Even as the market hits new highs, there are still plenty of good stocks out there to invest in these days. With oil prices still rather elevated and natural gas off its recent lows, energy stocks are a great place to place your hard-earned investing dollars. That's why the following three companies -- which have above-average shareholder payouts, excellent long-term growth prospects, and solid balance sheets -- top my list of the best stocks to invest in today.
ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP )
Among the large independent exploration and production companies, ConocoPhillips has the characteristics I look for in a long-term investment. The company has a steady growth plan, which will see it boost its production and margins by 3%-5% annually through 2017, with multiple opportunities to keep growing beyond that date. In addition to its exceptional growth opportunities here in the states, Conoco's operations span the globe, including positions in the Canadian oil sands, Australian natural gas exports, and European offshore oil. That diversification has helped keep the company from suffering the fate of many of its landlocked U.S.-based peers.�
Top Canadian Stocks For 2014: Potomac Electric Power Company(POM)
Pepco Holdings, Inc., through its subsidiaries, engages in the transmission, distribution, and supply of electricity. The company also distributes and supplies natural gas. It distributes electricity to approximately 1.8 million customers in the mid-Atlantic region and delivers natural gas to approximately 123,000 customers in Delaware. In addition, the company involves in the retail supply of electricity and natural gas; provision of energy efficiency services to federal, state, and local government customers; and designs, constructs, and operates combined heat and power and central energy plants, as well as owns and operates two oil-fired generation facilities. Further, it offers high voltage electric construction and maintenance services, low voltage electric construction and maintenance services, and streetlight construction and asset management services to utilities, municipalities, and other customers in the Washington, District of Columbia. Additionally, the company holds investments in eight cross-border energy leases. Pepco Holdings, Inc. was founded in 1896 and is based in Washington, District of Columbia.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Rahemtulla]
Pepco Holdings (POM) has been upgraded by TheStreet Ratings from hold to buy. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its compelling growth in net income, growth in earnings per share and increase in stock price during the past year. We feel these strengths outweigh the fact that the company has had somewhat disappointing return on equity.
Pepco Holdings, Inc., through its subsidiaries, engages in the transmission, distribution, and supply of electricity. The company also distributes and supplies natural gas. The company has a P/E ratio of 22.4, above the average utilities industry P/E ratio of 20.4 and above the S&P 500 P/E ratio of 17.7. Pepco has a market cap of $4.3 billion and is part of the utilities sector and utilities industry. Shares are up 1% year to date as of the close of trading on Monday.
- [By Tom Bishop]
Pepco Holdings (POM) operates as a diversified energy company. It operates in two divisions, Power Delivery and Competitive Energy. The company cut dividends by 40% in 2001 to 25 cents/share, and has since raised them by 8& to 27 cents/share. Based off forward 2011 EPS, the payout ratio is over 85%. Yield: 5.80%.
Top Canadian Stocks For 2014: Information Services Group Inc.(III)
Information Services Group, Inc. operates as a fact-based sourcing advisory company principally in the Americas, Europe, and the Asia Pacific. It provides strategic consulting, benchmarking and analytics, managed services, and research services with a focus on information technology, business process transformation, and enterprise resource planning. The company serves financial services, telecom, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, transportation and travel, and energy and utilities industries; and state and local governments and airport and transit authorities. Information Services Group, Inc. was founded in 2006 and is based in Stamford, Connecticut.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Peter Leeds]
According to The Washington Post over $1.8 trillion dollars is sitting idle in America's corporations. The original reasons companies were hoarding cash, such as economic uncertainty and European debt contagion fears, are beginning to take a back seat to growth plans. These companies (such as Microsoft with $40 billion cash, Caterpillar with $3 billion, Exxon at $11 billion, etc...) will look to use their cash to capture market share and expand. I'm expecting this increased spending to result in a mild improvement in the unemployment rate, pushing it down from 9% to 7.5% in 2012.
A consulting firm like Information Services Group (III) will be one of the primary beneficiaries of increased corporate activity. They have top clients from a broad range of industries, such as financial services, manufacturing, health care, energy, and more. With the majority of their clientele increasing spending, a portion of those funds will find their way to III. The Peter Leeds price outlook: $2.40.
5 Best China Stocks To Buy For 2014: Mobile TeleSystems (MBT)
Mobile TeleSystems OJSC, together with its subsidiaries, provides telecommunications services primarily in the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Armenia, and Belarus. The company provides a range of mobile and fixed line voice and data telecommunications services, including transmission, broadband, pay-TV, and various value-added services; and sells equipment and accessories. It also offers network access services, including mobile cellular voice and data communication services; automatic roaming services; GPRS and Internet access services; and 3G technology. In addition, the company�s services include the design, construction, and installation of local voice and data networks capable of interconnecting with fixed line operators; installation and maintenance of cellular payphones; lease of digital communication channels; and provision of access to open computer databases and data networks, including the Internet, as well as video conferencing, and fixed, local, and long-distance telecommunications services. Its value-added services comprise call divert/forwarding, caller ID and anti-caller ID display, conference calling, WiFi, GPRS, intelligent call assistant, APN remote access point, fixed mobile convergence, enhanced data rates for GSM Evolution, call barring, SMS, mobile office, voicemail, mobile banking, wireless application protocol, MTS-Connect, SIM-browser, point-to-point transfer, unstructured supplementary services data, downlink packet access, mobile TV, call waiting, MMS, ring tones, missed call alert, itemization of monthly bills, information and directory, international access, WEB and WAP portal, customer care system, ring back tone, collect call, and location-based services. As of December 31, 2011, the company had a mobile subscriber base of approximately 101.14 million. It has a strategic partnership with Vodafone. The company was founded in 1993 and is headquartered in Moscow, the Russian Federation.
Top Canadian Stocks For 2014: AmerisourceBergen Corporation (HOLDING CO)
AmerisourceBergen Corporation, a pharmaceutical services company, provides drug distribution and related services to healthcare providers and pharmaceutical manufacturers in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. The company distributes brand-name and generic pharmaceuticals, over-the-counter healthcare products, home healthcare supplies and equipment, and related services to various healthcare providers, including acute care hospitals and health systems, independent and chain retail pharmacies, mail order pharmacies, medical and dialysis clinics, physicians, and long-term care and other alternate site pharmacies. It also offers various services, such as pharmaceutical packaging, pharmacy automation, inventory management, reimbursement and pharmaceutical consulting and staffing services, logistics services, and pharmacy management. In addition, AmerisourceBergen provides scalable automated pharmacy dispensing equipment, medication and supply dispensing cabinets , and supply management software to various retail and institutional healthcare providers. Further, the company offers distribution and other services to physicians, who specialize in various disease states; distributes plasma and other blood products, injectible pharmaceuticals, and vaccines; and provides drug commercialization, third party logistics, reimbursement consulting, data analytics, and outcomes research services for biotech and other pharmaceutical manufacturers, as well as practice management and group purchasing services for physician practices. Additionally, it delivers unit dose, punch card, unit-of-use, and other packaging solutions to institutional and retail healthcare providers; and offers contract packaging and clinical trial material services for pharmaceutical manufacturers. The company serves customers through a network of distribution and service centers, and packaging facilities. AmerisourceBergen was founded in 1985 and is headquartered in Chesterb rook, Pennsylvania.
Top Canadian Stocks For 2014: EMC Corporation(EMC)
EMC Corporation develops, delivers, and supports the information and virtual infrastructure technologies and solutions. The company offers enterprise storage systems and software, which are deployed in storage area networks (SAN), networked attached storage (NAS), unified storage combining NAS and SAN, object storage, and/or direct attached storage environments, as well as provides backup and recovery, and disaster recovery and archiving solutions. It also offers information security solutions in various areas, such as enterprise governance, risk and compliance, data loss prevention, security information management, continuous network monitoring, fraud protection, identity assurance and access control, and encryption and key management. In addition, the company provides information intelligence software, solutions, and services, including EMC Captiva for intelligent enterprise capture; EMC Document Sciences for customer communications management; EMC Kazeon for e-discovery ; EMC Documentum xCP for building business solutions and an action engine for big data; and the EMC Documentum platform for managing and delivering enterprise information. Further, it offers virtual and cloud infrastructure products, such as virtualization and virtualization-based cloud infrastructure solutions that address a range of IT problems, as well as facilitate access to cloud computing capacity, business continuity, software lifecycle management, and corporate end-user computing device management In addition, the company provides consulting, technology deployment, managed, customer support, and training and certification services. EMC Corporation markets its products through direct sales and through multiple distribution channels in North America, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, South Africa, and the Asia Pacific region. The company was founded in 1979 and is headquartered in Hopkinton, Massachusetts.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Goodwin]
Miller’s $323 Million in EMC has gained 51.1% during the last 4 quarters. Miller has reduced his holdings by 4.5% during the last quarter of 2010. The stock returned 17.5% since then. Andreas Halvorsen's Viking Global likes EMC.
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