Thursday, January 23, 2014

If you're bullish on biotech, you should see this list

2013 was a banner year for the life sciences sector, with biotech, pharmaceutical, and medtech companies buoyed by advances in therapeutic techniques, a friendly regulatory environment, lucrative partnerships and the overall market upswing.

The 2013 Biotech Watchlist reflected this robustness, boasting a year-to-date return that blew past those posted by the major indices. Credit the basket of stocks picked by industry experts, weighted heavily with winners.

Can our panel of experts pick another winning portfolio in 2014? Find out which companies they've chosen for the 2014 Watchlist in this exclusive from The Life Sciences Report (more)

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Investing in Real Estate



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Liquidity Services (NASDAQ: LQDT) Stock is Poised for a 40% Rebound

Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) makes it look easy. The e-commerce titan has just wrapped up its 15th straight year of at least 20% revenue growth, which is harder than it sounds when you consider its revenue base now stands at $75 billion.
If only all other kinds of e-commerce businesses were so easy to build. Other firms, while clearly benefiting from the long-term growth in the frictionless world of online commerce, are still suffering from growing pains.
Case in point: Liquidity Services (NASDAQ: LQDT), which helps businesses buy and sell surplus equipment through online exchanges. The company had a tremendous growth spurt, boosting sales from $219 million in fiscal 2009 (ended in September) to $475 million by fiscal 2012. Yet sales growth slowed to 6% in fiscal 2013, and analysts don't see much growth in the current fiscal year, sending this stock into a deep funk.
LQDT Stock Chart
With shares now trading for one-third of the price they fetched in 2012, contrarian investors have started to give this e-commerce play a second look. Though LQDT is unlikely to revisit the $65 mark any time soon, a move back to $30 or even $35 looks quite feasible as the company starts to snag new customers.  (more)
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Facebook to lose 80% of its users by 2017 : FB, TWTR

The Facebook generation may be about to come to an end if Princeton University researchers are correct. A new study predicts “a rapid decline in Facebook activity in the next few years.” The study, conducted by two researchers in Princeton’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, applies the same model used in the study of disease to extrapolate future adoption and abandonment of social networks.

In the case of Facebook (FB), the researchers used MySpace as a case study for a social network whose use spread rapidly, like a disease, and then quickly died out when the number of new users declined. The study finds that Facebook is “just beginning to show the onset of an abandonment phase.” The researchers believe that abandonment will accelerate to the point that Facebook could lose 80% of its users between 2015 and 2017. 
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Oil Set to Rocket

Some of us stopped believing in fairytales long ago and then there were those that never thought that Goldilocks ate anybody’s porridge. So, there are two types of believers. Those that did and now don’t anymore because they have grown up and those that never ever did have the wool pulled over their eyes. It’s the same with the economy these days. Either you believed that it was getting better and listened to the propaganda emanating from the once-hallowed portals of the statist politik bureau of the government or you never believed a word of what got spun by the spinners and the media-controlling decision-makers that are there to eat your porridge and sit in your chairs (even lie in your beds). The latter have always thought it was all just a load of old Tom Cobbley from the start.
So is the economy getting better or is it a fairytale dream?
Who knows the answer to that question today? Well, if we believe the International Energy Agency (IEA), then the economy is getting better around the world since oil consumption is increasing. It has been forecast to increase and will outstrip even shale oil production which is most certainly taking off in the USA today and is set to do the same elsewhere (in the UK, for example). Whether we believe the IEA is another matter entirely, but it is the organization that advises the largest energy-consuming countries in the world on their policies regarding energy consumption and production.  (more)

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A Dozen Gold, Copper, Phosphate and Uranium Standouts


The Gold Report


Amanda Van Dyke of Palisade Capital is confident that China’s reforms will ensure that the commodity supercycle will continue for some time to come. In this interview with The Mining Report, Van Dyke argues that investors should worry less about the right balance of specific commodities and more about the right mix of early-stage, development-stage and producing companies. She expands on a dozen she believes have the right stuff to succeed.
The Mining Report: In December Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke announced a $10 million ($10M) cut in monthly quantitative easing (QE). He also said that interest rates would remain at zero for the foreseeable future. What effects will these decisions have on the economy and on precious metals?
Amanda Van Dyke: Precious metals have been trending down for a number of reasons. One was the perception, starting about March 2013, that the Federal Reserve was going to taper QE and an end to QE was in sight.
Continue Reading at TheAuReport.com…
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