By now you should be well aware that Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT ) has had a difficult time revitalizing the PC market. As a result, the PC has hit a bit of a rough patch, with most recent estimations calling for a 13.9% drop in year-over-year shipments. In terms of form factor, ease of use, and affordability, the PC lags far behind the tablet. However, the PC is rapidly evolving to be more tablet-like in the future, and the prospect of a $200 Windows 8 tablet isn't too far off. In the video below, Motley Fool contributor Steve Heller weighs in on the prospect of a $200 Windows 8 tablet and what it could mean for the PC industry as a whole.
It's been a frustrating path for Microsoft investors, who've watched the company fail to capitalize on the incredible growth in mobile over the past decade. However, with the release of its own tablet, along with the widely anticipated Windows 8 operating system, the company is looking to make a splash in this booming market. In this brand-new premium report on Microsoft, our analyst explains that while the opportunity is huge, the challenges are many. He's also providing regular updates as key events occur, so make sure to claim a copy of this report now by clicking here.
Top Stocks To Invest In 2015: Vanguard Energy Index ETF (VDE)
Vanguard Energy ETF, formerly known as Vanguard Energy VIPERs, is an exchange-traded share class of Vanguard Energy Index Fund (the Fund). The Fund employs a passive management or indexing investment approach designed to track the performance of the Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) US Investable Market Energy Index (the Index), an index of stocks of large, medium and small United States companies in the energy sector, as classified under the Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS).
This GICS sector is made up of companies whose businesses are dominated by activities, such as the construction or provision of oil rigs, drilling equipment, and other energy-related service and equipment (such as seismic data collection), or companies engaged in the exploration, production, marketing, refining and/or transportation of oil and gas products. The Fund seeks to replicate the Index by investing all, or substantially all, of its assets in the stocks that make up the Index.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By MONEYMORNING.COM]
I like the idea of investing in a group of the largest integrated energy companies, oil and gas explorers/producers, and energy equipment and services. It's like a call option on energy with no expiry date. One of the best alternatives in this sector is the Vanguard Energy ETF (NYSE: VDE).
Top Sliver Stocks To Invest In Right Now: Rally Software Development Corp (RALY)
Rally Software Development Corp., incorporated on July 12, 2001, is a global provider of cloud-based solutions for managing Agile software development. The Company's platform transforms the way organizations manage the software development lifecycle by enabling close alignment of software development and strategic business objectives, facilitating collaboration, increasing transparency, and automating manual processes. Organizations use its solutions to accelerate the pace of innovation, improve productivity and more effectively adapt to rapidly-changing customer needs and competitive dynamics. Its enterprise-class platform is extensible, cost-effective and designed to be easy to use. Agile is a software development methodology characterized by short, iterative and adaptable development cycles.
The Company provides a common platform on which organizations can collaborate across globally-distributed software development teams, solicit ideas and feedback from customers, and gain transparency into Agile software development projects. Its solutions automate and optimize activities such as project planning and scheduling, resource allocation and reporting on progress and cost, enabling users to manage the entire Agile software development lifecycle. Its cloud-based platform of management solutions is designed to address the application lifecycle market, which IDC defines as comprising the software configuration management, information technology (IT) project and portfolio management, and automated software markets.
Agile Management Solutions
It offers Agile management solutions that its customers use for planning, collaborating, tracking and reporting on the creation of new software products and applications. Its solutions support the full software development lifecycle with key capabilities that include Idea Management, Agile Portfolio Management, Time and Cost Management, Agile Project Management, Requirements Management and Quality Management. Its Idea Management c! apability, Rally Idea Manager, is used by its customers to engage with their end users to solicit ideas for products and manage feedback on proposed features and enhancements. This capability establishes a communication channel between its customers and their end-users. Teams and organizations use this capability to engage directly with end-users in an online community, collect information to assess customer needs and automatically communicate development status to end-users.
Its Agile Portfolio Management capability, Rally Portfolio Manager, bridges the gap between business leaders and development teams. Business leaders are provided up-to-date and accurate information on the status of key projects while development teams are provided clear visibility into the priorities of the business in order to better align their feature backlogs. Our Time and Cost Management capability, Rally Time Tracker, enables key financial functions related to software development, such as software capitalization, cost tracking, budget management and billing. This capability reduces double entry in other systems and ensures data is captured and aggregated into reports. Teams and organizations use this capability to reduce daily overhead of tracking time by integrating into the daily process, design and generate aggregate timesheets to meet accounting, budgeting or billing requirements , ensure that time entries meet audit and compliance requirements and integrate time tracking information into existing back office and time and attendance applications.
Its Agile Project Management capability allows cross-functional teams to efficiently plan and manage software releases. Teams and organizations use this capability to manage product and release backlogs that reflect the priorities of the business, schedule all or parts of requirements from backlogs into releases based on capacity and real-time visibility into the status of features, priorities, roadblocks and risks. Its Requirements Management capabil! ity enabl! es business leaders and analysts to centrally manage and prioritize features for development. Users can elaborate requirements with needed details, break them up into smaller units and organize them to match the changing structures of their teams or technology components. Its Quality Management capability, Rally Quality Manager, enables testing engineers to integrate testing into the development process from the beginning of a project. This capability provides a full enterprise solution to plan and track the execution of test activities.
Platform Capabilities
Its platform employs a analytics and reporting engine. In addition to over 25 pre-built standard reports, its platform includes a custom reporting engine that allows customers to create reports to meet their needs. Its platform also includes dashboard technology to present personalized content and then share that content for consistent use across a team or organization. Its platform provides enterprise-class security capabilities simplifying the administration of thousands of users. It can integrate its platform with its customers' existing security infrastructure to provide end-users with the ability to have single-sign-on (SSO) and provide advanced security measures to reduce risk and meet the needs of enterprises. This adaptability also ensures its solutions can be configured to meet the changing needs of an organization. It offers an open Web services application programming interface (WSAPI) providing full read-write access to all of the data within its platform. The WSAPI is versioned so that integrations or customizations are insulated from changes in the WSAPI, thereby preserving a customer's investment in custom functionality.
It provides customization services that produce Apps for specific customer needs. Examples of Apps that are available in its catalog include Dependency Status Dashboard enables organizations to view dependencies between teams and forecast potential impediments and stoppages in ! a project! ; System Requirement Validation Document generates a document for signature and archival typically used by customers in regulated industries to validate that the requirements of a system or application have been met; Agile Earned-Value Management provides a report based on traditional project management practices that provides what-if scenarios for planning scope, schedule and budget, and There are over 40 integrations available for its platform. It has 25 pre-built integrations with complementary products that synchronize their data with its platform. Additionally, there are over 20 integrations that third parties have created with its platform that they offer to their customers. It also integrates with open-source development tools, including Subversion, Jenkins and Eclipse, as well as commercial products, including Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Visual Studio and HP QualityCenter.
Editions
It offers four editions of its Agile management solution. Each edition is built on the same software code base. Rally Community Edition is designed for an individual team that operates independently, even if it is part of a larger organization. Community Edition includes a basic version of Agile Project Management and Requirements Management capabilities and is available for free for 10 users and one project.
Rally eXpress Edition is designed for both and small organizations and scales from a single team to multiple, independent teams and projects. eXpress Edition includes a basic version of Agile Project Management and Requirements Management capabilities. eXpress Edition supports unlimited users and projects.
Rally Enterprise Edition is targeted at medium to organizations focused on coordinating projects across multiple teams. Enterprise Edition includes Agile Project Management, Requirements Management and basic Quality Management capabilities. Enterprise Edition supports unlimited users and projects.
Rally Unlimited Edition is built for organizations and ! offers it! s full set of capabilities for managing the entire software lifecycle, including Idea Management, Agile Portfolio Management, Time and Cost Management, Agile Project Management, Requirements Management and Quality Management. Unlimited Edition supports unlimited users and projects.
On-Premise Deployment Option
A small percentage of its customers deploy its solutions on-premise. When its software is installed at the customer site, it specifies the hardware requirements and deliver its solutions on a virtual software appliance.
Professional Services
It offers a broad array of professional services to its customers to assist them in the implementation of its platform and adoption of Agile techniques.It offers its services globally. It offer public and private courses educating customers on Agile practices. A number of its training courses are certified by the independent organization Scrum Alliance. Through its Agile University brand, it offers Agile-related education and coursework taught by its consultants and a network of instructors. It offers a broad set of services that help customers implement Agile practices across their organization. It aims to make organizations self-sufficient so they can continue expanding their usage of Agile after it concludes its services engagement. Its implementation services combine workshops and training to help organizations incorporate its platform into their development process. These services include process training and product customization to help organizations take advantage of the full breadth of capabilities its platform offers. Customers can elect to leverage its platform extension services to customize its platform to meet the specific needs of their organization. It creates custom Apps and customized integrations to ensure that its solutions fit a customer's infrastructure and practices, and it offers data migration services to migrate data from a customer's legacy application into its platform.
The ! Company competes with Atlassian, CollabNet, VersionOne, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Microsoft.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Evan Niu, CFA]
What: Shares of Rally Software (NYSE: RALY ) rallied today by as much as 20% after the company announced fiscal first quarter results.
Top Sliver Stocks To Invest In Right Now: Gentium SpA(GENT)
Gentium S.p.A., a biopharmaceutical company, focuses on the development and manufacture of its primary product candidate, defibrotide, an investigational drug based on a mixture of single-stranded and double-stranded DNA extracted from pig intestines. It develops defibrotide for the treatment and prevention of hepatic veno-occlusive disease (VOD), a condition that occurs when veins in the liver are blocked as a result of cancer treatments, such as chemotherapy or radiation, that are administered prior to stem cell transplantation. The company has completed a Phase III clinical trial of defibrotide for the treatment of severe VOD in the United States, Canada, and Israel; and a Phase II/III pediatric trial in Europe for the prevention of VOD. It also offers sulglicotide that is developed from swine duodenum, and has ulcer healing and gastrointestinal protective properties in South Korea; and urokinase, which is made from human urine to treat various vascular disorders, such as deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolisms. The company was formerly known as Pharma Research S.r.L. and changed its name to Gentium S.p.A. in July 2001. Gentium S.p.A. was founded in 1993 and is headquartered in Villa Guardia, Italy.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Sean Williams]
A parabolic problem
It has also been a year to remember for shareholders of biopharmaceutical company Gentium (NASDAQ: GENT ) whose share price has catapulted approximately 600% off its lows thanks to growth in its lead drug Defibrotide (known as Defitelio in the European Union). - [By Jake L'Ecuyer]
Shares of Jazz Pharmaceuticals Public Limited Company (NASDAQ: JAZZ) got a boost, shooting up 7.77 percent to $123.65 after the company announced its plans to buy Gentium SpA (NASDAQ: GENT) for around $1 billion.
- [By James Oberweis]
Gentium Spa (GENT) is focused on the development and commercialization of its leading product, defibrotide, to treat certain complications arising from chemotherapy, and bone marrow and stem cell transplantation therapy.
Top Sliver Stocks To Invest In Right Now: Spdr S&P Retail Etf (XRT)
SPDR S&P Retail Exchange Traded Fund (The Fund) seeks to replicate as closely as possible, before expenses, the performance of an index derived from the retail segment of the United States total market composite index. The Fund uses a passive management strategy designed to track the total return performance of the S&P Retail Select Industry Index (the Retail Index).
The Retail Index represents the retail sub industry portion of the S&P TMI. The S&P TMI tracks all the United States common stocks listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), American Stock Exchange (AMEX), National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation (NASDAQ) National Market and NASDAQ Small Cap exchanges.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Ben Levisohn]
Shares of J.C. Penney have dropped 2.5% to $13.48 today, while Vornado has fallen 1.7% to $81.44. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) has fallen 0.4% to $165.75, and the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT) is of 0.8% at $79.42.
- [By John Udovich]
Its worth taking a much�closer look at small Cap specialty retail stock Tuesday Morning Corporation (NASDAQ: TUES) verses the performance of potential retail ETF peers like the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (NYSEARCA: XRT), Market Vectors Retail ETF (NYSEARCA: RTH) and Direxion Daily Retail Bull 3X Shares (NYSEARCA: RETL). In case you are not familiar with the stock, an activist shareholder (who became the Chairman of the Board) complained about the company�� performance (or rather�a wider net loss that�TUES had reported) back in 2012 and this�lead to the firing of CEO Kathleen Mason who then turned around and filed a discrimination claim claiming she was fired after 12 years in the role after she disclosed that she was being treated for breast cancer. Late in 2012, Tuesday Morning Corporation also fired�its chief merchandise officer after only five months on the job and then hired a new CEO.
Top Sliver Stocks To Invest In Right Now: Oncothyreon Inc .(ONTY)
Oncothyreon Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, focuses on the development of therapeutic products for the treatment of cancer. Its primary product candidate, Stimuvax is in two phase III clinical trials for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer. The company is also developing PX-866, a small molecule that is in phase II trials for various cancer indications. In addition, it engages in the preclinical development of ONT-10, a cancer vaccine; and ONT-701, a pan-inhibitor of the B-cell lymphoma-2 family of anti-apoptotic proteins. The company operates primarily in the United States and Canada. Oncothyreon Inc. was founded in 1985 and is headquartered in Seattle, Washington.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Lauren Pollock]
Among the companies with shares expected to actively trade in Wednesday’s session are Mako Surgical Corp.(MAKO), Ascena Retail Group Inc.(ASNA) and Oncothyreon Inc.(ONTY)
Top Sliver Stocks To Invest In Right Now: Grupo Financiero Galicia S.A. (GGAL)
Grupo Financiero Galicia S.A. operates as a financial services holding company in Argentina. The company offers financial products and services, including collection and payment services, commercial credit cards, direct payroll deposits, capital market alternatives, foreign trade solutions, and corporate e-banking solutions; corporate debt transactions and securitization transactions; and e-collection and payment solutions to various agencies, municipalities, and universities. It also provides a range of financial products and services, such as transactions, loans, and investments; and checking and savings accounts, credit and debit cards, payroll direct deposits, insurance, and retirement and pension payments. In addition, the company offers mutual funds and in brokerage services; manages positions in foreign currency and government securities; acts as an intermediary and distributes financial instruments for institutional investors, corporate customers, and individuals; and enables customers to buy and sell securities on the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange. Further, it provides life insurance products, including employee benefit plans and credit related insurance; and property and casualty insurance products, such as home and ATM theft insurance. As of December 31, 2012, the company operated 257 full service banking branches and 1,676 ATMs and self-service terminals. Grupo Financiero Galicia S.A. was founded in 1905 and is based in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Federico Zaldua]
Grupo Financiero Galicia (GGAL), which was once owned by Rob Citrone's hedge fund Discovery Capital Management, owns one of Argentina's biggest private banks by deposits and the fastest growing within the banks that count with national presence. As a matter of fact, according to management, "the bank's estimated market share of loans to private sector was 9.10% growing 56 basis points from a year before and the market share of deposits from the private sector was 8.98% growing 28 basis points in the year."
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