Thursday, July 4, 2013

5 Best Electric Utility Stocks To Own For 2014

Based on the aggregated intelligence of 180,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, electric utility Westar Energy (NYSE: WR  ) has earned a respected four-star ranking.

With that in mind, let's take a closer look at Westar and see what CAPS investors are saying about the stock right now.

Westar facts

Headquarters (founded)

Topeka, Kan. (1924)

Market Cap

$4.1 billion

Industry

Electric utilities

5 Best Electric Utility Stocks To Own For 2014: eBay Inc.(EBAY)

eBay Inc. provides online platforms, services, and tools to help individuals and merchants in online and mobile commerce and payments in the United States and internationally. Its Marketplaces segment operates ecommerce platform eBay.com; vertical shopping sites, such as StubHub, Fashion, Motors, and Half.com; and classifieds Websites, including Den Bl�Avis, BilBasen, Gumtree, Kijiji, LoQUo, Marktplaats.nl, mobile.de, Alamaula, Rent.com, eBay Anuncios, eBay Kleinanzeigen, and eBay Annunci, as well as provides advertising services. The company?s Payments segment offers payment and settlement services for consumers and merchants on and off eBay Websites and other merchant Websites. This segment operates PayPal, which enables individuals and businesses to send and receive payments online and through mobile devices; Bill Me Later that enables the United States merchants to offer, the United States consumers to obtain, credit at the point of sale for ecommerce and mobile tra nsactions; Zong, which allows users with mobile phones to purchase digital goods and have the transactions charged to their phone bill; and BillSAFE that enables customers pay for purchases upon receipt of an invoice. Its GSI segment offers an ecommerce services suite for enterprise clients that operate in general merchandise categories, including apparel, sporting goods, toys and baby, health and beauty, and home; and marketing services comprising full-service digital agency, enterprise email marketing, mobile advertising, affiliate marketing, advertisement retargeting, and in-depth analytics services. The company also offers X.commerce platform that provides software developers access to the company?s applications programming interfaces to develop functionality for various merchants; and Magento Connect, which allows developers to market and sell add-on functionality and solutions to merchants that use a Magento storefront. eBay Inc. was founded in 1995 and is headquarter ed in San Jose, California.

Advisors' Opinion:
  • [By Ryan Peckyno]

    The next stock that article highlighted was eBay – a stock that was up some 60% at the end of 2012.  According to J.P. Morgan’s Anmuth, growth in eBay’s core business “could accelerate over the next couple quarters as eBay continues to benefit from strong user growth, increased inventory from large retailers, mobile, and improved site design.”  Ok, I’ll buy that.  But again I have the same issue: his target price is only 5% above the stock’s current price.  Sure, I love eBay’s business model and long term growth potential, but price matters and at over $50 a share eBay doesn’t look all that attractive, particularly given that earnings are down.

  • [By Tamara Rutter]

    Online marketplace eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY  ) has also soared this year thanks to strength from its PayPal business. The stock is up more than 66% year-to-date and shows no sign of slowing down. The company's third-quarter revenue spiked 15% to $3.4 billion, as eBay continued to generate significant growth in both its payments business as well as its online marketplace business.

    Looking to the future, eBay is heavily investing in mobile technology. In fact, the company's smartphone applications have been downloaded more than 100 million times worldwide. Meanwhile PayPal, which is eBay's fastest-growing business, "is now accepted by more than 60 of the top 100 retailers in the United States," according to research from Morningstar.

  • [By Jeanine Poggi]

    eBay's biggest story continues to be its PayPal business.

    The payments business pushed eBay's fourth-quarter earnings ahead of expectations. During the quarter the e-commerce company earned $559 million, or 42 cents a share, compared with $1.36 billion, or 1.02 a share in the year-ago period. Excluding costs related to the sale of its Skype business, eBay actually earned 52 cents a share. Revenue climbed 5% to $2.5 billion. Analysts were calling for a profit of 47 cents a share on revenue of $2.48 billion.

    This marks the 18th consecutive quarter eBay surpassed EPS estimates.

  • [By Chuck]

    Legg Mason had $259 Million of eBay shares. The stock gained 47.1% during the past year and outperformed the SPY, which returned 21.5% since then. Legg Mason reduced their eBay holdings by 26.4% during the 4th quarter of 2010. Stock returned 23.8% since then, outperforming the SPY by 18 percentage points.

5 Best Electric Utility Stocks To Own For 2014: Yale Resources Ltd. (YLL.V)

Yale Resources Ltd., an exploration stage company, engages in the acquisition, exploration, and development of mineral properties in Mexico. The company primarily explores for gold, silver, copper, zinc, and lead. It also has interests in oil and gas properties in the United States. The company was founded in 1987 is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada.

Top 10 Safest Companies To Own For 2014: Focus Metals Inc (FMS.V)

Focus Graphite Inc., mid-tier junior mining company, engages in the acquisition, exploration, and development of mineral properties in Quebec, Canada. It focuses on producing technology graphite for clean energy applications. The company principally holds a 100% interest in the Lac Knife graphite property that consists of 57 mining claims covering an area of approximately 3,000 hectares located to the south of Fermont, Quebec. It also has interests in the Kwyjibo rare earth elements and copper project, located to the north of Lac Manitou; and the Romer & Labrador Trough project for the discovery of gold, platinum, palladium, copper, zinc, and nickel in northern Quebec. In addition, the company, through its investment in Grafoid Inc., focuses on producing commercialized graphene for industrial, infrastructural, medical, military, and other sectoral applications. The company was formerly known as Focus Metals Inc. and changed its name to Focus Graphite Inc. on May 24, 2012. Focus Graphite Inc. was incorporated in 1998 and is based in Ottawa, Canada. The company operates as a subsidiary of 360House.com, Inc.

5 Best Electric Utility Stocks To Own For 2014: Empire Resorts Inc.(NYNY)

Empire Resorts, Inc., through its subsidiaries, operates in the hospitality and gaming industries in New York. The company owns and operates Monticello Casino and Raceway, a video gaming machine and harness horseracing facility that conducts pari-mutuel wagering through the running of live harness horse races, the import simulcasting of harness and thoroughbred horse races, and the export simulcasting of its races to offsite pari-mutuel wagering facilities. It operates approximately 1,090 video gaming machines and 20 electronic table games at Monticello Casino and Raceway. The company was founded in 1993 and is based in Monticello, New York.

5 Best Electric Utility Stocks To Own For 2014: Anchor Bancorp(ANCB)

Anchor Bancorp operates as the bank holding company for Anchor Bank that provides various banking products and services in western Washington. It generates deposit products comprising checking accounts, money market deposit accounts, savings accounts, and certificates of deposit. The company offers a range of loan products consisting of one- to four-family residential real estate loans, real estate construction loans, land acquisition and development loans, commercial real estate loans, multi-family real estate loans, commercial business loans, and consumer loans. As of June 30, 2011, it had 1 administrative office, 14 full service banking offices, and 1 loan center. Anchor Bancorp was incorporated in 2008 and is based in Lacey, Washington.

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