SAN DIEGO ��Honda is about to unleash a new, more upscale version of its smallest and cheapest car, the Fit, with hopes it could be the Mighty Mouse here to save the day.
The new generation redesign for 2015 of the subcompact introduced in the U.S. in 2006 -- and significantly updated in 2008 -- has a more sophisticated, rakish appearance, like a college grad who transitions from beer bashes to Starbucks lattes. That could broaden Fit's appeal to include more empty-nest Boomers and everyday commuters, beyond younger buyers looking for something cheap to buy and drive.
It goes on sale in the U.S. next week at a time when Honda's sales here could use a boost. Honda was one of only two brands (Hyundai was the other) that saw sales declines last month when the auto industry as a whole saw a 5.7% boost over the same month last year, Autodata reports. Though Honda sales fell 2%, the brand's strength is focused around four perennially strong-selling models ��the Civic and Accord sedans, CR-V crossover and Odyssey minivan.
Top Dividend Stocks To Invest In 2015: Credit Suisse Group(CS)
Credit Suisse Group AG, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a financial services company. The company operates in three segments: Private Banking, Investment Banking, and Asset Management. The Private Banking segment offers advisory services and a range of wealth management solutions, including pension planning, life insurance products, tax planning, and wealth and inheritance advice for the high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth individuals. This segment also supplies banking products and services to affluent, high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth clients, and corporates and institutions. The Investment Banking segment provides investment banking and securities products and services to corporations, governments, pension funds, and institutions. Its products and services include debt and equity underwriting, sales and trading, mergers and acquisitions advice, divestitures, corporate sales, restructuring, and investment research. The Asset Management segment offe rs integrated investment solutions and services to institutions, governments, foundations and endowments, corporations, and individuals. It provides access to a range of investment classes across alternative investment, asset allocation, and traditional investment strategies. The company operates in Switzerland, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Americas, and the Asia Pacific. Credit Suisse Group AG was founded in 1856 and is headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By MONEYMORNING.COM]
Mediwound Ltd. (Nasdaq: MDWD) is a biopharmaceutical company that develops therapies for severe wounds, particularly burns. Mediwound will begin trading on the Nasdaq on Thursday, March 20. The company is looking to raise approximately $75 million in its IPO by offering 5 million shares at a range of $14 to $16. Credit Suisse Group (NYSE: CS), BMO Capital Market Corp., and Jefferies LLC are the lead underwriters on the deal.
- [By Aaron Levitt]
Given the issues, analysts at Credit Suisse (CS) moved PBR stock into the sell category. Other analysts followed suit with downgrades and sell recommendations on Petrobras stock. That prompted mass selling from investors, with shares of PBR stock trading at twice its average volume.
- [By Vaughan Scully, ,]
Three of the fund's top 10 holdings��NG Groep (ING), BNP Paribas (Paris:BNP) (US:BNPQY), and Credit Suisse Group (CS)��re European financials that came into the fund beginning in early 2012, when the team began to sense the pessimism regarding the European banking sector was too extreme.
- [By Eric Volkman]
The joint book-running managers of the offering are Bank of America (NYSE: BAC ) unit Merrill Lynch, Citigroup (NYSE: C ) , Barclays (NYSE: BCS ) , Credit Suisse (NYSE: CS ) , Leucadia's (NYSE: LUK ) Jefferies, UBS, and JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM ) division J.P. Morgan.
Top 5 Cheapest Stocks To Watch For 2014: iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (TLT)
iShares Lehman 20+ Year Treasury Bond Fund (the Fund) seeks investment results that correspond generally to the price and yield performance of the long-term sector of the United States Treasury market as defined by the Lehman Brothers 20+ Year U.S. Treasury Index (the Index). The Index includes all publicly issued, the United States Treasury securities that have a remaining maturity greater than 20 years, are non-convertible, are denominated in United States dollars, are rated investment grade (Baa3 or better) by Moody�� Investors Service, are fixed rate, and have more than $150 million par outstanding. Excluded from the Index are certain special issues, such as flower bonds, targeted investor notes, state and local government series bonds, and coupon issues that have been stripped from assets that are already included in the Index.
The Index is a market capitalization-weighted index. The Fund invests in a representative sample of the securities in the Index, which has a similar investment profile as the Index. The Fund�� investment advisor is Barclays Global Fund Advisor.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Robert Hsu]
Less than two weeks ago, the mere hint of the Federal Reserve "tapering" its current $85 billion-per-month bond-buying scheme caused a sharp rise in long-term interest rates. With that came a sharp decline in the value of bond funds such as the iShares Barclays 20+ Year Treasury Bond (NYSE Arca: TLT), an exchange-traded fund pegged to the long-end of the Treasury bond market.
- [By Eric Parnell]
It also remains worthwhile to hedge stock allocations to protect against any major downside event along the way. This includes positions with low correlations such as the PIMCO Total Return ETF (BOND) or the PIMCO Global Advantage Inflation Linked Bond ETF (ILB). This also includes allocations that are likely to rally sharply in the event of a stock pullback but can also continue to rise along with the market such as long-term Treasuries (TLT) or Build America Bonds (BAB). And despite the recent thrashing they have endured, the precious metals complex including gold (GLD), silver (SLV), platinum (PPLT) and palladium (PALL) continue to provide attractive long-term portfolio diversification benefits. I remain long all of these metals via the Central GoldTrust (GTU), the Central Fund of America (CEF), the Sprott Physical Silver Trust (PSLV) and the Sprott Physical Platinum and Palladium Trust (SPPP).
- [By Chris Ciovacco]
Similarities To 2007-2008?
One way to evaluate any situation in the markets is to compare the present day to previous bearish market turns and look for similarities. The Junk Bond Spyder ETF (JNK) can be used as an excellent proxy for the high-yield debt markets. Since JNK did not start trading until 2008, to go back to the stock market's October 2007 peak, the graph below uses a mutual fund (FIHBX) as a proxy for JNK. The top of the chart shows the S&P 500 for comparison purposes. The ratio of junk debt to conservative debt is below the S&P 500. When the bond ratio rises, demand for junk bonds is greater than demand for conservative Treasuries. Were the debt markets a step ahead of stocks in 2007? Yes, as you can see below, bond investors started to migrate away from junk bonds toward more conservative Treasuries (TLT) well before stocks peaked (falling ratio). The credit markets correctly forecasted the coming risks in June 2007, or four months before a major bear market began in October.
Top 5 Cheapest Stocks To Watch For 2014: Cantel Medical Corp. (CMN)
Cantel Medical Corp. provides infection prevention and control products and services in the healthcare market. Its Endoscopy segment offers medical device reprocessing systems, disinfectants, detergents, and other supplies that are used to disinfect flexible endoscopes; and disposable infection control products for cleaning and disinfecting reusable components used in gastrointestinal endoscopy procedures. Its Water Purification and Filtration segment offers water purification equipment and services, filtration and separation products, and disinfectants for medical, pharmaceutical, biotech, beverage, and commercial industrial markets. This segment also offers hollow fiber membrane filtration and separation technologies for medical applications; and sterilants, disinfectants, and decontamination services used in various applications for infection prevention and control. The company�s Healthcare Disposables segment offers single-use infection prevention and control healthca re products, including face masks, sterilization pouches, towels and bibs, tray covers, saliva ejectors, germicidal wipes, plastic cups, and disinfectants used principally in the dental market; and biological and chemical indicators for sterility assurance monitoring services in the acute-care, alternate-care, and dental markets. Its Dialysis segment offers medical device reprocessing systems, sterilants/disinfectants, dialysate concentrates, and other supplies for renal dialysis. The company�s Specialty Packaging segment offers specialty packaging and thermal control products, as well as related compliance training for the transportation of infectious and biological specimens and thermally sensitive pharmaceutical, medical, and other products. Cantel Medical Corp. sells its products through its direct distribution network in the United States; and directly and through third-party distributors internationally. The company was founded in 1963 and is based in Little Falls, Ne w Jersey.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Marc Bastow]
Infection protection and control company Cantel Medical (CMN) raised its semiannual dividend 21.6% to 4.5 cents per share, payable Jan. 31, 2014, to shareholders of record as of Jan. 17.
CMN Dividend Yield: 0.26%
Top 5 Cheapest Stocks To Watch For 2014: Powershares Qqq Trust Series 1 (QQQ)
PowerShares QQQ Trust, Series 1, formerly The NASDAQ-100 Trust, Series 1, is a unit investment trust that issues securities called Nasdaq-100 Index Tracking Stock. The Trust holds all of the component securities of the Nasdaq-100 Index. The Trust's investment objective is to provide investment results that generally correspond to the price and yield performance of the Nasdaq-100 Index.
The Trust was created to provide investors with the opportunity to purchase units of beneficial interest in the Trust representing proportionate undivided interests in the portfolio of securities held by the Trust, which consists of substantially all of the securities, in substantially the same weighting, as the component securities of the Nasdaq-100 Index. Nasdaq Global Funds, Inc. is the sponsor of the Trust and The Bank of New York is the trustee of the Trust.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By BENZINGA]
So, for those who pay attention to such things, imagine the excitement coming into Monday's session as the DJIA was flirting with 16,000, the S&P 500 (NYSE: SPY) was closing in on 1,800, the NASDAQ (NYSE: QQQ) was flirting with 4,000 (something it hasn't done in at least a decade) and while, considerably less important, the S&P Midcap (NYSE: MDY) was just above 1,300. In short, if a big, round number is important, then four of them must be monumental, right?
- [By Markos Kaminis]
The Fed Chairman handled the questions well enough, indicating that one theorized future action would not mean that a series of tapering operations would follow. In other words, if the Fed were to stop its purchases in the treasury market, it might not mean it would do the same in the mortgage-backed securities market, and it certainly did not mean the Fed would be raising interest rates anytime soon. After all, deflation is the current issue of concern, not inflation. But the meeting minutes showed some discussion among the members about monetary policy, which is (surprisingly it seems to the market) what they discuss at these meetings. I suppose out of boredom or perhaps the duties of the job, somebody always has to bring up change and the prospect of raising rates. Woe, said the market; we do not want any of that! It drove turbulence in the performance of the broader indexes and the ETFs that mimic them, with the SPDR S&P 500 (SPY), SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average (DIA) and the PowerShares QQQ (QQQ) each turning downward since the May 22nd events.
- [By Markos Kaminis]
The government Friday reported that the unemployment rate was 7.6% in May, but I dispute that for two critical reasons. When incorporating underemployed Americans into the count, and when accounting for the 7.26 million Americans I estimate are missing from the labor force count due to their very long-term joblessness, the real unemployment rate could be as high as 17.6%, and is probably at least 11.7%. Thus, the economy is not as healthy as one might hope based on the government's account. It is also greatly dependent on the Federal Reserve's synthetic aid and is highly vulnerable in its current state. So, considering this, I have to wonder if America understood the current state of affairs, would the SPDR S&P 500 (SPY), SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average (DIA) and the PowerShares QQQ (QQQ) each be up in the mid-teens year to date?
- [By Chris Ciovacco]
The damage from Wednesday's session did little to disturb the market's longer-term risk tolerance profile, which is easy to understand when you consider the S&P 500 is still up 3 points for the week. However, we have seen some emerging cracks over the past two weeks. Demand for bonds has not surpassed stocks, but there is evidence of an attempt to mount a more formidable charge relative to stocks. Recent interest in defensive consumer staples (XLP) also tells us to keep an open mind about a "give back" after the S&P 500 gained 129 points from the October 9 low to the recent high. The observable evidence in the table above aligns with a growth-oriented allocation, including exposure to broad U.S. stock market (VTI), emerging markets (EEM), foreign stocks (EFA), and technology (QQQ).
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