Stock Trading

Is Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) the must-have stock for hedge funds in 2013? Just like most people think of an apple when asked to think of a fruit, it turns out that most hedge fund managers think of Apple when filling their portfolios with technology stocks. The iPhone maker’s is the most common stock to be held in hedge fund portfolios as of now, reports Barron’s. Is Apple now a once-in-a-decade buying opportunity? Click here to get your 24-page Ultimate Cheat Sheet to Apple’s Stock now! A total of 188 hedge funds own some amount of Apple stock, according to statistics provided by The Wall Street Journal. As of March 2013, the percentage of Apple’s equity capital owned by hedge funds was at 2 percent, which is the same percentage owned by hedge funds in the previous quarter. Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) came in second with 184 hedge funds owning 5 percent of its equity capital. Insurance giant AIG (NYSE:AIG) held the third place in the number of hedge funds that owned its stock. However, AIG also had a much higher percentage of its equity capital owned by hedge funds at a whopping 17 percent. Apple also ranked high on a list of stocks that most frequently appear among the largest ten holdings of hedge fund portfolios. Apple was ranked number three with 55 funds including the Cupertino-based company’s stock in their top ten holdings. Apple’s average portfolio weight was 7 percent in these hedge funds. Google was ranked second, with 74 hedge funds keeping the Mountain View-based tech company in their top ten. AIG took the number one spot, with 79 hedge funds claiming the insurance company’s stock for their top ten portfolio selections. NEW! Discover a new stock idea each week for less than the cost of 1 trade. CLICK HERE for your Weekly Stock Cheat Sheets NOW! Here’s how Apple, Google, and AIG have traded so far this week: Follow Nathanael on Twitter (@ArnoldEtan_WSCS) Don’t Miss: Apple’s Newest Patent Target: Galaxy S4. Read the original article from Wall St. Cheat Sheet

May started off well for the materials sector as it led the S&P 500 to its fifth straight record high. But last week's news about China's lagging industrial production brought the sector down, and the sector fell again on Wednesday following the release of the minutes from the Federal Reserve's Federal Open Markets Committee meeting earlier in the month. With the sector's recent performance in mind, we decided to look for materials stocks that are likely to do well in the future.We then screened for stocks that had rising gross profit margins over the past four years. Gross profit margin measures a company's financial health and is the profit that remains after deducting "cost of goods sold", which includes inventory. Companies with higher gross margins are considered more profitable and have a greater control of their costs.Finally, we looked for stocks exhibiting bullish sentiment from

Amarin Corporation (NASDAQ: AMRN) has been struggling a lot lately as retail channel prescription data for its EPA capsule Vascepa imply that the drug is starting to slow down its momentum in the MARINE indication (hypertriglyceridemia patients with >500 mg/dL). While the company has seen significant progress since the launch of the drug in January, it is still not causing any excitement in an investor base that wanted to see a big pharma buyout of the company ever since the company reported successful Phase III results.Despite the incredible strength of the broader market and the biotech sector in particular this year, AMRN is down 14% YTD as of the time of writing. Since the company released Q1 2013 financial results (as discussed in a recent note), the company rallied all the way to $8.00/share before continuous selling brought shares back to the $7.00 per share level.We

Stocks discussed on the Lightning Round segment of Jim Cramer's Mad Money Program, Thursday May 23. Bullish Calls: Rentech (RTK): "I like that. It has a 6% yield. RTK is a keeper, and it is not necessarily going down." Conoco-Phillips (COP): "Is one of the finest natural gas companies and a good oil company ... I want to be a buy, buy, buyer of COP." Synder's-Lance (LNCE), Pinnacle Foods (PF): "I like Lance. Lance is good. I prefer Pinnacle Foods. It has better growth, dividend and balance sheet." PulteGroup (PHM), Toll Brothers (TOL): "PulteGroup is going higher. It is one of the best-performing stocks

Stocks discussed on the in-depth session of Jim Cramer's Mad Money TV Program, Thursday May 23. Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and ChannelAdvisor (ECOM), Dell (DELL)Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and new IPO ChannelAdvisor (ECOM) are both tech stocks that closed up on Thursday, but they are dramatically different companies. Many were worried HPQ's quarter would be a disaster after Dell's (DELL) disappointment, but HPQ's results were positive. Cash flow was strong and the balance sheet is solid. While HPQ is not growing revenues, it is a cash cow with a dividend. ChannelAdvisor (ECOM) rose 32% the first day of its IPO, even though management said, "our operating expenses will increase significantly, which may make it more difficult to achieve profitability." However, investors buy ECOM for different reasons than they might buy HPQ. ECOM may lack profits, but it has dramatic accelerated revenue growth. Hewlett-Packard, American Electric Power (AEP), Michael Kors (KORS)

Chartists can sort a PerfChart by performance by first choosing histogram view in the lower left corner. Once the histogram bars show, hover over the chart area, click the right mouse button and choose “performance sort on” from the options. This will place the strongest security on the left and sort by performance. This makes it easy to separate the winners from the losers. You can remove this option by clicking the right mouse button and choosing “performance sort off”. Click these images for a live chart

Vivus (NASDAQ: VVUS) has been seeing relatively modest growth in Qsymia (phentermine and topiramate ER) prescriptions since the drug launched in September 2012 under the FDA's REMS agreement, which restricted the drug's sales significantly due to the inability for patients to have prescriptions for the drug filled at brick-and-mortar pharmacies. Because of this, and because of an apparent and drastic overstatement of the true size of the prescription obesity drug market, investors have mixed and overall bearish opinion on VVUS since the FDA approval of Qsymia. The stock is trading at roughly half of its level post FDA approval.While the larger trend since FDA approval remains negative, a relief rally that was initially discussed in a Bio-Wire note on April 18th brought the stock 17% higher since. This move was a reaction to a change in the Qsymia REMS which could have a profound (and much needed) positive

The list below features three companies undervalued based on key fundamentals, based in Brazil and Argentina.To begin, we screened for Latin American stocks that appear undervalued relative to their cash flows, indicated by high ratios of levered free cash flow/enterprise value (LFCF/EV).Levered free cash flow is the free cash flow after deducting interest payments on outstanding debt. Enterprise value is the sum of the firm's value from all ownership sources: market cap, outstanding debt, and preferred shares. When companies have ratios of LFCF/EV in excess of 10%, it may indicate that the company as a whole is being undervalued.To further limit our list, we then screened for low Price to Free Cash Flow (P/FCF) and Price to Book (P/B) ratios, both considered indicators of undervaluation.P/FCF = Market Capitalization / Free Cash FlowP/B = Stock Price / (Total Assets - Intangible Assets and Liabilities)On average,

KKR (KKR) May 23, 2013 8:00 am ET Executives Craig Larson - Managing Director of Investor Relations Henry R. Kravis - Co-Founder of KKR Management LLC, Co-Chairman of KKR Management LLC, Co-Chief Executive Officer of KKR Management LLC, Member of Nominating & Corporate Governance Committee, Member of Executive Committee, Member of Portfolio Management Committee and Member of PE Investment Committee Henry H. McVey - Managing Director and Head of Global Macro & Asset Allocation Alexander Navab - Member, Co-Head of Americas Private Equity, Head of Media & Communications Team, Global Co-Chair of Private Equity Investment Committee, Member of Management Committee, Member of Investment Committee and Member of Special Situations Investment Committee Marc S. Lipschultz - Member and Global Head of Energy and Infrastructure, Member of Infrastructure Investment Committee and Member of Oil and Gas Investment Committee Ralph F. Rosenberg - Member and Global Head of Real Estate Scott C. Nuttall

As far as I can tell, Nvidia (NVDA), a leader in graphic computing chips, is in a death struggle with its old competitors AMD and Intel (INTC), as well as a slew of smartphone and tablet chip competitors. Yet the main takeaway I got from CEO Jen-Hsun Wong in the May 9 analyst call was that NVDA does not need all of its cash to compete. (See Nvidia Fiscal Q1 2014 Earnings Call Transcript.)In the short run returning cash to shareholders should prop up the stock price. In the long run, if the cash should have been used for R&D, the move could hurt shareholders. There are several variables that need to be looked at here: cash on hand; current margins; cash flow; the current valuation of the stock; and the need for cash to counter competitive threats.First some background. Nvidia, along with former rival ATI (now