Top 5 Net Payout Yield Stocks To Watch For 2014

Even though companies have exceeded projections for the third quarter, it's not the time to get overly excited about the rest of 2013 or 2014, writes MoneyShow's Jim Jubak, also of Jubak's Picks.

It wasn't much of a hurdle, but it looks like companies jumped it in the third quarter.

With 90% of the Standard & Poor's 500 (SPX) reporting, earnings are up 3.7% year over year for the quarter, according to FactSet. Taking into account estimated earnings at companies that haven't yet reported, earnings are projected to show 3.5% growth in the quarter.

Going into the third quarter, companies were projected by Wall Street analysts to show 1% earnings growth. Among companies that have reported, 69% have exceeded consensus earnings estimates. That's at the high end of the average historical range. Earnings grew by 2.6% year over year in the second quarter.

Third quarter revenues are up 2.9% with 52% of companies beating analyst projections on revenue. Sales grew 1.7% year over year in the second quarter.

Top 10 Net Payout Yield Companies To Invest In Right Now: Atwood Oceanics Inc. (ATW)

Atwood Oceanics, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, engages in offshore drilling, and the completion of exploratory and developmental oil and gas wells. The company owns semisubmersible rigs, semisubmersible tender assist rigs, jack-up drilling rigs, and submersible drilling rigs. As of November 22, 2010, it operated nine mobile offshore drilling units located in offshore southeast Asia, offshore Africa, offshore Australia, offshore South America, and the Mediterranean Sea. The company was founded in 1968 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Vera Yuan]

  Among a few stocks that had negative returns in the quarter, Veeco Instruments (VECO) and Titan International (TWI) are also among the smaller positions in the portfolio. Titan, which declined 11.4% in the quarter and will be discussed later in this letter, is a relatively new stock in the portfolio and one that we added to as the share price declined.Among the stocks that we added to in the quarter were Atwood Oceanics (ATW) and Titan International (TWI).As mentioned above, Titan declined nearly 12% in the quarter and we added to the position as the stock weakened. As you may recall, we initiated the position in TWI in the fourth quarter of 2013 in the mid- teens. Despite our additional TWI purchases, we do not yet own a full position in the stock. However, we have plenty of capacity to take the stock to a normal full position, which is 3%, but this assumes the company earns the right to have more of your capital allocated to the position.The primary reason why TWI shares sold off recently is that the wheel and tire markets for large construction and mining equipment remain depressed. Investors had hoped that the off-road, large construction equipment and mining business would see some acceleration after the very cold winter season, but that does not appear to be the case. Tire inventory levels for large, off-road equipment were too high for dealers to be aggressive and purchase tires en masse earlier this year. However, there is some recent evidence that much of the excess tire inventory has been reduced to levels that now support some restocking.Our investment thesis for TWI is not predicated on the wheel and tire market for large, off-road equipment to come roaring back to levels experienced before the financial crisis. Rather we believe the assets TWI has accumulated over the past decade can be managed more efficiently and, therefore, profit margins can improve without a huge increase in revenues. We recently visited one of TWI�� Midwest tire facilities a

• [By Ben Levisohn]

  There’s been a lot of bearish talk about offshore drillers recently–and Atwood Oceanics (ATW) earnings results aren’t likely to dispel those concerns, despite an earnings beat.

• [By Ben Levisohn]

  Land drillers / pressure pumpers may be approaching valuation support levels and could be triggered to consolidate if current weakness persists. The theme could nevertheless be premature in offshore drilling as larger players (Diamond Offshore Drilling (DO)/Transocean/Seadrill) are still addressing dividend concerns while smaller companies (Atwood Oceanics (ATW)/Pacific Drilling (PACD)) still trade close to replacement value.

Top 5 Net Payout Yield Stocks To Watch For 2014: NCI Inc.(NCIT)

NCI, Inc. provides information technology (IT) and professional services and solutions to the United States Federal Government defense, intelligence, and civilian agencies. It offers enterprise systems management services, including infrastructure operations and management; outsourcing and managed; infrastructure consolidation and modernization; public/private cloud computing; planning and disaster recovery; virtual desktop infrastructure; application and network management; network design, implementation, and migration; network monitoring and performance evaluation; multi-site environments; and data center modernization and consolidation. The company also provides network engineering services comprising architecture development and design; protocol and topology optimization; disaster response planning and recovery; installation, test, and evaluation; network configuration and compliance audit; network security evaluation; protocol and topology optimization; reliability an d contingency assessment; requirements analysis; redundant routing/switching solutions; and enterprise vulnerability management. In addition, it offers cybersecurity and information assurance services consisting of intrusion detection/prevention system development; public key infrastructure implementation; certification and accreditation; computer forensics and ediscovery; policy and procedures development; threat assessment and mitigation; products evaluation and integration; security test and evaluation; cybersecurity fusion centers; and risk management and continuous monitoring. Further, the company provides software development and systems engineering services; program management and lifecycle support services; professional engineering, logistics, and support services; health IT and informatics services; and modeling, simulation, and training services. NCI, Inc. is headquartered in Reston, Virginia.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By CRWE]

  NCI, Inc. (NASDAQ:NCIT) will issue its third quarter 2012 financial results after the market closes on Wednesday, October 31, 2012. Management will then discuss the results, as well as operating trends and future performance expectations, on a conference call beginning at 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time.

Top 5 Net Payout Yield Stocks To Watch For 2014: Tornier N.V.(TRNX)

Tornier N.V., a medical device company, designs, manufactures, and markets devices for joint replacement and soft tissue repair that enable surgical specialists to enhance patients? lives by restoring motion and physical vitality. It principally serves surgeons treat musculoskeletal injuries and disorders of the shoulder, elbow, hand, wrist, ankle, and foot. The company offers approximately 90 product lines, including joint replacement, trauma, sports medicine, and biologic products to treat the extremities. It also provides joint replacement products for the hip and knee in certain international markets. Tornier N.V. sells its products in approximately 35 countries worldwide. The company is headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Seth Jayson]

  Basic guidelines
  In this series, I examine inventory using a simple rule of thumb: Inventory increases ought to roughly parallel revenue increases. If inventory bloats more quickly than sales grow, this might be a sign that expected sales haven't materialized. Is the current inventory situation at Tornier (Nasdaq: TRNX  ) out of line? To figure that out, start by comparing the company's inventory growth to sales growth. How is Tornier doing by this quick checkup? At first glance, pretty well. Trailing-12-month revenue increased 7.3%, and inventory increased 5.8%. Comparing the latest quarter to the prior-year quarter, the story looks decent. Revenue increased 11.0%, and inventory grew 5.8%. Over the sequential quarterly period, the trend looks healthy. Revenue grew 4.6%, and inventory dropped 2.7%.

• [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 Tornier (Nasdaq: TRNX  ) , whose recent revenue and earnings are plotted below.

Top 5 Net Payout Yield Stocks To Watch For 2014: Weis Markets Inc.(WMK)

Weis Markets, Inc. engages in the retail sale of food in Pennsylvania and surrounding states. Its retail food stores sell groceries, dairy products, frozen foods, meats, seafood, fresh produce, floral, pharmacy services, deli products, prepared foods, bakery products, beer and wine, fuel and general merchandise items, such as health and beauty care, and household products. The company operates stores primarily under the Weis Markets trade name. As of February 13, 2012, it operated 161 stores in Pennsylvania, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, and West Virginia. The company was founded in 1912 and is based in Sunbury, Pennsylvania.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Rich Duprey]

  Mid-Atlantic grocery store chain�Weis Markets (NYSE: WMK  ) announced yesterday its third-quarter dividend of $0.30 per share, the same rate it's paid for the past six quarters.