Best Consumer Service Stocks To Watch For 2014

NCR Corporation (NCR) was the Fund's largest detrac tor during the fourth quarter, falling over 14 percent and detracting 25 basis points of return . The nancial technology company delivered a slightly weaker than expected quarter t hat surprised us as well as the Street. They reafrmed guidance which implies a strong fourth qu arter and suggested that cash ows will continue to be cautiously managed. Since we like th e business and valuation, as well as the improved balance sheet, we are inclined to stay the course.

From John Keeley (Trades, Portfolio)'s Keeley All Cap Value Fund fourth quarter 2013 commentary.

Also check out: John Keeley Undervalued Stocks John Keeley Top Growth Companies John Keeley High Yield stocks, and Stocks that John Keeley keeps buying

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5 Best Computer Hardware Stocks To Invest In Right Now: MFS Intermediate Income Trust (MIN)

MFS Intermediate Income Trust (the Trust) is a diversified closed-end management investment company. The Trust seeks to preserve capital and provide high current income. It maintains a portfolio that includes investments in short and intermediate-term United States Government and foreign high-grade securities.

MFS Intermediate Income Trust's portfolio includes non-United States Government bonds, mortgage-backed securities, the United States Government agency securities, the United States Treasury securities, emerging market bonds, commercial mortgage-backed securities, residential mortgage-backed securities and high-grade corporate securities. The Trust can invest in foreign securities, including securities of emerging market issuers. The Trust's investment advisor is Massachusetts Financial Services Company.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Akaralph]

  I have written about MFS Intermediate Income Fund (MIN) on a few previous occasions, most recently here. I have extolled its virtues as a defensive play in a bear market scenario.

Best Consumer Service Stocks To Watch For 2014: Elizabeth Arden Inc.(RDEN)

Elizabeth Arden, Inc., a beauty products company, engages in the manufacture, distribution, marketing, and sale of fragrances, skin care, and cosmetic products to retailers and other outlets worldwide. It offers various fragrance products for men and women, including perfume, colognes, eau de toilettes, eau de parfums, body sprays, and gift sets, as well as bath and body products, such as soaps, deodorants, body lotions, gels, creams, and dusting powders. The company sells its fragrance products under the Red Door, Elizabeth Arden 5th Avenue, Elizabeth Arden green tea, Pretty Elizabeth Arden, Curve, Giorgio Beverly Hills, PS Fine Cologne, White Shoulders, Juicy Couture, Kate Spade New York, John Varvatos, Rocawear, Alberta Ferretti, Halston, Geoffrey Beene, Alfred Sung, Bob Mackie, and Lucky. Its skin care products comprise moisturizers, creams, lotions, and cleansers under the Ceramide, Prevage, Eight Hour Cream, and Visible Difference. The company?s cosmetic products co nsist of foundations, lipsticks, mascaras, eye shadows, and powders in various shades and colors under the Elizabeth Arden brand name. Elizabeth Arden, Inc. sells its products primarily to department and specialty stores, mass retailers, perfumeries, boutiques, distributors, and travel retail outlets, as well as to independent fragrance, cosmetic, gift, and other stores. It also markets and sells its products through its e-commerce site at elizabetharden.com. The company was founded in 1960 and is headquartered in Miramar, Florida.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Vinay Singh]

  Heavy promotions are key for retailers during the holiday season. This is especially true when people are less willing to open their wallets. Moreover, when all of the other industry players promote their products and provide deep discounts to attract customers, the ones who don't will face the consequences. Elizabeth Arden (RDEN), a provider of beauty products, is an apt example.

Best Consumer Service Stocks To Watch For 2014: Impax Laboratories Inc.(IPXL)

Impax Laboratories, Inc., a specialty pharmaceutical company, engages in the development, manufacture, and marketing of bioequivalent pharmaceutical products. The company operates in two divisions, Global Pharmaceuticals and Impax Pharmaceuticals. The Global Pharmaceuticals division develops, manufactures, sells, and distributes generic pharmaceutical products. It provides its generic pharmaceutical prescription products directly to wholesalers and retail drug chains; and generic pharmaceutical over-the-counter and prescription products through unrelated third-party pharmaceutical entities. The Impax Pharmaceutical division develops proprietary brand pharmaceutical products that address central nervous system disorders, including Alzheimer?s disease, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, depression, epilepsy, migraines, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson?s disease, and schizophrenia, as well as promotes third-party branded pharmaceutical products. As of May 2, 2011, the com pany marketed 101 generic pharmaceuticals, which represent dosage variations of 29 different pharmaceutical compounds; and another 16 of its generic pharmaceuticals representing dosage variations of 4 different pharmaceutical compounds. It markets and sells its generic pharmaceutical prescription drug products in the continental United States and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. The company has a strategic alliance agreement with Teva Pharmaceuticals Curacao N.V. Impax Laboratories, Inc. was founded in 1993 and is headquartered in Hayward, California.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Eric Volkman]

  Impax Laboratories (NASDAQ: IPXL  ) �will soon hand out a raft of pink slips. As part of a move to slice costs, the company has announced a reduction in its headcount by roughly 110 employees. Most of these cuts will be effected at its manufacturing facility in Hayward, Calif.

• [By Max Macaluso, Ph.D.]

  RLS hasn't been a high-priority target for the pharma industry given the lackluster sales of Requip and Horizant, a third competitor of�UCB's Neupro, and a number of generic alternatives. Impax Laboratories (NASDAQ: IPXL  ) was one of the few developing a new therapy, called IPX159, but Impax put the kibosh on the drug after it failed to meet its primary endpoint in a phase 2b study. According to its latest quarterly report, Impax has no other RLS drugs in development and seems to be focusing on getting its rejected Parkinson's disease drug Rytary back to the FDA for a second chance at approval.

• [By Eric Ho]

  These heavy hitters include Sanofi's (NYSE: SNY  ) Renagel, Fresenius' Phoslo, and generic calcium acetate versions of Phoslo. Additionally, Impax Laboratories (NASDAQ: IPXL  ) intends to market a generic sevelamer product following for Renagel's 2014 patent expiration.

Best Consumer Service Stocks To Watch For 2014: Google Inc (GOOGL)

Google Inc. (Google), incorporated on October 22, 2002, is a global technology company. The Company�� business is primarily focused around key areas, such as search, advertising, operating systems and platforms, enterprise and hardware products. The Company generates revenue primarily by delivering online advertising. The Company also generates revenues from Motorola by selling hardware products. The Company provides its products and services in more than 100 languages and in more than 50 countries, regions, and territories. Effective September 16, 2013, Google Inc acquired Bump Technologies Inc. Effective October 22, 2013, Google Inc acquired FlexyCore, a developer of software. Effective December 6, 2013, Google Inc acquired the entire share capital of SCHAFT Inc. Effective December 14, 2013, Google Inc acquired Boston Dynamics Inc. Effective January 15, 2014, Google Inc acquired Impermium Corp, a developer of SaaS application software. Effective February 7, 2014, Google Inc acquired the remaining 88% interest in Nest Labs Inc. Effective February 21, 2014, Google Inc acquired Spider.io, a provider of online fraud detection services. Effective March 12, 2014, Google Inc acquired Green Throttle Games.

Search

The Company integrates features into its search service and offers specialized search services to help users tailor their search. The Company also offers product listing advertisements (ads), which include product information, such as product image, price, and merchant information, without requiring additional keywords or ad text. In January 2012, it launched Search plus Your World. During the year ended December 31, 2012, it also introduced Google Now and Google�� Knowledge Graph. Google Now is a search feature that gets the right information at just the right time. It tells the day�� weather before start of a day, how much traffic to expect before you leave for work or school, when the next train will arrive as you��e standing on the platform, or favorite team�! � score while they��e playing - all automatically with cards appearing throughout the day at the moment you need them. Google�� Knowledge Graph, enables the user to search for things, people or places that Google knows about-landmarks, celebrities, cities, sports teams, buildings, geographical features, movies, works of arts and more-and enhances Google Search in three ways: find the right thing, get the summary, and go deeper and broader.

Advertising

The Company�� AdWords is a primary auction-based advertising program, which delivers ads to search queries or Web content. With AdWords, advertisers create text-based ads that then appear beside related search results or Web content on its Websites and on thousands of partner Websites in its Google Network, which is the network of third parties that use its advertising programs to deliver relevant ads with search results and content. The Company also offers AdWords on a cost-per-impression basis that enables advertisers to pay the Company based on the number of times their ads appear on its Websites and the Company�� Google Network Members��Websites as specified by the advertiser. Its AdSense program enables Websites that are part of the Google Network to deliver ads from its AdWords advertisers that are relevant to the search results or content on Websites. In June 2012, the Company integrated its AdMob technology directly into its AdWords system, which enables advertisers to run campaigns across the more than 300,000 mobile applications running ads by AdMob - all from within the AdWords interface.

The Company�� Display advertising consists of videos, text, images, and other interactive ads that run across the Web on computers and mobile devices, including smart phones and handheld computers, such as net books and tablets. The Google Display Network provides advertisers services related to the delivery of display advertising across publishers participating in its AdSense program, publishers participat! ing in th! e DoubleClick Ad Exchange, and Google-owned sites, such as YouTube and Google Finance. Through its DoubleClick advertising technology, it provides to publishers, agencies, and advertisers the ad serving technology, which is the infrastructure that enables billions of ads to be served each day across the Web. Its DoubleClick Ad Exchange creates a real-time auction marketplace for the trading of display ad space. In addition, YouTube provides a range of video, interactive, and other ad formats for advertisers to reach their intended audience. YouTube�� video advertising solutions give advertisers a way to promote their content to the YouTube community, as well as to associate with content being watched by their target audience. YouTube also offers analytic tools to help advertisers understand their audience and derive general business intelligence.

The Company is focused on developing easy-to-use ad products to help advertisers extend their reach, help create revenue opportunities for its publisher partners, and deliver relevant and useful ads to users on the go. Google Mobile extends its products and services by providing mobile-specific features to mobile device users. The Company�� mobile-specific search technologies include search by voice, search by sight, and search by location. Google Mobile also optimizes a number of Google�� applications for mobile devices in both browser and downloadable form. In addition, the Company offers advertisers the ability to run search ad campaigns on mobile devices with mobile-specific ad formats, such as click-to-call ads in which advertisers can include a phone number within ad text. AdMob also offers effective ad units and solutions for application developers and advertisers. The Company provides users with relevant local information. The Company has organized information around more than 80 million places globally from various sources across the Web. Users can find addresses, phone numbers, hours of operation, directions and more for millions of! local qu! eries like shops, restaurants, parks and landmarks right on Google.com, on Google Maps and on Google Maps for mobile. Its products and services also help local business owners manage their online presence and connect with potential customers.

Operating Systems and Platforms

The Company�� Android is a free and open source mobile software platform that any developer can use to create applications for mobile devices and any handset manufacturer can install on a device. Google Chrome OS is an open source operating system with the Google Chrome Web browser as its foundation. Both the Google Chrome OS and the Google Chrome browser are built around the core tenets of speed, simplicity, and security. The Chrome browser runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux computers. Google+ is a new way to share online just like users do in the real world, sharing different things with different people. Google Play is a cloud-based, digital entertainment destination with more than 700,000 applications (apps) and games plus music, movies and books that its users can find, enjoy and share on the Web and on their Android phone or tablet. Google Drive is a place where users can create, share, collaborate, and keep all of their stuff. Google Docs is built right into Google Drive so users can work with others in real time on documents, spreadsheets and presentations and users��files go everywhere they do. Google Wallet is a virtual wallet that securely stores credit and debit cards, offers, and rewards cards. Users can tap their phone to pay in-store using Google Wallet anywhere contactless payments are accepted - at over 200,000 merchants across the United States. Google TV is a platform that gives consumers the power to experience television and the Internet on a single screen, with the ability to search and find the content they want to watch. The Google TV platform is based on the Android operating system and runs the Google Chrome browser.

Enterprise

The Company�� enterprise! products! provide Google technology for business settings. Through Google Apps, which includes Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar, and Google Sites, among other features, it provides hosted, Web-based applications that people can use on any device with a browser and an Internet connection. In addition, the Company provides its search technology for use within enterprises through the Google Search Appliance (real-time search of business applications, intranet applications, and public websites), on their public-facing sites with Google Site Search (custom search engine), and Google Commerce Search (for online retail enterprises). The Company also provide versions of its Google Maps Application Programming Interface (API) for businesses (including interactive Google Maps for public and internal Websites), as well as Google Earth Enterprise (a behind-the-company-firewall software solution for imagery and data visualization). Its enterprise solutions have been adopted by a variety of businesses, governments, schools, and non-profit organizations.

Motorola

The Company�� Motorola business consists of two segments: Mobile segment and Home segment. The Mobile segment is focused on mobile wireless devices and related products and services. The Home segment is focused on technologies and devices that provide video entertainment services to consumers by enabling subscribers to access a variety of interactive digital television services.

The Company competes with Facebook, Inc., Twitter Inc., Yahoo! Inc., Microsoft Corporation, eBay Inc., and Amazon.com, Inc.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Tim Beyers]

  Next step: Go on the road
  In a brief interview, Rackspace director of finance Bryan McGrath said that Rackspace is winning the business it most wants: customers who have complex deployments that demand a higher level of service than what Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN  ) and Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL  ) (NASDAQ: GOOG  ) offer with their own cloud offerings.

Best Consumer Service Stocks To Watch For 2014: Computershare Ltd (CPU)

Computershare Limited is an Australia-based company. The Company is engaged in the operation of investor services, plan services, communication services, business services, shareholder relationship management services and technology services. The Company operates in six geographical segments: Asia, Australia, and New Zealand, Canada, Continental Europe, United Kingdom, Channel Islands, Ireland & Africa (UCIA) and the United States. In addition, technology and other segment comprise the provision of software specializing in share registry, employee plans and financial services globally, as well as the production and distribution of interactive meeting products. In December 2013, Computershare Ltd completed the acquisition of the Olympia Corporate and Shareholder Services assets (OCSS) from Olympia Financial Group Inc. Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Toshiro Hasegawa]

  Leighton dropped 6 percent to A$16.24 in Sydney as profit missed analyst estimates amid a slump in mining industry demand. Computershare Ltd. (CPU) sank 6.3 percent to A$9.75 in Sydney, the most in three years, after the share-registry firm reported profit fell.