Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) has massive expansion plans for next year as it intends to hire 11,000 workers in the U.S. and Asia to support the expected launch of 23 new models during the year. The automaker will also open three new manufacturing facilities, two in Asia Pacific and one in South America.
Ford intends to hire 5,000 workers in the U.S. and 6,000 workers in Asia. The company announced that among these workers in the U.S., about 80% people will be engaged in white-collar jobs related to information technology, manufacturing, quality and product development.
The Asian workers will mainly be employed in two new plants - Changan Ford Assembly Plant No. 3 and Changan Transmission Plant in Chongqing in China. It is expected that the Chongqing Assembly Plant will enhance production capacity of the company in China by 300,000 units next year. Ford will also open Camacari Engine Plant in Brazil.
With 23 product launches planned in 2014, Ford will be highly active all through the year. The automaker intends to introduce 16 vehicles in the U.S., including a Ford Mustang, Ford Transit Connect, Ford Transit and Lincoln MKC small utility vehicle. With this, the automaker will augment product launched by 3 times compared to 2013. Moreover, Ford expects that its strategy of expansion of workforce and product line will support the growth plan for the Asia Pacific region.
Top Semiconductor Stocks To Invest In Right Now: Western Digital Corp (WDC)
Western Digital Corporation (WD) is a provider of solutions for the collection, storage, management, protection and use of digital content, including audio and video. Its principal products are hard drives, which are devices that use one or more rotating magnetic disks (magnetic media) to store and allow access to data. Its hard drives are used in desktop and notebook computers, corporate and cloud computing data centers, home entertainment equipment and stand-alone consumer storage devices. In addition to hard drives, its other products include solid-state drives and home entertainment and networking products. The Company operates as the parent company of its hard drive business, Western Digital Technologies, Inc. Effective March 8, 2012, the Company acquired Viviti Technologies Ltd. In May 2012, the Company completed the divestiture of certain 3.5-inch hard drive assets to Toshiba Corporation. As part of its deal with Toshiba, WD also completed its purchase of Toshiba Storage Device (Thailand) Company Limited (TSDT), which manufactured hard drives.
The Company offers a line of storage devices. Its hard drives include 3.5-inch and 2.5-inch form factors, capacities ranging from 80 gigabytes to three terabytes, nominal rotation speeds up to 10,000 revolutions per minute, and interfaces, such as Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) and Serial Attached SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) (SAS). In addition, the Company offers a family of hard drives specifically designed to consume less power than standard drives, utilizing its WD GreenPower Technology. Its solid-state drives include 2.5-inch and Compact Flash form factors, capacities ranging from 1 gigabyte to 256 gigabytes, and interfaces, such as SATA and PATA.
Client Compute Storage Products
Client compute consists of hard drives and solid-state drives for desktop and mobile personal computers (PC��). During the fiscal year ended July 1, 2011 (fiscal 2011), it shipped 151 million hard drive clie! nt compute unit. Its client compute storage products include WD Caviar, WD Scorpio and WD Silicon Edge. WD Caviar family of hard drives is designed for use in desktop PCs. WD Scorpio family of hard drives is designed for use in mobile PCs. WD Silicon Edge family of solid-state drives is designed for both read-intensive client/consumer applications and write-intensive original equipment manufacturer (OEM) applications.
Client Non-Compute Storage Products
Client non-compute consists of branded products and consumer electronics products. Its hard drive client non-compute unit shipments were 46 million, during fiscal 2011.
Branded Products
Branded products consists of hard drives embedded into WD-branded external storage appliances with capacities ranging from 250 gigabytes to 8 terabytes and using interfaces, such as Universal Serial Bus (USB) 2.0, USB 3.0, external SATA, FireWire and Ethernet network connections. Certain branded products models include software that assists customers with back up, remote access and management of digital content. Branded products also include its home entertainment and networking products. Its branded products include My Book and WD Elements Desktop family of storage appliances. My Passport and WD Elements Portable family of storage appliances include WD ShareSpace, WD TV and WD Livewire.
My Book and WD Elements Desktop family of storage appliances are designed to add external capacity to desktops and digital video recorders (DVRs), allow for the transfer and storage of videos directly from certain camcorders, and connect to networks to simplify storage for consumers. My Passport and WD Elements Portable family of storage appliances are designed for external portability weighing less than one-half of a pound and allow for the transfer and storage of videos directly from certain camcorders. WD ShareSpace is a network-attached storage system designed for home office or small office applications. WD TV m! edia play! ers connect to a user�� television or home theater system and play digital movies, music and photos from an integrated hard drive, network hard drives, any of its WD-branded external hard drives, other USB mass storage devices or content services accessed over the Internet. WD Livewire, which enables consumers to use their existing electrical outlets to extend Internet connections throughout the home.
Consumer Electronics Products
WD AV family of hard drives is designed for use in products, such as DVRs and audio and video applications. WD AV drives deliver the characteristics CE manufacturers.
Enterprise Storage Products
Enterprise consists of hard drives for traditional enterprise and nearline storage applications, as well as solid-state drives for embedded applications. Its hard drive enterprise unit shipments were 10 million, for fiscal 2011. Its enterprise storage products include WD S25 hard drive, WD VelociRaptor, WD RE and WD SiliconDrive. WD S25 hard drive is designed for mission-critical enterprise server and storage applications, such as data centers and data arrays. WD VelociRaptor hard drive is designed for enterprise server and storage applications. This hard drive is also used in the high-end desktop PC market for applications including gaming, servers and advanced computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM) systems. WD RE family of hard drives is designed for nearline storage enterprise applications. WD SiliconDrive family of solid-state drives features fast read/write speeds in high capacities and is designed for embedded system OEM applications.
The Company competes with Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, Intel Corporation, Micron Technology, Inc., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Seagate Technology, STEC, Inc. and Toshiba Corporation.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Tim Beyers]
Solid-state disk drives�may be the future, but they haven't taken over just yet. This week,�Western Digital (NASDAQ: WDC ) introduced a 1.5 terabyte portable magnetic drive for laptops and a variety of other formats, a move that could make it one of the best stocks to buy now.
Top 5 Information Technology Stocks To Own Right Now: Market Vectors Global Alternative Energy ETF (GEX)
Market Vectors-Global Alternative Energy ETF (the Fund) seeks to replicate as closely as possible the price and yield performance of the Ardour Global Index (Extra Liquid) (the Index). The Index, published by Ardour Global Indexes, LLC and calculated by Dow Jones Indexes, is a benchmark for the global alternative energy industry. The Index is a rules-based index that seeks to track the overall performance of a global universe of listed companies engaged in the alternative energy industry. As of April 2007, the Index consisted of publicly traded stocks of 30 of the largest, most actively traded alternative energy companies from worldwide. Companies included in the Index generate over 50% of their revenues from alternative energy and/or related technologies, and are engaged in five core industry sectors: alternative energy resources (solar, wind, bio-fuels, water and geothermal), which constitute approximately 70% of the Index; distributed generation, which constitutes approximately 3% of the Index; environmental technologies related to alternative energy, which constitutes approximately 9% of the Index; energy efficiency, which constitutes approximately 4% of the Index, and enabling technologies, which constitutes approximately 14% of the Index.
The Index consists of the 30 stocks in the Ardour Global Index (Composite) with the highest average of daily trading volume and market capitalization. The Ardour Global Index (Composite) is a modified capitalization-weighted, float-adjusted index comprising publicly traded companies engaged in the production of alternative fuels and/or technologies related to the production of alternative energy power. The Fund will normally invest at least 80% of its total assets in stocks of companies primarily engaged in the business of alternative energy. The Fund, utilizing a passive or indexing investment approach, attempts to approximate the investment performance of the Index by investing in a portfolio of securities that generally replicate the Index. The ! Fund will hold all of the securities, which comprise the Index in proportion to their weightings in the Index. The Fund will normally invest at least 95% of its total assets in securities that comprise the Index. Van Eck Associates Corporation serves as the investment advisor of the Fund.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Todd Shriber, ETF Professor]
The news was predictably good for a pair of ETFs that should be known as "Tesla ETFs." The Market Vectors Global Alternatve Energy ETF (NYSE: GEX) and the First Trust NASDAQ Clean Edge Green Energy Index Fund (NASDAQ: QCLN) both traded higher on a down day for U.S. stocks, rising to within pennies of their previous 52-week highs.
Top 5 Information Technology Stocks To Own Right Now: Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd (NCLH)
Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd., incorporated on February 21, 2011, is a global cruise line operator, offering cruise experiences for travelers with a variety of itineraries in North America (including Alaska and Hawaii), the Mediterranean, the Baltic, Central America, Bermuda and the Caribbean. The Company offers a variety of cruises ranging from one day to three weeks. During the year ended December 31, 2010, the Company docked at over 125 ports worldwide, with itineraries originating from 17 ports of which ten were in North America. In June 2010, the Company took delivery of its largest cruise ship, Norwegian Epic (4,100 Berths), which offers 21 dining options.
The Company�� ships have passenger amenities, including up to 21 dining options together with hundreds of private balcony cabins on each ship. As of March 31, 2011, 48% of its cabins have private balconies. Five of its ships offer a complex of private courtyard villas, each with up to approximately 570 square feet, which provide personal butler service and access to a private courtyard area with private pools, sundeck, hot tubs, and fitness center. In addition, six of its ships have garden villas with up to 6,694 square feet. These garden villas offer three separate bedroom areas, spacious living and dining room areas, as well as around-the-clock, on-call butler and concierge service.
Norwegian Epic offers its passengers itineraries to the western and eastern Caribbean, as well as Europe. The ship offers its customers an aqua park, sports complex, two three-lane bowling alleys and its two-story Wii Wall. In addition, the ship features a spa facility and fitness center with more than 31,000 square feet. Entertainment is offered aboard Norwegian Epic with the addition of entertainment choices, including Blue Man Group, Cirque Dreams & Dinner, Legends in Concert and Nickelodeon at Sea. It offers entertainment in its jazz and blues club and its comedy club features the comedy troupe, The Second City.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Traders Reserve]
Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCLH) might be the ultimate toy for these managers and the timing looks perfect. The travel space is red hot. Consumer and business travelers are filling up capacity in a big way. Profits are growing and at a fast pace and yet shares of Norwegian trade for a low multiple of earnings. Analysts expect the company to grow profits by 63% in 2014.
Top 5 Information Technology Stocks To Own Right Now: CubeSmart (CUBE)
CubeSmart, incorporated on July 26, 2004, is a self-managed real estate company focused primarily on the ownership, operation, management, acquisition and development of self-storage facilities in the United States of America. As of December 31, 2012, the Company owned 381 self-storage facilities located in 22 states and in the District of Columbia. It owns, operates, develops, manages and acquires self-storage facilities. The Company owns all of its assets and conducts its operations through CubeSmart, L.P. (the Operating Partnership). The Company is the sole general partner of the Operating Partnership and, as of December 31, 2012, owned an approximately 97.6% interest in the Operating Partnership.
As of December 31, 2012, the Company owned 381 and 370 facilities, respectively, that contained an aggregate of 25.5 million and 24.4 million rentable square feet with occupancy rates of 84.4% and 78.4%, respectively. In addition, as of December 31, 2012, the Company managed 133 properties for third parties bringing the total number of properties which it owned and/or managed to 541. As of December 31, 2012, approximately 84.4% of the rentable square footage at its owned facilities was leased to approximately 182,000 tenants. As of December 31, 2012, CubeSmart had facilities in the District of Columbia and 27 states: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas , California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.
The Company�� self-storage facilities are designed for its residential and commercial customers. Its customers rent storage cubes for their use, on a month-to-month basis. Its facilities are designed to accommodate both residential and commercial customers with features, such as security systems and wide aisles and load-bearing capabilities for truck access. All ! of its facilities have an on-site manager during business hours, and 256, or approximately 67%, of its facilities have a manager who resides in an apartment at the facility. Its customers can access their storage units during business hours, and some of its facilities provide customers with round the clock access through computer controlled access systems. Approximately 76% of its facilities include climate controlled units.
The Company competes with Public Storage, Sovran Self Storage and Extra Space Storage Inc.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Marc Bastow]
Self-storage facilities real estate investment trust (REIT) operator CubeSmart (CUBE) raised its quarterly dividend 18% to 13 cents per share, payable on Jan. 15 to shareholders of record as of Jan. 2.
YSI Dividend Yield: 3.2% - [By Rich Duprey]
Self-storage facility operator�CubeSmart� (NYSE: CUBE ) �announced yesterday its second-quarter dividend of $0.11 per share, the same rate it's paid the past two quarters after raising the payout 38%, from $0.08 per share.
