The horror of mutual fund taxes

Another successful Halloween: No soap on your windows, no mailboxes blown up, no one hacked to death in the shower. You're happy, until you reach into the mailbox. And then: The horror.

It's a notice from your mutual fund company telling you about your estimated capital gains distribution. That's right: Along with all those big investment gains this year comes a bigger tax bill. But you have plenty of ways to reduce your fund taxes, most of which do not involve silver bullets, garlic or splattered brains.
Mutual funds buy and sell securities all year, and when they have more gains than losses, they pass those on to you, around this time of year. Gains are good. Unfortunately, you owe taxes on those gains.
Suppose, for example, the entirely fictional Miskatonic River Fund gave you a long-term capital gains distribution of $666. You'd owe 15% tax on your gain, or $99.90. (If you're in the highest tax bracket — 39.6% — you'll owe 20% on your capital gains. You'll also owe an additional 3.8% Medicare tax, which kicks in at $250,000 in modified adjusted gross income for joint filers, and $200,000 single filers.)

Don't buy a mutual fund near the dividend date," says Don Zidik, director of individual trust and estate practice at Braver PC, in Needham, Mass. "You'll end up being taxed for income and gains earned over the full year." Basically, you'll be buying a tax bill when you buy fund shares.

Incidentally, when the fund pays out the distribution, its share price drops by that amount. So you're not getting anything extra when you get the distribution. It's already factored into the share price.

Even more horrifying than long-term gains distributions are short-term gains distributions, which are taxed at your regular income tax rate. And, while most dividend distributions qualify for taxation at long-term capital gains rates, some — such as most from real estate funds — don't.

Most fund companies provide an estimate of their capital gains and income distributions.! Fidelity, for example, estimated that Contrafund, based on its Sept. 30 record, would distribute 18 cents per share in short-term capital gains, $5.765 per share in long-term capital gains, and nothing in income.

Over time, taxable distributions reduce your returns. Consider Contrafund, which has a sterling 10-year record. It's up 10.29% a year the past decade, meaning the fund has turned a $10,000 investment into $26,629. Assuming maximum federal taxes, however, the fund is up 9.8% a year, turning $10,000 into $25,470 — a $1,159 difference.

What can you do to reduce your taxes? One solution is to switch to index funds. Funds that simply track an index, rather than trade stocks actively, typically have lower capital gains distributions. For example, the Vanguard 500 Index fund, which follows the Standard and Poor's 500-stock index, typically pays nothing in capital gains distributions. The fund earned an average 7.45% a year before taxes the past 10 years, and 7.09% after distributions. (The fund does pay out dividend distributions.)

You might also consider tax-managed funds, which try to offset capital gains with capital losses, minimizing distributions. Vanguard Tax-Managed Capital Appreciation fund (ticker: VTCLX) has gained an average 7.89% after distributions the past decade, according to Morningstar, the mutual fund trackers.

An obvious solution would be to put more money into tax-deferred retirement plans, such as individual retirement accounts or 401(k) plans. You wouldn't pay taxes on distributions until you start to withdraw funds at retirement. And if you invest in a Roth IRA, you wouldn't pay taxes on gains and distributions at all, assuming you followed the rules for withdrawal at retirement.

But putting stock-fund shares into an IRA to avoid taxable distributions might be creating a bigger tax bill down the road. When you invest in a traditional IRA or a 401(k) plan, you dodge taxes on distributions or gains in the year they're paid out. But when you withd! raw from ! one of these plans, your entire withdrawal is taxable income. And typically, that's at a higher rate than you'd pay on long-term capital gains — which is the rate you'd pay if you were in a taxable account.

Finally, if your distribution is large enough, you might consider harvesting losses, a polite term for selling fund shares that have performed hideously. You can use long-term losses to offset an unlimited amount of long-term gains. If you have more losses than gains, you can deduct up to $3,000 of those losses from your income. And if you still have losses left over, you can carry those over into the next tax year.

Sending your losing fund to Hades is always a good idea, especially at tax time. But your primary purpose for selling any fund should be performance — not taxes. As horrifying as taxes are, they're a secondary consideration to how your fund fits in your portfolio.

How Politics, Not Tech, Doomed the Obamacare Launch

Everyone agrees the Obamacare launch has been a total disaster, but the reason why it has been such a disaster is the real scandal.

The Obama administration spin machine has been running in overdrive trying to convince a skeptical American public that the Oct. 1 Obamacare launch went bad for technical reasons. They said traffic from a populace thrilled that the insurance exchanges had finally arrived overwhelmed the site.

But blaming the high volume of visitors (what, they didn't see that coming?) or complaining that there wasn't enough time to build a proper site - as Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius did to CNN recently - obscures what really doomed the Obamacare launch.

And while the healthcare law's Republican opponents have been milking the chaos as one grand "I-told-you-so" moment, the GOP played a major role in the meltdown of the Healthcare.gov website.

The truth is that the Obamacare launch could have gone much more smoothly were it not for a series of idiotic decisions made by both Republican and Democratic politicians over the past three-plus years.

These decisions were made not with the best interests of the nation in mind, but for self-serving and usually partisan reasons.

Coming from a bunch that spends most of its time name-calling and hurling accusations at each other rather than working together to address such critical problems as unemployment, the $17 trillion national debt, and the unsustainability of entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, I suppose we shouldn't be shocked.

But how well Obamacare works - or doesn't - matters because healthcare makes up nearly one-fifth (18%) of the U.S. economy.

To see how we got here, take a look at the Obamacare facts that made the launch such a mess...

The Obamacare Launch Disaster: Three Years in the Making

Part I - How the Law Was Made
Unlike most large-scale legislation, the Affordable Care Act was passed with zero bipartisan support. At the time the law was being considered, Democrats held majorities in both chambers of Congress in addition to the White House. As such, they didn't feel the need to work with Republicans in crafting the law. That attitude had an immediate impact when Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-MA, died before the Senate could pass the final version of the bill. When Sen. Scott Brown, R-MA, won the Kennedy seat, the Democrats lost their 60-vote, filibuster-proof majority. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV, was forced to use a parliamentary tactic known as "reconciliation," a tool reserved for budget bills, to get the law passed. In the end, every Republican in Congress voted against the ACA (one abstained), and all but three Democrats voted for it. That stark partisan divide ensured Obamacare would become a bitter political battleground that drove most of the bad decisions that came later.

Part II - Republican States Thumb Their Noses
While the Obama administration bears much of the responsibility for the Obamacare launch problems, one move by Republican governors went a long way toward setting up the website for failure. Determined to undermine the law, most refused to set up state-run websites - a key part of how Obamacare would work. They even turned down huge federal Medicare subsidies intended as an incentive to create the websites. In the end, 27 states opted out, with seven others electing to have their website run as a state-federal partnership (which in practice meant reliance on the federal website). Only 17 states actually set up their own Obamacare websites. That meant that Healthcare.gov would be the primary means of accessing the exchanges, instead of a secondary or backup site as originally planned.

Part III - Putting the Wrong People in Charge
Obamacare is the biggest tech project the federal government has ever attempted, involving 55 contractors and requiring the integration of the complex computer systems of at least five large federal agencies. Yet instead of giving oversight authority to a contractor experienced in such massive projects, the Obama administration kept it in-house, awarding the job to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), a division of Health and Human Services. CMS had neither the manpower nor the expertise to manage such a project. So why did this happen? Ironically, the White House was worried that a contractor could be called before Congress. As it has turned out, the top contractors on the Obamacare website project have been called to Washington to testify anyway - and they're blaming the government for the troubled launch.

Part IV - Withholding Information, Last-Minute Changes
In her interview with CNN, Sebelius said that the Obamacare launch would have gone much smoother if they'd had five years to prepare instead of three and a half. But most of the contractors didn't even have that long, thanks to politics. The White House feared that Republicans would use some of the Obamacare facts about how the exchanges were to work as campaign fodder in the 2012 elections. So the Obama administration withheld a lot of critical information needed to create the website until after the 2012 elections, which delayed much of the code-writing until the spring of this year. But giving the contractors a fraction of the time needed for such a mammoth project virtually guaranteed disaster.

To make matters worse, federal officials demanded a major last-minute change to how the website was organized. Instead of allowing visitors to shop for healthcare plans without signing up, the Obama administration forced a switch so that people would have to create accounts and submit their basic information before getting to the prices of the available insurance plans. Why? Because in many cases the premiums of the new plans are much higher, and the administration wanted to make sure people saw their subsidized price so they wouldn't be frightened off by "sticker shock."

Part V - The Ostrich Syndrome
As the project neared the Oct. 1 launch date, most of the key contractors realized the system would fail. According to The Washington Post, a test run the week before with just a few hundred people crashed the site. The HHS, aware of the test, went forward with the Obamacare launch anyway. The Obama administration dreaded any delay to the launch because it would have given Republicans one more avenue of attack at the height of the battle over their attempt to defund Obamacare (which led to the government shutdown). Of course, now the disastrous Obamacare launch has supplied GOP opponents with an arsenal's worth of ammo against the healthcare law.

The reaction of the administration since the Obamacare launch has been an exercise in PR self-delusion not seen since the days of "Baghdad Bob." Despite the reassurances that the site will be fixed soon, many suspect the rushed code will reveal new, even more serious flaws in the weeks and months ahead.

Obamacare Facts: Poor Execution Could Doom the Whole Thing

While the issues with the Healthcare.gov website eventually will get fixed (an Obama administration official charged with the task promised on Friday all would be well by the end of November), the bad behavior of putting politics before the nation's welfare is a chronic problem.

As more of the law goes into effect, you can be sure that partisan considerations will make things worse at every turn - now, in 2014, and for years to come.

Such irresponsible and destructive behavior should make these jokers eligible for jail time, but most will simply get re-elected (or re-appointed by those that get re-elected).

What we may end up with instead is the worst of all worlds - the previous system destroyed and a new system so twisted by the political wars that it simply collapses.

While the Obamacare launch was rough, some people have actually gotten through. But despite the rosy promises from the president, they haven't liked everything that they've found. These real-life experiences with the exchanges may change how you look at Obamacare...

Related Articles:

Money Morning:
Early Problems with Obamacare Are Bigger Than a Glitch Money Morning:
The 7 Biggest Obamacare Lies Denver Post:
Were the Obamacare Site Woes Political or Technological? The New York Times:
From the Start, Signs of Trouble at Health Portal CNN:
Sebelius: Obamacare Website Problems Blindsided the President

Aiming for more than bupkis on the budget

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) The 29 lawmakers chosen to negotiate a way out of another budget stalemate and government shutdown will meet officially -- and publicly -- for the first time on Wednesday.

Known as the bipartisan budget-conference committee, the group of senators and House members has a deadline of December 13. Their mission: reach a mutually agreeable deal to ensure the federal government is funded through the rest of fiscal year 2014.

Sounds simple, but it won't be. The discussion could get stuck in a ditch over how to replace the across-the-board spending cuts known as the sequester.

The sequester will reduce deficits by more than $1 trillion over a decade. It was designed to be so distasteful to both parties that it would force lawmakers to come up with a smarter package of fiscal restraint.

But they failed to do so, which is why last March, the first set of cuts went into effect.

If the budget-conference committee fails again at the most basic task of Congress, the spending reductions of 2013 will be locked in. Plus, another $20 billion in cuts must be made for the rest of fiscal year 2014, which began October 1.

From 2015 through 2021, discretionary spending will grow slowly from the lower levels of 2014.

Many budget experts are predicting the budget-conference committee may produce nothing at all, given the persistent divide between the parties over the sequester.

Take defense spending. At first glance it appears that Senate Democrats and House Republicans might actually agree. Both of their proposed 2014 budgets call for discretionary defense spending levels of $552 billion in 2014. That's $54 billion above the sequester-dictated level of $498 billion.

But they disagree on how to make up for that difference.

House Republicans have proposed making even more cuts to domestic programs, which Senate Democrats oppose.

The Democrats don't explicitly make up for the difference, but propose nearly $2 trillion in deficit reduction over a decade through a mix of longer-term spending cuts and tax increases, the latter of which House Republicans oppose.

That doesn't mean agreement is entirely out of the question. But if they do find it, it's only likely to yield "a small-bore deal," as William G. Hoagland puts it.

Hoagland, a senior vice president of the Bipartisan Policy Center who was a top staffer for years on the Senate bud! get committee, thinks elements of a mini-deal could include increases in both defense and non-defense spending to their pre-sequester levels. Lawmakers might agree to pay for that in several ways, including a reduction in farm subsidies and some form of means-testing for Medicare so high-income people pay more.

  More budget cuts loom at Pentagon

He also thinks both parties might agree to claim war savings from the military drawdown in Iraq and Afghanistan.

If both parties can also agree to some revenue to help reduce deficits, they might turn to boosting user fees, said Marc Goldwein, senior policy director at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. An example are fees paid by mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, or customs or spectrum user fees.

In any case, don't expect many details to be discussed on Wednesday morning. All 29 members will be given the opportunity to make an opening statement. Those can last up to five minutes apiece. Before you know it, it'll be time for lunch.

Will LinkedIn Continue To Be A Hot Stock?

With shares of LinkedIn (NASDAQ:LNKD) trading around $170, is LNKD an OUTPERFORM, WAIT AND SEE or STAY AWAY? Let's analyze the stock with the relevant sections of our CHEAT SHEET investing framework:

T = Trends for a Stock’s Movement

LinkedIn is a professional network on the Internet with more than 90 million members in over 200 countries and territories. Through the company's platform, members are able to create, manage and share their professional identity online, build and engage with their professional network, access shared knowledge and insights, and find business opportunities. Its platform also provides members with solutions, including applications and tools, to search, connect and communicate with business contacts, learn about career opportunities, join industry groups, research organizations and share information. Networking and social contact is increasing in importance for consumers and companies all around the world. A leader in the social and networking space, LinkedIn, is poised to increase its user base and profits in the coming years.

T = Technicals on the Stock Chart are Strong

LinkedIn stock has seen a powerful uptrend in its stock price extending back to its initial public offering in 2011. The stock is now consolidating near all-time high prices and may get going after gains are digested. Analyzing the price trend and its strength can be done using key simple moving averages. What are the key moving averages? The 50-day (pink), 100-day (blue), and 200-day (yellow) simple moving averages. As seen in the daily price chart below, LinkedIn is trading around its rising key averages which signal neutral to bullish price action in the near-term.

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(Source: Thinkorswim)

Taking a look at the implied volatility (red) and implied volatility skew levels of LinkedIn options may help determine if investors are bullish, neutral, or bearish.

	Implied Volatility (IV)	30-Day IV Percentile	90-Day IV Percentile
LinkedIn Options	39.52%	53%	51%

What does this mean? This means that investors or traders are buying a significant amount of call and put options contracts, as compared to the last 30 and 90 trading days.

	Put IV Skew	Call IV Skew
June Options	Flat	Average
July Options	Flat	Average

As of today, there is an average demand from call buyers or sellers and low demand by put buyers or high demand by put sellers, all neutral to bullish over the next two months. To summarize, investors are buying a significant amount of call and put option contracts and are leaning neutral to bullish over the next two months.

On the next page, let’s take a look at the earnings and revenue growth rates and the conclusion.

E = Earnings Are Increasing Quarter-Over-Quarter

Rising stock prices are often strongly correlated with rising earnings and revenue growth rates. Also, the last four quarterly earnings announcement reactions help gauge investor sentiment on LinkedIn’s stock. What do the last four quarterly earnings and revenue growth (Y-O-Y) figures for LinkedIn look like and more importantly, how did the markets like these numbers?

	2013 Q1	2012 Q4	2012 Q3	2012 Q2
Earnings Growth (Y-O-Y)	400%	604%	-50%	300%
Revenue Growth (Y-O-Y)	72.29%	117.68%	108.22%	142.96%
Earnings Reaction	-12.93%	21.26%	-0.06%	16.04%

LinkedIn has seen increasing earnings and revenue figures over the last four quarters. From these numbers, the markets have had mixed feelings about LinkedIn’s recent earnings announcements.

P = Excellent Relative Performance Versus Peers and Sector

How has LinkedIn stock done relative to its peers, Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), Monster Worldwide (NYSE:MWW), Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), and sector?

	LinkedIn	Facebook	Monster Worldwide	Google	Sector
Year-to-Date Return	47.57%	-7.51%	-3.20%	23.06%	14.89%

LinkedIn has been a relative performance leader, year-to-date.

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Conclusion

LinkedIn provides valuable social and networking interaction tools and services to consumers, companies, and groups all around the world. The stock has seen a powerful run over the last few years that has taken it to all-time high prices. Over the last four quarters, earnings and revenue figures have been on the rise which have produced mixed feelings among investors who may be expecting a little more. Relative to its peers and sector, LinkedIn has been a year-to-date performance leader. Look for LinkedIn to OUTPERFORM.

The Real Reason ARMH Plummeted After Earnings

Arm Holdings (ARMH) shares dropped sharply post earnings last week. Commentators have attributed the drop to various aspects of the earnings release for example "guidance that disappointed", "concerns of smartphone slowdown" and one report even linking the stock drop to "solid performance".

The reality, however, is that earnings met analyst expectations, were in line with previous company guidance, and forward guidance on the earnings call was positive. To remove any lingering suspicions that the stock dropped on earnings, consider that ARM released results before the UK Market open on Tuesday. and after the London market opened, the stock was trading higher, reaching all-time highs. So what´s really going on?

Other companies such as TriQuint (TQNT) and Broadcom (BRCM) are reporting results with "strong mobile demand" and "higher-than-anticipated sales of cellular system-on-chip (SOC) and touch controllers." More famously, Apple (AAPL) has announced record sales for its ARM-inside iPhone 5S model introduced last month. Investors and analysts already knew that ARM reports royalty revenue a quarter in arrears, so any gains from iPhone 5S sales will not start to be seen until ARM´s next quarterly report and were not expected to be a factor in this report.

The real event was not the earnings announcement from Cambridge, England, but the events in Cupertino on the same day. Apple were making a number of product launches, and there had been speculation ARM would be a big winner...

One speculation making the rounds was that the iPad might feature a quad core version of the A7 64-bit CPU that debuted last month in the iPhone 5S. In fact the iPad was equipped with the exact same A7 found in the iPhone.

Now, while doubling the number of CPU cores in a product already using an ARM CPU would have increased royalty revenue per iPad, a far bigger, and more profitable, coup for ARM would have been a high profile design win, d! isplacing a major competitor. At the iPhone launch event in September, Apple described the iPhone´s A7 chip as "desktop class." This has led to speculation that Apple would be announcing desktops and laptops using ARM where previously it used Intel (INTC) processors. This pipedream did not come to pass either.

On a more speculative angle, the Lumia RT tablet, also announced Tuesday, featuring a 32-bit ARM CPU may have disappointed some ardent ARM optimists who may have been hoping for a 64 bit tablet CPU. This would have turned the Apple A7 development from a one-off into a new trend. But considering the approximately year-long negativity linked to Windows 8 RT and Windows 8 in general, the Apple disappointment factor was the main cause of the ARMH stock losses.

Conclusion: When the iPhone 5s was revealed in September along with its 64-bit A7 chip, ARMH stock received a nice boost. Investors were hoping for a similar boost from last week´s Apple event, and ran the stock up in anticipation. When no ground breaking use of ARMH technology was forthcoming, the stock backed down. The earnings release on the same day was not a factor in the drop. In fact, the timing of the release and the ticker show that the earnings release was a positive for the stock.

(Footnote: This article made the point that the earnings call and guidance were in fact positive. Possibly this got mulled over and factored in by the market eventually, as ARMH has since recovered roughly half of its post-earnings... er... post-Apple drop)

Source: The Real Reason ARMH Plummeted After Earnings

Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, but may initiate a short position in ARMH over the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article. (More...)

Will You Buy a $349 Microsoft Surface?

The following video is from this week's installment of The Motley Fool's Weekly Tech Review, in which Alison Southwick sits down with analysts Eric Bleeker and Lyons George to look at the biggest stories driving the tech sector this week.

In the segment below, Eric and Lyons look at Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT  ) recent price cut, which moved the starting Surface price from $499 to $349. Microsoft initially priced the Surface in a way that its hardware partners could make competing Windows 8 tablet designs based on Windows RT and still make a profit on them. 

However, at $349, the company now risks pricing the tablet low enough that hardware partners such as Asus and Hewlett-Packard have little incentive developing Windows RT tablets when a space like ultrabooks, where PCs are selling at much higher prices, affords more profit potential. Is Microsoft's price cut a last gasp to save Windows RT by taking a more aggressive stance in pushing volume shipments of the Surface?

To see Eric and Lyons' full thoughts, watch the video. 

It's incredible to think just how much of our digital and technological lives are almost entirely shaped and molded by just a handful of companies. Find out "Who Will Win the War Between the 5 Biggest Tech Stocks" in The Motley Fool's latest free report, which details the knock-down, drag-out battle being waged among the five kings of tech. Click here to keep reading.

Top 5 Stocks To Own Right Now

With shares of Altria Group (NYSE:MO) trading around $35, is MO an OUTPERFORM, WAIT AND SEE or STAY AWAY? Let�� analyze the stock with the relevant sections of our CHEAT SHEET investing framework:

T = Trends for a Stock’s Movement

Altria Group engages in the manufacture and sale of cigarettes, smokeless products, and wine in the United States and internationally. It offers cigarettes primarily under the Marlboro brand; smokeless tobacco products under the Copenhagen, Skoal, Red Seal, Husky, and Marlboro Snus brand names; cigars principally under the Black & Mild brand; and pipe tobacco. The company also produces and sells blended table wines. Through its range of brands, Altria Group is able to fulfill constant demand for its products around the world. As long as consumers continue to enjoy Altria Group�� products, the company will see consistent profits.

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T = Technicals on the Stock Chart are Strong

Top 5 Stocks To Own Right Now: Synergy Healthcare Plc(SYR.L)

Synergy Health plc provides outsourced healthcare support and contract sterilization services. It offers decontamination and sterilization of reusable medical devices, equipment and surgical instrumentation, and related outsourced services to primary care providers, surgical instrument suppliers, and dentistry markets, as well as to acute, community, and private hospitals. The company also provides outsourced sterilization services using a range of sterilization technologies, including gamma radiation, electron beam, and ethylene oxide for various markets comprising medical devices, pharmaceuticals, industrial, veterinary, food, cosmetics, and laboratories. In addition, it offers healthcare solutions, which involve infection control with services, such as linen management, patient hygiene, wound care, surgical, occupational health, pathology, toxicology, and microbiology services for acute and community hospitals, primary care providers, residential homes, laboratories, cl ean rooms, occupational health, blue chip corporates, and government bodies. Further, the company involves in the provision of information technology services; and the distribution of healthcare products. It has operations in the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Belgium, China, South Africa, Malaysia, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, the United States, and Costa Rica. The company was founded in 1991 and Headquartered in Swindon, the United Kingdom.

Top 5 Stocks To Own Right Now: Southside Bancshares Inc.(SBSI)

Southside Bancshares, Inc. operates as the holding company for Southside Bank that provides financial products and services to individuals, businesses, municipal entities, and non-profit organizations. Its deposit products include savings, money market, interest and noninterest bearing checking accounts, and certificates of deposit. The company?s consumer loan services consists of 1-4 family residential mortgage, home equity, home improvement, automobile, and other installment loans; and commercial loan services comprise short-term working capital loans for inventory and accounts receivable, short and medium-term loans for equipment or other business capital expansion, commercial real estate loans, and municipal loans. It also offers construction loans for 1-4 family residential and commercial real estate. In addition, Southside Bancshares provides trust services that include investment, management, administration, and advisory services; safe deposit services; brokerage s ervices; and automated telephone, Internet, and electronic banking services. The company, through its subsidiary, Southside Financial Group, LLC engages in the purchase of automobile loan portfolios from lenders in the United States. Southside Bancshares operates 48 banking centers in Tyler, Longview, Lindale, Gresham, Jacksonville, Bullard, Chandler, Hawkins, Seven Points, Palestine, Forney, Gun Barrel City, Athens, Whitehouse, Fort Worth, Arlington, and Austin, of which 19 are located in grocery stores; 12 motor bank facilities; and 50 automated teller machines. The company was founded in 1960 and is headquartered in Tyler, Texas.

Best Stocks To Watch For 2014: Kestrel Gold Inc (KGC.V)

Kestrel Gold Inc., a gold exploration company, engages in the acquisition, exploration, evaluation, and development of mineral properties primarily in Canada and Argentina. It primarily explores for gold and copper deposits. The company�s principal properties include the King Solomon Dome project located in Yukon Territory, Canada; and the Huachi project located in the Andean Pre-cordillera mountains of the San Juan Province of Argentina. It also holds 100% interest in the Condoryacu and Maria Amalia mining properties in Argentina. The company was formerly known as Bling Capital Corp. and changed its name to Kestrel Gold Inc. in June 2010. Kestrel Gold Inc. was incorporated in 2007 and is headquartered in Calgary, Canada.

Top 5 Stocks To Own Right Now: Charter Financial Corp.(CHFN)

Charter Financial Corporation operates as the holding company for CharterBank that provides various banking services to individuals and businesses in Georgia and Alabama. Its deposit products include demand, NOW, and money market accounts; savings deposits; time deposits; checking accounts; and certificates of deposit. The company's loan products comprise commercial real estate loans; one- to four-family residential mortgage loans; construction and development loans; commercial business loans; and consumer loans, such as home equity loans, lines of credit, auto loans, and second mortgage loans. It operates through 16 branch offices located in West Point, LaGrange, Newnan, Carrollton, Bremen, Covington, and Peachtree City, Georgia; and Auburn, Opelika, and Valley, Alabama, as well as through a loan production office located in Norcross, Georgia. The company was founded in 1954 and is based in West Point, Georgia. Charter Financial Corporation operates as a subsidiary of Fir st Charter, MHC.

Top 5 Stocks To Own Right Now: Panax Geothermal Ltd (PAX.AX)

Panax Geothermal Ltd engages in the identification, exploration, and development of geothermal resources primarily in Australia, Indonesia, and India. Geothermal energy is the source of renewable energy that replaces base load power generated using fossil fuels. It operates in Penola Trough, Other Limestone Coast, Cooper Basin, Indonesia, and Other International segments. The company holds 100% interest in the Penola, Limestone Coast Geothermal project covering an area of approximately 3,000 square kilometers located in the Limestone Coast, South Australia; and the Hutton Geothermal project covering an area of 949 square kilometers located in the Cooper Basin, South Australia. It also holds a 49% interest in the Puga Geothermal project covering an area of approximately 100 square kilometers located in the Himalayan region, Upper Indus Valley, northern India. In addition, the company holds a 45% interest in the Sokoria Geothermal project for a 30 MW geothermal development o n Flores Island; a 35% interest in the Ngebel Geothermal project for a 165 MW geothermal development on East Java; a 51% interest in the Dairi Prima Geothermal project for a 25 MW geothermal development in Northern Sumatra; and a 95% interest in the Jambi Geothermal project for a 80 MW geothermal development in Central Sumatra, Indonesia. Panax Geothermal Ltd is based in Adelaide, Australia.

Top 10 Energy Stocks To Buy For 2014

The highest-impact way to lower fuel costs is to lower the amount of fuel needed to power your cars. Weight, drag, and lack of basic functionality can cause your power to require more energy to move. Changing the way you drive can also significantly increase your mileage.

Car maintenance
Keep your tires properly inflated. Low-pressure tires take more energy to push down the road. Since the manufacturer tests optimal pressure at cool temperatures, you should check your tire pressure when it's cold outside.

Efficiency increase: 3%.

Take all the junk out of your car. If you have a bunch of items in your trunk that you've simply forgotten about, take them out. It takes more energy to walk with a heavy backpack; the same holds true when you're car's running with extra weight.

Efficiency increase: 2%.

Take off the roof rack. Unless you're currently using it, a roof rack creates unneeded wind resistance.

Efficiency increase: 2%.

Use your air conditioner at the right time. Air conditioners use up a large amount of fuel, but on the other hand, opening the windows increases drag. If you're going under 40 mph, it's much better to lower the windows than use the A/C; over 40 mph, you'll save energy by running the A/C than increasing drag with open windows.

Top 10 Energy Stocks To Buy For 2014: SolarCity Corp (SCTY.W)

SolarCity Corporation (SolarCity), incorporated on June 21, 2006, is engaged in the design, installation and sale or lease of solar energy systems to residential and commercial customers, or sale of electricity generated by solar energy systems to customers. The Company sells renewable energy to its customers. As of December 12, 2012, the Company served customers in 14 states. The Company�� residential customers are individual homeowners and homeowners. The Company�� commercial customers represent several business sectors, including technology, retail, manufacturing, agriculture, nonprofit and houses of worship. The Company has installed solar energy systems for several government entities, including the the United States Air Force, Army, Marines and Navy, and the Department of Homeland Security. The Company purchases major components, such as solar panels and inverters directly from multiple manufacturers. As of September 30, 2012, its primary solar panel suppliers were Trina Solar Limited, Yingli Green Energy Holding Company Limited and Kyocera Solar, Inc., among others, and its primary inverter suppliers were Power-One, Inc., SMA Solar Technology, AG, Schneider Electric SA, Fronius International GmbH and SolarEdge Technologies, among others.

Solar Energy Products

The Company�� solar energy products include Solar Energy Systems, and SolarLease and power purchase agreement finance products. The major components of its solar energy systems include solar panels that convert sunlight into electrical current. Most of its solar energy customers choose to purchase energy from the Company pursuant to one of two payment structures: a SolarLease or a power purchase agreement. In both structures, the Company charges customers a monthly fee for the power produced by its solar energy systems. In the lease structure, this monthly payment is pre-determined and includes a production guarantee. In the power purchase agreem ent structure, the Company charges customers a fee per kilo! w! att hour based on the amount of electricity actually produced by the solar energy system.

Energy Efficiency Products and Services

The Company�� energy efficiency products and services include home energy evaluation and energy efficiency upgrades. The Company sells home energy efficiency evaluations to new solar energy system customers and existing customers. The Company�� energy efficiency upgrade products and services address heating and cooling, air sealing, duct sealing, water heating, insulation, furnaces, weatherization, pool pumps and lighting. As of December 12, 2012, the Company had completed over 13,000 home energy evaluations and performed more than 2,000 energy efficiency upgrades.

Other Energy Products and Services

The Company�� other energy products and services include electric vehicle charging and energy storage. The Company installs electric vehicle (EV) charging equipment that it sources from t hird parties. SolarCity markets EV equipment to residential and commercial customers through retail partnerships with companies, such as The Home Depot, and through EV manufacturers and dealerships, such as its partnership with Tesla Motors, Inc. The Company is developing a battery management system built on its solar energy monitoring communications backbone. As of December 12, 2012, the Company had over 100 energy storage pilot projects under contract. As of December 12, 2012, the Company had sold over 750 charging stations.

Enabling Technologies

The Company�� enabling technologies include SolarBid Sales Management Platform, SolarWorks Customer Management Software, Energy Designer, Home Performance Pro and SolarGuard and PowerGuide Proactive Monitoring Solutions. SolarBid is a sales management platform, which incorporates a database of rate information by utility, sun exposure, roof orientation and a range of other factors to enable a detailed a nalysis and customized graphical presentation of each c! ustom! er! �� sa! vings.

SolarWorks is the software platform the Company uses to track and manage project. Energy Designer is a software application its field engineering auditors use to collect pertinent site-specific design details on a tablet computer. Home Performance Pro is its energy efficiency evaluation platform that incorporates the United States Department of Energy�� Energy Plus simulation engine. Home Performance Pro collects and stores details of a building�� construction and energy use. SolarGuard and PowerGuide provide its customers a view of their home�� or business�� energy generation and consumption.

The Company competes with American Solar Electric, Inc., Astrum Solar, Inc., Petersen Dean, Inc., Real Goods Solar, Inc., REC Solar, Inc., Sungevity, Inc., Trinity Solar, Inc., Verengo, Inc., SunRun Inc. and Ameresco, Inc.

Top 10 Energy Stocks To Buy For 2014: Natural Resource Partners LP (NRP)

Natural Resource Partners L.P. is a limited partnership. The Company is engaged principally in the business of owning, managing and leasing mineral properties in the United States. It owns coal reserves in the three United States coal-producing regions: Appalachia, the Illinois Basin and the Western United States, as well as lignite reserves in the Gulf Coast region. The Company is engaged in the ownership and leasing of mineral properties and related transportation and processing infrastructure. As of December 31, 2011, the Company owned or controlled approximately 2.3 billion tons of proven and probable coal reserves and it also owned approximately 380 million tons of aggregate reserves in a number of states across the country. During the year ended December 31, 2011, its lessees produced 49.2 million tons of coal from its properties. In addition, the Company�� lessees produced 49.2 million tons of coal from its properties. The Company�� operations are conducted through, and its operating assets are owned by, its subsidiaries. The Company owns its subsidiaries through a wholly owned operating company, NRP (Operating) LLC. NRP (GP) LP, which is its general partner, which conducts its business and manages its operations. Because its general partner is a limited partnership, its general partner, GP Natural Resource Partners LLC, conducts its business and operations. Robertson Coal Management LLC owns all of the membership interest in GP Natural Resource Partners LLC. In addition to its preparation plants, the Company owns coal handling and transportation infrastructure in West Virginia, Ohio and Illinois. In February 2011, it acquired approximately 500 acres of mineral and surface rights related to limestone reserves on the Tennessee River near Paducah, Kentucky. In March 2011, it acquired approximately 500 acres of mineral and surface rights related to limestone reserves in Cleveland, Tennessee near Chattanooga. In July 2011, it acquired approximately 44,000 acres of coal reserves and coal bed met! hane located in Pennsylvania and Illinois. In February 2012, the Company acquired coal reserves at the Deer Run mine near Hillsboro, Illinois and approximately 9,500 net mineral acres located in the Mississippian Lime oil play in Northern Oklahoma. In March 2012, the Company acquired the rail loadout, associated infrastructure assets and a contractual overriding royalty interest on certain tonnage at the Sugar Camp mine near Benton, Illinois. In May 2012, the Company completed the acquisition of approximately 19,200 net mineral acres in the Mississippian Lime oil play in North Central Oklahoma.

Northern Appalachia

The Beaver Creek property is located in Grant and Tucker Counties, West Virginia. During 2011, 2.4million tons were produced from this property. The Company leases this property to Mettiki Coal, LLC, which is a subsidiary of Alliance Resource Partners L.P. Coal is produced from an underground longwall mine. It is transported by truck to a preparation plant operated by the lessee. Coal is shipped primarily by truck to the Mount Storm power plant of Dominion Power and to various export customers. During 2011, 366,000 tons were produced from Allegany County. The Company leases this property to Vindex Energy, a subsidiary of Arch Coal. Coal from this property is produced from a surface mine. The raw coal is trucked to the Warrior plant of Allegheny Energy. During 2011, 283,000 tons were produced from Area F property. It leases this property to Carter Roag, a subsidiary of Metinvest. Coal from this property is produced from an underground mine. The raw coal is trucked to a preparation plant operated by the lessee. Coal is shipped via rail to domestic metallurgical customers and exported for use by Metinvest.

Central Appalachia

The VICC/Alpha property is located in Wise, Dickenson, Russell and Buchanan Counties, Virginia. During 2011, 4.9 million tons were produced from this property. It primarily leases this property to a subsidiary of Alpha Natu! ral Resou! rces. Production comes from both underground and surface mines and is trucked to one of four preparation plants. Coal is shipped through both the CSX and Norfolk Southern railroads to utility and metallurgical customers. Customers include American Electric Power, Southern Company, Tennessee Valley Authority, VEPCO and the United States Steel and to various export metallurgical customers. The Lynch property is located in Harlan and Letcher Counties, Kentucky. During 2011, 4.8 million tons were produced from this property. The Company primarily leases the property to a subsidiary of Massey Energy. Production comes from both underground and surface mines. Coal is transported by truck to a preparation plant on the property and is shipped primarily on the CSX railroad to utility customers, such as Georgia Power and Orlando Utilities.

The Dingess-Rum property is located in Logan, Clay and Nicholas Counties, West Virginia. This property is leased to subsidiaries of Massey Energy and Patriot Coal. During 2011, 2.8 million tons were produced from the property. Coal is shipped through the CSX railroad to steam customers, such as American Electric Power, Dayton Power and Light, Detroit Edison and to various export metallurgical customers.

The VICC/Kentucky Land property is located primarily in Perry, Leslie and Pike Counties, Kentucky. During 2011, 2.5 million tons were produced from this property. Coal is produced from a number of lessees from both underground and surface mines. Coal is shipped primarily by truck but also on the CSX and Norfolk Southern railroads to customers, such as Southern Company, Tennessee Valley Authority and American Electric Power. The Lone Mountain property is located in Harlan County, Kentucky. During 2011, 2.1 million tons were produced from this property. The Company leases the property to a subsidiary of Arch Coal, Inc. Production comes from underground mines and is transported primarily by beltline to a preparation plant on adjacent property and shipped o! n the Nor! folk Southern or CSX railroads to utility customers, such as Georgia Power and the Tennessee Valley Authority.

The D.D. Shepard property is located in Boone County, West Virginia. This property is primarily leased to a subsidiary of Patriot Coal Corp. During 2011, two million tons were produced from the property. Both steam and metallurgical coal are produced by the lessees from underground and surface mines. Coal is transported from the mines through belt or truck to preparation plants on the property. Coal is shipped through the CSX railroad to various domestic and export metallurgical customers. The Pardee property is located in Letcher County, Kentucky and Wise County Virginia. During 2011, 1.8 million tons were produced from this property. It leases the property to a subsidiary of Arch Coal, Inc. Production comes from underground and surface mines and is transported by truck or beltline to a preparation plant on the property and shipped primarily on the Norfolk Southern railroad to utility customers, such as Georgia Power and the Tennessee Valley Authority and domestic, and export metallurgical customers, such as Algoma Steel and Arcelor.

The Kingston property is located in Fayette and Raleigh Counties, West Virginia. This property is leased to a subsidiary of Alpha Natural Resources. During 2011, 1.5 million tons were produced from the property. Both steam and metallurgical coal are produced from underground and surface mines and has been historically transported by belt or truck to a preparation plant on the property or shipped raw. Coal is shipped via both the CSX railroad and by truck to barges to steam customers and various export metallurgical customers.

Southern Appalachia

The BLC properties are located in Kentucky and Tennessee. During 2011, 1.2 million tons were produced from these properties. The Company leases these properties to a number of operators, including Appolo Fuels Inc., Bell County Coal Corporation and Kopper-Glo Fuels. Prod! uction co! mes from both underground and surface mines and is trucked to preparation plants and loading facilities operated by its lessees. Coal is transported by truck and is shipped through both CSX and Norfolk Southern railroads to utility and industrial customers. Customers include Southern Company, South Carolina Electric & Gas, and numerous medium and small industrial customers. The Oak Grove property is located in Jefferson County, Alabama. During 2011, 470,000 tons were produced from this property. The Company leases the property to a subsidiary of Cliffs Natural Resources, Inc. Production comes from an underground mine and is transported primarily by beltline to a preparation plant. The metallurgical coal is then shipped through railroad and barge to both domestic and export customers.

Illinois Basin

The Williamson property is located in Franklin and Williamson Counties, Illinois. The property is under lease to an affiliate of the Cline Group. During 2011, 6.8 million tons were mined on the property. This production is from a longwall mine. Production is shipped primarily through CN railroad to customers, such as Duke and to various export customers. The Macoupin property is located in Macoupin County, Illinois. The property is under lease to an affiliate of the Cline Group. During 2011, 1.8 tons were shipped from the property. Production is from an underground mine and is shipped through the Norfolk Southern or Union Pacific railroads or by barge to customers, such as Western KY Energy and other midwest utilities or loaded into barges for shipment to export customers. The Sato property is located in Jackson County, Illinois. During 2011, 363,000 tons were produced from the property. The property is under lease to Knight Hawk Coal LLC, an independent coal producer. As of December 31, 2011, production was from a surface mine, and coal was shipped by truck and railroad to various midwest and southeast utilities.

Northern Powder River Basin

The Western Ener! gy proper! ty is located in Rosebud and Treasure Counties, Montana. During 2011, 2.7 million tons were produced from the Company�� property. A subsidiary of Westmoreland Coal Company has two coal leases on the property. Coal is produced by surface dragline mining, and the coal is transported by either truck or beltline to the four-unit 2,200-megawatt Colstrip generation station located at the mine mouth and by the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad to Minnesota Power. A small amount of coal is transported by truck to other customers.

BRP Properties

As of December 31, 2011, BRP had acquired, in several stages, approximately 8.8 million mineral acres in 29 states from International Paper. As of December 31, 2011, BRP held 78 revenue generating leases. BRP�� assets include approximately 300,000 gross acres of oil and gas mineral rights in Louisiana, of which over 72,000 acres were under lease, as of December 31, 2011. In addition, BRP holds a gross production royalty interest on approximately 23,000 mineral acres under lease in Louisiana. The remaining oil and gas mineral acreage in Louisiana is not leased. As of December 31, 2011, BRP owned nearly 246,000 gross mineral acres of primarily lignite coal rights in the Gulf Coast region, of which approximately 5,000 acres are leased under three separate leases in Louisiana and Alabama. In addition to the coal rights, BRP held aggregate reserves, including limestone, granite, clay, and sand and gravel reserves, under lease in six states. As of December 31, 2011, other mineral rights held by BRP included coalbed methane rights in four Gulf Coast states, metals rights in three states, approximately 450,000 acres of water rights in East Texas, geothermal rights and royalty interests in the Gulf Coast and Pacific Northwest and carbon sequestration rights primarily in the Gulf Coast region.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Tyler Crowe]

  In the energy world, it's never much of a surprise when an oil company picks up natural gas assets or vice versa. But a coal company getting into the oil business? Now that's a rarity. This week, Natural Resources Partners (NYSE: NRP  ) �did just that. The company announced that it's taking a working interest in some of Abraxas Petroleums (NASDAQ: AXAS  ) assets in the Bakken. While the $35 million purchase was not that large, it's a rare case where a coal company branches out into other natural resources.�

• [By Rich Duprey]

  With steam coal prices continuing to be weak due to the inroads made by natural gas, Natural Resource Partners (NYSE: NRP  ) has decided if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. It announced Monday it is buying producing�oil and gas�properties located in the Williston Basin of North Dakota and Montana from�Abraxas Petroleum (NASDAQ: AXAS  ) for $35.3 million in cash.

Hot Clean Energy Stocks To Watch For 2014: New Energy Technologies Inc (NENE)

New Energy Technologies, Inc., incorporated on May 5, 1998, is a development-stage company. The Company is engaged in renewable and alternative energy business. The Company conducts its operations through two wholly owned subsidiaries: Kinetic Energy Corporation (KEC), Sungen Energy, Inc. and New Energy Solar Corporation (New Energy Solar). The Company focuses on the development of two technologies: MotionPower Technology for capturing the kinetic energy of moving vehicles to generate electricity, and SolarWindow Technology, which enables see-through glass windows to generate electricity by spraying glass surfaces with its electricity-generating coatings to their glass surface. It has filed 10 patent applications for inventions related to its MotionPower Technology and one for its SolarWindow Technology. As of June 21, 2012, it had no commercial products. As of June 21, 2012, the Company had no revenues.

SolarWindow

The Company�� SolarWindow products in development are designed to generate electricity on glass while remaining see-through. It has six product development goals for its SolarWindow technology: SolarWindow - Commercial, which is a flat glass product for installation in new commercial towers under construction and replacement windows; SolarWindow - Structural Glass, which is a structural glass walls and curtains for tall structures; SolarWindow - Architectural Glass, which is a textured and decorative interior glass walls and room dividers; SolarWindow - Residential, which is a window glass for installation in residential homes under construction and replacement windows; SolarWindow - Flex , which is a film which may be applied directly onto glass, similar to aftermarket window tint films, for retrofit to existing commercial towers, buildings, and residential homes; and SolarWindow - BIPV, which is a building product components associated with building-integrated-photovoltaic (BIPV) applications in homes, buildings, and office towers.

MotionPower

MotionPower products are designed to generate electricity from the capture and conversion of available kinetic energy into electricity, which is present in vehicles which are slowing down before stopping. It is developing three MotionPower products: MotionPower - Heavy, which is a fluid-driven, system with limited moving mechanical components for installation at sites where big rigs, such as tractor trailers, buses, and commercial vehicles are traveling at below 15 miles per hour and are in the process of slowing down; MotionPower - Auto, which is a fluid-driven, system similar to MotionPower - Heavy for installation at sites where cars and light-duty trucks, such as sport utility vehicles and automobiles, are traveling at below 15 miles per hour and are in the process of slowing down; and MotionPower - Express, which is a mechanical system for installation at sites where all cars, light-duty trucks, motor homes, buses, big rigs, and commercial vehicles are traveling faster than 15 miles per hour and are in the process of slowing down.

The Company competes with Konarka Technologies, Inc., XsunX, Inc. and Sharp Corporation.

Top 10 Energy Stocks To Buy For 2014: Hanwha SolarOne Co. Ltd.(HSOL)

Hanwha Solarone Co., Ltd., an investment holding company, engages in the manufacture and sale of silicon ingots, silicon wafers, and PV cells and modules. The company also offers mono crystalline and multi crystalline silicon cells; and provides PV module processing services. It sells its products to solar power system integrators and distributors primarily in Germany, Italy, Australia, the United States, the Czech Republic, Spain, and China. The company was formerly known as Solarfun Power Holdings Co., Ltd. and changed its name to Hanwha SolarOne Co., Ltd. in December 2010. Hanwha Solarone Co., Ltd. was founded in 2004 and is based in Qidong, the People?s Republic of China.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Travis Hoium]

  What: Solar stocks are shooting higher again today as the strong run in 2013 continues. LDK Solar (NYSE: LDK  ) , Canadian Solar (NASDAQ: CSIQ  ) , Yingli Green Energy (NYSE: YGE  ) , Hanwha SolarOne (NASDAQ: HSOL  ) , and JinkoSolar (NYSE: JKS  ) led the way, gaining between 10% and 22% today.

• [By Sean Williams]

  Lights out, China
  China may have its fair share of struggles -- which has caused its strong economy to back off its 30-year average growth rate of 10% -- but when push comes to shove, plenty of investors are still paying close attention to multinational companies making investments in China. However, if there were one sector with a gigantic "beware" stamp attached to it, it would be Chinese solar panel producers like Hanwha SolarOne (NASDAQ: HSOL  ) .

Top 10 Energy Stocks To Buy For 2014: Falcon Oil & Gas Ltd (FO)

Falcon Oil & Gas Ltd. (Falcon) is an energy company engaged in the business of acquiring, exploring and developing petroleum and natural gas properties. The Company focuses on the acquisition, exploration and development of conventional and unconventional petroleum and natural gas projects in Central Europe (specifically Hungary), Australia and South Africa. Falcon holds 100% interest in 245,775 acres in a production license in the Mako Trough, southern Pannonian Basin in Hungary. Effective July 18, 2013, Falcon Oil & Gas Ltd raised its interest to 96.9% from 72.68%, by acquiring a further 24.22% interest in Falcon Oil & Gas Australia Ltd, from Sweetpea Petroleum Corp Pty Ltd, a unit of PetroHunter Energy Corp. Effective September 19, 2013, Falcon Oil & Gas Ltd acquired the remaining 3.1% stake, which it did not already own, in Falcon Oil & Gas Australia Ltd, a oil and gas exploration and production company.

Top 10 Energy Stocks To Buy For 2014: Linn Energy LLC (LINE.O)

Linn Energy, LLC (LINN Energy) is an independent oil and natural gas company. The Company�� properties are located in the United States, primarily in the Mid-Continent, the Permian Basin, Michigan, California and the Williston Basin. Mid-Continent Deep includes the Texas Panhandle Deep Granite Wash formation and deep formations in Oklahoma and Kansas. Mid-Continent Shallow includes the Texas Panhandle Brown Dolomite formation and shallow formations in Oklahoma, Louisiana and Illinois. Permian Basin includes areas in West Texas and Southeast New Mexico. Michigan includes the Antrim Shale formation in the northern part of the state. California includes the Brea Olinda Field of the Los Angeles Basin. Williston Basin includes the Bakken formation in North Dakota. On December 15, 2011, the Company acquired certain oil and natural gas properties located primarily in the Granite Wash of Texas and Oklahoma from Plains Exploration & Production Company (Plains).

On November 1, 2011, and November 18, 2011, it completed two acquisitions of certain oil and natural gas properties located in the Permian Basin. On June 1, 2011, it acquired certain oil and natural gas properties in the Cleveland play, located in the Texas Panhandle, from Panther Energy Company, LLC and Red Willow Mid-Continent, LLC (collectively Panther). On May 2, 2011, and May 11, 2011, it completed two acquisitions of certain oil and natural gas properties located in the Williston Basin. On April 1, 2011, and April 5, 2011, the Company completed two acquisitions of certain oil and natural gas properties located in the Permian Basin. On March 31, 2011, it acquired certain oil and natural gas properties located in the Williston Basin from an affiliate of Concho Resources Inc. (Concho). During the year ended December 31, 2011, the Company completed other smaller acquisitions of oil and natural gas properties located in its various operating regions. As of December 31, 2011, the Company operated 7,759 or 69% of its 11,230 gross produc! ! tive wells.

Mid-Continent Deep

The Mid-Continent Deep region includes properties in the Deep Granite Wash formation in the Texas Panhandle, which produces at depths ranging from 10,000 feet to 16,000 feet, as well as properties in Oklahoma and Kansas, which produce at depths of more than 8,000 feet. Mid-Continent Deep proved reserves represented approximately 47% of total proved reserves, as of December 31, 2011, of which 49% were classified as proved developed reserves. The Company owns and operates a network of natural gas gathering systems consisting of approximately 285 miles of pipeline and associated compression and metering facilities that connect to numerous sales outlets in the Texas Panhandle.

Mid-Continent Shallow

The Mid-Continent Shallow region includes properties producing from the Brown Dolomite formation in the Texas Panhandle, which produces at depths of approximately 3,200 feet, as well as properties in Ok lahoma, Louisiana and Illinois, which produce at depths of less than 8,000 feet. Mid-Continent Shallow proved reserves represented approximately 20% of total proved reserves, as of December 31, 2011, of which 70% were classified as proved developed reserves. The Company owns and operates a network of natural gas gathering systems consisting of approximately 665 miles of pipeline and associated compression and metering facilities that connect to numerous sales outlets in the Texas Panhandle.

Permian Basin

The Permian Basin is an oil and natural gas basins in the United States. The Company�� properties are located in West Texas and Southeast New Mexico and produce at depths ranging from 2,000 feet to 12,000 feet. Permian Basin proved reserves represented approximately 16% of total proved reserves, as of December 31, 2011, of which 56% were classified as proved developed reserves.

Michigan

The Michigan region includes proper ties producing from the Antrim Shale formation in the no! rthe! rn ! part o! f the state, which produces at depths ranging from 600 feet to 2,200 feet. Michigan proved reserves represented approximately 9% of total proved reserves, as of December 31, 2011, of which 90% were classified as proved developed reserves.

California

The California region consists of the Brea Olinda Field of the Los Angeles Basin. California proved reserves represented approximately 6% of total proved reserves, as of December 31, 2011, of which 93% were classified as proved developed reserves.

Williston Basin

The Williston Basin is one of the premier oil basins in the United States. The Company�� properties are located in North Dakota and produce at depths ranging from 9,000 feet to 12,000 feet. Williston Basin proved reserves represented approximately 2% of total proved reserves, as of December 31, 2011, of which 48% were classified as proved developed reserves.

Top 10 Energy Stocks To Buy For 2014: Phillips 66 (PSX)

Phillips 66 is a holding company. The Company is engaged in producing natural gas liquids (NGL) and petrochemicals. The Company operates in three segments: the Refining and Marketing (R&M) segment, the Midstream segment and the Chemicals segment. The Refining and Marketing (R&M) segment purchases, refines, markets and transports crude oil and petroleum products, mainly in the United States, Europe and Asia, and also engages in power generation activities. The Midstream segment gathers, processes, transports and markets natural gas, and fractionates and markets NGL, predominantly in the United States. The Chemicals segment manufactures and markets petrochemicals and plastics on a worldwide basis. The Company�� operations encompass 15 refineries with a gross crude oil capacity of 2.8 million barrels per day, 10,000 branded marketing outlets and 7.2 billion cubic feet per day of gross natural gas processing capacity.

R&M

The Company�� R&M segment primarily refines crude oil and other feedstocks into petroleum products (such as gasolines, distillates and aviation fuels); buys, sells and transports crude oil; and buys, transports, distributes and markets petroleum products. This segment also engages in power generation activities. R&M has operations in the United States, Europe and Asia.

The Company�� Bayway Refinery is located on the New York Harbor in Linden, New Jersey. The refinery produces a high percentage of transportation fuels, such as gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, as well as petrochemical feedstocks, residual fuel oil and home heating oil. Its Trainer Refinery is located on the Delaware River in Trainer, Pennsylvania. Refinery facilities include fluid catalytic cracking units, hydrodesulfurization units, a reformer and a hydrocracker. The Alliance Refinery is located on the Mississippi River in Belle Chasse, Louisiana. The single-train facility includes fluid catalytic cracking units, hydrodesulfurization units and a reformer and aromatics unit. Alli! ance produces a percentage of transportation fuels, such as gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. Other products include petrochemical feedstocks, home heating oil and anode petroleum coke.

The Lake Charles Refinery is located in Westlake, Louisiana. Its facilities include crude distillation, fluid catalytic cracker, hydrocracker, delayed coker and hydrodesulfurization units. The refinery produces a percentage of transportation fuels, such as gasoline, off-road diesel and jet fuel, along with home heating oil. It owns a 50% interest in Excel Paralubes, a joint venture which owns a hydrocracked lubricant base oil manufacturing plant located adjacent to the Lake Charles Refinery. The Sweeny Refinery is located in Old Ocean, Texas, approximately 65 miles southwest of Houston. Refinery facilities include fluid catalytic cracking, delayed coking, alkylation, a continuous regeneration reformer and hydrodesulfurization units. It produces a percentage of transportation fuels, such as gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. Other products include petrochemical feedstocks, home heating oil and coke.

The Company�� Merey Sweeny, L.P. (MSLP) owns a delayed coker and related facilities at the Sweeny Refinery. Fuel-grade petroleum coke is produced as a by-product and becomes the property of MSLP. The Company owns 50% operating interest in Sweeny Cogeneration, a joint venture, which owns a simple cycle, cogeneration power plant located adjacent to the Sweeny Refinery. The plant generates electricity and provides process steam to the refinery, and it also provides merchant power into the Texas market.

The Company�� Wood River Refinery is located in Roxana, Illinois, about 15 miles northeast of St. Louis, Missouri, at the convergence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Operations include three distilling units, two fluid catalytic cracking units, hydrocracking, coking, reforming, hydrotreating and sulfur recovery. The refinery produces a percentage of transportation fuels, such as gasoline,! diesel a! nd jet fuel. Other products include petrochemical feedstocks, asphalt and coke. Its Borger Refinery is located in Borger, Texas, in the Texas Panhandle, approximately 50 miles north of Amarillo. The refinery facilities consist of coking, fluid catalytic cracking, hydrodesulfurization and naphtha reforming, in addition to a 45,000-barrels-per-day NGL fractionation facility. It produces a percentage of transportation fuels, such as gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, as well as coke, NGL and solvents.

The Ponca City Refinery is located in Ponca City, Oklahoma. It is a high-conversion facility, which includes fluid catalytic cracking, delayed coking and hydrodesulfurization units. It produces a range of products, including gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and anode-grade petroleum coke. The Billings Refinery is located in Billings, Montana. Its facilities include fluid catalytic cracking and hydrodesulfurization units. The Ferndale Refinery is located on Puget Sound in Ferndale, Washington, approximately 20 miles south of the United States-Canada border. Facilities include a fluid catalytic cracker, an alkylation unit, a diesel hydrotreater and an S-Zorb unit. The Los Angeles Refinery consists of two linked facilities located about five miles apart in Carson and Wilmington, California. The San Francisco Refinery consists of two facilities linked by a 200-mile pipeline. The Santa Maria facility is located in Arroyo Grande, California, about 200 miles south of San Francisco.

As of December 31, 2011, the Company marketed gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel through approximately 8,250 marketer-owned or -supplied outlets in 49 states. At December 31, 2011, its wholesale operations utilized a network of marketers operating approximately 6,875 outlets that provided refined product offtake from its refineries. In addition to automotive gasoline and diesel, it produces and markets aviation gasoline, which is used by smaller piston engine aircrafts. As December 31, 2011,! aviation! gasoline and jet fuel were sold through dealers and independent marketers at approximately 875 Phillips 66-branded locations in the United States.

The Company manufactures and sells automotive, commercial and industrial lubricants, which are marketed worldwide under the Phillips 66, Conoco, 76 and Kendall brands, as well as other private label brands. It also manufactures Group II and import Group III base oils and market both globally under the respective brand names Pure Performance and Ultra-S. It manufactures and markets graphite and anode-grade petroleum cokes in the United States and Europe for use in the global steel and aluminum industries. It also manufacture and market polypropylene to North America under the COPYLENE brand name. Its ThruPlus Delayed Coker Technology, a process for upgrading heavy oil into higher value, light hydrocarbon liquids, was sold in June 2011. In October 2011, it sold Seaway Products Pipeline Company to DCP Midstream. In December 2011, the Company sold its 16.55% interest in Colonial Pipeline Company and its 50% interest in Seaway Crude Pipeline Company. The Company manufactures and sells a variety of specialty products, including pipeline flow improvers and anode material for high-power lithium-ion batteries. Its specialty products are marketed under the LiquidPower and CPreme brand names.

The Company owns four refineries outside the United States: the Humber Refinery, Whitegate Refinery, Melaka Refinery and Wilhelmshaven Refinery. The Humber Refinery is located on the east coast of England in North Lincolnshire, United Kingdom. It is an integrated refinery, which produces a high percentage of transportation fuels, such as gasoline and diesel. Humber�� facilities encompass fluid catalytic cracking, thermal cracking and coking. The refinery has two coking units with associated calcining plants, which upgrade the heaviest part of the crude barrel and imported feedstocks into light oil products and graphite and anode petroleum cokes.

!

Th! e Whitegate Refinery is located in Cork, Ireland. The refinery primarily produces transportation fuels, such as gasoline, diesel and fuel oil, which are distributed to the inland market, as well as being exported to Europe and the United States. It also operate a crude oil and products storage complex consisting of 7.5 million barrels of storage capacity and an offshore mooring buoy, located in Bantry Bay, about 80 miles southwest of the refinery in southern Cork County.

The Mineraloelraffinerie Oberrhein GmbH (MiRO) Refinery, located on the Rhine River in Karlsruhe in southwest Germany, is a joint venture in which it owns an 18.75% interest. Facilities include three crude unit trains, fluid catalytic cracking, petroleum coking and calcining, hydrodesulfurization units, reformers, isomerization and aromatics recovery units, ethyl tert-butyl ether (ETBE) and alkylation units. MiRO produces a percentage of transportation fuels, such as gasoline and diesel. Other products include petrochemical feedstocks, home heating oil, bitumen, and anode- and fuel-grade petroleum coke. The Wilhelmshaven Refinery is located in the northern state of Lower Saxony in Germany, and has a 260,000 barrels-per-day crude oil processing capacity.

As of December 31, 2011, the Company had approximately 1,430 marketing outlets in its European operations, of which approximately 900 were Company-owned and 330 were dealer-owned. It also held brand-licensing agreements with approximately 200 sites. Through its joint venture operations in Switzerland, it also has interests in 250 additional sites.

Midstream

The Midstream segment purchases raw natural gas from producers, including ConocoPhillips, and gathers natural gas through pipeline gathering systems. Its Midstream segment is primarily conducted through its 50% investment in DCP Midstream. DCP Midstream also owns or operates 12 NGL fractionation plants, along with propane terminal facilities and NGL pipeline assets. It has a 25% inte! rest in R! ockies Express Pipeline LLC (REX).

Chemicals

The Chemicals segment consists of its 50% investment in CPChem. As of December 31, 2011, CPChem owned or had joint-venture interests in 38 manufacturing facilities. CPChem�� business is structured around two primary operating segments: Olefins & Polyolefins (O&P) and Specialties, Aromatics & Styrenics (SA&S). The O&P segment produces and markets ethylene, propylene, and other olefin products, which are primarily consumed within CPChem for the production of polyethylene, normal alpha olefins, polypropylene and polyethylene pipe. The SA&S segment manufactures and markets aromatics products, such as benzene, styrene, paraxylene and cyclohexane, as well as polystyrene and styrene-butadiene copolymers.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Arjun Sreekumar]

  For much of this year, the spread held above $15, even topping $20 in February. That helped refiners with access to cheap WTI, such as Phillips 66 (NYSE: PSX  ) , Valero (NYSE: VLO  ) , and HollyFrontier (NYSE: HFC  ) , deliver solid first-quarter performances.

• [By Tyler Crowe]

  This past quarter, Phillips 66 (NYSE: PSX  ) , Valero (NYSE: VLO  ) , and Devon Energy (NYSE: DVN  ) have each expressed interest in a midstream MLP spin-off, and some expect to finish the process by the end of the year. In this video, Fool.com contributor Tyler Crowe looks at what these new midstream companies will mean to the MLP space and how investors should digest the news.

• [By Claudia Assis]

  Shares of refiner Phillips 66 (PSX) �were among the day�� top losers, down 0.7%.

Top 10 Energy Stocks To Buy For 2014: Worthington Energy Inc (WGAS.PK)

Worthington Energy, Inc. (Worthington), formerly Paxton Energy, Inc., incorporated July 30, 2004, is an oil and gas exploration and production company with assets in Texas and in the Gulf of Mexico. Worthington�� assets in Texas consist of a minority working interest in limited production and drilling prospects in the Cooke Ranch area of La Salle County, Texas, and Jefferson County, Texas, all operated by Bayshore Exploration L.L.C. (Bayshore). The Company�� assets in the Gulf of Mexico consist of a leasehold working interests in certain oil and gas leases located offshore from Louisiana, upon which no drilling or production has commenced as of December 31, 2011, and a 10.35% interest in the recently drilled I-1 well and a 2% royalty interest in 14,400 acres in the Mustang Island Tract 818. On March 27, 2012, it acquired certain assets from Black Cat Exploration & Production, LLC.

In Texas, the Company has working interests ranging from 4% to 31.75% (ne t revenue interests ranging from 3% to 23.8125%) in the various wells. In the Gulf of Mexico it has a 70% leasehold working interest, with a net revenue interest of 51.975%, of certain oil and gas leases in the Vermillion 179 tract and 10.35% interest in the recently drilled I-1 well and a 2% royalty interest in 14,400 acres in the Mustang Island Tract 818. As of December 31, 2011, it had one producing well that generated average total monthly net revenue.

The Mustang Island 818-L Field, located in the Kleberg County waters of the Gulf of Mexico, is a field re-habilitation project targeting bypassed or only partially produced gas-condensate. Total production from the wells within the seismic coverage was 125.6 billion cubic feet. In January 2011, the Hercules Offshore 205 jack-up rig was contracted to re-enter the I-Well on the Mustang License Area. The oil and gas leases are located in the VM 179, which is in the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico offshore fr om Louisiana. VM 179 is at 85 inches water depth approxima! te! ly 46 miles offshore Louisiana in the Gulf of Mexico.

Top 10 Energy Stocks To Buy For 2014: New Energy Technologies Inc (NENE.PK)

New Energy Technologies, Inc., incorporated on May 5, 1998, is a development-stage company. The Company is engaged in renewable and alternative energy business. The Company conducts its operations through two wholly owned subsidiaries: Kinetic Energy Corporation (KEC), Sungen Energy, Inc. and New Energy Solar Corporation (New Energy Solar). The Company focuses on the development of two technologies: MotionPower Technology for capturing the kinetic energy of moving vehicles to generate electricity, and SolarWindow Technology, which enables see-through glass windows to generate electricity by spraying glass surfaces with its electricity-generating coatings to their glass surface. It has filed 10 patent applications for inventions related to its MotionPower Technology and one for its SolarWindow Technology. As of June 21, 2012, it had no commercial products. As of June 21, 2012, the Company had no revenues.

SolarWindow

The Company�� SolarWindow products in development are designed to generate electricity on glass while remaining see-through. It has six product development goals for its SolarWindow technology: SolarWindow - Commercial, which is a flat glass product for installation in new commercial towers under construction and replacement windows; SolarWindow - Structural Glass, which is a structural glass walls and curtains for tall structures; SolarWindow - Architectural Glass, which is a textured and decorative interior glass walls and room dividers; SolarWindow - Residential, which is a window glass for installation in residential homes under construction and replacement windows; SolarWindow - Flex , which is a film which may be applied directly onto glass, similar to aftermarket window tint films, for retrofit to existing commercial towers, buildings, and residential homes; and SolarWindow - BIPV, which is a building product components associated with building-integrated-photovoltaic (BIPV) applications in h omes, buildings, and office towers.

MotionPowe! r!

MotionPower products are designed to generate electricity from the capture and conversion of available kinetic energy into electricity, which is present in vehicles which are slowing down before stopping. It is developing three MotionPower products: MotionPower - Heavy, which is a fluid-driven, system with limited moving mechanical components for installation at sites where big rigs, such as tractor trailers, buses, and commercial vehicles are traveling at below 15 miles per hour and are in the process of slowing down; MotionPower - Auto, which is a fluid-driven, system similar to MotionPower - Heavy for installation at sites where cars and light-duty trucks, such as sport utility vehicles and automobiles, are traveling at below 15 miles per hour and are in the process of slowing down; and MotionPower - Express, which is a mechanical system for installation at sites where all cars, light-duty trucks, motor homes, buses, big rigs, and commercial vehicles are tra veling faster than 15 miles per hour and are in the process of slowing down.

The Company competes with Konarka Technologies, Inc., XsunX, Inc. and Sharp Corporation.

Top 10 Energy Stocks To Buy For 2014: Gastar Exploration Ltd (GST)

Gastar Exploration Ltd (Gastar) is an independent energy company engaged in the exploration, development and production of natural gas and oil in the United States. The Company�� principal business activities include the identification, acquisition, and subsequent exploration and development of natural gas and oil properties with an emphasis on unconventional reserves, such as shale resource plays. As of December 31, 2011, it is pursuing the development of liquids-rich natural gas in the Marcellus Shale in the Appalachia area of West Virginia and, to a lesser extent, central and southwestern Pennsylvania. The Company also holds prospective acreage in the deep Bossier play in the Hilltop area of East Texas and conduct limited coal bed methane (CBM) development activities within the Powder River Basin of Wyoming and Montana. The Company is a holding company. Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Josh Young]

  The parallel to Goodrich in the transaction is Gastar Exploration (GST), which has approximately 100,000 net acres in the Hunton (excluding additional exposure from the WEHLU deal). Gastar, similar to Goodrich prior to the Sanchez TMS deal, seems to trade at a discount to a $2,000 per acre implied value for its unconventional oil acreage. In fact, Gastar's CEO recently said he thought the current liquidation value of Gastar's Marcellus assets would be $4-7 per share, net of debt, versus the current $4.25 share price.

• [By David Smith]

  Earlier, the company had pocketed $75.2 million by selling to Gastar Exploration (NYSEMKT: GST  ) leasehold acreage in Oklahoma's Kingfisher and Canadian counties. It'll obviously require a passel of sales of that magnitude to shore up an overweight balance sheet.

UAE Telecoms Regulator Paves Way for Price Battle

Due to the waving of its approval, the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority has ensured that the two powerhouse mobile companies in the UAE will continue to battle it out and boost mobile price flexibility throughout the emirates, writes John Everington, of The National.

The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority has enabled a significant increase in competition in UAE mobile services by waiving its approval for operators to set prepaid packages and tariffs.

The move is expected to boost competition between Etisalat and du and lead to greater pricing flexibility. Indeed, both companies are now free to introduce tariffs at short notice and change price offerings in response to each other.

"This move will expedite the process of new products entering the UAE's ICT [information and communications technology] market and also improve the quality of services provided by Etisalat and du to consumers, within the current competition regulatory framework," the TRA recently said.

Mohamed Nasser Al Ghanim, the TRA's director general, said it would continue to monitor all telecoms products and packages released to the market to ensure that they comply with regulations, and would intervene if the rules were breached.

Du has welcomed the TRA's decision, saying it would allow faster introduction of prepaid mobile packages and help it to respond quickly to market demands and trends.

Etisalat did not respond to requests for comment.

Prepaid mobile subscriptions account for about 87% of all mobile subscriptions in the UAE, according to TRA figures from July.

There were 14.9 million active mobile subscriptions in the country at the end of July, according to the TRA.

The regulator said its move was in line with the current competition regulatory framework.

Etisalat and du currently enjoy respective market shares of 52.6% and 47.4%.

The TRA did not say whether it planned to extend the move to postpaid mobile subscriptions, which typically generate significantly more revenue than prepaid subscriptions.

Prepaid users made up 91.1% of du's mobile subscription base at the end of June, according to the company. However, prepaid revenue accounted for just 53.5% during the second quarter.

As for Etisalat, prepaid users comprised 85.1% of its mobile subscription base at the end of June , according to its financial results. It did not publish a breakdown of postpaid and prepaid revenue for the period.

On Monday, the regulator said mobile number portability, which allows mobile users to change telecoms providers while keeping their existing phone number, would be introduced by the end of the year.

The process will be recipient-led, meaning that the transfer will be handled solely by the new provider. This simplifies the process for customers, removing the need to have to contact their previous provider to obtain a porting authorization code.

Read more from The National here…

Sorry, Noodles, but You're No Chipotle

Noodles & Co. (NASDAQ: NDLS  ) more than doubled after going public on Friday, and the shares rose another 5% on Monday.

As a fast-growing casual dining concept, investors are naturally going to compare the new carb-laden kid on the block to Chipotle Mexican Grill (NYSE: CMG  ) , but the comparisons may be premature.

Yes, both companies specialize in the fast-casual niche that's growing at the expense of traditional casual dining. Customers crave quality eats that are prepared quickly. Prepaying at the counter comes in handy, since there isn't a need to flag down a server for a check at the end of a meal.

There are other similarities between Chipotle and Noodles, and it's not just that both stocks doubled the day they began trading.

Chipotle's claim to cult status popularity is that its comps remained positive even during the darkest recessionary stretches. Noodles is there, too, having posted positive same-store sales in 28 of the past 29 quarters.

However, let's talk about valuations.

Chipotle was a lot larger than Noodles when McDonald's chose to spin off the fast-growing burrito roller.

Chipotle had 489 restaurants by the end of 2005. Revenue had climbed 33% to $627.7 million that year, and comps had posted eight consecutive years of double-digit comps.

Noodles is doing well, but not that well.

Revenue climbed 17% to $300.4 million last year, and Noodles closed out the year with 276 locations. Systemwide comps have grown 3.7%, 4.8%, and 5.4% in its three most recent fiscal years.

In short, Noodles is half the size -- and growing at half the rate -- of Chipotle at the time of its IPO. The average Chipotle restaurant was making more than the average Noodles unit is making now.

Chipotle's IPO pop boosted its market cap to $1.4 billion. Noodles -- with the inevitable over-allotment of shares pushing its total share count to 29.4 million -- is now worth more than $1.1 billion.

To be fair, Chipotle went public at a time when casual dining was still unproven. Even if it takes another three to four years for Noodles to get to where Chipotle was at the time of its IPO, it will probably command a market cap greater than $1.4 billion at the time if the fundamentals continue to hold up.

Noodles has a surprisingly unique concept, specializing in all types of noodles -- from Asian noodle bowls to Italian pasta dishes to Americana mac and cheese staples -- that help limit the veto vote that may shoot down family or group outings to fast-casual establishments with narrower menus. However, with the easy money already made and the concept still lacking the cult status distinction that Chipotle has achieved, Noodles is clearly no Chipotle.

Buy retail concepts while they're still early in their growth cycles
The retail space is in the midst of the biggest paradigm shift since mail order took off at the turn of the last century. Only those most forward-looking and capable companies will survive, and they'll handsomely reward those investors who understand the landscape. You can read about the 3 Companies Ready to Rule Retail in The Motley Fool's special report. Uncovering these top picks is free today -- just click here to read more.

Why Silver Prices Are About to Lift Off

While silver demand among U.S. traders at the moment is muted, silver demand in India - the world's biggest buyer of the white metal - is insatiable.

It will be one of the biggest factors supporting higher silver prices in 2014.

And it all stems from a move the government made to limit gold buying...

India - the world's biggest gold buyer - imposed heavy import duties on the yellow metal this year to try and narrow India's swollen trade gap. The government raised the import duty on gold three times this year to 10%.

In July, the government told importers that one-fifth of their purchases would have to be turned around for export. Only 80% would be available for domestic use.

As these import numbers show, silver has become the "go-to" precious metal for India's investors.

It's the greatest silver buying opportunity in history - but this is your last chance...

India Driving Silver Higher in 2014

Data released early last week showed Indian silver imports are set to hit a record this year.

According to metals consultancy firm GFMS, India imported 4,073 tons of silver from January to August. That was more than double the 1,921 tons in all of 2012, when a spike in prices during the peak season pressured demand. The record high was set in 2008 when India imported 5,048 tons.

"Ever since the government has started putting measures to curb gold imports, demand for silver has seen a sudden surge," Monal Thakkar, president of Amrapali Industries, a leading Ahmedabad-based stock and commodity brokerage house, told the Business Standard. "Moreover, there is a general scare in the market that the government might soon start curbing silver imports also, as a result, traders are stocking up silver."

But the fresh spike in silver buying is unlikely to result in a similar policy response from authorities since the value of imported silver is much lower than gold and is not critical to the country's trade balance.

Industry experts expect demand for silver to remain high in India as long as gold prices and import taxes stay elevated.

Also contributing to the silver frenzy in India is the uptick in disposable income in rural areas due to a "good" monsoon season. While the June to September rains can be deadly, they are essential to the country's agriculture and economy.

"There is less gold available so rural people will gradually move to silver. It will be more of a default option than a conscious choice," Rajesh Khosla, managing director with refiner MMTC PAMP told Reuters.

Whether as a gold substitute, an alternative investment, or a safe haven asset, silver will be profitable for investors.

The increased interest in silver will be a major price catalyst into 2014 - giving the white metal an edge over gold.

"Going forward, the recovery will be sharper in silver compared to gold," Gnanasekar Thiagrajan, director with Commtrendz Research told Reuters.

Find out all you need to know about buying silver here.

Related Articles:

The Economic Times:
India May Import Record Volumes of Silver Reuters:
Indians May Import Record Volumes of Silver Business Standard:
As Investors Seek Silver Lining, Metal's Import up 311%

Hot Low Price Stocks To Invest In 2014

In the following video, Motley Fool energy analysts Joel South and Taylor Muckerman discuss another solid quarter for U.S. pipeline company Enterprise Products Partners (NYSE: EPD  ) , in which the company increased its distributions for the 35th straight quarter. Joel gives investors several metrics to show not only that the company can continue to support strong dividend growth, but also that its solid backlog and low financing costs mean great prospects for continued, strong growth. He then discusses why Enterprise is a buy, even a better one than some of its high-growth pipeline contemporaries.

The growing production of natural gas from hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling is flooding the North American market and resulting in record-low prices for natural gas. Enterprise Products Partners, with its superior integrated asset base, can profit from the massive bottlenecks in takeaway capacity by taking on large-scale projects. To help investors decide whether Enterprise Products Partners is a buy or a sell today, click here now to check out The Motley Fool's brand-new premium research report on the company.

Hot Low Price Stocks To Invest In 2014: Jacksonville Bancorp Inc. (JXSB)

Jacksonville Bancorp, Inc. operates as the holding company for Jacksonville Savings Bank that provides various banking products and services in Illinois. Its deposit products include interest-bearing and non interest-bearing checking accounts, savings accounts, money market accounts, term certificate accounts, individual retirement accounts, and certificates of deposit. The company?s loan portfolio comprises one-to four-family mortgage loans; commercial and agricultural real estate, and multi-family residential real estate loans; commercial and agricultural business loans; and consumer loans, such as home equity loans and lines of credit, and automobile loans. It operates through its main office, as well as through six branches located in Jacksonville, Virden, Litchfield, Chapin, and Concord, Illinois. The company was founded in 1916 and is based in Jacksonville, Illinois. Jacksonville Bancorp, Inc. is a subsidiary of Jacksonville Bancorp, MHC.

Hot Low Price Stocks To Invest In 2014: Jaxon Minerals Inc(JAX.V)

Jaxon Minerals Inc., an exploration stage company, engages in the acquisition, exploration, and development of mineral properties in British Columbia, Canada. The company focuses on exploring gold, as well as bismuth, tellurium, silver, tungsten, and molybdenum. It has an option to acquire a 100% interest in the Nox Fort property located in the Nelson Mining District of British Columbia. The property consists of 18 mineral tenure claims and 3 crown granted mineral claim units covering an area of approximately 8,765 hectares. The company is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada.

Top Safest Stocks To Invest In Right Now: Unifirst Corporation(UNF)

UniFirst Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, provides workplace uniforms and protective work wear clothing in the United States, Canada, and Europe. The company designs, manufactures, personalizes, rents, cleans, delivers, and sells a range of uniforms and protective clothing, including shirts, pants, jackets, coveralls, lab coats, smocks, and aprons; and specialized protective wear, such as flame resistant and high visibility garments. It also rents industrial wiping products, floor mats, facility service products, and restroom supplies comprising air fresheners, paper products, and hand soaps, as well as other non-garment items. In addition, the company provides first aid cabinet services and other safety supplies; decontaminates and cleans work clothes that may have been exposed to radioactive materials; and services special clean room protective wear. Further, it offers a range of garment service options, including full-service rental programs in which garment s are cleaned and serviced; lease programs in which garments are cleaned and maintained by individual employees; and purchase programs to buy garments and related items directly. The company serves automobile service centers and dealers, delivery services, food and general merchandise retailers, food processors and service operations, light manufacturers, maintenance facilities, restaurants, service companies, soft and durable goods wholesalers, transportation companies, and others who require employee clothing for image, identification, protection, or utility purposes, as well as government agencies, research and development laboratories, high technology companies, and utilities operating nuclear reactors. The UniFirst Corporation was founded in 1936 and is based in Wilmington, Massachusetts.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Eric Volkman]

  UniFirst (NYSE: UNF  ) is getting ready to issue a pair of dividend payouts. The company has declared quarterly common stock distributions for both its regular and its Class B shares. For the former, the firm will hand out $0.0375 per share, while for the latter $0.03 will be disbursed. Both will be paid on October 1 to holders of record as of September 10.

• [By Seth Jayson]

  Calling all cash flows
  When you are trying to buy the market's best stocks, it's worth checking up on your companies' free cash flow once a quarter or so, to see whether it bears any relationship to the net income in the headlines. That's what we do with this series. Today, we're checking in on UniFirst (NYSE: UNF  ) , whose recent revenue and earnings are plotted below.

Hot Low Price Stocks To Invest In 2014: Reed Elsevier(REL.L)

Reed Elsevier PLC provides professional information solutions worldwide. The company?s Elsevier segment offers scientific, technical, and medical information solutions. This segment publishes science and technology research articles and book titles; and abstract and citation database of research literature, as well as offers information and workflow tools that help researchers generate insights in the advancement of scientific discovery. The Elsevier segment also provides medical journals, books, reference works, databases, and online information tools to medical researchers, doctors, nurses, allied health professionals, students, hospitals, research institutions, health insurers, managed healthcare organizations, and pharmaceutical companies. Its LexisNexis Risk Solutions segment offers data and analytics for the insurance industry; risk management, identity verification, fraud detection, credit risk management, and compliance solutions for financial institutions; invest igative solutions; and employment-related, resident and volunteer screening services. The company?s Lexisnexis Legal and Professional segment provides legal, tax, regulatory, and business information solutions. Its Reed Exhibitions segment organizes exhibitions and conferences for the broadcasting, TV, music, and entertainment; building and construction; electronics and electrical engineering; alternative energy, oil, and gas; engineering, manufacturing, and processing; gifts; interior design; IT and telecoms; jewelry; life sciences and pharmaceuticals; marketing; property and real estate; sports and recreation; and travel sectors. The company?s Reed Business Information segment provides data services, information, and marketing solutions to business professionals; produces industry critical data services, lead generation tools, and online community and job sites; and publishes business magazines. Reed Elsevier PLC was founded in 1894 and is based in London, the United Kin gdom.

Hot Low Price Stocks To Invest In 2014: Nq Exploration Inc (NQE.V)

NQ Exploration Inc. engages in the acquisition, exploration, and development of mining properties in Canada. The company primarily explores for base metals and precious metals. The company�s principal assets comprise 11 mining properties located in the Abitibi and James Bay territory in Quebec. NQ Exploration focuses on the mining districts of the former Selbaie mine for base and precious metals, and Lac Shortt mine for precious metals. The company was incorporated in 2007 and is headquartered in Laval, Canada.

Hot Low Price Stocks To Invest In 2014: Arcus Development Group Inc (ADG.V)

Arcus Development Group Inc. engages in the acquisition, exploration, and development of mineral properties in Canada. It primarily explores for gold. The company holds 50% interest in the Green Gulch, Touleary, Dan Man, and Shamrock mineral properties collectively referred as the Dawson gold project situated south of Dawson City in west-central Yukon Territory. Arcus Development Group Inc. was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada.