Analysts Expect Earnings Growth To Increase In The Second Quarter

According to FactSet for the first quarter of 2014 the S&P 500 companies reported earnings growth of 2.1% and are currently expected to increase earnings by 5.7% in the second quarter, down from 6.9% on March 31. Revenue growth came in at about 2.4% for the first quarter and is expected to be 3.1% in the second quarter. The current 12-month forward P/E multiple is 15.4x.

Over the past four years (2010-2013) analysts have overestimated the second half earnings growth by 43% for the third quarter and 48% for the fourth quarter based on June 1 earnings projections. Earnings growth is again weighted to the second half with 9.6% and 10.1% growth in the third and fourth quarters, respectively. The chart below shows how the earnings projections for the fourth quarter were too high based on the final results.

Source: FactSet

The current P/E 15.4x P/E multiple has become a fair amount higher than the 5 year and 10 year averages of 13.2x and 13.8x, respectively. While the P/E multiple can remain above its average for a significant time, as it should be above its average for about half the time, especially in a low interest rate environment it could be challenging for the market to move significantly higher if revenue and earnings growth are in the low to middle single digits ranges.

Source: FactSet

Analysts are projecting that net margins will break above 10% in the second quarter and continue to increase to 10.8% in the second quarter of 2015. While margins could remain high at some point in time they will have to level off if not decline if labor costs start to rise faster than a business can increase its prices.

Source: FactSet

Follow me on Twitter Twitter @sandhillinsight. You can find my other Forbes posts here.

Beat 85% of Investors with These Steps

I want to start today's article with a quick survey.

Don't worry; it's going to be short, only a couple of questions, and you're the only person who is going to know your answers. So improve your investing savvy and answer honestly.

It might just help you make a lot of money - and sleep better at night...

First question: When the markets hit a rough spot this last March, did you start selling your stocks? If the answer to that question is "yes," what methodology did you use to justify your selling?

Second question: If you did sell your stocks, what methodology do you now plan on using to know when it's time to buy again?

Here's a quick hint: Unless you can quickly answer both of those questions without having to think about it, the answer may be "none" or "no methodology."

Don't feel bad; every investor (including yours truly) has, at one point or another, made an investment decision without a clear plan (or methodology behind the decision).

Here's why that can be such a bad idea, and here's how to tap into the tremendous profits out there if you break out...

What Most Investors Do Wrong

According to Barron's, a whopping 85% of all investor "sell" or "exchange" decisions are wrong. Yikes!

The cycle typically looks like this...

The market starts to sell off (for any number of reasons), investors get spooked and sell their stocks right at (or just before) the point of maximum pessimism (which usually is very close to the bottom).

Once they're out of stocks they take their cash and plow it into safe assets like bonds just in time to miss the beginning of the next leg up in stocks. Once their capital is invested in bonds, they have no idea when to shift back into stocks, mainly because of an emotional bias that leaves them too frightened to take on risk.

If that sounds familiar, again, don't worry - you're not alone. Everyone has made this kind of mistake at least once. We'll just make sure it doesn't happen again.

Instead of using market pullbacks as an excuse to bury your head in the sand and catch up on Dancing with the Stars episodes, you can step up your due diligence to create a buy list of your next investment targets.

At first it might seem uncomfortable to be preparing to buy stocks in the face of uncertainty - but don't worry - you're going to be in great company. Warren Buffett, Jim Rogers, and John Templeton all made their fortunes targeting stocks once they were put on sale by market volatility....so let's follow their lead.

Here are two steps you can take that will not only give you an answer to the questions at the top of the this article, but will also let you use market volatility to your advantage, which is exactly what professional traders do every day.

Step #1
Set Your "Sell" Plan, Before You Buy

The first step: Always make sure you have an exit strategy (or plan regarding when you'll sell) before you hit the "buy" button. This will ensure that you're always making predetermined strategic decisions rather than emotional decisions.

Here are two of my favorite exit strategies: trailing stops and scaling out of a position.

Most people think of trailing stops as a way to protect their downside. While they are great at minimizing losses, they really shine in capturing profits. As your position increases in value, simply tighten up your trailing stop to increase your potential profit.

Strategy Note: Your initial trailing stop and the amount to which you tighten your trailing stop is entirely up to you and should be based on your own risk tolerance. Personally, one of my favorite strategies is to: 1) begin with a 25% trailing stop, 2) once my position is up 30% I like to tighten my stop up to a 19% trailing stop, which makes my stop 5% over my entry price, 3) once my position is up 40% I'll tighten my trailing stop to 15%, 4) and once my position is up 50% I'll settle in with a trailing stop of 12.5% for the remainder of the holding period - or until I get to a 100% gain, which is when I'll start scaling out of the position.

Legendary investor Jesse Livermore summed it up simply and eloquently when he said "you never go broke capturing a profit." Exactly right, and that's why I like to tighten up my trailing stop along the way - especially the first move, which puts my stop 5% over my entry price.

It's worth mentioning, though, that once you tighten up your trailing stop, you do increase the risk of getting stopped out - but I'm totally okay with that because the tighter trailing stop also reduces my odds of letting a winner turn into a loser.

Livermore's second strategy is to sell half of any position once it achieves a 100% or more gain. Professional traders call this "scaling out" of a position. Livermore would refer to this simply as "playing with the house's money" because you effectively take your initial investment off the table and what you're left with is all profit - or the house's money.

The beauty of this strategy is that the freed-up capital created by scaling out of the position can then be used to establish a new position. If you do this a couple of time in a row, your initial allocation of capital can turn into several positions. It's a great way to build multiple positions with a single tranche of capital.

Just like trailing stops, you can choose to start scaling out of a position at any time. The key is that you know, in advance, when you plan on tightening up your trailing stops and when you intend to begin scaling out of a position.

Step #2
Rebalance Your Profits

Moving on to the second step: rebalancing.

I can't emphasize enough how important it is to stay in the markets - and the best way to remain invested is to use the Money Map Report's 50-40-10 model.

In case you're not familiar with the 50-40-10, it is a risk-parity portfolio structure pioneered by Keith Fitz-Gerald, Chief Investment Strategist for the Money Map Report. Here's a quick rundown...

50% of your assets: invested in what we refer to as "Base Builders," which includes assets such as Vanguard Wellington Fund, sovereign debt, muni bonds, corporate debt, etc.

40% of your assets: invested in what we refer to as "Growth and Income," which are stocks with global exposure to some of the world's largest trends, solid cash flow, rock solid balance sheets, and an above average yield.

10% of your assets: invested in what we refer to as "Rocket Riders", which is where you'll find speculative positions such as small-cap stocks. History suggests that by limiting your speculative positions to just 10% of your overall capital, you maximize your potential return while at the same time keeping your overall risk to a razor-thin level.

Now let's get back to rebalancing.

If you're using a predetermined exit strategy like the example I discussed above (or any other predetermined strategy, for that matter), you will, at some point, find yourself with cash to re-deploy. When that happens, calculate the different allocations between the Base Builders, Growth and Income, and Rocket Riders to find out what portion of your portfolio is overweight and where it's underweight. Deploy your freed-up cash into whatever portion of your portfolio is underweight.

Let me give you a simple real-world example to clarify the above.

For the sake of this example, let's assume your entire portfolio is worth $1,000,000, with the following breakdown: $500,000 (or 50%) is currently in your Base Builders positions, $390,000 (or 39%) is currently in your Growth and Income positions, $100,000 (or 10%) in currently in your Rocket Riders positions, and $10,000 is sitting in cash due to your recent winning trade.

In the example above, both your Base Builders and Rocket Riders are in line, with 50% and 10% of your total portfolio, respectively - but your Growth and Income (at 39%) is a little below your target of 40%, therefore it's "underweight."

In order to bring your 50-40-10 structure back in line, you can redeploy your $10,000 worth of cash into an investment that qualifies as a Growth and Income asset and your portfolio structure will then be back to the desired 50-40-10.

If you don't want to redeploy the cash right away, that's fine. You can also wait for a predetermined time (quarterly, bi-annually, annually, etc.) and then rebalance all of your holdings at one time.

The key here is that it's a predetermined time - not a time based on your discretion, because that could leave you open to emotional biases, which typically work against you.

The beauty of rebalancing is that it takes all the guessing out of the equation because it forces you to sell the assets that have increased in value (and are subsequently overweight) and buy assets that have gone down in price (and are subsequently underweight).

That means you're following the golden rule of investing... buy low, sell high. And profit.

Fidelity’s Durbin: RIAs Thriving; Top Clients See Robo-Advisors as Positive Trend

Less than a year after a major reorganization of Fidelity Institutional's clearing business, Mike Durbin, president of Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services, reports that the RIA custodian is doing quite well, thank you, with total client assets under custody of more than $750 billion as of year-end 2013. In that year, 109 net new RIA firms, with an average of $127 million in assets under management, chose to custody with Fidelity IWS.

In an interview Thursday, Durbin noted that the data from new firms doesn’t include RIAs or registered reps who joined an existing RIA firm. “It’s a good business,” he said, helped by “the prevailing tailwind in this broadly defined independent space,” but also by “great new net asset flow from existing” Fidelity IWS RIA firms, along with new firms that are “being created and/or joining us.”

Admitting that “it helps to have an S&P at 1,900,” the trends pushing the independent space continue, he argues, notably “bigger and better RIAs getting bigger and better.” While not that long ago it was “rare to have a $1 billion RIA, now there are more and more” achieving that benchmark in AUM through organic growth and expansion either geographically or through mergers and acquisitions, producing a “growing cadre of pan-regional” RIA firms.

That overall growth in the industry, and Fidelity’s investment over the past few years in “reinventing” its technology platform and service offerings, “allows us to be more strategic with our clients,” Durbin said, helping in particular firms around the $500 million mark to leap over that hurdle where too often “the principal wears too many hats.” Instead, the fastest-growing firms, which Fidelity calls “high performers,” are being run as businesses, with a “clear segregation of duties and clear processes,” creating “real firms with real management teams that can provide leverage” to that overworked principal.

While Durbin says “we have a very strong base proposition for all our clients” around brokerage and custody, operations and service, the notion of keeping an eye on the bigger, fastest-growing firms "allows us to provide our more human-capital-intensive programs” to those high performers, such as practice management consulting or succession planning or even M&A financing through its partnership with Live Oak Bank. “We want to earn a seat at their conference room table with them,” he says of the fastest-growing firms.

There’s another angle to what Fidelity IWS does for its clients, Durbin says, and that’s where so-called robo-advisors come in. “Our role is to understand the landscape and educate our clients” about trends and technology, which is reflected in a number of initiatives at the firm. They include the launch of the physical and virtual Office of the Future (see article by Danielle Andrus on ThinkAdvisor). Fidelity also held a summit — Emerging Affluent/Digital Advisor Day — in which certain Fidelity clients gathered with “digital advisor,” or robo-advisor, technology pioneers “to explore how our clients can work with them or even create their own offering” along with options to leverage technology to attract and efficiently serve certain underserved client segments. In that vein, during its recent Executive Forum conference, to which Fidelity’s top broker-dealer (National Financial) and IWS (RIA) clients are invited, a poll of attendees focused on web-based digital advisors. It found that 74% saw the rise of robo-advisors as a “positive industry trend that is here to stay,” though 54% said that “digital advisors cannot replace the human element of advice.” However, only 13% of the executives surveyed said they felt “very informed” about robo-advisor models.

Durbin was quick to point out that clients at the Executive Summit tend to be more sophisticated, making it unsurprising that they “see the trend around the digital advisor” but also that they expect Fidelity to help educate and guide them around “new technologies that should be leveraged by us as their service providers." However, the attributes of robo-advisors — a user-friendly interface, unbundling of services, aggregating client data — suggests how advisor technology should evolve to help attract “these Gen X and Gen Y cohorts.”

So Fidelity’s role, Durbin concluded, was to help its clients “learn a lot more” and to help them “pivot to embrace these technologies,” and to determine “which ones can be a solution for them and which we should mimic.”

Durbin points outh that “if these technologies are embraced the right way, a broader segment of the U.S. population will be able to get advice,” and that we may well be “at the early stages of a virtuous cycle in getting people to be prepared for retirement and financial independence.”

WHO: Too Many Humans 'Eating Themselves to Death'

Mark Lennihan/AP LONDON -- Almost a third of the world is now fat, and no country has been able to curb obesity rates in the last three decades, according to a new global analysis. Researchers found more than 2 billion people worldwide are now overweight or obese. The highest rates were in the Middle East and North Africa, where nearly 60 percent of men and 65 percent of women are heavy. The U.S. has about 13 percent of the world's fat population, a greater percentage than any other country. China and India combined have about 15 percent. "It's pretty grim," said Christopher Murray of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, who led the study. He and colleagues reviewed more than 1,700 studies covering 188 countries from 1980 to 2013. "When we realized that not a single country has had a significant decline in obesity, that tells you how hard a challenge this is." Murray said there was a strong link between income and obesity; in developing countries, as people get richer, their waistlines also tend to start bulging. In many rich countries like the U.S. and Britain, the trend is reversed -- though only slightly. Murray said scientists have noticed accompanying spikes in diabetes as obesity has risen and that rates of cancers linked to weight, like pancreatic cancer, are also rising. The new report was paid for by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and published online Thursday in the journal, Lancet. Last week, the World Health Organization established a high-level commission tasked with ending childhood obesity. "Our children are getting fatter," Dr. Margaret Chan, WHO's director-general, said bluntly during a speech at the agency's annual meeting in Geneva. "Parts of the world are quite literally eating themselves to death." Earlier this year, WHO said that no more than 5 percent of your daily calories should come from sugar. "Modernization has not been good for health," said Syed Shah, an obesity expert at United Arab Emirates University, who found obesity rates have jumped five times in the last 20 years even in a handful of remote Himalayan villages in Pakistan. His research was presented this week at a conference in Bulgaria. "Years ago, people had to walk for hours if they wanted to make a phone call," he said. "Now everyone has a cellphone." Shah also said the villagers no longer have to rely on their own farms for food. "There are roads for [companies] to bring in their processed foods and the people don't have to slaughter their own animals for meat and oil," he said. "No one knew about Coke and Pepsi 20 years ago. Now it's everywhere." In Britain, the independent health watchdog issued new advice Wednesday recommending that heavy people be sent to free weight-loss classes to drop about 3 percent of their weight. It reasoned that losing just a few pounds improves health and is more realistic. About two in three adults in the U.K. are overweight, making it the fattest country in Western Europe. "This is not something where you can just wake up one morning and say, 'I am going to lose 10 pounds,'" said Mike Kelly, the agency's public health director, in a statement. "It takes resolve and it takes encouragement."

Amazon struggle with Hachette may be protracted

Breaking its customary corporate silence, Amazon has launched a defense against a rising chorus of criticism about its decision to limit the supply of books from publisher Hachette Book Group and warned that the tussle could be protracted.

In a statement posted on its website Tuesday, Amazon acknowledged that its pricing negotiations have dragged on and lauded Hachette for operating in "good faith." But the Seattle-based retailer told customers that it's "not optimistic that this will be resolved soon."

"Despite much work from both sides, we have been unable to reach mutually acceptable agreement on terms," Amazon said.

Hachette's books have largely been removed from Amazon's shelves. Amazon is ordering new inventories from Hachette only after customers place orders, curtailing authors' incomes and the usually rapid delivery cycle that the site's fans enjoy.

Amazon is no longer taking pre-orders on summer and fall titles, allowing customers to place an order only after books are released.

Amazon said it's seeking "equitable terms" in pricing, and its tactics are no different than those of big-box retailers that keep only a few copies on hand and choose certain titles to display prominently at the front of their stores.

"Suppliers get to decide the terms under which they are willing to sell to a retailer," it said. "It's reciprocally the right of a retailer to determine whether the terms on offer are acceptable and to stock items accordingly."

Amazon is in a similar fight with a publisher in Germany, the Bonnier Media Group.

Amazon and its CEO, Jeff Bezos, usually reluctant to talk to the press, remained silent after The New York Times first reported the retailer's cutback earlier this month. Its reluctance to respond contributed to the developing narrative of an intractable and inscrutable giant running roughshod over a supplier.

The imbroglio affects only about 1% of Amazon's inventory. But that the popular titles from the fourth-largest U.S. book pu! blisher — home of James Patterson and four of the top 10 titles in the New York Times' current hardcover fiction bestseller list — could be removed so quickly seemed to confirm publishers' worst fears about Amazon's expansive sway over the book business.

Michael Pietsch, CEO of Hachette urged authors and customers to be patient during this "difficult situation."

"Please know that we are doing everything in our power to find a solution," he said in a letter to authors. "I know this is not a comfortable situation for most of you."

As the stalemate persists, other retailers are seeking to take advantage. Books-a-Million, a chain with 258 stores nationwide, is offering 30% discounts on some upcoming Hachette titles.

While Amazon has branched out to digital media and tablets to boost profit, it still relies heavily on books and electronics for revenue. Its profit margins have always been thin, which is both a result of and an explanation for Amazon's ceaseless drive to extract the best prices possible from manufacturers and middlemen. In the first quarter, Amazon's revenue grew 23% to $19.7 billion but its profit margin is less than 1%. Its quarterly net profit totaled $108 million, up from $82 million a year earlier.

Hachette, whose holdings include Little, Brown and Company, is a subsidiary of Lagardère, a French media conglomerate that had about $9.8 billion in net sales last year.

Pay Attention To The Proxy Statement

When seeking information about the health and well-being of a company, the first place investors often look is the 10-K or the 10-Q. But the proxy statement really should be the first stop. It offers a brief, yet thorough, description of a company's health. More specifically, it delves into business relationships, the backgrounds and compensation of corporate officers, and the future potential of the firm in plain, easy-to-read text.

The typical proxy statement addresses many topics of value to investors. Below is some of the information you can find in this important document.

Biographies
The proxy outlines a company's management employment history. This is valuable because it gives investors insight into officers' abilities and experience. Have the officers worked in the industry before? Did they move up the corporate ladder in the typical fashion, or were they somehow transplanted from another industry? Do they sit on boards at other companies? Do they have any potential conflicts of interest, or are their duties spread too thin? These are all important questions that the proxy can often answer.

Insider Ownership/Salaries
The proxy statement can tell you whether a company is being run for the benefit of the shareholders or insiders. One section will detail executive compensation. Check out how much management is being paid. Also look at their option positions. Do they have a vested interest in seeing the shares rise? Or are they merely collecting a fat paycheck?

Ideally, you want to see a large percentage of management's pay coming from out-of-the-money call options, meaning options that are currently worthless, but that could be worth a bundle if the share price moves materially higher. Put simply, option-based compensation gives management an incentive to enhance shareholder value and to find ways to drive the share price higher.

Loans
Sometimes in the course of business, companies will make sweetheart deals with their senior-level executives. These loans are sometimes in the hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. This is bad for the average shareholder for several reasons. First, the company should not be acting as a bank. Its capital, if it were looking out for the common shareholder, should ideally be retained to spur business-related growth, or be paid back to the shareholders in the form of a dividend.

A second issue is that the interest rate being charged on these loans is often below what is being offered in the broader lending market. This is problematic because it means the company is being inadequately compensated for making the loans. A third problem, and perhaps the most worrisome, is that many times companies will forgive these loans entirely, particularly if the employee is fired or retires, leaving shareholders to foot the bill.

Change In Auditors
Sometimes a company will switch auditing companies. The proxy will outline the rationale behind the change and give the investor some insight into whether it was a legitimate switch or due to a disagreement on accounting.

General Discussion
Similar to an annual or quarterly filing, in a proxy statement, management will also typically include a general discussion about the overall health of the business. Interesting insights can often be gleaned from information on backlog, gross margin trends, balance sheet opportunities or concerns.

Plans
The proxy will detail business plans or issues on which the board may vote. This information, while sometimes contained in the 10-K, is often much more concise and easy to read in the proxy statement. This valuable information should be analyzed by the investor to determine whether the company is facing any potential challenges down the road, or if there are any opportunities that management has not outlined on conference calls, or in the management discussion and analysis (MD&A) section of the 10-K or 10-Q.

Related Party Transactions
In the proxy, there will also be a section that reveals "related party transactions." Look for potential conflicts of interest or sweetheart deals that management has set up for themselves. For example, is the company obtaining a critical raw material for its products from another company owned by the chief executive? If so, perhaps the company may be paying more than it has to.Too many conflicts of interest should certainly pique your interest as a shareholder and make you wary of the company's investment merits.

Litigation
The company may describe litigation risks in the footnotes of other financial statements. The proxy will often comment on the potential outcomes of certain suits, or the possibility that management may set aside money in the form of a reserve to pay for the potential loss of a suit.

Bottom Line
The proxy statement is probably the most overlooked form that is filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. However, it can inform and enlighten the curious and diligent investor.

How to Invest in Commodities—and Why You Should

For the first time since 2010, commodities are showing signs of life. So far this year, a diversified package of commodities is outpacing both the stock and bond markets. But if you hold some of these basic materials in your portfolio—or are tempted to get back in now—you'll want to be careful about how you ride the turnaround.

See Also: Watch Out for Overpriced Stocks

Beyond improving performance, there are two good reasons to hold some commodities—or, to be more precise, investments that track the price of commodities. Diversification is one. Research shows that commodities typically don't move in sync with stocks and bonds, and that's holding true now. Year to date, the Dow Jones-UBS Commodity index, which tracks 20 commodity markets, including corn, gold and oil, has gained 7.9%, whipping the return of Standard & Poor's 500-stock index by 5.3 percentage points and the Barclays U.S. Aggregate Bond index by 4.5 percentage points (all returns are through May 22).

Commodities can also act as a type of insurance policy against sudden spikes in the price of goods. Inflation in the U.S. has been tame lately, but severe weather and political events have helped push up prices of certain raw materials. For example, the Indonesian government's decision in January to halt nickel-ore exports propelled the price of the metal (which is used to make stainless steel) to a gain of more than 40% so far this year. And a drought in Brazil, the world's largest coffee producer, has helped lift the price of arabica coffee by more than 80% since November. Some commodities also serve as safe havens against geopolitical uncertainties. From the beginning of the year through mid March, when the Russia-Ukraine standoff reached a crescendo, gold climbed 13%.

But commodity prices are notoriously volatile, and other trends could serve to keep a limit on prices and maybe even drive them down. One development to watch is slowing growth in China, a major importer of raw materials. Gold in particular is known for having long boom and bust cycles, and as the U.S. economy improves, fewer investors may seek out the yellow metal as a safe haven. After rallying in the first ten weeks of 2014, gold, at $1,294 per ounce, has fallen 7% since mid-March. Paul Christopher, chief international strategist at Wells Fargo Advisors, believes the price could tumble to as low as $1,200 by the end of the year. "We've been advising clients to start unloading," he says.

All of which suggests the road ahead for commodities could be bumpy. Chris Philips, a senior analyst in the investment strategy group at Vanguard, says it's a good idea to keep 5% to 10% of your portfolio in commodities—but only if you're willing to hold on for the long term. That may be easier to do with a mutual fund or exchange-traded fund that invests across multiple commodities markets. If you bet on a single commodity, you stand a good chance of getting spooked and selling at the wrong time. Recently, Vanguard studied the gains investors earned in SPDR Gold Shares (GLD), the largest ETF that tracks the price of gold. Vanguard found that from November 2004 (when the fund launched) through February of this year, investors earned an average of 3.2 percentage points per year less than the fund's stated return, mostly because of poor timing decisions. (Investors tended to bail out after prices fell and buy in long after a rebound had started.)

Four Great Commodities Investments to Consider

Most commodities funds and ETFs own futures contracts (an agreement to buy or sell a commodity for a set price at a future date). Futures contracts are easier to own than the physical commodity, which must be stored somewhere (and perhaps fed as well). But because of quirks in futures trading, fund performance does not always match that of the underlying commodity. To get around that, some funds buy contracts with varying maturities (rather than just roll over contracts from month to month as they expire, which is what usually happens).

Surface Pro 3: Microsoft gets most things right

NEW YORK — Microsoft had Apple in the cross hairs when it introduced the Surface Pro 3 tablet last week. Every one of Apple's tablet rivals has iPad-envy after all. What was unexpected was the degree to which Microsoft hammered its claim that the newest Surface also is meant to duke it out against Apple's popular MacBook Air laptop as well. Left unsaid was that Surface Pro 3 might also slug it out against any number of Ultrabook computers though Microsoft was understandably reluctant to utter such a thing out loud since Windows software is the lifeblood of Ultrabooks.

There's hardly a guarantee that Surface Pro 3 will hit big with the productivity-minded customers Microsoft has in mind, but based on my tests it's a strong tablet that doubles, with some limitations, as a strong laptop alternative. Microsoft has designed a handsomely sleek, business-first Windows 8.1 hybrid that is easy to fall for.

No it isn't appropriate for all comers. The storage, especially on the entry level $799 Surface Pro 3 model, is limited — 64 GB comes with the system, but only 37GB is available to the user. You can bolster capacity through a hidden microSD card slot or online via Microsoft's OneDrive.

And good as the optional $129.99 magnetic Surface Pro Type Cover accessory is — the Qwerty keyboard has more "travel" than before, the keys are now backlit, and the touchpad is vastly improved — it is still not quite the same as having a topnotch keyboard built in.

Attention laptop user: the Type Cover is a must. And the fact that it's still an option is a shame, because a keyboard is a key ingredient for a laptop. Consider $928.99 the true entry price.

Most hybrid computers I've seen have been compromised. In tablet mode they don't generally perform as well as a standalone slate, nor are they superior in laptop mode to a standalone laptop.

Microsoft's machine holds its own on both counts. Start with the high-resolution (2160 x 1440), 12-inch multitouch display. It's lovely. There's ple! nty of screen real estate for displaying two open Windows simultaneously — Word and Internet Explorer, say — which Windows 8.1 lets you do. Earlier Surface models (still in Microsoft's lineup) have 10.6-inch screens.

USA TODAY's Ed Baig talks to Micrsoft exec Panos Panay about the new Surface Pro 3.

The fourth generation Intel Core i3, i5 or i7 processors inside Surface Pro 3 are state of the art for now (though more power efficient Intel chips are coming). Surface 3 also has a full-size USB 3.0 port and Mini DisplayPort. The stereo speakers sound good. There are front and rear-facing 5-megapixel cameras.

Meanwhile, Surface 3 weighs less than 1.8 pounds, heavier than the 1-pound iPad Air, but more than a pound lighter than a MacBook Air with a 13.3-inch display. The weight with the Type Cover keyboard is about 2.4-pounds, same as the smaller 11-inch MacBook Air.

The nine hours of battery life for surfing the Web that Microsoft is claiming — I didn't run a formal battery test —stacks up well too, though it is less than what Apple claims for the iPad Air and 13.3-inch MacBook Air.

Microsoft can't compete with the iPad in terms of tablet apps, of course, but the flip side is that since Surface is a fully compliant laptop it runs virtually all of the Windows programs that your desktop PC can, from Photoshop to Quicken to Microsoft's own Office suite.

For the fuller PC treatment, you'll have to wait until later in the summer to add a $199.99 dock connector with extra ports and connectors.

One way I tested Surface Pro 3 as a true laptop replacement was to write this column in Word on my lap. (I used my Office 365 subscription to install Word; unlike Surface computers based on the Windows RT variant, Surface Pro 3 doesn't pre-install Word, Excel or PowerPoint.)

Earlier Surface models had a portable kickstand but you could only prop up the machine at two distinct angles. The major achievement here is that you can raise or lower the Surface Pro 3 kickstand to any angle. That is a bigger deal than you might first think. You can also fold up the very top edge of the Type Cover keyboard to prop it up at an easier to type on angle, also a big deal.

Yet another plus is the use of a special pressure-sensitive pen that will let you draw on the screen, jot n! otes and so on. Clicking the top of the pen launches Microsoft's One Note note-taking app, a handy (pun intended) touch. Alas, I fret about losing (or forgetting) the pen because there's no place on the tablet to stow it.

Microsoft has redesigned the proprietary AC adapter so your earlier brick won't work with this model. As before, a USB port on the power brick lets you charge your phone at the same time.

Microsoft gets most things right with Surface Pro 3. It's not a perfect tablet or a perfect laptop. But it's a perfectly appealing combination of the two.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Microsoft Surface Pro 3

$799 on up, www.microsoft.com/surface

Pro. Thin, light. Solid tablet/laptop combination. Capable of running Windows software. Pen. Type Cover keyboard. Kickstand.

Con. Limited storage. No place to stow pen. Keyboard cover should be included.

Email: ebaig@usatoday.com; Follow @edbaig.

Hyundai-Kia beats Honda as 'greenest' carmaker

Combined car company Hyundai-Kia, both owned by South Korea's Hyundai Motor Group, overtook Honda Motor as the "greenest" automaker in the U.S., according to a report today by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

For the first time since UCS began tracking the environmental friendliness of automakers in 1998, all eight major companies it rates improved their scores in the past year.

Hyundai and Kia are marketed as two separate brands in the U.S. and are operated separately. Elsewhere, they are considered two brands sold by a single, combined automaker.

The rankings lean heavily on vehicles' tailpipe emissions.

Key to the Hyundai-Kia championship: "Turbocharging and downsizing engines in a number of its models while also introducing hybrid-electric versions of two of its top-selling vehicles, the Hyundai Sonata and Kia Optima," UCS said.

STORY: Hyundai sets $499 lease for 2015 fuel-cell Tucson

Honda leads in a number of categories, but hasn't kept up with fast-moving "green" targets with its Accord in the mid-size category, UCS said, even though Accord is available as a gas-electric hybrid.

Honda finished second in the report card.

Third was a three-way tie: Toyota, Nissan, Volkswagen.

UCS said, "The Detroit Three – Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler – continue to bring up the rear, as they have in every automaker ranking.

"However, some domestic automakers are making greater strides than others. Ford led the Detroit automakers while achieving the greatest percent reduction in smog-forming emissions of any manufacturer evaluated.

"The company also enjoyed strong improvements in global warming emissions due to its increased use of hybrids and its focus on smaller, turbocharged engines in vehicles ranging from the Ford Focus sedan to its iconic, best-selling large pick-up, the F-150, demonstrating that fuel-economy gains are possible across an automaker's entire fleet".

REPORT: The full UCS 'green' automaker report

Moutai Plunges Most in Seven Years on Earnings: Shanghai Mover

Kweichow Moutai Co. (600519), the nation's biggest liquor maker by market value, fell the most in seven years after profit trailed Capital Securities Corp.'s estimate and concern grew that a government crackdown on lavish spending will continue to hurt demand.

Moutai, which produces a fiery white liquor called baijiu, slumped by the 10 percent daily limit to 151.90 yuan as of 10:07 a.m. local time, heading for the steepest drop since May 2006 and the lowest level since 2010. The stock was the biggest drag on the Shanghai Composite Index (SHCOMP), which slipped 0.2 percent.

The company's first-half net income rose 3.6 percent to 7.25 billion yuan ($1.2 billion), according to a company statement after markets shut on Aug. 30. That trailed Capital Securities' estimate for 10 percent growth, according to Liu Hui, an analyst at the brokerage.

"First-half earnings were much lower than expectations," Liu said phone from Shanghai. "With strict controls on government purchases of expensive liquor, they are not going to get a boost in sales for the second half of the year. Earnings will remain weak."

Demand for Moutai's high-end baijiu liquor, popular at official banquets and for gift giving, has fallen as Chinese President Xi Jinping has pushed to curb extravagant government spending. Moutai's shares rose 26 percent in the two years through 2012 before plunging 27 percent this year.

China's new party leadership pledged in December to reduce lavish receptions and live more frugally. Xihad warned that unless corruption is reduced at all levels of government, social unrest may rise and lead to the party's demise. Moutai fell to 13th place this year from fifth in 2012 among the top brands picked by Chinese millionaires as gifts for friends and business contacts, according to a survey by Hurun Report Inc.

-- Editors: Allen Wan, Richard Frost

A Checklist for First-Time Homebuyers

Juice Images/AlamyBefore you're handed the keys to your first home, you need to tend to your debt and make sure your budget is in good shape. The spring homebuying season is in full bloom, and odds are, if you're reading this, you may be thinking it's time to finally start looking for your first house. But before you dive in, it's important to get your finances organized and know what you can afford. Here's a checklist to get you moving toward this major purchase. Pay down your debt. And while you're at it, check your credit score and look over your credit report. "Before you start the process, you should make sure your credit score is OK," says Michael Eisenberg, a certified public accountant and personal financial planner with Eisenberg Financial Advisors in Los Angeles. "If you don't have a good credit score, you may not get the best [interest] rate. In fact, you may not get a loan, period." So before you do anything else -- with any luck, long before you do anything else -- focus on paying down your credit cards, paying your bills on time and raising your credit score. (A score of 720 and above is generally considered good, and 750 to 850 is excellent). You want your future mortgage lender to like what it sees when it comes time to request a loan for a house. Have money in the bank. Most experts suggest that you have at least 20 percent of the house's purchase price saved as a down payment. You can certainly buy a house without that -- and many people do -- but there are plenty of good reasons to put down at least 20 percent. For starters, you'll almost certainly avoid paying private mortgage insurance, or you won't have to pay it for long. PMI is typically 1 to 2 percent of the value of the loan, split into monthly payments. It may not seem like much, but if it adds, say, $100 to your monthly mortgage payment, you can see why you'd like to avoid it. In other words, if you happen to have $20,000 in a bank account, and you're thinking of buying a house in the not-so distant future, hang onto it. This isn't the time to buy that motorcycle you've always wanted or invest in a coin collection. Fine-tune your budget. Regardless of what you have in the bank now, this is a long-term, year-after-year, month-after-month expense you're going to take on. "So the first thing I would say to anyone buying a home is, 'Let's see how much you can afford to spend,'" Eisenberg says. "Everyone thinks about the mortgage and interest, but there's more to it than that. What about the property taxes? Will you have homeowner association fees? Are you renting now, and will your house be much bigger? That means you'll pay more for utilities. Are there amenities that you're going to have to take care of? Does the house have a pool? You need to plan much more than by asking yourself if you can afford the mortgage." Pej Barlavi, a real estate broker in New York City, agrees. "I always recommend to work your numbers backwards," he says. "First, know your budget or set a monthly budget that you will be comfortable with paying that will not put you under a difficult strain should you not be able to work for several months." That might sound a little grim, but think about it. If this is going to be a house you'll live in for years, there are going to be good and bad times ahead. You want to be prepared. Think about how you'll pay for the house. Yes, with money. But will you take out a fixed-rate mortgage or an adjustable-rate mortgage? ARMs had a terrible reputation after the Great Recession, and for good reason. With an adjustable-rate mortgage, you'll get the lowest rate available -- but then it will adjust after several years, often based on an index, like the Cost of Funds Index. The main point here is that your payment with an adjustable-rate mortgage won't stay the same. "During the economic meltdown of 2007-2009, many homeowners lost their jobs and then discovered the interest rates on their mortgages were going up," says Diana Webb, an associate professor of finance at Northwood University. Small wonder she says: "Adjustable rate mortgages are the scariest mortgages that I see." But the interest rate for an ARM is low, and if you believe you aren't going to live in your house for long, it might be a good fit for you. Some ARMs also have a limit on how much they can adjust, which may make them more appealing. Still, some financial experts are wary. "These ARM's are basically predatory," says Doug Leever, a mortgage sales manager at Tropical Financial Credit Union, which services South Florida. "First-time homebuyers also may not know mortgage brokers are paid a higher commission for an ARM than on a fixed-guaranteed loan." Consider the length of your home loan. Most homeowners go with a 30-year mortgage. Others try for a 15-year loan or somewhere in between. "The immediate benefit of a 15-year loan is that it's a shorter-term loan, and you typically get a much lower rate than a 30-year loan," Leever says. For instance, according to mortgage buyer Freddie Mac, if you were to take out a 15-year mortgage now, the average rate is 3.25 percent; for a 30-year mortgage, it's 4.14 percent. If you can do a 15-year loan, it's a no-brainer that you'll spend less on your house than you will with a 30-year-loan, but plenty of people can't swing that. "The payment will be higher, and you need to make sure you're comfortable with the higher payment," Leever says. Start gathering paperwork. Not everything about buying a house involves calculating numbers. You'll also want to start looking at paperwork with numbers on it. Yep, the fun never ends. So start gathering your federal income tax records for the past couple of years, recent paycheck stubs, canceled checks for rent or utility bill payments and any other paperwork a mortgage lender might want to see, like credit card and student loan information. Scout out where you want to live. It isn't enough to think you want to live in a certain geographical area, like the west side of the city. You really need to drill down. "Many neighborhoods are different and change from one block to another, so the purchaser should be aware of what their money will get in their favorite neighborhood," Barlavi says. Tax rates will be different in different communities, of course, so that's another consideration. There are some neighborhoods you may not be able to afford, so it's good to get a sense of that early on to avoid experiencing a huge letdown. Of course, you can wait until after a lender approves you for a mortgage, and you may want to wait until you've found a real estate agent to show you the ropes. But once you truly know you can afford to buy a house, driving around a neighborhood will start to make the idea of homebuying real -- and besides, it'll provide you with a much-needed break with a more enjoyable set of numbers: street numbers. It's far more fun imagining yourself living somewhere than envisioning how you'll pay for it.

FINRA ‘Aggressively’ Seeking BD Feedback on CARDS: Ketchum

Richard Ketchum, chairman and CEO of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, said Monday that while the self-regulator was moving ahead with its controversial Comprehensive Automated Risk Data System (CARDS) as it’s “the next step—and big leap forward—in the evolution” of FINRA’s risk-based regulatory programs, FINRA has created broker-dealer working groups and is "aggressively" seeking BD feedback to “get this right.”

Noting the more than 800 comment letters that FINRA received on its CARDS plan, Ketchum told the 1,000 attendees at FINRA’s annual conference in Washington that “your input is critical to us getting CARDS right. By giving us your feedback, you have an opportunity to contribute to the best solution possible. Please help us shape this.”

However, Ketchum said that while FINRA is “looking closely” at the cost and operational concerns that broker-dealers have raised, many commenters’ concerns “seem to me to be a tad one-sided.”

CARDS, Ketchum argued, “has the potential to be one of the most important investor protection tools to emerge in recent years,” and “strongly urged” BDs to view CARDS “through the broader lens of investor protection, rather than through the more narrow lens of how it affects your firm.”

That being said, Ketchum said that FINRA recognized “that costs tied to CARDS are a real issue for firms,” stating that’s FINRA has created a CARDS “pilot” and is talking to BDs about the “real, bottom-line impact” it may have on their firms.

CARDS would be a rule-based program that would allow FINRA to collect — on a standardized, automated and regular basis — account information, as well as account activity and security identification information that a firm maintains as part of its books and records.

CARDS, Ketchum said during his remarks, “will allow us to collect and manage data from firms in such a way that we can quickly identify trends and product concentrations that are harmful to investors and take swift, responsive action.”

The automated system would gather data from broker-dealers and clearing firms that the regulator can then use to spot potential problems with sales practices of individual BDs, branches and reps prior to onsite FINRA exams.

Indeed, Hardeep Walia, co-founder and CEO of Motif Investing and a member of both FINRA's Small-Firm Advisory Board and its Technology Advisory Committee, noted on a compliance panel after Ketchum’s speech that “there’s a lot of good that can come out of CARDS,” adding that “the power of CARDS is that it’s the next generation of regulation, which is technology.”

If “we can get it right and get safeguards around it, it will be the next-gen form of regulation” that other regulators can look to, he said.

Michelle Oroschakoff, chief risk officer of LPL Financial, noted on a separate panel on the top 10 regulatory issues that "if done right," CARDS "is going to be terrific" for the markets and for investors, allowing "more targeted [exam] sweeps." However, she said that advisors were already getting questions from their clients about CARDS regarding data privacy issues and that the "investing public is not as supportive of" CARDS as may have been thought. /* .premium-promo { border: 1px solid #ddd; padding: 10px; margin: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 200px; float: left; } .premium-promo li, .premium-promo ul { list-style-type: none; margin: 0; padding: 0; } .premium-promo li { margin: 0 0 10px; padding: 0 0 10px; border-bottom: 1px dotted #ddd; } .premium-promo h3 { text-transform: uppercase; font-size: 11px; } .premium-promo h4 { font-size: 16px; } .premium-promo a { text-decoration: none !important; } .premium-promo .btn { background: #0069a1; border-radius: 4px; display: inline-block; padding: 5px 10px; clear: both; color: #fff; font-weight: bold; } .premium-promo .btn:hover { background: #034c92; } */ BDs’ feedback has already changed the original CARDS plan, which was issued as a concept release.

After pushback, FINRA said in early March that it would modify its original approach by not collecting sensitive personally identifying information (PII) from the data it receives from CARDS, a point that Ketchum noted during his Monday remarks.

“We clarified that PII is not part of the proposal, so CARDS data will not include account names, addresses, tax IDs or Social Security numbers,” Ketchum said. “Thus, customer accounts will not be linked across firms. We know that CARDS will be effective without collecting this information.”

Ketchum said that the self-regulator has also heard BDs' concerns about the security “of such a large database.” However, Ketchum said that FINRA believes the security risk “is very low — and dispute[s] that CARDS could create systemic risk.”

Given that FINRA will not be collecting personally identifiable information, he said, “the chance that anyone could exploit what is, in effect, anonymous data for nefarious purposes is very small.”

But Paul Tolley, chief compliance officer of Commonwealth Financial Network, noted on a panel discussion about the top 10 regulatory issues that he's "not a fan" of CARDS, particularly due to its "privacy" concerns. "The sheer volume" of data in "such a huge database," if breached, could be a problem, he said. "There are some pretty sophisticated systems that have been breached," noting that such a breach of CARDS could spark market manipulation.

CARDS will also be launched “in stages,” Ketchum said, and the CARDS plan has been changed to allow firms to choose how they send data to FINRA. “You can send it to us through a clearing firm, you can send it to us through a service bureau or you can send it to us directly," he said. "It’s up to you.”

Firms raised concerns about having to send the data through clearing firms, with many BDs worrying about “the cost implications of working with a clearing firm, especially since nearly 2,000 firms don’t currently have clearing firm relationships,” Ketchum said.

While FINRA will provide firms with a “standardized file specification” for transmitting data, FINRA plans to permit “variability in the format of data related to suitability,” Ketchum said, which “stems from comments that introducing firms, in particular, use different terminology with respect to information about their customers.”

To address concerns about “direct business data and how the clearing firms would handle that data,” Ketchum noted that “in its initial phases, CARDS will not require firms to submit information about products not held at the firm,” such as variable annuities, direct participation programs and direct mutual funds. /* .premium-promo { border: 1px solid #ddd; padding: 10px; margin: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 200px; float: left; } .premium-promo li, .premium-promo ul { list-style-type: none; margin: 0; padding: 0; } .premium-promo li { margin: 0 0 10px; padding: 0 0 10px; border-bottom: 1px dotted #ddd; } .premium-promo h3 { text-transform: uppercase; font-size: 11px; } .premium-promo h4 { font-size: 16px; } .premium-promo a { text-decoration: none !important; } .premium-promo .btn { background: #0069a1; border-radius: 4px; display: inline-block; padding: 5px 10px; clear: both; color: #fff; font-weight: bold; } .premium-promo .btn:hover { background: #034c92; } */ In a later phase, however, Ketchum said that FINRA “may collect this kind of product information through CARDS, but that collection would be pursuant to additional rulemaking — which would provide us with ample opportunity to continue our dialogue and arrive at workable solutions.”

Ketchum also addressed the question of why FINRA doesn’t first tackle implementing the consolidated audit trail (CAT) before CARDS.

The short answer, Ketchum said: “Unlike CARDS, CAT will not contain the kind of critical information about customer risk appetites, investment objectives, cash movements, margin requirements and position data that we need for our sales practice reviews,” he said. “Moreover, CAT needs to function on a near real-time basis. CARDS does not. To have it do so would be light years more costly than our current proposal.”

Smaller U.S. Private Foundations Thrived in 2013

Private foundations with less than $50 million in assets saw their endowments grow in 2013 for the second consecutive year, Foundation Source, a service provider, reported Wednesday.

The growth in foundation endowments was the product of both a 14.7% increase in investment returns and a 7.9% rise in new contributions by funders.

Foundation assets grew even though charitable distributions exceeded the 5% minimum by nearly 50%, according to the report.

“These foundations have demonstrated time and time again that compliance with the 5% minimum distribution requirement is not what drives their philanthropy,” the report’s author Andrew Schulz said in a statement.

Foundation Source focused its report on smaller foundations in contrast to “mega foundations,” which make up just 2% of all foundations, yet represent some 70% of foundation assets.

It said that extrapolating data from these huge entities to the larger community could lead to significant misunderstandings about the overall sector.

The new report was based on the transactions of 714 Foundation Source clients, collected over the course of 2013. The data represented actual foundation transactions recorded by Foundation Source (not opinion surveys or estimates) as it processed grants and paid expenses on behalf of its U.S. clients and recorded investment information.

Researchers found that aggregate assets held by foundations sampled in the report grew from $2.4 billion at the end of 2012 to $2.7 billion at the end of last year, a 14.1% increase. Thirty-five percent of the foundations studied distributed 10% or more.

Smaller foundations have exceeded the 5% minimum distribution every year since the onset of the recession in 2008, according to Foundation Source.

The report found that despite sizeable disbursements, aggregate giving in real dollars was down by 2.5% in 2013 from a year earlier, suggesting that some of the foundations in the report had been in “rebuilding” mode.

This year’s report gave the lie to a notion that foundations rarely provide general operating support to grant recipients.

Foundations with less than $10 million in assets awarded almost as much in general support grants as they paid out in grants for specific projects.

However, the grant-making focus was different for larger groups. The report noted that foundations with $10 million to $50 million gave much more in specific purpose grants than general support grants by a ratio of 3 to 1.

This suggests that foundations gravitate toward project funding as their assets increase, Foundation Source said.

Organizations for education and ones for human services accounted for 46% of all grant dollars awarded by the foundations in the study. In 2013, these foundations awarded $42.8 million in grants to education groups and $25.7 million to human services organizations.

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Check out Endowments and Foundations Confident About Economy, Markets on ThinkAdvisor.

Countries with the widest gap between rich, poor

The United States of America — the land of opportunity — has the fourth most uneven income distribution in the developed world. Chile has the most unequal distribution of income, while Iceland tops the list as the most egalitarian.

The Gini index measures how much an economy deviates from perfect equality — where everyone has the same income. A score of zero indicates perfect equality, and a score of one indicates extreme inequality. Based index figures of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, these are the least equitable countries in the developed world.

Gini index scores can be measured before, as well as after, taxes and transfer payments. According to Chad Stone, chief economist at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, the economy alone determines pre-tax and transfer payment inequality. "It's the whole economy. It's the fact that different people have different skills," Stone said.

Chye-Ching Huang, senior tax policy analyst at CBPP, explained that tax policy can have a large impact on inequality. "Some countries do quite a lot in terms of various taxes and transfers to reduce inequality and other countries do quite little," Huang said.

One measure of how fiscal policy can effect income inequality is the difference in Gini index scores before and after tax and transfer payments. By this measure, the U.S. ranks as the fourth-worst country in the OECD for reducing income inequality. Other countries that fare poorly include Chile and Israel, the OECD's most and fifth-most unequal nations.

CBPP's Huang told 24/7 Wall St. that "reduction [of ] inequality and increased income in the bottom and middle leads to things like higher education of the workforce," which in turn improves an individual's ability to improve his economic status.

However, the relationship between education and inequality is not always clear. While countries that have low income inequality have educated workfo! rces, the opposite isn't necessarily true. The U.S. and Israel, two of the most unequal countries, were among the largest spenders on education as a percent of GDP in 2011. "There's something there that could happen over multi[ple] generations that can't be seen in a single year snapshot," Huang said.

Similarly, statistics on social spending differ considerably among highly unequal countries. Chile and Mexico, the two most unequal countries, respectively spent 10.2% and 7.4% of GDP on social services, less than nearly all other OECD countries. On the other hand, two other countries with high inequality levels, Spain and Portugal, were among the largest spenders on social services in the OECD.

Different sources offer different conclusions regarding the effects of inequality on economic growth. According to an International Monetary Fund (IMF) report, "Inequality continues to be a robust and powerful determinant both of the pace of medium-term growth and of the duration of growth spells." Meanwhile, a Center for American Progress report found that inequality's impact on growth was inconclusive.

Despite these differences, however, both reports argue that there were substantial reasons why the U.S should seek to meaningfully address inequality, including fairness and preserving opportunities for ordinary Americans to get ahead.

To determine the countries with the most uneven distribution of income, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed post-tax and transfer Gini index scores published by the OECD. We also consulted the CBPP's report, "What Do OECD Data Really Show About U.S. Taxes and Reducing Inequality?", which reviewed the same OECD data. We also considered data on GDP growth, education, job growth, gross fixed capital formation, as well as social and family spending, all from the OECD. Figures are from the most recently available year.

These are the countries with the widest gap between the rich and poor.

1. Chile

> Gini index – post tax & transfer: 0.501
> Soci! al spendi! ng, pct. of GDP: 10.2% (3rd lowest)
> Chg. in Gini after tax & transfer: 0.025 (the smallest)
> Job growth, 2013: n/a

Chile was the least equitable country in the OECD, with a Gini index score of 0.501, even after accounting for taxes and transfers. The history of Chile's economy has been shaped largely by Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship. While the Chilean government has been relatively stable since returning to democracy in 1990, and residents have among the highest standards of living in Latin America, social services were still a relatively small expense in the country. Total social spending amounted to just $1,733 per capita in 2010, less than in every country reviewed except for Mexico. Chile's GDP growth has actually been fairly strong in recent years. GDP grew 4.2% in 2013 from the year before, the highest growth rate among OECD countries.

2. Mexico

> Gini index – post tax & transfer: 0.466
> Social spending, pct. of GDP: 7.4% (the lowest)
> Chg. in Gini after tax & transfer: n/a
> Job growth, 2013: 1.1% (11th highest)

The Mexican government set aside the equivalent of just 7.4% of the nation's GDP for social programs, among the smallest budgets for social spending in the OECD. Total public spending on Mexican families equaled just 1.1% of GDP in 2009, less than half the average for the OECD. Low educational spending likely also did not promote income equality in Mexic. Nearly all educational institutions — from primary schools to research and development ones — were also relatively underfunded, spending less than $3,000 per student in 2010, the lowest in the OECD. Another factor driving up inequality may be the high levels of corruption in Mexico. Mexico was tied with Argentina as the most corrupt country in Latin America last year, according to Transparency International.

3. Turkey

> Gini index – post tax & transfer: 0.411
> Social spending, pct. of GDP: n/a
> Chg. in Gini after tax &! transfer! : n/a
> Job growth, 2013: n/a

Although still considered an emerging economy, Turkey has struggled in recent years with slowing growth and rising debt levels and other structural problems in the country's economy, including high levels of inequality. A number of factors likely contribute to the country's high inequality. For one, just 14% of the country's population ages 25 to 64 had a tertiary degree as of 2011, the lowest in the OECD where 31.5% of adults had such an education. Turkey has also struggled to fight poverty. According to the OECD, the number of children, young adults, and elderly residents living in poverty rose between 2007 and 2010. Government corruption and political turmoil are also concerns. Last summer's mass protests against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul's Taksim Square captured the world's attention and bred concerns about the country's future under Erdogan.

4. United States

> Gini index – post tax & transfer: 0.380
> Social spending, pct. of GDP: 20.0% (11th lowest)
> Chg. in Gini after tax & transfer: 0.119 (4th smallest)
> Job growth, 2013: 1.0% (14th highest)

Despite being one the world's wealthiest nations with the third highest GDP per capita in the OECD, the U.S. still had one of the developed world's largest income gaps. The U.S. spent the most of any member nation on education per student, at more than $22,700 annually as of 2010. The U.S. also had the fourth highest percentage of adults between 25 and 64 years old with a tertiary degree, at over 42%. Despite this, the country has struggled to keep workers in the labor force. In each of the last two years, labor force growth has been less than 1%, as Americans exited the workforce and the population continued to age.

5. Israel

> Gini index – post tax & transfer: 0.376
> Social spending, pct. of GDP: 15.8% (4th lowest)
> Chg. in Gini after tax & transfer: 0.125 (5th smallest)
> Job growth, 2013: 2.7% (2n! d highest! )

Israel was among the top spenders on educational institutions in 2010, spending 7.4% of GDP, more than all but a handful of nations. The government's interest in education seems to have paid off, as residents are generally quite well-educated. Nearly half of residents between 25 and 64 years old had attained a college degree as of 2011, higher than all but two other OECD countries. However, taxes and government programs had a relatively weak impact on inequality. The nation's Gini index dropped just 0.125 after taxes and transfers, considerably less than in most other countries. Additionally, government social spending totalled just 15.8% of GDP, lower than most OECD countries.

24/7 WALL ST.: The rest of the top 10 countries with the widest gap between rich, poor

24/7 Wall St. is a USA TODAY content partner offering financial news and commentary. Its content is produced independently of USA TODAY.

Euro Flounders, Aussie Slides in Quiet Forex

The euro edged a tad lower against several major currencies including the U.S. dollar to kick-off a subdued forex trading week, but it's the Australian dollar that was the star attraction on Tuesday as investors appear content to look elsewhere for elusive yield. Forex traders are biding their time, waiting for the outcome of the next Bank of Japan meeting on Wednesday, followed by the release of the Federal Reserve's minutes from its last policy meeting on Thursday.

In largely quiet trading in Europe, the Aussie dollar dropped below the psychological $0.93 cent mark after the Reserve Bank of Australia said it expects "interest rates will likely remain at record low levels for some time as the economy faces a slowdown in mining investments, cuts to government spending and weaker export growth." This has allowed the fixed-income teams to scale back Aussie rate expectations despite the AUD longs proving vulnerable to dovish central bank comments, short Aussie positions are proving to be an unattractive bet to many while volumes are so low (one-month 7.1%). With forex market interest dipping, the summer carry trade could prove profitable, as lethargic trading tends to drive volumes even lower.

Falling Bond Yields Rain Down

Last week's theme was the 'pain' trade – vulnerability of trades where positioning remained overweight/extreme – dominated by the long peripheral bond-trade exit. Throughout the various asset classes, speculators have been throwing in the towel either because of profit-taking (USD short) or short-covering (stocks and bonds). In the U.S., the market witnessed one of the biggest short-covering scrambles on U.S. bonds. For instance, the market became too bearish on U.S. 10′s – yields were supposed to back up with tapering and the market seems to have gotten ahead of itself while ignoring the lower-for-longer mantra somewhat. U.S. 10-year Treasurys are trading near +2.5%.

The same applies to the eurozone's periphery debt, with investors being too bullish, having priced in too much good news for Italian, Greek, and Spanish debt in particular. Last week closed out with yields aggressively backing up. This week's short-lived nature of buying would suggest that the market is somewhat uncomfortable to put new money to work in these areas; investors prefer to trim long positions. Do not underestimate the importance of bond yields to current forex positions. The correlation between JPY and U.S. 10-year yields seems to be back in play again today. With the latter slipping to a fresh day low of +2.535%, it has USD/JPY trading near its intraday low of ¥101.29 and EUR/JPY, which is also weighed down by heavy selling of EUR outright, falling to a fresh three-month low of ¥138.55.

British Inflation Rises

As expected, fresh data delivered a higher U.K. inflation number this morning. The April number at +1.8%, year-over-year, was slightly above March's +1.6%, however, the print is unlikely to influence Governor Mark Carney at the Bank of England (BoE) on rates. The rise was mainly due to the base effects. Easter was in late April versus March last year, and transport costs typically rise over the holiday period. Lower commodity prices and a stronger pound (£1.6830) would suggest that inflation is likely to remain subdued for some months. Expect the BoE to be watching the key variable wages over the coming months – more jobs and higher wages could fuel inflation.

The U.K. headline print saw gilt sellers extend futures losses, while cash 10′s moved through February's base of +2.592%, and with momentum, the technicals could open up to test the top yield of +2.64% of the same month. Cable did threaten £1.6871 immediately after the print; however, subsequent profit-taking on GBP longs has managed to push the currency back by 50 cents. Many do expect the BoE's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) to act next month by tightening lending criteria — expect June 26 to have the market's full attention for those revelations. A rate hike is still being priced in for the second quarter of 2015, but the focus for the interim remains on "macro-prudential measures as opposed to rate hikes."

Do not be surprised to see some cautious buying ahead of the release of tomorrow's MPC minutes. The minutes will provide a better indication of the spectrum of views within the MPC as "to spare capacity and the size of the minority supporting earlier tightening."

This article is for general information purposes only. It is not investment advice or a solution to buy or sell securities. Opinions are the authors; not necessarily that of OANDA Corporation or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, officers or directors. Leveraged trading is high risk and not suitable for all. You could lose all of your deposited funds.

Meet India's Newly Elected: They're Charged With Murder, Robbery, Kidnapping And More

The right wing Bharatiya Janata Party, which last week won a thumping majority in the 543-seat Indian parliament to form the next government under its Prime Minister -elect Narendra Modi, had campaigned on promises of good governance–especially after a series of allegations of graft under the previous Sonia Gandhi-led UPA government that was routed in the recent elections. But clearly it didn't take a good look at its own candidates as more incoming legislators than in the previous government are charged with a variety of crimes including murder, attempt to murder, communal disharmony, kidnapping, crimes against women, amongst others, according to a democracy watchdog.

The Association for Democratic Reforms sourced the data from the sworn affidavits that the candidates had filed with the Election Commission of India. (You can see its full report here.)

In an analysis of the 541 lawmakers who won the elections (the documents submitted by the two remaining candidates were poorly scanned and hence illegible, ADR says), it found that 186 or 34% of the winners have criminal cases pending against them, up from 30% in the last government that was elected in 2009.

(According to ADR's party-wise break up, 98 of BJP's 281 winners have a range of criminal cases against them pending, in comparison to 8 of Congress's 44 winners.)

Within those 186 winners, 112 (or 21%) lawmakers have cases related to murder, attempt to murder, communal disharmony, kidnapping, crimes against women pending against them. This is up from 77 winners or 15% in the previous government

Of the nine winners who have cases relating to murder against them, four are from the BJP and one from the Congress.

Seventeen winners have cases related to attempt to murder outstanding. Of these, 10 winners are from the BJP.

Of the 16 winners with cases related to causing communal disharmony 12  are from the BJP.

Of the 10 winners with cases related to robbery and dacoity, seven are from the BJP.

Of the seven winners cases related to kidnapping, three are from the BJP.

ADR's analysis also found that in India it pays to be a criminal. Reason: candidates with criminal record had a 13% chance of winning, almost three times higher than the 5% chance to win for candidates with clean records.

And money also matters. Of the 541 winners analyzed , 442 (82%) are millionaires (in Indian rupees), up from 300 in the 2009 elections. Within this group, 237 were from BJP's 281 winners and 35 from Congress's 44 winners.

Age and education of their lawmakers has mattered to an extent to the Indian electorate.

Of the winners, 202 (37%) lawmakers are between the ages of 25 and 50 while the majority 298 (55%) are between 51 and 70 years old, with a tiny 41 (8%) winners are above the age of 71.

One winning lawmaker (from the regional Telugu Desam Party) is illiterate while 23% or 125 winners are high school graduates, at most. Another 405 winners (or 75%) have college degrees, at least.

On the gender front, despite women's issues being one of the key campaigning platforms in this election, of the 541 winners, a tiny 11% or 62 women won. This was marginally higher than the 2009 elections where 57 winners were women. According to this report, this will make it the highest number of women lawmakers in Indian history. (However, at the same time, the newly elected lower house of Parliament will also have the least number of Muslim lawmakers in 50 years: only 22 Muslims have won, less than the 29 in the last election in 2009.)

Top Rising Companies To Buy For 2015

Delta Air Lines (DAL) announced a deal on Friday to equip every single flight attendant with a Nokia (NOK) Lumia 820 running the Microsoft (MSFT) Windows Phone operating system (OS). I was bursting with excitement, expecting Nokia's stock to fly higher on this news, but it barely reacted. The reason is amazingly none of the sell-side picked up on this news, and neither did any of the major financial news providers such as Bloomberg. Unsurprisingly, Nokia did not make an announcement so the sell-side in Europe, which is notoriously quiet on a lazy Friday afternoon in August, just did not pick up this important catalyst. Maybe the Street was too focused on trying to interpret the significance of Ballmer leaving Microsoft. Either way this news is hugely significant and a major positive indicator of the potential of the Microsoft Windows Phone OS as delivered by Nokia's Lumia phones for enterprise customers.

This news needs to be interpreted to explain its significance as no doubt a skeptical sell-side will focus on the absolute volume of Lumia phones sold in this deal rather than recognizing the significance of the adoption.

Top Rising Companies To Buy For 2015: Amarin Corporation PLC(AMRN)

Amarin Corporation Plc, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, focuses on developing treatments for cardiovascular diseases. Its lead product candidate includes AMR101, a prescription grade omega-3 fatty acid, which is in second Phase III clinical trial for the treatment of high triglyceride levels in statin-treated patients who have mixed dyslipidemia. The company, formerly known as Ethical Holdings plc, was founded in 1989 and is based in Dublin, Ireland.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Lauren Pollock]

  Amarin Corp.(AMRN) said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has delayed a decision on its request for reconsideration of a special protocol assessment agreement related to its Vascepa drug. Shares declined 9.2% to $2.18 premarket.

Top Rising Companies To Buy For 2015: Bowl America Inc (BWL.A)

Bowl America Incorporated, incorporated in July 22, 1958, is engaged in the entertainment business. The Company operates in one segment. Its principal source of revenue consists of fees charged for the use of bowling lanes and other facilities and from the sale of food and beverages for consumption on the premises. Merchandise sales, including food and beverages, were approximately 30% of operating revenues. The balance of operating revenues (approximately 70%) represents fees for bowling and related services. During the fiscal year ended July, 1 2012 (fiscal 2012), the Company and its wholly owned subsidiaries operated 19 bowling centers. These 19 bowling centers contain a total of 756 lanes. As of September 1, 2012 the Company and its subsidiaries operated 10 bowling centers in the greater metropolitan area of Washington, D.C., one bowling center in the metropolitan area of Baltimore, Maryland, one bowling center in Orlando, Florida, three bowling centers in the metropolitan area of Jacksonville, Florida, and four bowling centers in the metropolitan area of Richmond, Virginia.

These establishments are air-conditioned with facilities for service of food and beverages, game rooms, rental lockers, and meeting room facilities. All centers provide shoes for rental, and bowling balls are provided free. In addition, each center retails bowling accessories. Most locations are equipped for glow-in-the-dark bowling, popular for parties and non-league bowling. The bowling equipment essential for the Company's operation is readily available. Two of the Company's bowling centers are located in leased premises, and the remaining seventeen centers are owned by the Company.

The Company competes with Brunswick Corporation and AMF Bowling Worldwide, Inc.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Fredrik Arnold]

  The balance of the top ten included one technology firm, AT&T Inc. (T) in fourth place; one consumer goods, Altria Group Inc. (MO), placed fifth; Bowl America Class A (BWL.A) in seventh place was the lone service dog. Two utilities, Northwest Natural Gas (NWN), and Consolidated Edison (ED), in ninth and tenth places completed the representation of market sectors in the champions index.

Hot Mid Cap Companies To Invest In Right Now: SPS Commerce Inc.(SPSC)

SPS Commerce, Inc. provides on-demand supply chain management solutions worldwide. It offers integration, collaboration, connectivity, visibility, and data analytics over the Internet using a software-as-a-service model. SPS Commerce, Inc. provides its solutions through SPSCommerce.net, a hosted software suite that enables suppliers, retailers, distributors, and other customers to manage and fulfill orders. The company?s platform delivers various solutions to suppliers and retailers, including trading partner integration, trading partner enablement, trading partner intelligence, and various peripheral solutions. It also operates Retail Universe, a collaborative online Website that facilitates relationships and communications with members of the retail ecosystem. The company was formerly known as St. Paul Software, Inc. and changed its name to SPS Commerce, Inc. in May 2001. SPS Commerce, Inc. was incorporated in 1987 and is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By CRWE]

  SPS Commerce (Nasdaq:SPSC), a leading provider of on-demand supply chain management solutions, and Wicresoft, a leading global IT solution service provider specializing in providing consulting, information technology and business process outsourcing, and IT infrastructure services, have partnered to provide supply chain solutions in China, Hong Kong and Japan.

Top Rising Companies To Buy For 2015: Nortech Systems Incorporated(NSYS)

Nortech Systems Incorporated operates as a contract manufacturing company. It manufactures wire harness cable and printed circuit board assemblies, electronic sub-assemblies, higher level assemblies, and complete devices. The company also provides value added services and technical support, including design, testing, prototyping, and supply chain management; and repair services on circuit boards used in machines in the medical industry. In addition, it engages in the design, manufacture, and post-production service of electronic and electromechanical medical devices for diagnostic, analytical, and other life-science applications. Nortech Systems Incorporated serves various industries that include aerospace and defense; medical; and the industrial markets, which include industrial equipment, transportation, vision, agriculture, and oil and gas. The company markets its products through sales force and independent manufacturers? representatives. Nortech Systems Incorporated was founded in 1981 and is headquartered in Wayzata, Minnesota.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By James E. Brumley]

  In a perfect world stocks would move in predictable, manageable ways. We don't live - nor do we trade in - a perfect world. In the real world we have to adapt to and deal with the curve balls the market throws us, and there are no two stocks that illustrate that point better than Document Security Systems, Inc. (NYSEMKT:DSS) and Nortech Systems Incorporated (NASDAQ:NSYS) to today. While both NSYS and DSS are up today, one's overbought and ripe for a pullback, while the other is likely at the beginning of a trade-worthy rally.

Top Rising Companies To Buy For 2015: Nelnet Inc (NNI)

Nelnet, Inc.,incorporated on December 21, 1977,is an education services company focused primarily on providing fee-based processing services and education-related products and services in four core areas: asset management and finance, loan servicing, payment processing, and enrollment services (education planning). The Company's products and services help students and families plan, prepare and pay for their education and make the administrative and financial processes more efficient for schools and financial organizations.

In addition, the Company earns interest income on a portfolio of federally insured student loans. The Company's operating segments include: Student Loan and Guaranty Servicing, Tuition Payment Processing and Campus Commerce, Enrollment Services and Asset Generation and Management.

Student Loan and Guaranty Servicing

The primary service offerings of Student Loan and Guaranty Servicing segment includes Servicing FFELP loans, Originating and servicing non-federally insured student loans, Servicing federally-owned student loans for the Department of Education, Servicing and outsourcing services for FFELP guaranty agencies, including FFELP guaranty collection services and Providing student loan servicing software and other information technology products and services. The Student Loan and Guaranty Servicing operating segment provides for the servicing of the Company's student loan portfolio and the portfolios of third parties. The loan servicing activities include loan conversion activities, application processing, borrower updates, payment processing, due diligence procedures, funds management reconciliations, and claim processing.

Although similar in terms of activities and functions as FFELP servicing (i.e., disbursement processing, application processing, payment processing, statement distribution, and reporting), non-federally insured loan servicing activities are not required to comply with provisions of the Higher Education Act ! and may be more customized to individual client requirements. The Company serviced non-federally insured loans on behalf of approximately 20 third-party servicing customers as of December 31, 2012.

The Student Loan and Guaranty Servicing operating segment provides servicing support for guaranty agencies, which are the organizations that serve as the intermediary between the United States federal government and FFELP lenders, and are responsible for paying the claims made on defaulted loans. The Department has designated approximately 30 guarantors that have been formed as either state agencies or non-profit corporations that provide FFELP guaranty services in one or more states. Approximately half of these guarantors contract externally for operational or technology services. The services provided by the Company include providing software and data center services, borrower and loan updates, default aversion tracking services, claim processing services, and post-default collection services. A portion of guaranty servicing revenue earned by the Company relates to rehabilitating delinquent loans (collection services).

The Student Loan and Guaranty Servicing operating segment provides student loan servicing software, which is used internally by the Company and licensed to third-party student loan holders and servicers. These software systems have been adapted so that they can be offered as hosted servicing software solutions that can be used by third-parties to service various types of student loans, including Private, Federal Direct Loan Program, and FFEL Program loans. The Company earns a monthly fee from its remote hosting customers for each borrower on the Company's platform, with a minimum monthly charge for contracts.

Tuition Payment Processing and Campus Commerce

The Company's Tuition Payment Processing and Campus Commerce operating segment provides products and services to help students and families manage the payment of education costs at all leve! ls.It als! o provides education-focused technologies, services, and support solutions to help schools with the everyday challenges of collecting and processing commerce data. The Company's financial needs assessment service serves over 3,600 schools and dioceses, helps schools evaluate and determine the amount of grants and financial aid to disburse to the families it serves. The Company's donor services allow schools to assess and deliver strategic fundraising solutions using the latest technology.

The higher education market consists of nearly 4,400 colleges and universities. The Company offers two principal products to the higher education market: actively managed tuition payment plans, and campus commerce technologies and payment processing.

The Company has actively managed tuition payment plans in place at approximately 650 colleges and universities. Higher education institutions contract with the Company to administer payment plans that allow the student and family to make monthly payments on either a semester or annual basis. The Company collects a fee from the student or family as an administration fee.

The Company's suite of campus commerce solutions provides services that allow for families' electronic billing and payment of campus charges. Campus commerce includes cashiering for face-to-face transactions, campus-wide commerce management, and refunds management, among others.

Enrollment Services

The Enrollment Services segment offers products and services that are focused on helping colleges recruit and retain students and helping students plan and prepare for life after high school and military service. The primary products and services the Company offers as part of the Enrollment Services segment: Inquiry Generation - Inquiry generation services include delivering qualified inquiries or clicks to third-party customers, primarily higher education institutions, Inquiry Management (Agency) services, which include managing the marketin! g activit! ies for third-party customers, primarily higher education institutions, in order to provide qualified inquiries or clicks, Inquiry Management (Software) services, which include the licensing of software to third-party customers, primarily higher education institutions, Digital marketing services include interactive services to connect students to colleges and universities and are sold primarily based on subscriptions. Digital marketing services also include editing services for admission essays. Content Solutions - Content solutions includes test preparation study guides, school directories and databases, career exploration guides, on-line courses, scholarship search and selection data, career planning, and on-line information about colleges and universities. Its Content solutions includes providing list marketing services to help higher education institutions and businesses reach the middle school, high school, college bound high school, college, and young adult market places.

Asset Generation and Management Operating Segment

The Asset Generation and Management segment includes the acquisition, management, and ownership of the Company's student loan assets, which was historically the Company's product and service offering. The Company generates a substantial portion of its earnings from the spread, referred to as the Company's student loan spread, between the yield it receives on its student loan portfolio and the associated costs to finance such portfolio. The student loan assets are held in a series of education lending subsidiaries and associated securitization trusts designed specifically for this purpose. In addition to the student loan spread earned on its portfolio, all costs and activity associated with managing the portfolio, such as servicing of the assets and debt maintenance, are included in this segment.

Student loans consist of federally insured student loans and non-federally insured student loans. Federally insured student loans were made un! der the F! FEL Program. The Higher Education Act regulates every aspect of the federally insured student loan program, including certain communications with borrowers, loan originations, and default aversion.

The Company competes with SLM Corporation, reat Lakes Educational Loan Services Inc. (Great Lakes), Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency (PHEAA), and Sallie Mae.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Victor Selva]

  We can appreciate that Capital One麓s ROE is lower than that of American Express, Discover Financial Services, First Cash Financial Services (FCFS) and Nelnet Inc. (NNI).

10 Best Food Stocks To Own Right Now

NEW YORK (AP) ��Pizza Hut plans to start offering pizza by the slice for the first time in two test locations this week, as the chain looks to keep pace with trendy competitors offering quick, made-to-order pies.

The chain says the two locations ��one in York, Neb. and Pawtucket, R.I. ��will open on Tuesday.

A slice will cost between $2 and $3 and take three to four minutes to heat up. They'll be made with new recipes more in line with the thinner pies sold in the Northeast.

The tests reflect how established restaurant chains are scrambling to reinvent themselves to keep pace with a rapidly changing industry. Diners are increasingly flocking to places such as Chipotle, where they feel they can get restaurant-quality food for just a little more than they would pay at fast-food chains such as Burger King.

10 Best Food Stocks To Own Right Now: Campbell Soup Co (CPB)

Campbell Soup Company (Campbell), incorporated on November 23, 1922, together with its subsidiaries, is a manufacturer and marketer of branded convenience food products. The Company operates in five segments: U.S. Simple Meals; Global Baking and Snacking; International Simple Meals and Beverages; U.S. Beverages; and North America Foodservice. In June 2012, the Company purchased 1300 Admiral Wilson Boulevard in Camden. On August 6, 2012, the Company completed the acquisition of BF Bolthouse Holdco LLC (Bolthouse Farms). In September 2012, Vilmorin & Cie SA acquired the tomato and pepper breeding and sales business of the Company. In June 2013, Campbell Soup Co completed the acquisition of Plum Organics. In August 2013, Campbell Soup Company completed the acquisition of Kelsen Group A/S.

In the United States, Canada and Latin America, the Company�� products are resold to consumers in retail food chains, mass discounters, mass merchandisers, club stores, convenience stores, drug stores, dollar stores and other retail, commercial and non-commercial establishments. In Europe, the Company�� products are resold to consumers in retail food chains, mass discounters, mass merchandisers, club stores, convenience stores and other retail, commercial and non-commercial establishments. In the Asia Pacific region, the Company�� products are resold to consumers through retail food chains, convenience stores and other retail, commercial and non-commercial establishments.

U.S. Simple Meals

The U.S. Simple Meals segment aggregates the operating segments: U.S. Soup and U.S. Sauces. The U.S. Soup retail business includes the products, such as Campbell�� condensed and ready-to-serve soups, and Swanson broth and stocks. The U.S. Sauces retail business includes Pregopasta sauces, Pace Mexican sauces, Campbell�� canned gravies, pasta, and beans, and Swanson canned poultry.

Global Baking and Snacking

The Global Baking and Snacking segment include Pepperi! dge Farm cookies, crackers, bakery and frozen products in the United States retail. It also includes Arnott�� biscuits in Australia and Asia Pacific.

International Simple Meals and Beverages

The International Simple Meals and Beverages segment aggregates the simple meals and beverages operating segments outside of the United States, including Europe, the retail business in Canada, and the businesses in Asia Pacific, Latin America and China. The segment�� operations include Erasco and Heisse Tasse soups in Germany,Liebig and Royco soups in France, Devos Lemmens mayonnaise and cold sauces and Campbell�� and Royco soups in Belgium, and Bla Band soups and sauces in Sweden. In Canada, operations include Habitant and Campbell�� soups, Prego pasta sauces, Pace Mexican sauces, V8 juices and beverages and certain Pepperidge Farm products. In Asia Pacific, operations include Campbell�� soup and stock, Kimball sauces, V8 juices and beverages, Prego pasta sauce and Swanson broths.

U.S. Beverages

The U.S. Beverages segment represents the United States retail beverages business, including V8 juices and beverages, and Campbell�� tomato juice.

North America Foodservice

The North America Foodservice segment represents the distribution of products, such as soup, specialty entrees, beverage products, other prepared foods and Pepperidge Farm products through food service channels in the United States and Canada.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By DAILYFINANCE]

  Susan Walsh/APCalifornia Olive Oil Council Executive Director Patricia Darragh. WASHINGTON -- It's a pressing matter for the tiny U.S. olive oil industry: American shoppers more often are going for European imports, which are cheaper and viewed as more authentic. And that's pitting U.S. producers against importers of the European oil, with some likening the battle to the California wine industry's struggles to gain acceptance decades ago. The tiny California olive industry says European olive oil filling U.S. shelves often is mislabeled and lower-grade oil, and they're pushing the federal government to give more scrutiny to imported varieties. One congressman-farmer even goes so far as suggesting labels on imported oil say "extra rancid" rather than "extra virgin." Imposing stricter standards might help American producers grab more market share from the Europeans, who produce in bulk and now have 97 percent of the U.S. market. Olive oil production is growing steadily. The domestic industry, with mostly high-end specialty brands, has gone from 1 percent of the national olive oil market five years ago to 3 percent today. Most of the production is in California, although there are smaller operations in Texas, Georgia and a few other states. Seeking to build on that, the domestic industry has mounted an aggressive push in Washington, holding olive oil tastings for members of Congress and lobbying them to put stricter standards on imports. The strategy almost worked last year when industry-proposed language became part of a massive farm bill passed out of the House Agriculture Committee. The provision backed by California lawmakers would have allowed the Agriculture Department to extend mandatory quality controls for the domestic industry to imports. The bill's language would have allowed government testing of domestic and imported olive oil to ensure that it was labeled correctly. That testing, intended to prevent labeling lower-grade olive oil as "extra

• [By DAILYFINANCE]

  David J. Phillip/APSysco's Houston corporate office. HOUSTON -- One of the largest food supply companies is buying one of its key rivals, creating an even larger, global distribution company. Sysco is buying privately held US Foods for about $3.5 billion in cash and stock. When the deal closes, Sysco expects the addition of US Foods to boost its annual sales by about 46 percent to around $65 billion. Sysco shares jumped as much as 26 percent Monday, setting an all-time high. Houston's Sysco will pay $3 billion in common stock and $500 million in cash. It will also assume or refinance about $4.7 billion in debt. That puts the total value of the deal at about $8.2 billion. Sysco President and CEO Bill DeLaney said that the two companies have highly complementary core strengths including large product portfolios. For the fiscal year that ended in June, Sysco's sales totaled $44.41 billion. It trucks food and cooking supplies to about 425,000 customers through 193 locations in the U.S., Bahamas, Canada, Ireland and Northern Ireland. US Foods' customers include independent and chain restaurants, health care and hospitality companies, and government and educational institutions. Major stakeholders in the company, based just outside of Chicago, in Rosemont, Ill., include Clayton, Dubilier & Rice and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. Representatives from both of those investment firms will join Sysco's board. When the deal closes, US Foods shareholders will own about 87 million shares, or about 13 percent, of Sysco's common stock. The buyout has been approved by the boards of both companies. Sysco said it expects the deal, which is set to close in the third calendar quarter of 2014, to immediately boost its profit after adjusting for acquisition-related costs and expenses. It's also expected to create annual cost savings of at least $600 million after three or four years. Moody's Investors Service placed all of Sysco's ratings, including its investment-g

• [By Reuters]

  Katherine Frey/The Washington Post via Getty Images SAN ANTONIO -- Mexican restaurants in the United States are being squeezed by a sudden jump in the price of limes, an essential ingredient, which has led managers in places like San Antonio that are a hotbed for the cuisine to alter recipes. "Mexico received some heavy rains that destroyed a large amount of the lime crop, so with limited supplies we are seeing lime prices skyrocket," Bryan Black, director of communications for the Texas Department of Agriculture, said on Thursday. Texas like most U.S. states receives most of their limes form Mexico. John Berry, who runs La Fonda, a prominent Mexican restaurant in San Antonio, said Thursday the price he pays for a case of limes has jumped to nearly $100 from $14 last year. "Real simple," Berry said. "We don't buy them. We substitute lemons." Limes are used in guacamole and to garnish beers. Serving a margarita without a lime garnish is burning at the heart of Louis Barrios, who runs the family-owned Mexican restaurant chain "Los Barrios." But he's doing without. "Ninety nine percent of the time, people don't squeeze it into the margarita anyway," Barrios says. A combination of factors has prompted the spike in lime prices. Most limes consumed in the United States come from the Mexican states of Oaxaca, Colima, and Guerrero, which have been hit by an unusual combination of cold weather and flooding, wholesalers said. Shipments have also been disrupted by violence attributed to drug gangs, they said. The high prices aren't expected to end any time soon, according to wholesalers. Pre-made soups can contain a large number of ingredients containing GMOs. For instance, Campbell's (CPB) popular condensed Tomato Soup lists high fructose corn syrup as its second biggest ingredient. According to the Non-GMO Project, nearly 88 percent of all corn planted in the United States is GMO.

• [By Matt Thalman]

  While the major indexes all fell today, one industry in particular experienced some major moves itself. The food industry had a number of companies that dropped by more than 1% today. Shares of J.M. Smucker (NYSE: SJM  ) fell 6.54%, while Campbell Soup (NYSE: CPB  ) dropped 1.53%, and Hormel Foods (NYSE: HRL  ) declined 2.7%. So what caused the declines?

10 Best Food Stocks To Own Right Now: Post Holdings Inc (POST)

Post Holdings, Inc., incorporated on September 22, 2011, is a holding company. The Company is a manufacturer, marketer and distributor of branded ready-to-eat cereals in the United States and Canada. The Company�� portfolio of brands includes Honey Bunches of Oats, Pebbles, Great Grains, Grape-Nuts, Shredded Wheat, Raisin Bran, Golden Crisp, Alpha-Bits and Honeycomb. It markets and sells ready-to-eat cereal products in three different categories: sweetened, balanced and unsweetened. Its sweetened products include Pebbles, Honeycomb, Golden Crisp, Alpha-Bits and Waffle Crisp. Its balanced products include Honey Bunches of Oats, Post Selects, Great Grains and Shreddies. The Company�� unsweetened products include Post Shredded Wheat, Post Raisin Bran and Grape-Nuts. Effective January 1, 2014, the Company announced it has completed the acquisition of private label pasta manufacturer Dakota Growers Pasta Company, Inc. Effective January 2, 2014, Post Holdings Inc acquired Agricore United Holdings Inc from Viterra Inc, a unit of Glencore Xstrata PLC, and the transaction also included Dakota Growers Pasta Company, Inc. Effective January 1, 2014, Post Holdings Inc acquired Dymatize Enterprises LLC, a Farmers Branch-based manufacturer and wholesaler of nutrition supplement. Effective January 1, 2014, it acquired Dymatize Enterprises LLC and Golden Boy Foods Ltd.

Honey Bunches of Oats is in the ready-to-eat cereal market. The Company�� Pebbles brands include Cocoa and Fruity Pebbles. The products are manufactured through a flexible production platform consisting of four owned primary facilities and sold through a variety of channels, such as grocery stores, mass merchandisers, club stores, and drug stores.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Matt Brownell]

  General MillsFrute Brute and Yummy Mummy will return to the shelves this fall with an updated look. The Mummy rises again. That would be Fruity Yummy Mummy, to be exact. The "monster cereal" was discontinued by General Mills back in 1992, but the company announced this week that it will bring it back for Halloween. Another discontinued cereal, Frute Brute, will also rise again for the first time since it left shelves back in 1982. They'll join three other monster cereals that still haunt the shelves: Frankenberry, Boo Berry and Count Chocula. (Count Chocula, like its namesake, is evidently immortal.) But all five will receive updated box art to reflect a more modern cartoon style than the original 1970s versions. (Think less "Superfriends," more "Frankenweenie.") For fans of the original look, though, we've got good news: Target (TGT) will exclusively carry "retro" packaging of the cereals, which are sure to become collector's items and flood eBay (EBAY) in the months to come. General Mills says the cereals will roll out select retailers "soon," with nationwide distribution coming in early September. Unfortunately, the company says it will be a "seasonal, limited time run," so we recommend stocking up if you find yourself falling in love with Fruit Brute all over again. Here's hoping that this starts a trend of General Mills (GIS), Post (POST) and other companies bringing back their old discontinued cereals. My favorite cereal growing up was Big Mix, which had raisins and panoply of grains, and whose mascot was some unholy creature combining the features of a moose, wolf, chicken and pig. And who could forget such discontinued classics as French Toast Crunch or Pop-Tarts Crunch? If you feel like taking a walk down memory lane, let us know in the comments which discontinued cereal you'd love to eat again.

• [By Maureen Farrell]

  The first bit came from Herbalife bull William Stiritz, the CEO of Post Holdings(POST).

  The market has viewed Post as a potential buyer of Herbalife, after Post’s CEO William Stiritz personally purchased a 6.7% stake in Herbalife. Last week one of�Wall Street’s most bullish analysts�on Herbalife joined Post Holdings as an adviser, raising even more questions about whether the cereal company might bid for Herbalife.

Hot Gas Stocks To Own For 2015: Etablissementen Fr Colruyt NV (COLR)

Etablissementen Fr Colruyt NV, also known as Colruyt Group, is a Belgian company primarily engaged in retail and wholesale of food products. The Company's retail trade division includes the direct supply of products to retail customers operating through brands Colruyt, DreamBaby, BIO-planet, DreamLand and ColliShop, among others. The Company supplies to wholesalers and affiliated independent merchants in Belgium, France and Luxembourg. It also provides printing solutions (photo Fuji Colruyt). Colruyt Group also has a corporate activities division, which combines support services, processes and systems and central administration, among others. Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Corinne Gretler]

  Colruyt (COLR) gained 8.3 percent to 40.08 euros, the largest jump since June 27, 2012. Belgium�� biggest discount food retailer said full-year earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization amounted to 699.8 million euros ($910 million), beating the average 684 million-euro analyst projection in a Bloomberg survey. The company also raised its dividend to 1 euro a share, exceeding the Bloomberg Dividend Forecast of 98 cents.

• [By Tom Stoukas]

  Colruyt SA (COLR) fell 4 percent to 42.31 euros. Belgium�� largest discount food retailer forecast full-year net income of about 369 million euros ($498 million) compared with analysts�� estimates of 381.2 million euros.

10 Best Food Stocks To Own Right Now: Nestle SA (NESN)

Nestle SA is a Swiss Company engaged in the nutrition, health and wellness sectors. It is the holding company of the Nestle Group, which comprises subsidiaries, associated companies and joint ventures throughout the world. It has such business units as Food and Beverage, Nestle Waters and Nestle Nutrition. It is also active in the pharmaceutical sector. It divides its products into Powdered and liquid beverages, Water, Milk products and Ice cream, Nutrition, Prepared dishes and cooking aids, Confectionery, PetCare and Pharmaceutical products. In February 2011, the Company acquired CM&D Pharma Ltd. Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Corinne Gretler]

  Swiss stocks fell for a second day, their first back-to-back losses this month, as Nestle (NESN) SA retreated after reporting slower growth in sales.

10 Best Food Stocks To Own Right Now: McCormick & Company Inc (MKC)

McCormick & Company, Incorporated (McCormick) manufactures, markets and distributes spices, seasoning mixes, condiments and other flavorful products to the food industry, retail outlets, food manufacturers and foodservice businesses. The Company�� sales, distribution and production facilities are located in North America and Europe. Additional facilities are based in China, Australia, Mexico, India, Singapore, Central America, Thailand and South Africa. The Company operates in two business segments: consumer and industrial. During the fiscal year ended November 30, 2011, the Company�� consumer business contributed 59% of sales and 79% of operating income and the industrial business contributed 41% of sales and 21% of operating income.

McCormick�� products are sold directly to customers and also through brokers, wholesalers, and distributors. In the consumer segment, products are resold to consumers through a range of retail outlets, including grocery, mass merchandise, warehouse clubs, discount, and drug stores under a range of brands. In the industrial segment, products are used by food and beverage manufacturers as ingredients for their finished goods and by food service customers as ingredients for menu items to enhance the flavor of their foods. Customers for the industrial segment include food manufacturers and the foodservice industry supplied both directly and indirectly through distributors.

Consumer Business

The Company�� brands in the Americas include McCormick, Lawry�� and Club House. The Company also markets brands, such as Zatarain��, Thai Kitchen and Simply Asia. In Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) its brands include the Ducros, Schwartz and Kamis brands of spices, herbs and seasonings and a line of Vahine brand dessert items. In the Asia/Pacific region its primary brand is McCormick, with the exception of India where its joint venture owns and trades under the Kohinoor brand. The Company�� customers span a variety of retail o! utlets that include grocery, mass merchandise, warehouse clubs, discount and drug stores, served directly and indirectly through distributors or wholesalers. In addition to marketing its products to these customers, the Company is also a supplier of private label items, also known as store brands. More than 250 other brands are sold in the United States with additional brands in international markets.

Industrial Business

In its industrial business, the Company provides a range of products to multinational food manufacturers and foodservice customers. The foodservice customers are supplied both directly and indirectly through distributors. Its range of products include seasoning blends, natural spices and herbs, wet flavors, coating systems and compound flavors. In addition to a broad range of flavor solutions, we strive to achieve customer intimacy.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Caroline Bennett]

  McCormick (NYSE: MKC  ) has named Lawrence Kurzius president, global consumer and chief administrative officer.

  Kurzius will take the position July 1, the company announced today. He will be responsible for McCormick's global consumer business, along with a number of corporate tasks such as IT, R&D, and quality assurance. Additionally, Kurzius will take over the chair of McCormick's Global Consumer Strategy Council.

• [By Reuters]

  Toby Talbot/AP NEW YORK -- A voluntary effort by the world's largest food and beverage companies to remove billions of calories from the products they sell in the United States to help combat the nation's obesity epidemic has far exceeded its five-year goal, according to an independent evaluation released Thursday. In May 2010, 16 of the nation's biggest food and beverage companies, from Coca-Cola (KO) to Kraft Foods Group (KRFT), pledged to remove 1 trillion calories from the U.S. marketplace by 2012 and 1.5 trillion by 2015, compared with a 2007 baseline. In fact, as of 2012 they sold 6.4 trillion fewer calories, found an analysis by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "Reports like this, and the fact that they exceeded their commitment by fourfold, really shows that you can make progress in giving American families more healthy options," said Larry Soler, president of the Partnership for a Healthier America, a non-profit chaired by first lady Michelle Obama. The group was formed in 2010 to work with the private sector on anti-obesity strategies. At the time, critics said the Partnership relied too heavily on the good will of the industry and couldn't replace the role of tighter regulation on how food is manufactured and marketed. Such voluntary efforts by industry "are not a magic bullet," said Jeff Levi, executive director of Trust for America's Health, a non-profit policy group. "Particularly with kids, there is a role for regulation" in reducing demand for unhealthy, high-calorie fare. It isn't clear yet how the companies accomplished the dramatic calorie reduction, said UNC public health researcher Barry Popkin, who led the analysis funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the nation's largest public health philanthropy. Some of the decline may have come from the recession, as financially strapped families cut back on junk food. When the pledge was announced, companies said they would substitute lower-calorie pro

• [By Dan Caplinger]

  On Thursday, McCormick (NYSE: MKC  ) will release its latest quarterly results. With a solid history of delivering regular dividend growth, McCormick shares got very popular during the bull market, but the rise in interest rates have caused some to question whether the stock has gotten ahead of its fundamentals.

• [By Johanna Bennett]

  Corporate earnings took a back seat today to the Fed�� latest policy decision. Still, quarterly financial results, and other news sent shares of McCormick & Co. (MKC) and Tupperware (TUP), falling during regular market hours�Here�� a rundown of several of today�� moves:

10 Best Food Stocks To Own Right Now: Amira Nature Foods Ltd (ANFI)

Amira Nature Foods Ltd., incorporated on February 20, 2012, is a provider of packaged Indian specialty rice, with sales in over 40 countries. It generates the majority of its revenue through the sale of Basmati rice, a long-grain rice grown only in certain regions of the Indian sub-continent. The Company sells its products, primarily in emerging markets, through a distribution network. It sells its Amira brand in more than 25 countries. The Company sells its Amira branded products to Indian retailers such as Bharti Wal-Mart, Big Bazaar, Metro Cash & Carry, Spar, Spencer's Retail, Star Bazaar (Tesco in India) and Total and retailers, such as Carrefour, Costco, Jetro Restaurant Depot, Lulu's and Smart & Final, and through the foodservice channel. It participates across the entire rice supply chain from the procurement of paddy to its storage, aging, processing into rice, packaging, distribution and marketing. In June 2013, the Company announced that it has launched Amira branded products in the United Kingdom. In January 2014, Amira Nature Foods Ltd acquired Basmati Rice GmbH.

The Company operates an automated and integrated processing and milling facility that is located in the vicinity of the key Basmati rice paddy producing regions of northern India. The facility spans a covered area of 310,221 square feet, with a processing capacity of 24 metric tons of paddy per hour. During the year ended March 31, 2012, 34% of its revenue was derived from sales in India, and 50.3% was derived from sales in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region, or EMEA, 14.3% was derived from sales in the Asia Pacific region, and 1.4% was derived from sales in North America.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Jeremy Bowman]

  What: Shares of Amira Nature Foods (NYSE: ANFI  ) were looking rotten today, falling as much as 12% after reporting earnings this morning.

• [By Roberto Pedone]

  A consumer goods player that's starting to trend within range of triggering a big breakout trade is Amira Nature Foods (ANFI), a global provider of packaged Indian specialty rice, with sales in over 40 countries. This stock has been in play with the bulls over the last three months, with shares up 25%.

  If you take a look at the chart for Amira Nature Foods, you'll notice that this stock has been uptrending strong for the last five months, with shares soaring higher from its low of $7.44 to its recent high of $17.41 a share. During that uptrend, shares of ANFI have been making mostly higher lows and higher highs, which is bullish technical price action. Shares of ANFI have started to break out above some key near-term overhead resistance levels today at $15.92 to $16.25 a share. That move is quickly pushing shares of ANFI within range of triggering another big breakout trade.

  Traders should now look for long-biased trades in ANFI if it manages to break out above its all-time high of $17.41 a share with high volume. Look for a sustained move or close above that level with volume that hits near or above its three-month average action of 226,387 shares. If that breakout triggers soon, then ANFI will set up to enter new all-time-high territory, which is bullish technical price action. Some possible upside targets off that breakout are $25 to $27 a share.

  Traders can look to buy ANFI off any weakness to anticipate that breakout and simply use a stop that sits right below its 50-day at $15.03 a share or around more key near-term support at $14.72 a share. One could also buy ANFI off strength once it starts to clear $17.41 a share with volume and then simply use a stop that sits a comfortable percentage from your entry point.

• [By Tom Bishop]

  Steve Halpern: One of your recent recommendations is a company that, really, was probably unknown to most investors. It's called Amira Nature Foods (ANFI) , which is a maker of premium rice. Can you tell us briefly about that?

• [By Will Ashworth]

  Amira Nature Foods�(ANFI) went public last October at $10 per share — and now the stock is trading around 40% higher than that offer price. Compared to IPOs in general, however, the past year’s been anything but smooth. ANFI dropped 19% on its first day of trading and didn’t rise above its offering price until early September.

10 Best Food Stocks To Own Right Now: Pinnacle Foods Inc (PF)

Pinnacle Foods Inc., incorporated on July 28, 2003, is a manufacturer, marketer and distributor of branded food products in North America. The Company operates in three segments: the Birds Eye Frozen Division, the Duncan Hines Grocery Division and the Specialty Foods Division. The Birds Eye Frozen Division and the Duncan Hines Grocery Division, which collectively represent its North America Retail operations, include the brands. Its brand portfolio enjoys household penetration in the United States, where its products can be found in approximately 85% of U.S. households. Its products are sold through supermarkets, grocery wholesalers and distributors, mass merchandisers, super centers, convenience stores, dollar stores, drug stores and warehouse clubs in the United States and Canada, as well as in military channels and foodservice locations. On June 24, 2011, the Company completed the sale of its Watsonville, California facility which had been recorded as an asset held for sale.

Birds Eye Frozen Division

The Company�� Birds Eye Frozen Division includes its steamed and non-steamed product offerings, with a 27.0% market share, making Birds Eye the recognized frozen vegetables brand in the United States. Birds Eye was the Company to capture a nationwide market share with a product that enables consumers to conveniently steam vegetables in microwaveable packaging.

Duncan Hines Grocery Division

Duncan Hines is the division�� brand and includes cake mixes, ready-to-serve frostings, brownie mixes, muffin mixes, and cookie mixes. During the fiscal year ended September 23, 2012, the Company added two additional items to the line. In February 2012, the Company introduced a line of frosting products, Duncan Hines Frosting Creations, which uses a patent pending frosting system to allow consumers to customize their frosting into one of 12 different flavors. The Company also offers a complete line of shelf-stable pickle products that we market and distribute n! ationally, primarily under the Vlasic brand, and regionally under the Milwaukee�� and Wiejske Wyroby brands. In 2012, the Company introduced Vlasic Farmers Garden, artisan-quality pickle line.

Specialty Foods Division

The Company�� snack products primarily consist of Tim�� Cascade, Snyder of Berlin and Husman��. These direct store delivery brands have local awareness and hold market share positions in their regional markets. The Company also manufactures and distributes certain products, mainly in the frozen breakfast, canned meat, and pie and pastry fruit filling categories, through food service channels. The Company also manufactures and distributes certain private label products in the canned meat, shelf-stable pickles and frozen seafood. As part of its ongoing strategic focus over the last several years, the Company has deemphasized the food service and private label businesses for the benefit of its higher margin branded food products.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Jake L'Ecuyer]

  Top Headline
  Hillshire Brands Co (NYSE: HSH) announced its plans to buy Pinnacle Foods (NYSE: PF) for around $6.6 billion including debt. Hillshire will offer $18.00 in cash and 0.50 shares of its common stock for each Pinnacle share.

• [By Selena Maranjian]

  The biggest new holdings are Canadian Pacific Railway�and Allstate. Other new holdings of interest include Pinnacle Foods (NYSE: PF  ) and Eaton (NYSE: ETN  ) . Pinnacle Foods debuted via an IPO earlier this year, and soon after, initiated�a dividend, which yields about 2.8%. Its brands�include Birds Eye, Aunt Jemima, Hungry-Man, Van de Kamp's, Armour, Lender's, Mrs. Paul's, Vlasic, Log Cabin, Mrs. Butterworth, and Duncan Hines, among others. With the company carrying significant debt, it's reasonable that some worry about its interest in acquiring Unilever's�Wish-Bone salad dressing brand and Del Monte Foods' canned foods.

• [By Jake L'Ecuyer]

  Top Headline
  Hillshire Brands Co (NYSE: HSH) announced its plans to buy Pinnacle Foods (NYSE: PF) for around $6.6 billion including debt. Hillshire will offer $18.00 in cash and 0.50 shares of its common stock for each Pinnacle share.

• [By Jacob Roche]

  Recently, Pinnacle Foods (NYSE: PF  ) held its initial public offering, priced at $20 per share, at the high end of the expected range. The IPO brought in a net $627 million for the company, and the stock has continued to trade up a bit. Now that the typical IPO dust is settling, however, it may be worth taking a look.

10 Best Food Stocks To Own Right Now: Kraft Foods Group Inc (KRFT)

Kraft Foods Group, Inc. (Kraft Foods Group), incorporated on March 16, 2012, operates food and beverage businesses in North America. The Company manufactures and markets food and beverage products, including convenient meals, refreshment beverages and coffee, cheese and other grocery products, in the United States and Canada, under a stable of iconic brands. Its product categories span breakfast, lunch and dinner meal occasions, both at home and in foodservice locations. The Company sells its products to supermarket chains, wholesalers, supercenters, club stores, mass merchandisers, distributors, convenience stores, drug stores, gasoline stations, value stores and other retail food outlets in the United States and Canada. On September 14, 2012, the Company�� parent company, Kraft Foods Inc. (Kraft ParentCo), issued a press release relating to the anticipated trading markets for Kraft Foods Inc. and Kraft Foods Group, Inc. common stock through the completion of its spin-off from Kraft Foods Inc. In October 2012, Mondelez International, Inc. completed the spin-off of North American grocery business, Kraft Foods Group. In June 2013, Kraft Foods Group Inc announced plans to create two new, standalone business units: Meals and Desserts, and Enhancers and Snack Nuts.

The Company�� brand portfolio consists of food brands in North America, including three brands: Kraft cheeses, dinners and dressings; Oscar Mayer meats, and Maxwell House coffees- plus over 20 brands. It manufactures and sells food and beverage products in 50 categories. The Company operates in five segments: U.S. Beverages, which manufactures packaged juice drinks, powdered beverages and coffee; U.S. Cheese, which manufactures processed, natural and cream cheeses; U.S. Convenient Meals, which manufactures processed meats and lunch combinations; U.S. Grocery, which manufactures spoonable and pourable dressings, condiments, desserts, packaged dinners and snack nuts, and Canada & N.A. Foodservice, which sells products that span ! all of its segments and includes the Canadian and Puerto Rico grocery business, the North American foodservice operations and the North American Grocery Export Business.

U.S. Beverages

During the year ended December 31, 2011, the Company�� U.S. Beverages segment contributed 16% of its combined net revenues. This segment manufactures refreshment beverages, including Capri Sun (under license) and Kool-Aid packaged juice drinks, Kool-Aid, Crystal Light and Country Timepowdered beverages and MiO liquid concentrate, and coffee products, including Maxwell House, Gevalia and Yuban coffees, Maxwell House Internationalbeverage mixers and Tassimo (under license) hot beverage system.

U.S. Cheese

During 2011, U.S. Cheese segment had contributed 20% of the Company�� combined net revenues. This segment manufactures processed cheese, including Velveeta and Cheez Whiz processed cheeses, Kraft and Deli Deluxe processed cheese slices, Kraft grated cheeses and Polly-O and Athenos hummus and cheeses; natural cheese, including Kraft and Cracker Barrel natural cheeses, and cream cheese, including Philadelphia cream cheese and cooking creme.

U.S. Convenient Meals

During 2011, the Company�� U.S. Convenient Meals segment contributed 18% of its combined net revenues. This segment�� principal brands and products include Oscar Mayer lunch meats, hot dogs and bacon, Lunchables lunch combinations, Boca soy-based meat alternatives, and Claussen pickles.

U.S. Grocery

During 2011, the Company�� U.S. Grocery segment contributed 25% of its combined net revenues. This segment�� principal brands and products include Kraft and Kraft Deluxe macaroni & cheese dinners, Planters nuts, trail mixes and peanut butter, Corn Nuts corn snacks, Jell-O dry packaged desserts and refrigerated gelatin and pudding snacks, Cool Whip whipped topping, Jet-Puffed marshmallows, Baker�� chocolate and baking ingredients, Kraft and Miracle Whip sp! oonable d! ressings, Kraft and Good Seasons salad dressings, A.1. steak sauce, Kraft and Bull��-Eye barbecue sauces, Grey Poupon mustards, Shake N��Bake coatings, Stove Top stuffing mix, Taco Bell Home Originals (under license) meal kits, Velveeta shells and cheese dinners, and Velveeta Skillets meal kits.

Canada & N.A. Foodservice

During 2011, the Company�� Canada & N.A. Foodservice segment contributed 21% of its combined net revenues. The principal products and brands in this segment span all of its segments. Canadian grocery offerings include Nabob coffee and Kraft peanut butter, as well as a range of products in the Grocery Business Lines. The North American foodservice business sells branded products, including Maxwell House coffee, A.1. steak sauce and a range of Kraft sauces, dressings and cheeses, and serves the needs of restaurants and other foodservice operations. Puerto Rico grocery offerings include all grocery business lines, except for powdered and liquid concentrate beverages, such as Crystal Light, Tang and MiO. The North American Grocery Export Business products and brands span all grocery business lines, except for powdered and liquid concentrate beverages and certain products sold under brands, such as Philadelphia cream cheese and Kraftmayonnaise, which marketed and sold locally by Kraft ParentCo in countries outside the United States and Canada.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Sean Williams]

  The great dilemma
  Let's face it: Not too many of us follow the "eat your vegetables" rule all too well, so it really shouldn't come as a surprise that snack foods have been a bright source of growth for food producers over the past few years. To take advantage of this growth, and to make the company more transparent for investors -- which often tends to unlock shareholder value -- Mondelez International was spun off from Kraft Foods (NASDAQ: KRFT  ) in September 2012, separating its U.S.-based and slower growth Kraft business from the potentially faster overseas growth in its Mondelez division.

10 Best Food Stocks To Own Right Now: Danone SA (DANOY)

Danone SA, incorporated on February 2, 1899, is a France-based company engaged in food processing activities. The Company operates in four business lines, including Fresh Dairy Products, Waters, Baby Nutrition and Medical Nutrition. The Fresh Dairy Products business line�� brands are Danone, Actimel, Activia, Danacol and Vitalinea. The Water business line offers brands, such as Evian, Volvic, Aqua, Bonafont, Font Vella and Lanjaron. The Baby Nutrition business line include Bledina, Gallia, Nutricia, Cow & Gate, Milupa, Mellin and Dumex brands. Medical nutrition business includes Nutricia, Nutrini, Nutrison, Fortimel, FortiCare, Fortisip, Neocate and Infatrini brands. As of December 31, 2009, the Company acquired Danone Clover and a 26.85% interest in Micropharma. In December 2010, the Company and Unimilk announced the finalization of the merger of their Fresh Dairy Product businesses.

In Europe the Company�� main markets are France, Spain, Germany, Italy, the Benelux countries, the United Kingdom, Poland and Russia. The Company�� product Actimel, the probiotic dairy product, if consumed daily, helps to strengthen the organism�� natural defenses. The Waters business line includes activities focused on natural or flavored mineral water and on fruit-flavored or tea drinks, with a positioning concerned with health benefits. The Company�� baby nutrition business line�� activities consist mainly of producing food for newborns and babies (infant milk formula, follow-on milk, and growing up milk). It also offers a diverse range of products for

children aged 6 to 36 months. Specially developed and clinically tested formulas have also been developed for babies suffering from milk protein intolerance. The Medical Nutrition business line develops nutritional products adapted to specific needs, namely those of hospitalized patients, in order to prevent malnutrition and to improve its consumers daily life.

The Company competes with Nestle, PepsiCo, Coca-cola, Abbott, Mead! Johnson and Fresenius.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Tamara Rutter]

  Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX  ) ,�the world's most popular coffee chain, is joining forces with Danone� (NASDAQOTH: DANOY  ) to create an exclusive yogurt line called "Evolution Fresh, Inspired by Dannon."�The line of co-branded yogurts will be sold in U.S. Starbucks locations as soon as next year, and will reach grocery store shelves by 2015.

10 Best Food Stocks To Own Right Now: Latteno Food Corp (LATF)

Latteno Food Corp. (Latteno), incorporated on August 24, 1994, is engaged in acquiring, organizing, developing and upgrading companies in the international food and beverage market. Latteno is specializing in the dairy industry and coffee industry. The Company operates through its subsidiary in Brazil. On February 10, 2010 Latteno acquired Global Milk Businesses and Administration of Private Properties Ltda. (Global Milk). Global Milk holds the rights of certain intellectual property of the brand name products manufactured and sold under the brand name Teixeira. In March 2013, the Company acquired Green Cannabis Collective Inc.

Latteno is leasing an instant and roasted coffee factory located in Cruzeiro, Sao-Paulo, which was property the Company previously owned under its BDFC Brasil Alimentos Ltda (BDFC) subsidiary. In addition to the lease, the Company has maintained ownership of four brand names, Samba Cafe, Vivenda, Torino and Brazilian Best, used in the past by Latteno to sell its instant and roasted coffee across the world. The Company engaged the service companies to assist with its operations, such as Log-Frio Ltda, SigaSolutions Ltda, Microsiga Ltda and Varistao Transportes Ltda.

The Company competes with Nestle, Companhia Cacique de Cafe Soluvel, Cafe Soluvel Brasilia and Companhia lguacu de Cafe Soluvel.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By James E. Brumley]

  What do you get when you cross a Coffee Holding Co., Inc. (NASDAQ:JVA) with a Medical Marijuana Inc. (OTCMKTS:MJNA) and a Kraft Foods Group Inc. (NASDAQ:KRFT)? No, it's not a setup for a punch line - there's a legitimate answer. And that answer is, Latteno Food Corp. (OTCMKTS:LATF).

• [By James E. Brumley]

  A week and a half ago when I suggested Latteno Food Corp. (OTCMKTS:LATF) was an effective way of getting into the medical marijuana craze for anyone who missed the big runups (the first or the second time) from names like Medical Marijuana Inc. (OTCMKTS:MJNA) or Hemp, Inc. (OTCMKTS:HEMP), not many people agreed with my assessment. That's the nice way of saying I received some "colorful counter-opinions" to my bullishness on LATF. Indeed, some readers were downright enraged I would dare compare the company to stocks like MJNA or HEMP, citing reasons ranging from the possibility that it's a complete scam to the possibility that the capital structure as amazingly unfair to current shareholders.