Top 5 Forestry Stocks To Own For 2014

It was a rough week for stock markets this week, and solar stocks were no different. Across the board, solar stocks fell, and some even dropped more than 10%.

FSLR Total Return Price data by YCharts

But that doesn't mean it was a bad week for the industry as a whole. Here are some of the newsworthy items in solar this week.

Money, money, money
First Solar (NASDAQ: FSLR  ) became the latest to offer shares of convertible debt to the market in an effort to raise cash. The company sold 9.45 million new shares at $46 for proceeds of about $427.7 million to the company. �

This follows a convertible notes offering at SunPower (NASDAQ: SPWR  ) and a proposed convertible notes offering at SolarCity (NASDAQ: SCTY  ) . Convertible notes aren't a share offering, but they can be converted into shares at a specified price, so there's an equity component for investors.

Top 10 Construction Material Stocks To Buy For 2015: Impala Platinum Holdings Ltd (IMPUY.PK)

Impala Platinum Holdings Limited (Implats) is a producer of platinum group metals (PGMs) and associated base metals. Implats has operations on the PGM-bearing orebodies of the Bushveld Complex in South Africa and the Great Dyke in Zimbabwe. PGMs include platinum, and the associated by-products, palladium, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium and gold usually occur in association with nickel and copper. As of June 30, 2012, the Company�� holdings in various mining and exploration activities included Impala Platinum Limited (100%), which includes PGM mining, processing and refining; Impala Refining Services Limited (100%), which is engaged in purchase of concentrate and/or smelter matte; Impala Chrome (Pty) Limited (100%) and Makgomo Chrome (Pty) Limited (50%), which are engaged in purchase of chrome in tailings, and Zimplats Holdings Limited (86.9%), Afplats (Pty) Limited (74%), Marula Platinum (Pty) Limited (73%), Mimosa Investments Limited (50%) and Two Rivers Platinum (Pty) Limited (45%), which are engaged in PGM mining.

Impala Platinum

Impala Platinum, Implats��primary operational unit, has operations situated on the Impala lease area on the western limb of the Bushveld Complex near Rustenburg in South Africa, and in Springs east of Johannesburg. Impala holds contiguous mining rights and prospecting rights for a total area of 260 square kilometres. Operations comprise 14 operational shaft systems, five of which have underground decline systems.

Zimplats Holdings Limited

Zimplats Holdings Limited (Zimplats) is 87% owned by Implats and is located on the Hartley Geological Complex on the Zimbabwean Great Dyke south-west of Harare. Zimplats operates three underground mines and a concentrator at Ngezi. The Selous Metallurgical Complex (SMC), located some 77 kilometer north of the mine, comprises a concentrator and a smelter. The Company also owns the Hartley Platinum Mine situated at the SMC, which is under care and maintenance.

Marula Platin! um Limited

Marula Platinum Limited (Marula) is 73% owned by Implats. Marula is located in the Limpopo Province, some 50 kilometres north of Burgersfort. The operation consists of two on-reef decline shafts, one off-reef conventional decline and a concentrator plant.

Mimosa

Mimosa is wholly owned by Mimosa Investments Limited, a Mauritius-based company jointly held by Implats and Aquarius Platinum Limited (Aquarius) in a 50:50 joint-venture. Mimosa is located on the Wedza Geological Complex on the Zimbabwean Great Dyke east of Bulawayo. The operation comprises a shallow underground mine, accessed by a decline shaft, and a concentrator.

The Two Rivers Platinum Mine

The Two Rivers Platinum Mine (Two Rivers) is a joint venture between African Rainbow Minerals (ARM) (55%) and Impala Platinum Holdings Limited (Implats) (45%). The operation is situated on the farm Dwarsrivier on the southern part of the eastern limb of the Bushveld Igneous Complex in Mpumalanga, South Africa. The operation consists of two on-reef decline shafts and a concentrator.

Impala Refining Services (IRS)

IRS products include flotation concentrates from Marula, Mimosa and Two Rivers, as well as Aquarius��Marikana, Everest mine and Blue Ridge mines (on care and maintenance) and Eastern Platinum�� Crocodile River mine; furnace matte from Zimplats; spent autocatalysts from A-1 Specialised Services and Supplies Inc. for recycling, and selected base metal residues and other secondary materials.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Zacks Investment Research]

  It is hard to find a good play in the Zacks Industry of mining non-ferrous metals, as the industry currently has a rank of 247 out of 261. In fact, in our five mining industries, there are only two No. 1-Ranked stocks: Brigus Gold (BRD) and Impala (IMPUY.PK). Both of these are in struggling industries, but they have proven to be best-in-class thanks to improving earnings estimates. Plus, both have seen their ranks surge from holds (or worse) up to strong buy territory, suggesting either of these names might be better picks than the struggling SCCO at this time.

Top 5 Forestry Stocks To Own For 2014: Chemical Financial Corporation(CHFC)

Chemical Financial Corporation operates as the financial holding company for Chemical Bank that offers banking and fiduciary products and services in Michigan. Its products and services include business and personal checking accounts, savings and individual retirement accounts, time deposit instruments, electronically accessed banking products, residential and commercial real estate financing, commercial lending, consumer financing, debit cards, safe deposit box services, money transfer services, automated teller machines, access to insurance and investment products, corporate and personal wealth management services, and other banking services. The company also provides mutual funds, annuity products, and market securities to customers, as well as issues title insurance to buyers and sellers of residential and commercial mortgage properties, including properties subject to loan refinancing. As of January 26, 2012, Chemical Financial Corporation operated 142 banking offices in approximately 32 counties in the lower peninsula of Michigan. The company was founded in 1973 and is headquartered in Midland, Michigan.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Marc Bastow]

  Financial services holding company Chemical Financial (CHFC) raised its quarterly dividend 4.5% to 23 cents per share, payable on Dec. 20 to shareholders of record as of Dec. 6.
  CHFC Dividend Yield: 2.98%

Top 5 Forestry Stocks To Own For 2014: Corewafer Industries Inc (WAFR)

COREwafer Industries, Inc., formerly Action Products International, incorporated on January 7, 1981, is a holding company that acquires or merges with companies with growth opportunity. The company's business model is to bring together companies that deliver complimentary technology and services. The Company�� products and services include Logistics & Transportation and Software & Technology.

Logistics & Transportation

Northeast Expedite Logistics, LLC (NEEL) is a provider of global logistics services, which includes a domestic service center and exclusive and non-exclusive agents. The Company�� customers include retail and wholesale, electronics, and manufacturing companies around the world. With industrial production increasing year-over-year, the shortage of qualified drivers and trusted shipping partners is apparent in mid-markets for local deliveries. As the economy improves, orders for delivery and logistics. The Company provide foundational shipping and coordination services between suppliers and destination businesses and warehouses, and the Company operate efficiently through cloud based tracking.

Software & Technology

The Company has a particular focus within technology on semiconductor testing. To enable success of its software and technology vertical, the Company acquired Core Wafer Systems, Inc. Core Wafer Systems, Inc., a Nevada corporation, creates software, software algorithms, and hardware that are used in the testing and data mining of the commonly used semiconductor components. Core Wafer ensures these components, created by semiconductor manufacturers, leave the factory in a working state after having been tested. Core Wafer helps ensure that products are manufactured within specification and won't suddenly fail for the end consumer. The Company is working to integrate the operations and financial records of Core Wafer with those of the Company.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Peter Graham]

  Small cap stocks COREwafer Industries Inc (OTCMKTS: WAFR), DC Brands International, Inc (OTCMKTS: HRDN) and PV Enterprises International (OTCMKTS: PVEC) surged 82.86%, 33.33% and 25%, respectively, last Friday ��meaning investors or traders got a nice Christmas present. Moreover, these small cap stocks have been the subject of minimal paid stock promotions. But will these three small cap stocks continue to deliver a good performance into and after the holidays? Here is a quick reality check before you get overly excited:

• [By Peter Graham]

  Nyxio Technologies Corp (OTCMKTS: NYXO), COREwafer Industries Inc (OTCMKTS: WAFR) and NanoTech Entertainment, Inc (OTCMKTS: NTEK) are three small cap stocks in some very diverse industries. In fact, one of these stocks just bought a 3D ice sculpture business. So will investors see their investment melt with that small cap stock�along with the other two? Here is a closer look to help you decide for yourself:��

Top 5 Forestry Stocks To Own For 2014: Ruckus Wireless Inc (RKUS)

Ruckus Wireless, Inc (Ruckus), incorporated August 19, 2002, is a provider of Wi-Fi solutions. The Company�� solutions, which it calls Smart Wi-Fi, are used by service providers and enterprises to solve network challenges. The Company�� products include gateways, controllers and access points. These products incorporate its technologies, including Smart Radio, Smart QoS, Smart Mesh, SmartCell and Smart Scaling. The Company sells its products to service providers and enterprises globally, and as of December 31, 2012, had sold its products to over 21,700 end-customers worldwide. During 2012, the Company added over 10,100 new end-customers. The Company�� enterprise end-customers are typically mid-sized organizations in a variety of industries, including hospitality, education, healthcare, warehousing and logistics, corporate enterprise, retail, state and local government and public venues, such as stadiums, convention centers, airports and outdoor public areas. Effective July 23, 2013, Ruckus Wireless Inc acquired YFind Technologies Pte Ltd.

The Company sells directly and indirectly to a range of service providers, including mobile operators, cable companies, wholesale operators and fixed-line carriers. As of December 31, 2012, the Company had over 65 service provider end-customers, including Bright House Networks, The Cloud (a BSkyB Company), KDDI, Tikona Digital Networks, Time Warner Cable and Towerstream. The Company�� Smart Wi-Fi solutions are marketed under the SmartCell, ZoneDirector, ZoneFlex and FlexMaster brands and include a range of indoor and outdoor access points (APs), long range point-to-point and point-to-multipoint bridges, wireless local area network (LAN), controllers, network management software and gateway systems with integrated advanced wireless software.

The Company�� core Smart Wi-Fi technologies include Smart Radio, Smart QoS, Smart Mesh, SmartCell and Smart Scaling. Smart Radio is a set of advanced hardware and software capabilities that auto! matically adjust Wi-Fi signals to changes in environmental conditions. A primary component of Smart Radio technology is BeamFlex, a smart antenna system that makes Wi-Fi signals stronger by focusing them only where they are needed and dynamically steering them in directions that yield the highest throughput for each receiving device. Another component is ChannelFly, a performance optimization capability that automatically determines, which radio frequencies or channels deliver the network throughput based on actual observed capacity, a key benefit for high-density, noisy Wi-Fi environments.

Smart QoS is a software technology that manages traffic load to enhance the user experience. Smart QoS was developed to handle the increasing volumes of voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) and streaming video traffic. Smart QoS offers automatic prioritization of different traffic types through intelligent analytics that classify, prioritize and schedule traffic for transmission. Smart QoS employs advanced queuing techniques and dedicated software queues on a per device basis to ensure fairness and optimize overall system performance. Smart QoS includes its band steering, rate limiting, client load balancing and airtime fairness techniques.

Smart Mesh is software technology that uses advanced self-organizing network principles to create Wi-Fi backbone links between access points. Smart Mesh automatically establishes wireless connections between individual access points using patented smart antenna technology and self-heals in the event of a failed link.

SmartCell is a key technology behind the Company�� SmartCell Gateway platform that integrates software and specialized hardware deployed at the edge of service provider networks to facilitate the integration of Wi-Fi and cellular infrastructures. SmartCell includes a set of modular software components ,as well as standard network interfaces into the mobile core that enable Wi-Fi to become a standard access mechanism for service ! providers! . Management components provide configuration, user management, analytics, accounting and other operational and maintenance functions.

Smart Scaling uses advanced database management techniques to enable the support of hundreds of thousands to millions of client devices across the Wi-Fi network. Smart Scaling employs intelligent data distribution techniques to extend client information, statistics and other vital user information across any number of nodes within the system without a single point of failure and with linear scalability. Smart Scaling is incorporated in its purpose-built hardware and software, making it capable of supporting hundreds of thousands of access points and user session workloads at the scale required by service providers.

SmartCell Gateway is a platform that integrates software and specialized hardware deployed at the edge of service provider networks to facilitate the integration of Wi-Fi and cellular infrastructures. The Company�� SmartCell Gateway is designed to be vendor-agnostic and can control third-party APs. SmartCell Gateway provides standard-based interfaces into existing and future mobile networks to simplify integration.

SmartCell access point addresses the capacity and density needs of service providers deploying networks within urban environments. SmartCell APs employ modular multimode architecture to enable service providers to deploy Wi-Fi, 3G/4G small cell cellular technology and Wi-Fi mesh backhaul within a single device. This provides operators with the ability to enhance and extend their macro networks, injecting much needed capacity into high traffic user environments with the flexibility to deploy Wi-Fi with Smart Mesh backhaul and upgrade to Wi-Fi with 3G/LTE when and where desired without any mounting or backhaul changes.

The Company�� ZoneDirector Smart WLAN controllers use a intuitive Web user interface to make configuration and administration extremely simple. This software includes a variety of ! advanced ! capabilities such as adaptive meshing, integrated client performance tools, authentication support, simplified guest access and user policy, wireless intrusion prevention, automatic traffic redirection, integrated Wi-Fi client performance tools and robust network management. ZoneFlex access points incorporate BeamFlex adaptive antenna array technology to deliver robust Wi-Fi performance, reliability and capacity. These devices support multiple virtual wireless LANs, Wi-Fi encryption and advanced traffic handling. The Company�� ZoneFlex outdoor Smart Wi-Fi access points and point-to-point and multipoint bridges can be deployed as stand-alone APs or be centrally managed.

In addition to the Company�� hardware products, the Company also sells software products. FlexMaster is a Linux-based Wi-Fi management service platform used by enterprises and service providers to monitor and administrate networks. FlexMaster provides configuration, fault detection, audit, performance management and optimization of remote Ruckus access points or wireless LAN controllers. It offers a single point for management and a number of automated and customized facilities such as an intuitive dashboard. FlexMaster is designed to operate with existing operational support system and features tiered administration to provide managed wireless LAN or cloud-based wireless services.

The Company competes with Cisco Systems, Ericsson; Hewlett-Packard, Motorola and Aruba Networks.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Garrett Cook]

  Toward the end of trading Friday, the Dow traded down 0.60 percent to 16,947.43 while the NASDAQ declined 0.75 percent to 4,557.59. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.83 percent to 1,980.97.

  Leading and Lagging Sectors Cyclical consumer goods & services shares fell by just 0.50 percent in trading on Friday. Top gainers in the sector included ULTA Salon, Cosmetics & Fragrance NASDAQ: (ULTA), up 17.5 percent, and 1-800-Flowers.com (NASDAQ: FLWS), up 4.5 percent. In trading on Friday, utilities shares were relative laggards, down on the day by about 1.89 percent. Meanwhile, top decliners in the sector included Companhia Energética de Minas Gerais - CEMIG (NYSE: CIG), down 4.7 percent, and CPFL Energia SA (NYSE: CPL), off 4.3 percent. Top Headline Darden Restaurants (NYSE: DRI) reported better-than-expected fiscal first quarter earnings. The Orlando, Florida-based company reported a quarterly loss of $19.3 million, or $0.14 per share, versus a year-ago profit of $42.2 million, or $0.32 per share. Excluding non-recurring items, the company earned $0.32 per share. Its sales surged to $1.6 billion versus $1.53 billion. However, analysts were expecting earnings of $0.30 per share on revenue of $1.6 billion. Equities Trading UP Conversant (NASDAQ: CNVR) shares shot up 30.25 percent to $34.79 after Alliance Data Systems (NYSE: ADS) announced its plans to buy Conversant for $35 per share. Shares of ULTA Salon, Cosmetics & Fragrance (NASDAQ: ULTA) got a boost, shooting up 17.69 percent to $114.72 after the company reported upbeat second-quarter results and raised its outlook. The company also unveiled a five-year plan for impressive growth. Sportsman's Warehouse Holdings (NASDAQ: SPWH) shares were also up, gaining 15.89 percent to $7.00 after the company reported stronger-than-expected fiscal second-quarter results. Equities Trading DOWN Shares of Ruckus Wireless (NASDAQ: RKUS) were down 5.19 percent to $14.35. Buckingham
• [By gurujx]

  Ruckus Wireless (RKUS): CFO Seamus Hennessy Sold 50,000 Shares

  CFO Seamus Hennessy sold 50,000 shares of RKUS stock on Sept. 6 at the average price of $15.12. The price of the stock has increased by 1.19% since.