Mobile Devices

In This Issue: Mobile Devices MLPs Minting Gains Amid Shale Revival For Global Dividend Funds: Do the DEW and Henderson Global Invest in the Country That Just Minted 43,274 New Millionaires There's a surprising front-runner when it comes to the richest people in the world. It's not the United States, Canada, or even Switzerland. It's the tiny island nation of Australia. The median wealth of an Australian comes in at a staggering $219,505. That's 5 times higher than the United States. And their wealth is growing. Last year it increased by $1 billion a day. I'll show you the secret to their success and how you can use it for yourself when you click here. Mobile Devices 9/16/2014 By Thomas Scarlett The market for medical devices keeps expanding, and if the Republicans take over the Senate in November -- as they have a good chance of doing -- and succeed in repealing the medical device tax that President Obama imposed in 2010, prospects for the industry will get even brighter. According to research firm Lucintel, the global medical device industry will post a compound annual growth rate of 5.9 percent for the next four years, when it's expected to exceed $300 billion in annual sales. Because of their close interaction with the human body, medical devices also facilitate the collection of copious amounts of patient information. Data management is another significant growth driver in the health care sector. The best company that we've found in this field is Covidien (NYSE: COV), a designer, manufacturer and marketer of medical devices for use in clinical and home settings. With a market cap of $27.7 billion, the company has 43,000 employees around the world and sells its products in over 140 countries. Covidien's Medical Devices segment offers laparoscopic instruments, surgical staplers, soft tissue repair products, hernia mechanical devices, and a host of vascular products. The Medical Supplies segment offers nursing care products for incontinence, wound care, enteral feeding, urology, and suction products, as well as accessories, electrodes, thermometry, chart paper, and syringes. Covidien just announced the start of enrollment in two clinical trials designed to further underscore the safety and effectiveness of the company's advanced neurovascular solutions. Baptist Medical Center in Jacksonville treated the first patient enrolled in the Premier Prospective study, an international Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) clinical study to evaluate the Pipeline embolization device in smaller unruptured intracranial aneurysms. The Premier study is designed to assess the safety and effectiveness of the Pipeline device in the treatment of unruptured, small and medium wide-necked intracranial aneurysms (IAs). "We are excited to be the first hospital to enroll a patient in this important study. There is a need for an effective and sustained treatment option for patients with wide neck small or medium intracranial aneurysms," said Dr. Ricardo Hanel, neurovascular surgeon at Baptist Medical Center. The iShares US Medical Devices ETF (IHI) has been on an upward trajectory, returning about 20 percent year-to-date and now trading at close to its all-time high. Covidien is one of the exchange-traded fund's top holdings and its stock has trended upward during the past 12 months. Covidien posted second-quarter fiscal 2014 earnings per share (EPS) of $3.50, which topped Wall Street estimates by a penny.Revenue in the quarter hit $2.58 billion, a year-over-year increase of 3 percent, propelled by higher sales in the Medical Devices segment. US-generated revenue dropped 3 percent to $1.3 billion, but international sales increased 10 percent.To better focus on its core competency of medical devices, Covidien divested its pharmaceutical unit, spinning it off into the independent company, Mallinckrodt (NYSE: MNK). Based in Ireland, Covidien has made expansion into emerging markets a top priority, especially focusing on China and surrounding Asian countries. China stands out as the biggest prize.McKinsey & Co.recently reported that health care spending in China will nearly triple to $1 trillion annually by 2023, fueled by a graying population and government efforts to expand insurance coverage. China's leaders plan to invest $125 billion in the country's public health care system over the next five years. In the context of the emerging market slump, Covidien's strong international sales performance is all the more impressive. The company's comparable competitors, such as Medtronic (NYSE: MDT), so far haven't matched Covidien's aggressiveness in courting overseas customers. In August, Covidien opened its $45 million China Technology Center (CTC) research and development (R&D) facility in Shanghai. The CTC facility encompasses more than 100,000 square feet and 17 laboratories. The CTC is designed to allow health care providers to participate in Covidien's medical device design and development process. Covidien's 12-month trailing price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 26 might seem a little high, but it compares favorably to the trailing P/E of 28 for its industry of medical instruments and supplies. The company estimates that revenue in fiscal 2015 will increase between 2 percent and 5 percent compared to the previous fiscal year. Covidien has a bright future, no matter what happens with the medical device tax. But if the tax is repealed, perhaps as part of some grand bargain on the budget, its prospects will be even better. Tom Scarlett is an investment analyst at Personal Finance. 7 Ten-Bagger Energy Stocks?! China needs Canadian oil. Canada desperately wants them to have it. But the Alberta tar sands are landlocked. The U.S. continues to block the Keystone Pipeline. Yet the pipeline isn't the only way to get the oil to China. Billionaires Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and T. Boone Pickens are pouring billions into transporting Canadian oil – north, west and east – to get the oil to China. Here are 7 ways to profit from Canada's oil race to China. It's an energy boom you won't want to miss. Ten-bagger profits are not out of the question. Click here. MLPs Minting Gains Amid Shale Revival 9/16/2014 By Robert Rapier The US energy industry has undergone a monumental shift over the past decade. Ten years ago production of natural gas and oil alike was thought to be in terminal decline in the US, and for good reason. It had been declining for decades, for both commodities. After reaching a level of 11.3 million barrels per day (bpd) in 1970, US oil production fell to 9.7 million bpd by 1976. The opening of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System in 1977 enabled production to once again reach 10.6 million bpd by 1985, but shortly after oil production in Alaska peaked and US oil production resumed its decline over the following 23 years. By 2008, US oil production had fallen to 6.8 million bpd, a level last seen in the 1940s. The decline in US natural gas production wasn't as dramatic, but following an all-time high in 1973, gas production would decline about 25% by the mid 1980s. Natural gas production would then rise and fall over the next two decades, but by 2010 had never again reached the 1973 high. That was about to change. Hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," a technology developed in the late 1940s, has boosted output from oil and gas wells across traditional production regions like Texas and Oklahoma. By now, fracking has been used to stimulate oil and gas production in more than 1 million wells in the US. Fracking involves pumping water, chemicals and a proppant (usually sand) into an oil or gas well under high pressure to break open channels (fractures) in the reservoir rock trapping the deposit. Oil and gas do not travel freely in some deposits, but certain formations respond well to being fractured. The proppant is designed to hold the fractures open, allowing the oil (or natural gas) to flow to the well bore. But if fracking has been around for 60 years, why has the so-called fracking revolution only taken off in the past decade? Primarily because of a fairly recent development of combining fracking with another common technique used in the oil and gas industry -- horizontal drilling. Like fracking, horizontal drilling was invented decades ago, and has been widely used in the oil and gas industry since the 1980s. As its name implies, horizontal drilling involves drilling down to an oil or gas deposit and then turning the drill horizontal to the formation to access a greater fraction of the deposit. These horizontal laterals can be up to 10,000 feet in length, and therefore cover a much greater area below ground than a conventional vertical well. These techniques have been especially effective in unlocking previously uneconomical oil and gas deposits in the many shale formations across the US. (Thus, the boom is also frequently called the "shale boom.") Source: ProPublica While there are potential environmental implications associated with fracking, those are beyond the scope of this article. The purpose here is to examine the ways that the fracking revolution has changed the US energy picture. After hitting a low point of 6.8 million barrels per day in 2008, oil production would reverse course and increase at the fastest pace in US history: The natural gas industry started experimenting with horizontal drilling and fracking in gas fields a bit earlier than the oil industry, and subsequently saw gas production turn upward in 2005. And although oil production hasn't yet eclipsed the peak set in the 1970s, in 2011 US natural gas production reached new all-time highs. The fracking revolution has created enormous opportunities for Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs) across the oil and gas industry. Upstream MLPs like BreitBurn Energy Partners (NASDAQ: BBEP) and Legacy Reserves (NASDAQ: LGCY) produced the oil and gas. There was a huge new requirement for sand in the fracking operations, and this encouraged new MLPs like Emerge Energy Services (NYSE: EMES) and Hi-Crush Partners (NYSE:HCLP) -- both of which have more than doubled in price over the past 12 months. Fracking also requires large volumes of water, which Cypress Energy Partners (NYSE: CELP) provides. But much of this newfound oil and gas production is taking place in regions that haven't been traditional producers of oil and gas. This has created strong demand for midstream providers to build the gathering systems, pipelines and storage tanks required to move oil and gas from fields in North Dakota and Pennsylvania to customers on the Gulf Coast and in the Northeast. This profited such midstream MLP giants as Kinder Morgan Energy Partners (NYSE: KMP),Enterprise Products Partners (NYSE: EPD), and Plains All American Pipeline (NYSE: PAA). But the fracking boom will inevitably begin to slow. How soon could US oil and gas production once more begin to decline? How will the various MLPs fare then? The shale boom still has plenty of life left. Not all shale plays will decline at the same time, and there are still many drilling locations to be developed. There will be future winners, even in a declining production scenario. They will be determined in part based on the various MLPs' focus, as well as geography. New opportunities will emerge, such as the upcoming surge of liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. Join us atMLP Profits as we uncover more winners from the fracking boom. This article originally appeared in the MLP Investing Insider column. Never miss an issue. Sign up to receive MLP Investing Insider by email. You Might as Well Get Rich Cynics say you can't do anything about Obamacare. Wrong! You can make tons of money with 4 companies in line for a spectacular, government-mandated windfall. Want their names? Go here. For Global Dividend Funds: Do the DEW and Henderson Global 9/15/2014 By Robert Frick We know that even hardcore, self-directed investors sometimes use mutual funds for a portion of their portfolios, so we suggest some top funds that follow our Global Income Edge theme for high-dividend-paying stocks. That theme is that investors can generate higher dividends with relative safety by investing in firms that tap both developed and developing countries. Two of the funds that fit the bill are WisdomTree Global Equity Income (symbol: DEW), an exchange-traded fund with a 12-month trailing yield of 4.14%, and Henderson Global Equity Income (HFQAX), with a 12-month yield of 5.83%. These funds each represent a very different approach to seeking global dividends. The ETF follows an index of WisdomTree's own devising, and it has low fees and no load. The Henderson fund is actively managed, follows a strict value strategy, and has higher expenses and a load---though your brokerage or investment adviser may waive the fee. WisdomTree is arguably the leading mutual fund company when it comes to dividend investing. In fact, many of its funds are dividend-centric, as the company builds the indexes its funds follow around measures that are based on dividends paid. The particular index this ETF is based on screens for medium-to-large companies (at least $2 billion in market capitalization) from around the world that sit in the top 30% of dividend-yielding firms. Yield is key, of course, but expenses, risk and capital appreciation are three other factors that fund investors should consider when selecting long-term, equity-income holdings. In the risk category, DEW is about as volatile as the average world stock fund, according to Morningstar. You won't have to worry about this fund putting a big slug of money in volatile emerging markets, as its filter effectively holds money invested in that category to less than 20% of assets. About 18% of assets are invested in U.S. companies, and 80% are in foreign companies. A little portfolio flavor: The United Kingdom is the country second to the U.S. in DEW's holdings, at 13%---this makes total sense, as the U.K. has the top "country yield" (see our Investing Without Borders article from a couple of weeks ago, "Go Global But Don't Go Crazy"). DEW's largest holding is China Mobile, and its top two sectors are financials and telecom. On the expense front, the fund is a good deal. It charges 0.58% annually, which is less than half the average charge of actively-managed international funds but slightly more than the average ETF's charge. Don't expect this fund's price appreciation to blow away the average of worldwide stocks; after all, this ETF is all about yield. But its performance over time isn't bad. Its average annualized yield for five years is 9.8%, which is about a percentage point less than the average yield of world stock funds. That spread is about two percentage points less for three-year and five-year annualized returns. Value Hunters The WisdomTree ETF doesn't care about a company's dividend history or its ability to continue to pay dividends, but Henderson Global Equity Income does. Also, it's an opportunistic fund: It will sell one holding on which it just collected a dividend and switch to another with a dividend due. Given that foreign companies usually pay dividends only once or twice a year, and most of the fund's assets are in foreign companies, that's a good strategy. The Henderson fund pays dividends monthly, and the WisdomTree ETF pays them quarterly. Financials also lead the Henderson fund's largest holdings, at 19% of assets, followed by industrials (14%) and energy (13%). U.K. companies make up this fund's top holdings, at 42% of assets, with developed European countries at 18% and North America at 14%. Fund managers Job Curtis and Alex Crooke, who are based in the U.K., look for bargain-priced companies, explaining the fund's relatively low volatility. It is 24% less volatile than the average foreign value fund, its Morningstar category. It has about 85% of assets in foreign companies. Expense-wise, it charges 1.22% annually, which is about 0.20% less than the average foreign fund. But again, it has a load: 5.75%, which means you'll be giving up the first year of dividends just by buying shares. However, some brokerage firms, such as TD Ameritrade and Charles Schwab, waive the load. You can expect that this fund's price will beat its foreign value benchmark in most years. It has a 10% average annualized yield for the last five years, or 2.2 percentage points better than the benchmark (and about two percentage points better for the last three years). It has lagged by 1.7% in the last year. This article originally appeared in the Income Without Borders column. Never miss an issue. Sign up to receive Income Without Borders by email. A Screaming Buy When Obama finally approves the Keystone Pipeline – and he will – two things will be in huge demand: things to move around the oil in and places to store it. This company has both – 17,000 miles of pipeline and the capacity to store 90 million barrels of oil. It's a powerhouse. It pays out a hefty $2.46-per-share dividend currently… with a history of raising its dividend every quarter. The time is NOW. Find out why here. You are receiving this email at benjamart.ss.stock@blogger.com as part of your subscription to Investing Daily's Stocks To Watch, published by Investing Daily. To ensure delivery directly to your inbox, please add postoffice@investingdaily.com to your address book today. Email Preferences | About Us | Premium Services | Contact Us | Privacy Policy Copyright 2014 Investing Daily. All rights reserved. Investing Daily, a division of Capitol Information Group, Inc. 7600A Leesburg Pike West Building, Suite 300 Falls Church, VA 22043-2004 U.S.A.