Best Promising Stocks To Watch Right Now

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT  ) has become a bit of a soda jerk.

A couple of outlets dared to compare Microsoft's poorly received Windows 8 operating system -- and the company's reaction this past week in promising an update that will restore some missed features -- to Coca-Cola's (NYSE: KO  ) flop with New Coke.

For those unfamiliar with the pop star's sugary blunder, Coca-Cola shocked the carbonated-beverage industry with the 1985 introduction of New Coke. The reformulation was a disaster, and the soft-drink titan responded quickly by bringing back the original beverage as Coca-Cola Classic.

"Microsoft is preparing to reverse course over key elements of its Windows 8 operating system, marking one of the most prominent admissions of failure for a new mass-market consumer product since Coca-Cola's New Coke fiasco nearly 30 years ago," the Financial Times wrote on Tuesday.

"The comparison with New Coke actually understates Microsoft's problem," The Economist followed, correctly arguing that Coke's solution was an easy fix. Some even speculated at the time that Coca-Cola did it on purpose, triggering a strong reaction from Coke-sipping loyalists.

Hot Companies To Buy Right Now: Boot(h)

Henry Boot PLC, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a property and construction company in the United Kingdom. Its property portfolio includes retail warehousing properties, leisure and retail parks, town centre retail and mixed use properties, industrial and office properties, and business parks. The company engages in the acquisition, promotion, development, and trading of land; and holds interest in 8,200 acres of land through ownership, option, and agency agreements. It also involves in construction, civil engineering, and road maintenance activities; and offers construction services to the health, education, housing, custodial, and public sectors. In addition, the company offers a range of products and services for sale and hire, such as fleet of contractors' mechanical plant and equipment ranging from telehandlers to rollers; boom and scissor lift access platforms suitable for slab or rough terrain work; accommodation units for applications, including offices , canteens, showers, toilets, and security stores; power tools and equipment consisting of electric tools, engine powered items, concreting and compaction tools, lightweight access equipment, heating and lighting appliances, and home maintenance items; and fleet of machines for construction and industrial applications. Henry Boot PLC was founded in 1886 and is headquartered in Sheffield, the United Kingdom.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By WWW.DAILYFINANCE.COM]

  Guests want this because it makes their lives simpler. The ability to go right to your room, gives them back time.

  Hilton Worldwide (H) is the only other hotel chain to publicly acknowledge plans for mobile room keys -- which it plans to roll out at the end of 2015 at some U.S. properties. Hilton won't say how many hotels will be included, except that the service will be available at four of its brands, Hilton, Waldorf Astoria, Conrad and Canopy. "Guests want this because it makes their lives simpler," says Mark Vondrasek, who oversees the loyalty program and digital initiatives for Starwood. "The ability to go right to your room, gives them back time." Other hotel companies are finding other ways to streamline the arrival process. Marriott International (MAR) launched the ability to check in through its app at 330 North American hotels last year. By the end of this year, the program will be live at all 4,000 hotels worldwide. When a room becomes available, a message is sent to the guest's phone. Traditional room keys are pre-programmed and waiting at the front desk. A special express line allows guests to bypass crowds, flash their IDs and get keys. At Hilton, all 4,000 properties worldwide will have a similar check-in by the end of the year. The one added feature: Guests can use maps on the app to select a specific room. InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) is testing express check-in at 60 hotels. Not About Cutting Jobs The services are geared toward road warriors who don't want to slow down, even for a second. Guests who like personal interaction can still opt for a more leisurely check-in, and hotel companies say the move isn't about cutting jobs. "If you're at the end of a long day, you might want a little less of a chatty experience. But if you're showing up at a new resort, you may want to know what the pool hours are," says Brett Cowell, vice president of information technology for Hyatt, which is testing permanent keys for frequent guests
• [By Dan Caplinger]

  4. Hawaii
  The poor pay 13% of their income in taxes in Hawaii, although the state has relatively high taxes across the board. Even tourists end up paying at least their fair share of taxes, with a double-digit percentage hotel tax imposed on Starwood (NYSE: HOT  ) , Hyatt (NYSE: H  ) , and other hotel chains, which they then pass on to their guests. The wealthy in Hawaii pay an average tax rate of 8%, the highest of the states on this list, because of extremely high marginal rates on income taxes that range as high as 11%. The sales tax is relatively reasonable at 4%, but the key problem is that the sales tax applies to grocery purchases, which hits the poor especially hard.

• [By Eric Volkman]

  Alamy Quick, what's the most recognized brand name in the hotel industry? Chances are good that your knee-jerk answer was "Hilton." That well-known moniker is especially prominent last week, as Hilton Worldwide Holdings (HLT), the company that now owns the hallowed brand, has brought it back to the stock market in the form of an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange. Wednesday, the company priced the IPO at $20 per share, and due to strong demand, raised the number of shares to be sold to 117.6 million from the originally anticipated 112.8 million. That means gross proceeds just north of $2.35 billion, the highest in history for a hotel operator. Hilton's coming to market now because its majority owner, financial services powerhouse The Blackstone Group (BX), wants to cash out on its investment. The company took the hotel operator private with several partners in 2007. Since then, Blackstone has watched other big names in the hospitality sector launch well-received IPOs. In late 2009, for instance, Hyatt Hotels (H) debuted on the NYSE, raising gross proceeds of $950 million -- enough to make it one of the highest-grossing issues of that year. That was also good enough to make its shareholders wealthier; from a listing price of $25 per share, the stock closed at $28 on its first day of trading, and just over four years later, it has nearly doubled to more than $46. More recently, Blackstone had skin in the game in the IPO of long-term hotel operator Extended Stay America (STAY) as a co-owner along with peer financials Centerbridge Partners and Paulson. The shares of ESA rose nearly 20 percent on the company's market debut last month and have since crept higher. Those kinds of numbers were surely irresistible to Blackstone, which has wisely decided not to sell any of its own Hilton shares in the IPO. Rather, the wily financier says it will dole them out gradually in the months and years ahead. It needs the time -- the company owns more than 75

Best Promising Stocks To Watch Right Now: CBOE Holdings Inc.(CBOE)

CBOE Holdings, Inc., through its subsidiaries, operates markets for the execution of transactions in exchange-traded options. The company offers marketplaces for trading of options on individual equities, various market indexes, exchange-traded notes, and exchange-traded funds, as well as futures contracts and cash equities. It has strategic relationships with Standard & Poor's Corporation; Dow Jones & Co.; NASDAQ; and Frank Russell Co. The company was founded in 1973 and is based in Chicago, Illinois.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Rich Duprey]

  It's not optional: Shareholders of record on May 31 will receive a quarterly dividend of $0.15 per share on June 21 from futures and options exchange operator�CBOE Holdings� (NASDAQ: CBOE  ) , the company announced this week.
  

• [By Lauren Pollock]

  CBOE Holdings Inc.(CBOE) said it will pay a special cash dividend that will cost nearly $44 million, while the U.S. options exchange operator also boosted its stock buyback authorization by an additional $100 million.

• [By , DividendChannel.com]

  Looking at the universe of stocks we cover at Dividend Channel, on May 28 Allstate�(ALL), SunTrust Banks�(STI)�and CBOE Holdings�(CBOE) will all trade ex-dividend for their respective upcoming dividends. Allstate will pay its quarterly dividend of $0.28 on July 1, SunTrust will pay its quarterly dividend of $0.20 on June 16 and CBOE Holdings will pay its quarterly dividend of $0.18 on June 20.

• [By Dan Caplinger]

  Among exchanges, the action is beyond the stock market. With the rise in trading of futures, options, and other derivative investments, NYSE Euronext's ownership of the NYSE Liffe exchange in London was a key element of ICE's interest. CME Group (NASDAQ: CME  ) and CBOE Holdings (NASDAQ: CBOE  ) have worked hard to preserve their respective strength in futures and options, and rising market turbulence has made many of their products look a lot more enticing. Given that derivatives can help hedge market risk and reduce overall exposure, all of the exchange companies have an opportunity to bolster their presence in the derivatives market with innovative products that meet the new needs investors have in a more turbulent financial environment.

Best Promising Stocks To Watch Right Now: Buckeye Partners L.P. (BPL)

Buckeye Partners, L.P. owns and operates refined petroleum products pipeline systems in the United States. Its Pipelines & Terminals segment transports refined petroleum products; and provides bulk storage and terminal throughput services in the continental United States. This segment owns and operates approximately 6,000 miles of pipeline serving approximately 110 delivery locations; and has 100 active products terminals with aggregate storage capacity of approximately 40 million barrels. The company’s International Operations segment provides marine terminal throughput, marine bulk storage, and other related services. This segment operates through two petroleum product terminals located on Grand Bahama Island, in The Bahamas and in Puerto Rico with an aggregate storage capacity of approximately 30 million barrels. Its Natural Gas Storage segment provides natural gas storage services through a facility with approximately 30 billion cubic feet of working natural gas storage capacity located in Northern California. The company’s Energy Services segment engages in the wholesale distribution of refined petroleum products, including gasoline; propane; ethanol; biodiesel; and petroleum distillates, such as heating oil, diesel fuel, and kerosene to wholesalers and commercial users. Its Development and Logistics segment provides contract operations, construction management, and asset development services to third-party pipeline and energy assets, and energy companies in the United States. This segment owns and operates 2 underground propane storage caverns with approximately 800,000 barrels of throughput and storage capability in Indiana and Illinois; and a 30-mile ammonia pipeline and 25 miles of pipeline in Texas. Buckeye GP LLC serves as the general partner of the company. Buckeye Partners, L.P. was founded in 1886 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Aimee Duffy]

  Buckeye Partners (NYSE: BPL  ) is another company hoping to exploit alternative transportation from its rail and barge hub at the Port of Albany, on the Hudson River.

• [By Matt DiLallo]

  Buckeye Partners (NYSE: BPL  ) is one of the more unique master limited partnerships in the business. Its pipeline and terminal business is solely focused on transporting and storing petroleum products. Even more unique to Buckeye is its international pipeline and terminal business which provided 23.6% of the company's adjusted EBITDA last year. That segment, which we'll take a closer look at, should grow to become a much larger portion of its income given the exceptional opportunities it has to grow.�

• [By Matt DiLallo]

  The potential bidders
  There are a lot of names being thrown around as potential purchasers of these assets, including Marathon Petroleum (NYSE: MPC  ) , Sunoco Logistics (NYSE: SXL  ) , and Buckeye Partners (NYSE: BPL  ) . Both Sunoco and Buckeye are MLPs, which is where I personally think these assets are best suited. Let's take a closer look at each company to see which one makes the most strategic sense.

• [By Aimee Duffy]

  Winners
  Given the current state of U.S. energy production, most midstream companies are winners these days. Kinder Morgan Energy Partners (NYSE: KMP  ) got things started off on the right foot, reporting in mid-April and beating expectations on revenue and EPS. Here are some highlights from around the industry:

  Buckeye Partners (NYSE: BPL  ) �trounced analyst expectations on the top and bottom lines, and recorded a distribution coverage ratio of 1.21 times payouts, allowing the partnership to boost its distribution. DCP Midstream Partners' (NYSE: DCP  ) �distributable cash flow popped 40% year over year, and the partnership completed its Eagle Ford dropdown transaction with parent company DCP Midstream, boosting its stake in the lucrative South Texas shale play. Boardwalk Energy Partners' (NYSE: BWP  ) �operating revenue and net income increased 5% and 10% year over year. More importantly, distributable cash flow popped 24%, though the partnership elected to hold the distribution flat quarter over quarter. Energy Transfer Partners (NYSE: ETP  ) �had no distribution increase either, but things are looking better than they have in a while. Production in the Eagle Ford Shale is driving growth at ETP, and the partnership is reorganizing into an operation that is stronger and more diverse than ever before.

  Very strong results here, now let's take a look at some midstream companies that didn't perform as well.

Best Promising Stocks To Watch Right Now: Companhia de Bebidas das Americas - AmBev(ABV)

Companhia de Bebidas das Americas?Ambev engages in the production, distribution, and sale of beer, draft beer, carbonated soft drinks, malt, and other non-alcoholic and non-carbonated products in the Americas. It also sells bottled water, isotonics, and ready-to-drink teas. The company provides its products under the brand names of Skol, Brahma, Antarctica, Guarana Antarctica, Gatorade, Brahva, Brahva Beats, Extra, Brahma Light, Brahma Ice, Quilmes, Stella Artois, Red Rock, Pepsi-Cola, Seven UP, Zenda, Concordia, Triple Kola, Quilmes Cristal, Brahma, Andes, Pacena, Taquina, Huari, Becker, Baltica, Pilsen, Patricia, Labatt Blue, Alexander Keith?s, and Kokanee. It has a licensing agreement with Anheuser-Busch, Inc. to produce, bottle, distribute, and sell Budweiser products in Canada and Paraguay. Companhia de Bebidas das Americas?Ambev distributes its products through direct distribution system and third-party distributors. The company was founded in 1888 and is headquarter ed in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Companhia de Bebidas das Americas?Ambev is a subsidiary of Interbrew International B.V.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Robert Martin]

  South Africa, China, Mexico and Brazil collectively make up 68% of ECON�� holdings. The top three holdings are Naspers LTD (NPSNY) at 10%, AmBev (ABV) at 8% and FEMSA (FMX) at 5.6%.

• [By Dividend]

  Companhia de Bebidas Das Americas (ABV) has a market capitalization of $118.32 billion. The company employs 51,299 people, generates revenue of $14.120 billion and has a net income of $4.662 billion. Companhia de Bebidas Das Americas�� earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) amounts to $6.829 billion. The EBITDA margin is 48.36 percent (the operating margin is 43.00 percent and the net profit margin 33.02 percent).

• [By Hilary Kramer]

  Companhia de Bebidas das Americas (ABV): Better known as Ambev, it is one of the largest brewers in the world and the largest in Latin America (in terms of sales volume). It makes a variety of beverages, including beer and soft drinks, and is also one of the biggest independent PepsiCo bottlers in the world. The company has done a good job lately of emphasizing premium beers, which carry a higher margin, to offset recent lower sales volumes. ABV yields a solid 4.6%.

Best Promising Stocks To Watch Right Now: Valmont Industries Inc.(VMI)

Valmont Industries, Inc. produces and sells fabricated metal products, pole and tower structures, and mechanized irrigation systems in the United States and internationally. The company?s Engineered Infrastructure Products segment offers steel and aluminum poles and structures, to which lighting and traffic control fixtures are attached for applications in streets, highways, parking lots, sports stadiums, and commercial and residential developments; and roadway safety systems, including guard rail barrier systems, wire rope safety barriers, and crash attenuation barriers to redirect vehicles and to prevent collisions between vehicles. This segment also provides structures and components for the wireless communication market, as well as for the erection of infrastructure, industrial, and commercial access systems. Its Utility Support Structures segment offers tapered steel and pre-stressed concrete poles for high-voltage transmission lines, substations, and electrical dist ribution, as well as produces hybrid structures, which are structures with a concrete base section and steel upper sections. The company?s Coatings segment provides metal coating services, such as hot-dipped galvanizing, anodizing, powder coating, and e-coating. Its Irrigation segment offers mechanical irrigation equipment and related service parts under the Valley brand. The company also manufactures forged steel grinding media for the mining industry, tubular products for industrial customers, and electrolytic manganese dioxide for disposable batteries; and distributes industrial fasteners. It serves state and federal governments, contractors, utility and telecommunications companies, commercial lighting fixtures manufacturers, and large farms, as well as the general manufacturing sector. The company sells its products through direct sales force, independent and commissioned sales agents, and independent dealers. Valmont Industries, Inc. was founded in 1946 and is headqua rtered in Omaha, Nebraska.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Ong Kang Wei]

  The above snapshot shows the Glassdoor page for Valmont Industries (VMI), a company that I was looking into previously. I like looking at various metrics shown on the page, with its overall rating and what employees think of the CEO bearing the most significance to me. Other metrics I would advocate taking a look at are: What percentage of employees would recommend the job to a friend; and also how optimistic the employee is about the company's future (not shown in picture).

• [By Rich Duprey]

  Industrial conglomerate�Valmont Industries� (NYSE: VMI  ) �will pay a�regular quarterly cash dividend�of $0.25 per share, representing an 11.1% increase in the payout to shareholders.

• [By Rich Duprey]

  Industrial conglomerate Valmont Industries (NYSE: VMI  ) reported first-quarter earnings that came in $0.10 per share better than consensus estimates but fell well short of expectations on the top line.

• [By Monica Gerson]

  Valmont Industries (NYSE: VMI) is expected to post its Q3 earnings at $2.43 per share on revenue of $800.97 million.

  Las Vegas Sands (NYSE: LVS) is estimated to post its Q3 earnings at $0.75 per share on revenue of $3.47 billion.

Best Promising Stocks To Watch Right Now: Income Opportunity Realty Trust (IOT)

Income Opportunity Realty Investors, Inc. operates in the real estate sector in the United States. As of March 31, 2009, it had 3 commercial properties consisting of 1 office building, 1 industrial warehouse, and 1 shopping center; and 211 acres of unimproved land situated in Farmers Branch, Texas. The company also involves in financing real estate and real estate related activities through investments in mortgage loans. Income Opportunity Realty Investors was founded in 1984 and is based in Dallas, Texas. As of July 17, 2009, Income Opportunity Realty Investors, Inc. operates as a subsidiary of Transcontinental Realty Investors Inc.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By mitu77]

  The new buzz of the market is Internet of Everything(IoE) and the associated gadgets as Internet of Things(IoT). Total number of devices that are inter-connected over internet surpasses the global population of the planet. In the very near future, pretty much everything you can imagine will wake up. We are leading the next step in the evolution of the Internet and helping change the way we work, live, play and learn. 25 billion devices will be connected by next year, and that number will grow to 50 billion by 2020. The greater part of this new information that the IoE produces will change the occupation scene for eternity.

• [By Riddhi Kharkia]

  Now, coming to talk about the third quarter, the two most important aspects that will impact Intel�� earnings will be PC demand and company�� position in the Internet of Things (IoT) market. We will discuss each of these in order so that the readers can have a better understanding of the things that will impact the chipmaker�� earnings. To start with, the PC group is at the heart of Intel�� operations and even though PC demand might be volatile, the PC group forms approximately half of the giant�� revenue.

Best Promising Stocks To Watch Right Now: Aethlon Medical Inc (AEMD)

Aethlon Medical, Inc. (Aethlon), incorporated on April 17, 1991, is a developmental-stage company. The Company is focused on creating medical devices that address unmet medical needs in cancer, infectious disease, and other life-threatening conditions.

The Company's Aethlon ADAPT (Adaptive Dialysis-Like Affinity Platform Technology) system is a revenue-stage technology platform that provides the basis for a new class of devices that provide rapid, selective removal of disease promoting particles from the entire circulatory system. The Aethlon ADAPT product pipeline includes the Aethlon Hemopurifier to address infectious disease and cancer, and a medical device being developed under the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to reduce the incidence of sepsis in combat-injured soldiers.

The Aethlon Hemopurifier

The Company's Hemopurifier is a medical device that targets the rapid elimination of life-threatening infectious disease and cancer glycopathogens from circulation. Under the feasibility study protocol, the Company will enroll ten end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients who are infected with the Hepatitis C virus (HCV) to demonstrate the safety of Hemopurifier therapy. In addition to augmenting the early viral kinetic response to SOC, the Company's Hemopurifier provides a candidate solution for viral rebound patients who traditionally are forced to discontinue therapy at the point HCV establishes resistance to drug regimens. Additionally, the Company's Hemopurifier represents a therapeutic strategy to address the population of HCV-infected dialysis patients for which SOC and all-antiviral strategies may be contraindicated or not cleared.

In design, the Company's Hemopurifier consists of the affinity lectin Galanthus nivalis agglutinin (GNA) immobilized in the outer-capillary space of advanced plasma membrane technology. The design allows for extracorporeal therapeutic delivery to occur on standard CRRT and dialysis instruments alre! ady located in hospitals and clinics worldwide. The mechanism of the Hemopurifier to rapidly eliminate a broad-spectrum disease targets is based on GNA�� ability to selectively bind high mannose signatures that are abundant on the surface of cancer-secreted exosomes and glycoproteins that reside on the outer membrane of infectious viral pathogens. The Company has also established a compassionate-use treatment program at the Medanta Medicity Institute in India that provides treatment access to HCV-infected individuals.

The Company's Hemopurifier has also been discovered to capture tumor-secreted exosomes underlying several forms of cancer. Tumor-derived exosomes have recently emerged to be a vital therapeutic target in cancer care. These microvesicular particles suppress the immune response in cancer patients through apoptosis of immune cells and their quantity in circulation correlates directly with disease progression. In addition to treating HCV-infected individuals, the Company has conducted a single proof of principal treatment study related to the treatment of HIV. In the study, Hemopurifier therapy reduced viral load by 93% in an HIV-AIDS infected individual without the administration of antiviral drug therapy. The study protocol provided for 12 Hemopurifier treatments, each four hours in duration, that were administered over the course of one month. Researchers at a university have since discovered that the Hemopurifier is able to capture exosomes that transport NEF protein, which is known to suppress the immune response in HIV-infected individuals.

The Company has been assigned all rights and title to and interests in an invention and related worldwide patent rights for a method to treat cancer under an assignment agreement with the London Health Science Center Research, Inc. (LHSCRI) The agreement provides that the Company is responsible for paying certain patent application and filing costs as well as a 2% royalty on any future net sales. The Company has als! o exercis! ed an option to license a pending patent entitled, Method to Inhibit Proliferation and Growth of Metastases from The Trustees of Boston University. The license provides a development strategy for new cancer therapies by uniting drug agents that inhibit the spread of cancer-related metastases with filtration techniques already in the Aethlon Hemopurifier(R). The resulting devices would inhibit tumor growth by reducing the presence of circulating growth factors without interfering with surgical wound healing or the recovery of tissue injured by radiation therapy.

The Company competes with Asahi Kasei Kurary Medical.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By James E. Brumley]

  Stocks as a whole haven't gotten the new year off on the best foot, but that's not to say every equity out there is in trouble. Indeed, some small cap stocks may actually be doing well - and poised to do well for a while - specifically because larger companies are seeing their stocks struggle. To that end, traders looking for a bullish bright spot to start the new year may want to take a closer look at Amedica Corporation (NASDAQ:AMDA), Threshold Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:THLD), and Aethlon Medical, Inc. (OTCMKTS:AEMD).