Top 10 High Tech Stocks To Invest In 2018

On Wednesday, Sears Holdings (NASDAQ:SHLD) CEO Eddie Lampert gave a rare interview with Chicago Tribune reporter Lauren Zumbach. The interview coincided with the company’s annual meeting, and in retrospect, one can’t help but wonder if his combative tone during that interview was in some way related to the pushback he and the company’s chiefs certainly got during the meeting with shareholders. See, Sears — which also owns Kmart — hasn’t turned a profit since 2010. Revenue has fallen every year since 2007, and SHLD shares are down 17% for the past twelve months.

Oh yeah… Sears stock is also down 95% since its 2007 peak near $195, and remain within sight of a multi-decade low.

Clearly something is wrong, but to hear Lampert tell it, the demise of Sears is mostly everyone else’s fault.

To be fair, there was a lot of truth in what Lampert had to say. Some of it was flattering. Some of it was not. Much of what he served up was at least a little incomplete from an investor’s perspective, though. Here’s the proverbial rest of the story, free of bias.

Top 10 High Tech Stocks To Invest In 2018: Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated(LGND)

Advisors’ Opinion:

• [By Lisa Levin]

  In trading on Monday, healthcare shares were relative laggards, down on the day by about 0.51 percent. Meanwhile, top losers in the sector included Ligand Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: LGND), down 8 percent, and ImmunoGen, Inc. (NASDAQ: IMGN) down 7 percent.

• [By Keith Speights, Sean Williams, and Cory Renauer]

  So when we asked three of our top healthcare contributors to name three of the best stocks to invest in healthcare, it’s not surprising that their responses listed companies in three different industries: medical device makerMasimo (NASDAQ:MASI), pharmacy services giant CVS Health (NYSE:CVS) and biopharmaceutical company Ligand Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:LGND). Here’s why these three healthcare stocks stand out as smart picks.

• [By Lisa Levin]
  

  Ligand Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: LGND) shares dropped 6 percent to $132.26. Deutsche Bank downgraded Ligand Pharmaceuticals from Hold to Sell.

• [By Keith Speights]

  Research and development is the lifeblood of biotech companies. The potential for new drugs also serves as a primary factor driving biotech stocks higher and higher. That’s been the case for Celgene (NASDAQ:CELG), Ionis Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:IONS), and Ligand Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:LGND).

Top 10 High Tech Stocks To Invest In 2018: XOMA Corporation(XOMA)

Advisors’ Opinion:

• [By Lisa Levin]

  Shares of XOMA Corporation (NASDAQ: XOMA) got a boost, shooting up 31 percent to $14.69. Wedbush upgraded XOMA from Neutral to Outperform.

  Energous Corp (NASDAQ: WATT) shares were also up, gaining 17 percent to $11.89. Energous reported a new, high-power, Near Field WattUp charging solution for electronic devices.

• [By Spencer Israel]

  The following are some of the stocks discussed on the show for which co-host Joel Elconin offered technical levels.

  
  

  Bank of America Corp (NYSE: BAC) hit a low last week of $22.43, and has a big psychological level of $22.
  Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE: GS) has two minor support levels from early December of $221.22 and $220.35. Under $220 it gets dicey, with support at $214.97 and $209.92.
  United States Steel Corporation (NYSE: X) has a key low of $31.33 from February 2. That number serves as support.
  Best Buy Co Inc (NYSE: BBY) has a triple top at $45.15. It's currently in a trading range from $43.75-$45.70.
  Shake Shack Inc (NYSE: SHAK) has been range bound over the last four days from $31.68 to $32.62. It has major support at the all-time low from March 15 at $30.36.
  Warren Lorenz, CEO of TechMeetsTrader, joined the show to discuss his "Facebook for stocks" platform, and how he learned how to trade by watching trading communities. Listen to the full interview with Lorenz here.
  Tommy Lackey, managing partner and portfolio manager at Relativity Capital Advisors, told us which stocks are on his nitrous scans and meltdown filters this morning. Those include XOMA Corporation (NASDAQ: XOMA) Whirlpool Corporation (NYSE: WHR) and Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. (NASDAQ: BBBY). Listen to the full interview with Lackey here.
  With the market in a slight selloff following Friday's healthcare fallout, the focus today will be which sectors, if any, rebound throughout the day. With steel stocks looking weak and gold minors and utilities looking strong, co-host Dennis Dick said he'll try to jump into those sectors if they stay weak after the open. Hear what other sectors Dick is watching here.
  With Snap Inc (NYSE: SNAP)'s 25-day quiet period for analysts over, the Street was treated to bullish ratings by Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and others. It's worth noting, however, most of Monday morning

Top 10 High Tech Stocks To Invest In 2018: DAVIDsTEA Inc.(DTEA)

Advisors’ Opinion:

• [By Monica Gerson]

  DavidsTea Inc (NASDAQ: DTEA) is expected to post its quarterly earnings at $0.43 per share on revenue of $71.74 million.

  SemiLEDs Corporation (NASDAQ: LEDS) is estimated to post its quarterly earnings.

Top 10 High Tech Stocks To Invest In 2018: Merck & Company, Inc.(MRK)

Advisors’ Opinion:

• [By Dustin Blitchok]

  Prior to Wednesday’s unraveling of the manufacturing council, six executives had resigned:

  
  

  On June 1, Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) CEO Elon Musk dropped out following Trump’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate accord. “Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world,” Musk tweeted.
  Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE: MRK) CEO Ken Frazier drew fire from Trump on Twitter after leaving the council. “Now that Ken Frazier of Merck Pharma has resigned from President's Manufacturing Council,he will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!" the president tweeted.
  When Frazier left the council, he said: “I feel a responsibility to take a stand against intolerance and extremism.”
  On Aug. 14, Under Armour Inc (NYSE: UAA) CEO Kevin Plank resigned. “I love our country & company,” Plank said. “I am stepping down from the council to focus on inspiring & uniting through power of sport.”
  Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) CEO Brian Krzanich left Aug. 14 and said: “I stand with others for equality and improving U.S. competitiveness. Both require improving in today’s environment.”
  Alliance for American Manufacturing President Scott Paul quit Aug. 15, stating: “I’m resigning from the Manufacturing Jobs Initiative because it’s the right thing for me to do.”
  AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka resigned the same day as Paul. “We cannot sit on a council for a president who tolerates bigotry and domestic terrorism,” Trumka said.

  
  

  Image: Gage Skidmore, Flickr

• [By The Ticker Tape]

  LLY recently suffered a setback when approval for the company’s new arthritis drug, co-developed with Incyte Corporation (NASDAQ: INCY), faced delays from the FDA. LLY and INCY disagreed with the FDA’s findings in a company press release and are confident the drug will still be approved in the future. Despite the company’s confidence in the drug, LLY stock dropped about 5% in trading the day the news came out. Even with that drop, it’s still up a little over 11% on the year, outperforming the S&P 500 (SPX) and some of its pharma peers: Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE: MRK), Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE), and Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ).

• [By David Zeiler]
  

  Pharma stocks shot up in the wake of Donald Trump’s victory. Eli Lilly and Co. (NYSE: LLY) and Merck & Co. (NYSE: MRK) both rose about 6%, while Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) jumped 7%.

• [By Paul Ausick]

  Merck & Co. Inc. (NYSE: MRK) traded down 0.67% at $65.15. The stock’s 52-week range is $58.29 to $66.80. Volume was about 35% below the daily average of around 8 million shares. The company received approval for its Keytruda drug late in the day, but that did not seem to add anything to the stock price.

• [By Paul Ausick]
  

  Merck & Co. Inc. (NYSE: MRK) traded down 1.51% at $60.24. The stock’s 52-week range is $47.97 to $65.46. Volume was nearly 20% lower than the daily average of around 11 million shares. The company had no specific news Thursday.

Top 10 High Tech Stocks To Invest In 2018: Reinsurance Group of America, Incorporated(RGA)

Advisors’ Opinion:

• [By David Sterman]

  My favorite insurers: AIG (NYSE: AIG) (which I discussed a few months ago), Protective Life (NYSE: PL) and Reinsurance Group of America (NYSE: RGA).

• [By Benzinga News Desk]
  

  Morgan Stanley downgraded Chipotle (NYSE: CMG) to Equal-Weight.
  UBS downgraded AMC Networks (NASDAQ: AMCX) to Sell.
  Citi upgraded Sealed Air (NYSE: SEE) to Buy.
  Goldman Sachs upgraded Reinsurance Group (NYSE: RGA) to Buy.

Top 10 High Tech Stocks To Invest In 2018: BiondVax Pharmaceuticals Ltd.(BVXV)

Advisors’ Opinion:

• [By Chris Lange]

  BiondVax Pharmaceuticals Ltd. (NASDAQ: BVXV) reported that the scientific journal “Vaccine” published an article citing results from its flu vaccine. The “Vaccine” article, Back to the future: Immunization with M-001, reports that blood plasma samples from people who received M-001 in 2011 (as part of BiondVax’s BVX-005 clinical trial in the elderly) showed significantly increased protective antibodies against the new epidemic 2014/15 flu strain (A/Swiss) – a strain which did not exist when M-001 was administered to the BVX-005 participants.

Top 10 High Tech Stocks To Invest In 2018: Berkshire Hathaway Inc.(BRK.A)

Advisors’ Opinion:

• [By Yasin Ebrahim]
   

  Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK.A) is an American conglomerate with investments in a variety of businesses from American Express to Coca-Cola. It reported Q3 earnings last week, which were in line with analysts’ expectations, as the group revealed a 7% increase in operating profit compared to the same period last year.

• [By Virendra Singh Chauhan]

  Yes, Warren Buffett has been buying shares of Apple rapidly. In fact, the Buffett-ledBerkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.A) has lapped up over 70M Apple shares between December 31, and Apple’s latest earnings report at the end of January. That’s more than twice the number of shares the company reported in its 13F filing for the period ending December 31. By Warren Buffett’s own admission on CNBC’s ‘Squawk Box’Berkshire Hathaway now has 133M shares of Apple Inc., which equates to $18.5B worth of Apple stock at the last closing price. In other words, Berkshire Hathaway now holds nearly 2.5% of Apple’s total market cap. And well, Warren Buffett has himself bought 123M of those shares. Quoting the Oracle from the ‘Ask Warren’ show, “One of them had had 10 million shares, and then I bought another 123 million shares, or something like that.” The ‘One of them’ here refers to one of Warren’s deputies,Ted Weschler or Todd Combs. When asked why is he buying Apple shares? The Oracle of Omaha remarked: ‘Cause I Liked It.’ Coming to the big question of ‘Why does Warren Buffett now like Apple, the tech giant, after having avoided technology companies for so many years?’

• [By Sarfaraz Khan]
  

  Shares of Warren Buffett-ledBerkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.A)(NYSE:BRK.B)delivered a blowout performance in 2016 by easily beating the S&P 500 (INDX:SPAL) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDX:INDU) and ending the year with a market cap of almost $400 billion for the first time in its history. And I believe the good times will continue in 2017.

• [By Ashley Moore]

  At $257,200.00 a share, investing in Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK.A) is simply not an option for most retail investors like us. But the nearly 50 other “Warren Buffett stocks” that Berkshire invests in come at a much lower price point.

• [By Diane Alter]
  

  The sector took off in November when 13F filings revealed Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK.A) bought shares in American Airlines Group Inc. (Nasdaq: AAL), United Continental Holdings Inc. (NYSE: UAL), Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE: LUV), and Delta.

• [By WWW.THESTREET.COM]

  The Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A)  CEO, 86, famously avoided tech stocks for decades, saying, “If there’s lots of technology, we won’t understand it.” However, Berkshire started buying shares of Apple in mid-2016 and ended the year with about 59 million shares in the tech company. In January, Berkshire nearly doubled that stake to 133 million shares. The increased stake gave Berkshire about 2.5% of Apple’s outstanding shares.

Top 10 High Tech Stocks To Invest In 2018: Gener8 Maritime, Inc.(GNRT)

Advisors’ Opinion:

• [By Shanthi Rexaline]

  Frontline might be evaluating a new tanker company target such as Gener8 Maritime Inc (NYSE: GNRT), away from DHT Holdings Inc (NYSE: DHT), Lewis said. This was substantiated by the fact that Frontline sold 1.7 million shares of DHT in March, followed by 2.4 million shares in April and May. Though Frontline holds about 6.8 million shares of DHT, the Credit Suisse analyst said a deal is unlikely.

Top 10 High Tech Stocks To Invest In 2018: J.M. Smucker Company (The)(SJM)

Advisors’ Opinion:

• [By Teresa Rivas]

  J.M. Smucker(SJM) is falling Monday, after Morgan Stanley’sMatthew Grainger and his team cut their rating on the stock, citing pricing pressures from Wal-Mart (WMT) and growing competition from private-labels.

  Getty Images

  Grainger slash Smucker to Underweight from Equal Weight, and shaved $6 off his price target, to $126. He also cites what he calls “sustained” challenges in both its coffee and pet food business, as well as“below-average strategic optionality.”

  
  

  At the same time, he also upgraded Pinnacle Foods (PF) to Overweight from Equal Weight, and raised his price target to $63 from $58, on its double-digit earnings growth and what he sees as superior execution.

  Nonetheless, he sees many of the packaged food companies in his coverage, from Smucker to Pinnacle, as subject to pressure from Wal-Mart and off-brand rivals. From the note:

  Walmart comprises ~22% of sales across our coverage, a figure that has increased in recent years even as the retailers total grocery sales have grown at an even faster 4% CAGR. With Food margins expected to expand meaningfully, we believe this only enhances Walmart’s negotiating leverage going forward. SJM, Dean Foods (DF), and General Mills (GIS) are most at risk in the current environment, in our view.

  
  

  Recent scanner data points to a positive inflection in private label trends (share up ~30 bps L12W) across a range of center-store categories, a dynamic we believe could intensify in an increasingly competitive retail grocery landscape. Our analysis of recent trends points to the most meaningful underperformance vs. private label at GIS, SJM, ConAgra (CAG), and Campbell Soup (CPB), while only PF has outperformed in recent weeks.

  Smucker is down 1.1% to $127.95 this morning, while Pinnacle is up 0.8% to %48.47.

• [By Douglas A. McIntyre]

  The Pillsbury Doughboy is the mascot of the Pillsbury Company, which is owned by General Mills (NYSE: GIS) and J.M. Smucker (NYSE: SJM). The Doughboy was created by Pillsburys advertising agency almost 50 years ago. Pikachu are characters owned by The Pokemon Company International and appear in card games, video games, TV shows, movies and comic books. Founded in 1998, the Japanese company has achieved total games sales of almost 280 million. SpongeBob SquarePants was created for Nickelodeon, which is owned by Viacom (NASDAQ: VIA). The show premiered in 1999 and has spawned movies, video games and theme park rides. Ronald McDonald is a c

Top 10 High Tech Stocks To Invest In 2018: Cooper Tire & Rubber Company(CTB)

Advisors’ Opinion:

• [By Matt Hogan]

  Finbox.io fair value data (as of January 4) shows that there are only five US manufacturing stocks that have 25% or more margin of safety: Vera Bradley, Inc. (NASDAQ: VRA), Cooper Tire & Rubber Co (NYSE: CTB), Farmer Brothers Co. (NASDAQ: FARM), Allergan plc Ordinary Shares (NYSE: AGN) and Motorcar Parts of America, Inc. (NASDAQ: MPAA).