George S. Canellos, who led several of the Securities and Exchange Commission's recent cases, will step down as co-director of the agency's Division of Enforcement, according to an agency statement Friday.
Mr. Canellos headed insider-trading actions against former McKinsey & Co. executive Rajat Gupta, Galleon Group founder Raj Rajaratnam and several managers at S.A.C. Capital as well as the firm's founder, Steven A. Cohen.
He was instrumental in a $150 million SEC settlement with Bank of America over improper disclosure of employee bonuses and financial losses prior to its 2008 merger with Merrill Lynch and led actions against several large financial firms over the sales of mortgage-backed securities and collateralize debt obligations. He also brought fraud charges against JPMorgan traders for derivatives losses in the “London Whale” case.
Top Investments For 2015: WisdomTree Investments Inc (WETF)
WisdomTree Investments, Inc. is an asset management company that focuses on exchange-traded funds (ETFs). The Company�� family of ETF includes both fundamentally weighted funds that track its own indexes, and actively managed funds. It distributes its ETFs through all channels within the asset management industry, including brokerage firms, registered investment advisors, institutional investors, private wealth managers and discount brokers. As of December 31, 2011, the Company offered a family of 48 ETFs, which included 34 international and domestic equity ETFs, seven currency ETFs, five international fixed income ETFs and two alternative strategy ETFs.
Equity ETFs
The Company offers equity ETFs covering the United States, international developed and emerging markets. These ETFs offer access to the securities of large, mid and small-cap companies, companies located in the United States, developed markets and emerging markets, as well as companies in particular market sectors, including basic materials, energy, utilities and real estate. Its equity ETFs track its own fundamentally weighted indexes.
Currency ETFs
The Company offers currency ETFs that provide investors with exposure to developed and emerging market currencies, including the Chinese Yuan, the Brazilian Real and the Japanese Yen. Currency ETFs invest in the United States money market securities, forward currency contracts and swaps and seek to achieve the total returns reflective of both money market rates in selected countries available to foreign investors and changes to the value of these currencies relative to the United States dollar.
International Fixed Income ETFs
In August 2010, the Company launched an ETF that invests in a range of local debt denominated in the currencies of emerging market countries and in March 2011, it launched an ETF that invests in local debt denominated in the currencies of Asia Pacific ex-Japan countries. In March 2012, the! Company launched an emerging markets corporate bond ETF.
Alternative Strategy ETFs
In January 2011, the Company launched the managed futures strategy ETF. This fund seeks to achieve positive returns in rising or falling markets that are not directly correlated to broad market equity or fixed income returns. In July 2011, it launched a global real return ETF. This fund seeks total returns (capital appreciation plus income) that exceed the rate of inflation over long-term investment horizons. This fund combines domestic and global inflation-linked bonds with commodity strategies and gold exposure.
Index Based ETFs
Its equity ETFs seek to track the Company�� own fundamentally weighted indexes. Most of today�� ETFs track market capitalization weighted indexes and most of these indexes are licensed from third parties by ETF sponsors. The Company has developed fundamentally weighted indexes that weight companies by a measure of fundamental value. The Company benchmarks its fundamentally weighted indexes against traditional market capitalization-weighted indexes designed to track similar companies, sectors, regions or exposure.
Actively Managed ETFs
The Company�� actively managed ETFs include its currency, international fixed income and alternative strategy ETFs. The securities purchased and sold by its ETFs include the United States and foreign equities, forward currency contracts and the United States and foreign debt instruments. In addition, the Company enters into derivative transactions, in particular the United States-listed futures contracts, non-deliverable currency forward contracts, and total return swap agreements in order to gain exposure to commodities, foreign currencies, and interest rates. The exchanges these securities trade on include all the exchanges worldwide.
The Company competes with Vanguard, Charles Schwab, iShares and FocusShares (through Scottrade Inc.).
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Dan Newman]
WisdomTree� (NASDAQ: WETF ) , the fifth-largest ETF provider, has grown its average assets under management from less than $1 billion in 2006 to more than $23 billion this year, with an average ETF fee of 0.53%. The low-cost leader, Vanguard, keeps putting the pressure on competitors with extremely low expense ratios. For the�Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF� (NYSEMKT: VTI ) , the annual fee amounts to a paltry 0.05%.
Top Investments For 2015: Wells Fargo Advantage Income Opportunities Fund (EAD)
Evergreen Income Advantage Fund (the Fund) is a diversified closed-end management investment company. The primary investment objective of the Fund is to seek a high level of current income.
During the fiscal year ended April 30, 2005, the Fund's investment portfolio included Marquee Holdings, Inc., Mediacom LLC, American Achievement Corp., CSK Auto, Inc., Oxford Industries, Inc., B&G Foods Holdings Corp. and Chiquita Brands International, Inc.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Sarah Jones]
Daimler AG jumped 6.2 percent to 52.35 euros. The world�� third-largest maker of luxury cars posted second-quarter profit that beat analyst predictions following the sale of its final holding in the parent company of planemaker Airbus SAS. (EAD)
- [By Jim Jubak]
Precision Castparts' impressive growth in the June quarter was largely a result of acquisitions. Organic sales growth year over year came to just 2%. Most of the time I don't like growth stocks that are fueled by acquisition since these deals can hide the true (frequently negative) trend in core sales and earnings growth. But in the case of Precision Castparts, an acquisition strategy makes sense to me, because it is a reflection of what's going on in the aerospace sector. Companies like Boeing (BA) and Airbus (EAD) are looking to simplify their supply chain and to deal with fewer suppliers. Rolling up part of the supply chain under one roof, which is what Precision Castparts is doing right now, is a way to gain a bigger share of the business of these big end customers.
- [By Inyoung Hwang]
EADS (EAD) declined 1.2 percent to 51.54 euros. UBS said in a note that investing in the company is ��ess compelling��after shares rallied 77 percent in 2013 through yesterday and orders were announced following the Dubai Air Show.
5 Best Undervalued Stocks To Own For 2015: I.D. Systems Inc.(IDSY)
I.D. Systems, Inc. develops, markets, and sells wireless solutions for managing and securing enterprise assets, including industrial vehicles, such as forklifts, airport ground support equipment, rental vehicles, and transportation assets primarily in North America. The company offers integrated wireless solutions that enable customers to control, monitor, track, and analyze their enterprise assets. Its campus-based fleet management products include On-Asset Hardware, which provides an autonomous means of asset control and monitoring; Wireless Asset Managers that link mobile assets being monitored with customer?s computer network or to a remotely hosted server; Server Software, which manages data communications between the system?s database and either the Wireless Asset Managers or On-Asset Hardware; and Client Software, which restricts access and limits corruption of system information, as well as minimizes network bandwidth usage. The company?s remote asset management products comprise On-Asset Hardware, which addresses various remote asset types, such as dry van trailers, refrigerated trailers, domestic containers, and railcars, as well as customer-specific requirements; and VeriWise Intelligence Portal, a hosted Website that provides Internet access to client asset information. The company also offers direct feed of the data to customer through XML or Web services. In addition, it provides maintenance, customer support, and consulting services. I.D. Systems markets and sells its wireless solutions to a range of customers in the commercial and government sectors operating in various markets, such as automotive manufacturing, retailers, shippers, freight transportation companies, heavy industry, retail and wholesale distribution, aerospace and defense, homeland security, and vehicle rental directly, as well as through indirect sales channels, such as industrial equipment dealers. The company was founded in 1993 and is headquartered in Wo odcliff Lake, New Jersey.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By John Udovich]
Yesterday, small cap identity protection stock Lifelock Inc (NYSE: LOCK) surged 15.64% after reporting better-than-expected third quarter earnings thanks in part to playing on the security fears of consumers, meaning its probably time to take a look at it along with two other security stocks, I.D. Systems, Inc (NASDAQ: IDSY) and View Systems Inc (OTCBB: VSYM), which can also play up the fear factor:�
Top Investments For 2015: Astoria Financial Corp (AF)
Astoria Financial Corporation, incorporated on June, 14, 1993, is the unitary savings and loan association holding company of Astoria Federal Savings and Loan Association (Astoria Federal). The Company�� principal business is the operation of its wholly owned subsidiary, Astoria Federal. Astoria Federal�� primary business is attracting retail deposits from the general public and investing those deposits, together with funds generated from operations, principal repayments on loans and securities and borrowings, primarily in one- to four-family mortgage loans, multi-family mortgage loans, commercial real estate loans and mortgage-backed securities. Astoria Federal also invests in consumer and other loans, the United States Government, government agency and government-sponsored enterprise (GSE), securities and other investments.
Lending Activities
The Company�� loan portfolio consists primarily of mortgage loans. As of December 31, 2012, 74% of its total loan portfolio was secured by residential properties and 24% was secured by multi-family properties and commercial real estate. The remainder of the loan portfolio consists of a variety of consumer and other loans, including commercial and industrial loans originated in 2012 through its business banking initiatives. As of December 31, 2012, its net loan portfolio totaled $13.08 billion, or 79% of total assets. The Company originates mortgage loans either directly through its banking and loan production offices in New York or indirectly through brokers and its third party loan origination program. It also originates mortgage loans for sale. The Company�� primary lending focus is on the origination and purchase of first mortgage loans secured by one- to four-family properties that serve as the primary residence of the owner.
The Company also originates multi-family and commercial real estate loans. As of December 31, 2012, multi-family mortgage loans totaled $2.41 billion, or 18% of its total loan portfolio,! and commercial real estate loans totaled $773.9 million, or 6% of its total loan portfolio. At December 31, 2012, $264.1 million, or 2%, of the Company�� total loan portfolio consisted of consumer and other loans which were primarily home equity lines of credit. The Company also offers overdraft protection, lines of credit, commercial loans and passbook loans. Consumer and other loans, with the exception of home equity and commercial lines of credit, are offered primarily on a fixed rate, short-term basis.
Investment Activities
At December 31, 2012, the Company�� securities portfolio totaled $2.04 billion, or 12%, of total assets. The Company does not use derivatives for trading purposes. Its securities portfolio consists primarily of mortgage-backed securities. At December 31, 2012, its mortgage-backed securities totaled $1.94 billion, or 95%, of total securities, of which $1.92 billion, or 94%, of total securities, were real estate mortgage investment conduits (REMIC) and collateralized mortgage obligation (CMO) securities, substantially all of which had fixed rates. Of the REMIC and CMO securities portfolio, $2.35 billion, or 98.7%, are guaranteed by Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) or Government National Mortgage Association (Ginnie Mae) as issuer. At December 31, 2012, its securities available-for-sale totaled $336.3 million and its securities held-to-maturity totaled $1.7 billion. At December 31, 2012, it had no investments in repurchase agreements and federal funds sold.
Sources of Funds
The Company�� primary source of funds is the cash flow provided by its investing activities, including principal and interest payments on loans and securities. Its other sources of funds are provided by operating activities and financing activities, including deposits and borrowings. The Company offers a variety of deposit accounts with a range of interest rates and terms. It offers ! passbook ! and statement savings accounts, money market accounts, negotiable order of withdrawal (NOW) and demand deposit accounts, liquid certificates of deposit (Liquid CDs), and certificates of deposit, which include all time deposits other than Liquid CDs. Liquid CDs have maturities of three months, require the maintenance of a minimum balance and allow depositors the ability to make periodic deposits to and withdrawals from their account. At December 31, 2012, its deposits totaled $10.44 billion. Of the total deposit balance, $1.28 billion, or 12%, represented individual retirement accounts during the year ended December 31, 2012. It held no brokered deposits at December 31, 2012. Core deposits represented 53.3% of total deposits at December 31, 2011. Reverse repurchase agreements are accounted for as borrowings and are secured by the securities sold under the agreements. At December 31, 2012, borrowings totaled $4.37 billion. It also obtains advances from the Federal Home Loan Bank of New York (FHLB-NY).
Subsidiary Activities
In addition to Astoria Federal, the Company has two other subsidiaries, AF Insurance Agency, Inc. and Astoria Capital Trust I. AF Insurance Agency, Inc. is a life insurance agency. Through contractual agreements with various third parties, AF Insurance Agency, Inc. makes insurance products available primarily to the customers of Astoria Federal. Astoria Federal�� wholly owned subsidiaries include AF Agency, Inc., Astoria Federal Savings and Loan Association Revocable Grantor Trust, Astoria Federal Mortgage Corp. (AF Mortgage), Fidata Service Corp. (Fidata), Marcus I Inc. and Suffco Service Corporation (Suffco). AF Agency, Inc. makes various annuity products available to the customers of Astoria Federal through an unaffiliated third party vendor. AF Mortgage is an operating subsidiary through which Astoria Federal engages in lending activities outside the State of New York through its third party loan origination program. Fidata mortgage loans totaled $5.09 bi! llion at ! December 31, 2012. Suffco serves as document custodian for the loans of Astoria Federal and Fidata and certain loans being serviced for Fannie Mae and other investors.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Jonathan Morgan]
Air France-KLM Group (AF), Europe�� second-biggest airline by sales, retreated 2.8 percent. Mediaset SpA climbed 2.8 percent after Credit Suisse Group AG raised its price target on the Italian broadcaster. Serco Group Plc added 2.7 percent after predicting that its revenue growth in the first half will exceed its previous estimates.
- [By Namitha Jagadeesh]
International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (IAG) and Air France-KLM (AF) Group rose with as a gauge of travel stocks as oil prices fell after Iran�� accord. PSA Peugeot Citroen gained 3.7 percent after people familiar with the matter said its chief executive officer plans to step down next year. Fresenius Medical Care AG surged the most in five years after U.S. regulators scrapped a plan to cut Medicare payments next year.
Top Investments For 2015: First Trust Ise Global Engineering And Construction Index Fund (FLM)
First Trust ISE Global Engineering and Construction Index Fund (the Fund) seeks investment results that correspond generally to the price and yield of an equity index called the ISE Global Engineering and Construction Index (the Index). The Fund is a series of the First Trust Exchange-Traded Fund II, an investment company and an exchange-traded index fund. The Index is developed and owned by the International Securities Exchange, LLC (ISE or Index Provider), in consultation with Standard & Poor's, a Division of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., which calculates and maintains the Index. The Index specifically targets companies that are engaged in civil and capital projects, such as infrastructure, utilities, transportation, telecommunications, commercial, residential and commerce facilities, and whose roles are within the engineering, designing, planning, consulting, project managing and/or constructing of these projects. First Trust Advisors L.P. is the investment adviser for the Fund. Advisors' Opinion:- [By John Udovich]
Small cap building materials stock NCI Building Systems Inc (NYSE: NCS) fell yesterday after announcing a share offering plus its investors have (so-far) missed out on any ��ecovery��in construction���meaning it might be time to take a closer look at the stock along with potential performance benchmarks like the PowerShares Dynamic Building & Construction ETF (NYSEARCA: PKB) and the First Trust ISE Global Engineering and Construction Index Fund ETF (NYSEARCA: FLM)���both of which have had decent returns in recent years.
Top Investments For 2015: NewLead Holdings Ltd.(NEWL)
NewLead Holdings Ltd. operates as an international shipping company that owns and operates product tankers and dry bulk carriers. It operates in two segments, Wet Operations and Dry Operations. The Wet Operations segment transports various refined petroleum products simultaneously in segregated coated cargo tanks that include gasoline, jet fuel, kerosene, naphtha, and gas oil. The Dry Operations segment involves in transporting and handling bulk cargoes through ownership, operation, and trading of vessels. As of August 2, 2011, the company operated a fleet of 6 double-hull product tankers and 16 dry bulk vessels. The company was formerly known as Aries Maritime Transport Limited and changed its name to NewLead Holdings Ltd. in December 2009. NewLead Holdings Ltd. was incorporated in 2005 and is based in Athens, Greece.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Bryan Murphy]
Two months ago, maritime shipping stocks FreeSeas Inc. (NASDAQ:FREE), NewLead Holdings Ltd (NASDAQ:NEWL), and DryShips Inc. (NASDAQ:DRYS) were all the rage; traders couldn't get enough of them. The spark for the new strength from DRYS, NEWL, and FREE was a strong - and somewhat surprising - bounce in Baltic Dry Index, which roughly measures the daily charter rate for maritime shipping vessels. It had risen from a low of 698 at the beginning of the year to above 1000 by July to a peak of 2113 in late September. Since these shipping companies had seen a tripling (in less than a year, mind you) of the prices they could charge customers, the rebounding interest in these stocks was certainly understandable. FreeSeas shares more than doubled in value during that time. DryShips nearly did the same. While NewLead Holdings Ltd didn't actually dole out any significant gain, it did draw a lot of new interest during that hot period as a potential "the next one to take off" idea.
- [By Monica Gerson]
NewLead Holdings (NASDAQ: NEWL) shares dipped 6.56% to touch a new 52-week low of $0.08 after the company completed the acquisition of titles in the Viking Mine located in Kentucky, USA.
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