Top 10 Small Cap Stocks To Watch For 2018

While Light-emitting diodes or LEDs have many advantages over traditional incandescent light sources,LED stocks have not necessarily been big winners for investors or traders alike. However, there are some signs that could be starting to change.

Beginning with small cap Cree, Inc (NASDAQ: CREE), the Company is aleading innovator of lighting-class LEDs, lighting products and wide bandgap semiconductor products for power and radio frequency (RF) applications. Cree, Inc’s product families include LED lighting systems and bulbs, blue and green LED chips, high-brightness LEDs, lighting-class power LEDs, SiC materials, power devices and RF devices that are used in applications such as commercial and consumer general illumination, video screens, electronic signs and signals, motor drives, power supplies, EV charging, solar, traction, transportation, radar, communications, telecom, data link and broadband amplifiers.

Top 10 Small Cap Stocks To Watch For 2018: Panera Bread Company(PNRA)

Advisors’ Opinion:

[By Motley Fool Staff]
In this segment fromMarket Foolery, host Chris Hill is joined by Motley Fool analystDavid Kretzmann as they break down how coffee-and-pastry focused JAB Holding Company will fit a fast casual brand into its privately held portfolio. With the acquisition, the JAB is expected to give thePanera Bread(NASDAQ:PNRA)team even more autonomy than usual.
[By Seth McNew]
Other companies have followed suit with great success, including PaneraBread (NASDAQ:PNRA), which has focused on improving the customer experience, including via shorter wait times. Panera 2.0 was largely successful because of the company’s focus on its digital strategy and Chipotle looks to be doing the same thing.
[By WWW.THESTREET.COM]

Cramer wanted to talk a little psychology. With its after-hours move Tuesday, Panera Bread (PNRA) is up more than 16% this week on takeover speculation. Panera is an old Action Alerts PLUS name, one the trust sold at a nice gain, too.
[By Lisa Levin]
Shares of Panera Bread Co (NASDAQ: PNRA) got a boost, shooting up 14 percent to $312.29 after the company agreed to be acquired by JAB for $7.5 billion.
[By WWW.THESTREET.COM]
Then there’s Panera Bread (PNRA) , a company that had lost its way. But after interviewing Panera’s CEO Ron Shaich, Cramer learned that at its new, remodeled “Panera 2.0” stores, the lines were out the door. As the rollout continued, earnings only got stronger. Never underestimate the power of a restaurant redo, Cramer concluded.
[By Ben Levisohn]

Keurigs plight (actually, JABs) is worsening, with the K-cup market slowing to almost no growth now, and Keurig continuing to lose own brands share. Starbucks (SBUX) echoed the notion of a K-cup market slowdown at its seminar on Wednesday (and is guiding for its [consumer packaged goods, or CPG,] growth below recent trends), but it expects to increase its share of total CPG coffee to 20% from 15%. Come early February it will be a year since the closing of the Keurig deal for JAB Holdings. The pressure on JAB is more significant if we take into account the high leverage of the deal (JAB contributed one fourth of the $12Bn price tag). It is a tough predicament. On the one hand we argue that to make that deal work, they need to buy more (own) brands either from the retail channel (that can be extended to CPG: Dunkin (DNKN)? Panera (PNRA)?), or outright buy CPG brands (like the entire Kraft Heinz portfolio, and or Tata Groups Eight OClock brand). But can/how do they fund these deals? Maybe Mars and Warren Buffett (Mars is involved in office coffee with Starbucks), private equity, and or 3G can help? While this note is not about Positive-rated Mondelez, we have mentioned before a scenario where Kraft Heinz buys Mondelez and partly funds the deal by selling its own CPG coffee business (~$3Bn we say) to JAB as well as divests the Mondelez 20% plus stakes in Keurig (North America) and Jacobs Douwe Egberts (Western Europe), which together at this stage are worth ~$7-8Bn. But, yes, JAB will need deep-pocket partners and generous lenders. Net, JAB needs to do something soon.