans, second lien senior secured loans, senior secured notes, senior subordinated notes, unitranche loans, and seeks warrants or other equity participation. The fund may take a board seat on its investee companies and exits its investments between three years and seven years.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Nathan Slaughter]

  All of this is to say that while I strive to hunt down and recommend attractive securities with double-digit yields -- and own a few, like Medley Capital Corp. (NYSE: MCC) -- they are the exception in this environment, not the rule.

Best Information Technology Stocks To Invest In 2014: Fabrinet (FN)

Fabrinet, incorporated on August 12, 1999, provides optical packaging and precision optical, electro-mechanical and electronic manufacturing services to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) of complex products, such as optical communication components, modules and sub-systems, industrial lasers and sensors. The Company offers a range of optical and electro-mechanical capabilities across the entire manufacturing processes, including process design and engineering, supply chain management, manufacturing, advanced packaging, final assembly and test.

The products that the Company manufactures for its OEM customers includes optical communications devices, such as selective switching products, such as reconfigurable optical add-drop modules (ROADMs), optical amplifiers, modulators and other optical components and modules that collectively enable network managers to route signals through fiber traffic at various wavelengths and over various distances; tunable transponders and transceivers that eliminate the need to stock individual fixed wavelength transponders and transceivers used in voice and data communications networks; and active optical cables providing high-speed interconnect capabilities for data centers and computing clusters, as well as Infiniband, Ethernet, fiber channel and optical backplane connectivity.

Solid state, diode-pumped, gas and fiber lasers (industrial lasers) used across a array of industries, including semiconductor processing (wafer inspection, wafer dicing, wafer scribing), biotechnology (DNA sequencing, flow cytometry, hematology, antibody detection), metrology (instrumentation, calibration, inspection), and material processing (photo processing, textile cutting, annealing, marking, engraving); and sensors, including differential pressure, micro-gyro, fuel and other sensors that are used in automobiles, and non-contact temperature measurement sensors for the medical industry. The Company also designs and fabricates application-specific crystals, pri! sms, mirrors, laser components and substrates (customized optics) and other custom and standard borosilicate, clear fused quartz, and synthetic fused silica glass products (customized glass).

The Company competes with Sanmina-SCI Corporation, Celestica Inc., Venture Corporation Limited, Benchmark Electronics, Inc, Browave Corporation, Fujian Castech Crystals, Inc., Research Electro-Optic, Inc. and Photop Technologies, Inc.

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 Fabrinet (NYSE: FN  ) , whose recent revenue and earnings are plotted below.

Best Information Technology Stocks To Invest In 2014: Ishares Xinhua China 25 (FXI)

iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index Fund (the Fund) seeks investment results that correspond generally to the price and yield performance of the FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index (the Index). The Index is designed to represent the performance of the largest companies in the China equity market that are available to international investors. The Index consists of Class H and Red Chip shares of 25 of the largest and most liquid Chinese companies. Securities in the Index are weighted based on the total market value of their shares. Each security in the Index is a constituent of the FTSE All-World Index. All of the securities in the Index trade on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

The Fund invests in a representative sample of securities included in the Index that collectively has an investment profile similar to the Index. The Fund�� investment advisor is Barclays Global Fund Advisors.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Belinda Cao]

  The iShares FTSE China 25 Index Fund (FXI), the largest Chinese exchange-traded fund in the U.S., added 0.9 percent May 3 to $37.71, extending its weekly advance to 2.1 percent. The Standard & Poor�� 500 Index climbed 1.1 percent to 1,614.42, bringing its five-day rally to 2 percent.