Investors in a certain global leader in medical equipment have been seen mildly erratic behavior (to put it nicely) from the stock over the better part of a decade. Shares rose from $40 in 2004 to highs of $75 in 2007 before sinking to $30 in 2009 and rebounding to $50 in 2011. Since then, the stock has steadily risen to its current level near $75. But while the stock was spinning its wheels over that nine-year period, the company was growing at a good clip. Annual revenue climbed a cumulative 29% between 2009 and 2012,… Read More

Investors in a certain global leader in medical equipment have been seen mildly erratic behavior (to put it nicely) from the stock over the better part of a decade. Shares rose from $40 in 2004 to highs of $75 in 2007 before sinking to $30 in 2009 and rebounding to $50 in 2011. Since then, the stock has steadily risen to its current level near $75. But while the stock was spinning its wheels over that nine-year period, the company was growing at a good clip. Annual revenue climbed a cumulative 29% between 2009 and 2012, to $8.7 billion. Net earnings jumped 17% in that time, to $1.3 billion. Last month, Stryker (NYSE: SYK) delivered rather uneven third-quarter numbers: Revenue rose 4.8% from a year ago, to $2.2 billion, but earnings fell more than 70%.#-ad_banner-# The revenue boost came from a revival in Stryker’s largest division, specifically in orthopedic implants used in hip and knee joint replacements. This division grew 9% in the third quarter, one of its strongest performances in some time. Most of the dip in earnings can be attributed to litigation related to a recall of Stryker’s ABG II and Rejuvenate hip implants… Read More

When I was in elementary school, we called a student who got good grades, stayed out of trouble and embraced his or her position as teacher’s pet “Goody Two-shoes.” With that in mind, I’d like to introduce you to a company I like to consider the Goody Two-shoes of insurance companies. It takes few risks, performs admirably and is well liked by some of the most upstanding clients around. Founded in 1945 by two Illinois schoolteachers, Horace Mann Educators (NYSE: HMN) is an $8.5 billion national multi-line insurance company. Just about every penny comes from public K-12 teachers, administrators and… Read More

When I was in elementary school, we called a student who got good grades, stayed out of trouble and embraced his or her position as teacher’s pet “Goody Two-shoes.” With that in mind, I’d like to introduce you to a company I like to consider the Goody Two-shoes of insurance companies. It takes few risks, performs admirably and is well liked by some of the most upstanding clients around. Founded in 1945 by two Illinois schoolteachers, Horace Mann Educators (NYSE: HMN) is an $8.5 billion national multi-line insurance company. Just about every penny comes from public K-12 teachers, administrators and their families in the U.S., a market expected to grow 14% by 2020. The auto, property and casualty segment represents 52% of Horace Mann’s business, with commission-generating annuities and life insurance accounting for 39% and 9%, respectively.#-ad_banner-# About 6 million teachers, administrators and support personnel worked in K-12 in the U.S. in 2012. Another 413,000 college students are planning to become teachers, and 1.2 million are retired. That’s a big, loyal, responsible, insurance-buying market that blesses Horace Mann with higher-than-average retention rates, a low rate of paid claims and steady growth of its annuity and life insurance products. The company… Read More

It might be pie-in-the-sky thinking that Rackspace Hosting (NYSE: RAX) could overtake Amazon Web Services as king of cloud hosting — at least not in the near future. That’s not necessarily a bad thing for investors. While Amazon.com’s (Nasdaq: AMZN) enormous profile has cast a shadow over Rackspace for some time now, being No. 2 in this arena is nothing to sneeze at. Back in March 2012, my StreetAuthority colleague David Sterman named RAX one of the most overvalued stocks in the market — but these days, Rackspace is getting some rather special attention at current prices. When Dave’s article… Read More

It might be pie-in-the-sky thinking that Rackspace Hosting (NYSE: RAX) could overtake Amazon Web Services as king of cloud hosting — at least not in the near future. That’s not necessarily a bad thing for investors. While Amazon.com’s (Nasdaq: AMZN) enormous profile has cast a shadow over Rackspace for some time now, being No. 2 in this arena is nothing to sneeze at. Back in March 2012, my StreetAuthority colleague David Sterman named RAX one of the most overvalued stocks in the market — but these days, Rackspace is getting some rather special attention at current prices. When Dave’s article was published last year, RAX sold for about $54. It subsequently grew even more expensive, to nearly $78 a share this January, but it has since fallen nearly 50% from that high. Last Monday, RAX’s share price of $49.31prompted investors to acquire 21,687 call options on the company, about 815% more than usual. That same day, Rackspace reported third-quarter earnings, showing higher than expected revenue ($389 million, up15.7% from a year ago) but lower than expected earnings per share (EPS), which came in at $0.11 compared with the $0.16 expected. So, you had some investors selling shares — price fell… Read More

In the world of identity theft, it doesn’t pay to assume “it won’t happen to me.”#-ad_banner-# In fact, with an average of a new victim every three seconds in 2012 — and the rate of breaches seeming to increase at a faster pace than the national debt — you might as well assume that it will happen to you and be prepared when it does. Identity theft can dig you a debt ditch deeper than the Mariana Trench. But I’ve found a $1.4 billion company — a mere pollywog among the multi-billion-dollar big fish in this… Read More

In the world of identity theft, it doesn’t pay to assume “it won’t happen to me.”#-ad_banner-# In fact, with an average of a new victim every three seconds in 2012 — and the rate of breaches seeming to increase at a faster pace than the national debt — you might as well assume that it will happen to you and be prepared when it does. Identity theft can dig you a debt ditch deeper than the Mariana Trench. But I’ve found a $1.4 billion company — a mere pollywog among the multi-billion-dollar big fish in this sector — that’s throwing out lifelines to consumers and dishing out profits to investors. In fact, this little gem just reported record revenues and hundreds of thousands of new customers in the third quarter. Its IPO went for $9 just over a year ago, and newcomers to the stock are basking in 75% gains. We’ll take a closer look at the company in a moment, but first, let’s talk about what drives this crime today, how big the business of identity theft has become, and what is being done to protect people like you and me. A $21 Million Violation… Read More

We’ve all accidently cut ourselves and stuck a bandage on it to stop the bleeding, then gone about our business. Usually the wound heals after a couple of days, and all is good. On occasion, though, a simple cut can turn complicated.#-ad_banner-# Say I’ve cut my finger and it begins to fester. I go to a doctor’s office and have a blood sample drawn and shipped to a lab for analysis. The doctor makes an educated guess as to which antibiotic might clear the infection and prescribes a 10-day supply. By the time your blood has gone through the routine… Read More

We’ve all accidently cut ourselves and stuck a bandage on it to stop the bleeding, then gone about our business. Usually the wound heals after a couple of days, and all is good. On occasion, though, a simple cut can turn complicated.#-ad_banner-# Say I’ve cut my finger and it begins to fester. I go to a doctor’s office and have a blood sample drawn and shipped to a lab for analysis. The doctor makes an educated guess as to which antibiotic might clear the infection and prescribes a 10-day supply. By the time your blood has gone through the routine tests to identify the infection and determine the correct antibiotic, five days have passed. But after a few days — and pills — you feel better. This time the doctor guessed right, averting a possible crisis. However, more than 250,000 people die from sepsis — the spread of bacteria from a point of infection — every year. A simple infection from a cut, or pneumonia, or any number of sources can quickly turn to sepsis — which can be deadly without prompt and proper treatment. Until recently, doctors had to rely on antiquated tests that took days to deliver results… Read More

If you were to cross a Bugatti Veyron with a McLaren F1 — two cars capable of reaching 60 mph in less than 3.2 seconds — you’d get a super machine able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. #-ad_banner-# You get the same power when you take two high-flying sectors of the market and combine them into a single exchange-traded fund (ETF). That is the true beauty behind ETFs: the ability to invest in very precise niches of the market that, when multiplied, result in head-turning returns. Today, let’s look at a combination of small caps with health… Read More

If you were to cross a Bugatti Veyron with a McLaren F1 — two cars capable of reaching 60 mph in less than 3.2 seconds — you’d get a super machine able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. #-ad_banner-# You get the same power when you take two high-flying sectors of the market and combine them into a single exchange-traded fund (ETF). That is the true beauty behind ETFs: the ability to invest in very precise niches of the market that, when multiplied, result in head-turning returns. Today, let’s look at a combination of small caps with health care and technology. Small-caps stocks have been on a tear and are poised to continue their streak for some time longer. The iShares S&P Small-Cap 600 ETF (NYSE: IJR) hit an all-time high Oct. 29 and is up about 28% year to date. In fact, this index of core small caps is up 36% over the past 12 months, 50% over the past two years and 130% over the past five, outpacing the Dow Jones Industrial Average on all fronts. As Bloomberg reports, in three out of the past four periods in which small-caps trounced the Dow so dramatically, equities… Read More

In many ways, using a tablet or smartphone at work beats a rigid desktop computer.#-ad_banner-#​ The portability of mobile devices makes it easier to perform tasks from anywhere — the lunchroom, a co-worker’s desk, at home, even in the car. Plus, it’s way more convenient to be able to access work and personal emails, files and apps on one device.  A recent study showed that almost 60% of employees bring some type of mobile device into the workplace. The act has become so commonplace that it now has its own acronym: BYOD (bring your own device). By the… Read More

In many ways, using a tablet or smartphone at work beats a rigid desktop computer.#-ad_banner-#​ The portability of mobile devices makes it easier to perform tasks from anywhere — the lunchroom, a co-worker’s desk, at home, even in the car. Plus, it’s way more convenient to be able to access work and personal emails, files and apps on one device.  A recent study showed that almost 60% of employees bring some type of mobile device into the workplace. The act has become so commonplace that it now has its own acronym: BYOD (bring your own device). By the end of this year, the number of mobile devices (mostly mobile phones) in the workplace is expected to reach 350 million globally. A whopping 57% of full-time employees are already using mobile devices for work-related tasks — half of which is unmonitored, unmanaged BYOD activity.  We love our toys, but mixing business with recreation presents huge headaches for the IT workers responsible for keeping company data secure and knowing who has which apps (and why and where). Workers who innocently hook up devices to company networks, download applications, access email and connect to private Wi-Fi networks can cause major disruptions. … Read More

Shorting the yen and going long Japanese stocks have basically been no-brainer investments for the past couple of years. That’s especially true when you consider there’s an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that accomplishes both: the WisdomTree Japan Hedged Equity Fund (NYSE: DXJ).  DXJ has gained 48% over the past two years and 25% this year, but it’s been flat or slightly negative for the past six months. One reason DXJ has slowed is that talk of a U.S. government shutdown sent investors to the yen as a safe haven, pushing it… Read More

Shorting the yen and going long Japanese stocks have basically been no-brainer investments for the past couple of years. That’s especially true when you consider there’s an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that accomplishes both: the WisdomTree Japan Hedged Equity Fund (NYSE: DXJ).  DXJ has gained 48% over the past two years and 25% this year, but it’s been flat or slightly negative for the past six months. One reason DXJ has slowed is that talk of a U.S. government shutdown sent investors to the yen as a safe haven, pushing it higher.  I suspect now that all is quiet on that front that the yen will continue its downward trend.#-ad_banner-# Still, there’s speculation that this trade may be dead. It all boils down to whether Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sticks to his loose monetary policy, aka Abenomics, which has been in place since he took office in December 2012. Abe vowed to kick-start Japan’s stagnant economy by deploying a bond-buying program of 7.5 trillion yen ($75 billion) a month, much like the U.S. is doing. The strategy was designed to reflate the world’s third-largest economy by devaluing the… Read More

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.  Over two days in November, more than 150 companies in the United States, Canada and Mexico will find out what it’s like to experience an electrical outage more massive than anything in our lifetime.#-ad_banner-# Scary proposition, huh? Well, it’s actually a first-of-a-kind drill organized by the North American Electric Reliability Corp. to simulate an enemy attack that wipes out chunks of the power grid and leaves continentwide areas without electricity for weeks. It’s attracting a virtual who’s who of military, corporate, academic and utility personnel. We already know… Read More

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.  Over two days in November, more than 150 companies in the United States, Canada and Mexico will find out what it’s like to experience an electrical outage more massive than anything in our lifetime.#-ad_banner-# Scary proposition, huh? Well, it’s actually a first-of-a-kind drill organized by the North American Electric Reliability Corp. to simulate an enemy attack that wipes out chunks of the power grid and leaves continentwide areas without electricity for weeks. It’s attracting a virtual who’s who of military, corporate, academic and utility personnel. We already know how portions of the electric grid perform when severe storms strike. Eight million people in the Northeast lost power during Hurricane Sandy last year, making a disastrous situation that much worse. However, the drill, set for Nov. 13-14, is unlikely to reveal anything that disproves what physicists, nuclear scientists, electrical engineers, utilities and the Department of Homeland Security, among others, have been warning of for years. The U.S. grid is a century old. It consists of a patchwork of 450,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines and 5,800 major power plants. The average substation transformer is two years older than its… Read More

The business of data is growing bigger and bigger. An astounding 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created every day, cluttering computer systems around the globe. As more and more companies clamor to find space for the new, archive the old, and analyze it all so it… Read More