Top 5 Forestry Companies To Watch For 2014

Following the market opening Wednesday, the Dow traded down 0.19 percent to 16,383.07 while the NASDAQ surged 0.12 percent to 4,230.82. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.02 percent to 1,844.15.

Top Headline
Coach (NYSE: COH) reported downbeat fiscal second-quarter profit.

Coach's quarterly net income fell to $297.4 million, or $1.06 per share, versus a year-ago profit of $352.8 million, or $1.23 per share.

Its revenue declined 5.6% to $1.42 billion. However, analysts were expecting a profit of $1.11 per share on revenue of $1.48 billion.

Equities Trading UP
Brinker International (NYSE: EAT) shot up 6.40 percent to $49.68 as the company reported upbeat FQ2 earnings.

Top 10 Energy Stocks To Watch Right Now: Oracle Corporation(ORCL)

Oracle Corporation, an enterprise software company, develops, manufactures, markets, distributes, and services database and middleware software, applications software, and hardware systems worldwide. It licenses of database and middleware software, including database management software, application server software, service-oriented architecture and business process management software, data integration software, business intelligence software, identity and access management software, content management software, portals and user interaction software, development tools, and Java; and applications software comprising enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management, enterprise performance management, supply chain management, business intelligence applications, enterprise portfolio project management, Web commerce, and industry-specific applications software. The company also offers customers with rights to unspecified software product upgrades and maintenance releases; Internet access to technical content; and Internet and telephone access to technical support personnel. In addition, its hardware systems products consist of computer server and hardware-related software, including the Oracle Solaris Operating System; and storage products, such as tape, disk and networking solutions for open systems and mainframe server environments. Its hardware systems support solutions include software updates for the software components. Further, the company offers consulting solutions in business and IT strategy alignment, enterprise architecture planning and design, initial product implementation and integration, and ongoing product enhancements and upgrades; cloud services, including Oracle Cloud Services and Advanced Customer Services; and education solutions comprising instructor-led, media-based, and Internet-based training in the use of its software and hardware products. The company was founded in 1977 and is headquartered in Redwood Ci ty, California.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Chuck Carnevale]

  Oracle Corp. (ORCL)

  The orange line on the following historical earnings and price correlated graph of Oracle Corp. (ORCL) shows that this consistent and fast growing technology company is clearly trading below its intrinsic value (the orange line). Even though this company has grown earnings almost 3 times faster than the S&P 500, it can currently be purchased at a PE ratio of 12.2 which is less than you can buy the average company for. In other words, whether or not the stock market in general is cheap, I for one will certainly argue that Oracle definitely is.

• [By Rob DeFrancesco]

  Rob DeFrancesco: Yeah, it did come up. It was a strong Q4 earnings season and a lot of these names, particularly the momentum names in software, did well. Workday, which provides cloud-based human resources and financials software competes with legacy vendors like Oracle (ORCL) and SAP (SAP).

Top 5 Forestry Companies To Watch For 2014: Clearbridge Energy MLP Fund Inc (CEM)

ClearBridge Energy MLP Fund Inc. (the Fund) is a non-diversified, closed-end management investment company. The Fund�� investment objective is to provide a high level of total return with focus on cash distributions. The Fund seeks to achieve its objective by investing primarily in master limited partnerships (MLPs) in the energy sector. Under normal market conditions, the Fund will invest at least 80% of its managed assets in MLPs in the energy sector (the 80% policy). Entities in the energy sector are engaged in the business of exploring, developing, producing, gathering, transporting, processing, storing, refining, distributing, mining or marketing of natural gas, natural gas liquids (including propane), crude oil, refined petroleum products or coal. Legg Mason Partners Fund Advisor, LLC is the Fund�� investment manager and ClearBridge Advisors, LLC is the Fund�� subadviser. Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Robert Abbott]

  For OTEX, this includes five distinct groups of services:

  Enterprise Content Management (ECM), which includes records management, archiving, and email services Business Process Management (BPM), including software for analyzing and optimizing business processes Customer Experience Management (CEM), includes software that integrates internal and external content to enhance the ��ustomer experience�� Information Exchange (iX), "...a set of offerings that facilitate efficient, secure, and compliant exchange of information inside and outside the enterprise." Discovery, which includes the indexing, navigation, and retrieval of information in databases (for a fuller description of these segments, see the 10-K Report for 2014).

  As of June 30, 2014 it employed about 8,000, including 2,000 in cloud services, 1,900 in product development and 1,400 in sales and marketing.

Top 5 Forestry Companies To Watch For 2014: Charter Financial Corp.(CHFN)

Charter Financial Corporation operates as the holding company for CharterBank that provides various banking services to individuals and businesses in Georgia and Alabama. Its deposit products include demand, NOW, and money market accounts; savings deposits; time deposits; checking accounts; and certificates of deposit. The company's loan products comprise commercial real estate loans; one- to four-family residential mortgage loans; construction and development loans; commercial business loans; and consumer loans, such as home equity loans, lines of credit, auto loans, and second mortgage loans. It operates through 16 branch offices located in West Point, LaGrange, Newnan, Carrollton, Bremen, Covington, and Peachtree City, Georgia; and Auburn, Opelika, and Valley, Alabama, as well as through a loan production office located in Norcross, Georgia. The company was founded in 1954 and is based in West Point, Georgia. Charter Financial Corporation operates as a subsidiary of Fir st Charter, MHC.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Tim Melvin]

  I get somewhat amused every day by the thousands of traders who spend all day trying to figure out what the hot stocks like Twitter (TWTR) and Facebook (FB) are going to do every day. Owning stocks like these two banks — or ones I have mentioned before, like ESSA Bancorp (ESSA) and Charter Financial (CHFN) — will be a far more profitable and relaxing endeavor over the next few years.

Top 5 Forestry Companies To Watch For 2014: First Financial Bankshares Inc.(FFIN)

First Financial Bankshares, Inc., through its subsidiaries, provides commercial banking products and services primarily in Texas. It offers commercial banking services, which include accepting and holding checking, savings, and time deposits, as well as automated teller machines, drive-in and night deposit services, safe deposit facilities, remote deposit capture services, Internet banking, transmitting funds, and other commercial banking services. The company also provides commercial, financial, agricultural, real estate construction, real estate mortgage, and consumer loans to businesses, professionals, individuals, and farm and ranch operations. In addition, it involves in the administration of various types of retirement and employee benefit accounts, which include 401(k) profit sharing plans and IRAs; and offers personal trust services that comprise the administration of estates, testamentary trusts, revocable and irrevocable trusts, and agency accounts. Further, the company offers securities brokerage services. As of December 31, 2009, it operated 48 financial centers in Texas, including 10 locations in Abilene, 2 locations in Cleburne, 3 locations in Stephenville, 3 locations in Granbury, 2 locations in San Angelo, and 3 locations in Weatherford, as well as 1 location each in Mineral Wells, Hereford, Sweetwater, Eastland, Ranger, Rising Star, Southlake, Aledo, Willow Park, Brock, Alvarado, Burleson, Keller, Trophy Club, Boyd, Bridgeport, Decatur, Roby, Trent, Merkel, Clyde, Moran, Albany, Midlothian, and Glen Rose. The company was founded in 1956 and is based in Abilene, Texas.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By David Hanson and Matt Koppenheffer]

  In the following video, Motley Fool financial analysts David Hanson and Matt Koppenheffer discuss two stocks from the financial sector that they're watching today. David tells us why he's got his eye on�JPMorgan� (NYSE: JPM  ) and the trials and tribulations of CEO Jamie Dimon and what he'll be looking for at the company's annual meeting in two weeks. Matt Koppenheffer discusses the smaller-cap�First Financial Bankshares (NASDAQ: FFIN  ) �and why if Warren Buffett only had $1 million to invest, this might be one of the first places he'd look.

• [By Profit Fan]

  After rising 67% in the past 52-weeks, it is understandable that the price targets for First Financial Bankshares (FFIN) are slightly under the bank's current market price of $57.69 per share. But, the premium paid for these shares appear to be warranted.

• [By John Udovich]

  Texas has set another record for job creation�with small cap Texas banking stock like Texas Capital Bancshares (NASDAQ: TCBI), ViewPoint Financial Group (NASDAQ: VPFG) and First Financial Bankshares (NASDAQ: FFIN) naturally being well positioned to take advantage of the Texas economic miracle (see my previous article: Texas is Booming and So Are These Texas Stocks (EE, TPL & ATO)). I should�add that I wrote about�these Texas banking stocks back in late 2012�(see: Don�� Mess With Texas Banking Stocks TCBI, VPFG & FFIN) and the Texas Workforce Commission has just�reported that the Texas economy added 36,400 jobs in September while over the past 12 months, employers added 413,700 jobs ��the most ever recorded by the state. Moreover, several companies surveyed by the Dallas Fed responded by saying�they are seeing labor market tightness�while companies are saying they are experiencing upward wage pressures�and�staffing�firms�note that�candidates are often receiving multiple offers.