The Baby Boom generation, which includes everyone born from 1946 through 1964, is now entering retirement age (65) at a rate of 10,000 per day. That demographic wave is so big that in 2010, the U.S. Administration on Aging (AoA) predicted the elderly population in this country would double to about 71 million by 2030.
That presents a huge opportunity for bioscience investors. Here's why.
As people grow older, as a group, they get sicker. About 80% of older adults cope with at least one chronic condition - illnesses that need to be managed but can't be cured - and 50% struggle with two or more. Here are some of them:
Alzheimer's and other dementias Arthritis Balance and gait problems Bladder conditions Cardiovascular disease Cerebrovascular disease Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) Depression Diabetes Eye disease (glaucoma, cataracts, macular degeneration) High blood pressure Kidney disease Osteoporosis Parkinson's disease Prostatic hyperplasia (enlarged prostate)Infectious diseases such as pneumonia, and injuries such as hip fractures from falling, also take a big toll on our older adults.
Top 5 Safest Stocks To Own For 2015: Bwin.Party Digital Entertainment PLC (BPTY)
bwin.party digital entertainment plc (bwin.party) is a holding company. The Company is an online gaming company. It operates in five segments: sports betting, casino & games, poker, bingo; and other (including network services, World Poker Tour, InterTrader.com, WIN.com, software services and the payment services business). Its sport betting segment includes bwin, betoto, Gamebookers, Gioco Digitale and PartyBets. It�� Casino & games segment includes PartyCasino, bwin and GD Casino. Its poker segment includes PartyPoker, bwin and GD Casino. Its Bingo segment includes Foxy Bingo, Cheeky Bingo, Gioco Digitale and Binguez. The Company�� subsidiaries include BES SAS, bwin Argentina SA, bwin Italia S.r.l., bwin.party Games AB and Cashcade Limited. Its subsidiaries are engaged in management and information technology (IT) services, marketing services, online gaming, transaction services, customer support services, marketing support services and Land-based poker events. Advisors' Opinion:- [By Namitha Jagadeesh]
Bwin.Party Digital Entertainment Plc (BPTY) plunged 14 percent to 110 pence, the biggest drop since April 2011, after the online gaming company said 2013 sales will be 14 percent to 17 percent lower than last year�� figures. Analysts on average had forecast a sales drop of 9.2 percent.
Best Net Payout Yield Stocks To Own Right Now: Caterpillar Inc.(CAT)
Caterpillar Inc. manufactures and sells construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines, industrial gas turbines, and diesel-electric locomotives worldwide. It operates through three lines of businesses: Machinery, Engines, and Financial Products. The Machinery business offers construction, mining, and forestry machinery, including track and wheel tractors, track and wheel loaders, pipelayers, motor graders, wheel tractor-scrapers, track and wheel excavators, backhoe loaders, log skidders, log loaders, off-highway trucks, articulated trucks, paving products, skid steer loaders, underground mining equipment, tunnel boring equipment, and related parts. It also manufactures diesel-electric locomotives; and manufactures and services rail-related products and logistics services for other companies. The Engines business provides diesel, heavy fuel, and natural gas reciprocating engines for Caterpillar machinery, electric power generation systems, marine, petrol eum, construction, industrial, agricultural, and other applications. It offers industrial turbines and turbine-related services for oil and gas, and power generation applications. This business also remanufactures Caterpillar engines, machines, and engine components; and offers remanufacturing services for other companies. The Financial Products business provides retail and wholesale financing alternatives for Caterpillar machinery and engines, solar gas turbines, and other equipment and marine vessels, as well as offers loans and various forms of insurance to customers and dealers. It also offers financing for vehicles, power generation facilities, and marine vessels. The company markets its products directly, as well as through its distribution centers, dealers, and distributors. It was formerly known as Caterpillar Tractor Co. and changed its name to Caterpillar Inc. in 1986. Caterpillar Inc. was founded in 1925 and is headquartered in Peoria, Illinois.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Matt Thalman]
Other stocks that are getting hammered by the Chinese report include Alcoa (NYSE: AA ) and Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT ) . Both companies need strong construction markets, which China had been for years. Now that it seems the go-go days are coming to an end, each company will be faced with finding a new emerging market in which to sell its products.
- [By Ben Levisohn]
Some easy money from the European Central Bank helped boost stocks today, as Caterpillar (CAT), Joy Global (JOY),�Bio-Reference Laboratories (BRLI) and Amazon.com (AMZN) rose.
ReutersThe Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 98.58 points, or 0.6%, to 16,836.11–a record high–while the S&P 500�rose 0.7% to 1,940.46, also a record high. For those keeping track, that’s the S&P’s 17th new high this year, while the Dow Jones Industrials it its seventh.
The Nasdaq Composite advanced 1% to 4,296.23, its highest close since March 20, while the small-company Russell 2000 finished up 2% to 1,153.94.
Caterpillar gained 2.5% to $106.96, making it the biggest winner in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. At a conference last night, Caterpillar reiterated its full year guidance.
The S&P 500 got a boost from Joy Global, which rose 6.7% to $61.70. Joy Global, like Caterpillar a maker of machinery for mining, reported better-than-forecast earnings this morning.
Amazon.com rose 5.5% to $323.57, making it the biggest winner in the Nasdaq 100. Amazon rose on rumors of a 3D phone.
Bio-Reference Laboratories was the second-biggest winner in the Russell 2000 today after gaining 21% to $32.41. Bio-Reference beat earnings forecasts today.
The big news, however, was the European Central Bank, which announced a number of measures intended to boost Europe’s economy. The ECB cut its deposit rate to minus 0.1%, while offering European banks access to as much as $542 billion if they will just lend more. Oh, and the ECB is trying to figure out how it could launch full-blown, no-holds-barred quantitative easing. It wasn’t enough to cause the euro to fall today, however. Deutsche Bank’s George Saravelos explains why:
Over the last few weeks we have been arguing that to push the euro meaningfully weaker, the ECB would have to surprise to the upside in terms of the quantity, quality and
Best Net Payout Yield Stocks To Own Right Now: Sangamo BioSciences Inc.(SGMO)
Sangamo Biosciences, Inc. engages in the research, development, and commercialization of zinc finger DNA-binding proteins (ZFPs) for gene regulation and gene modification in the United States. Its ZFPs could be engineered to make ZFP transcription factors (ZFP TFs), proteins that could be used to turn genes on or off; and ZFP nucleases (ZFNs), proteins that enable to modify DNA sequences in various ways. The company?s principal ZFP therapeutic include SB-509, a plasmid formulation of a ZFP TF activator of the vascular endothelial growth factor-A (VEGF-A) gene that is in a Phase 2b clinical trial for the treatment of severe diabetic neuropathy; and in a Phase 2 clinical trial in for the treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, as well as in preclinical animal studies for spinal cord injury, traumatic brain injury, and stroke. It is also developing SB-728-T, a ZFN-modified T-cell product, which is in Phase 1/2 clinical trial and two Phase 1 trials for the treatment of HI V/AIDS. In addition, the company develops SB-313xTZ, a ZFN-based therapeutic that is in Phase 1 clinical trial for the treatment of glioblastoma multiforme, a type of brain cancer. Further, it has preclinical development programs of ZFP therapeutics in the areas of Parkinson?s disease, hemophilia B, and neuropathic pain; and neuroregenerative programs in spinal cord injury, traumatic brain injury, and stroke. Additionally, the company has research stage programs in the areas of monogenic diseases and genetic conditions that result from a defect in a single gene, including hemophilia and other hemoglobinopathies, and immunodeficiencies. It has collaboration agreements with Sigma-Aldrich Corporation; Dow AgroSciences LLC; Pfizer Inc.; Genentech, Inc.; Open Monoclonal Technology, Inc.; and F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd and Hoffmann-La Roche Inc. The company was founded in 1995 and is headquartered in Richmond, California.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By MONEYMORNING]
That's not always the case. I watched as one well-known blogger on The Street sabotaged Antares Pharma (Nasdaq: ATRS) right after FDA approval for a new rheumatoid arthritis delivery system a few months ago, and it's taken a long time for ATRS to finally recover. A similar thing happened to Sangamo Biosciences (Nasdaq: SGMO), which stopped my subscribers out of the stock. I advised them to buy right back into it, and we currently just exited with a 73.4% return on it.
Best Net Payout Yield Stocks To Own Right Now: Vantiv Inc (VNTV)
Vantiv, Inc., formerly Advent-Kong Blocker Corp., incorporated on March 25, 2009, is a holding company that conducts its operations through its majority-owned subsidiaries, Vantiv Holding, LLC (Vantiv Holding) and Transactive Ecommerce Solutions Inc. (Transactive). The Company held 50.9% interest in the subsidiaries. The Company operates in two segments: Merchant Services and Financial Institution Services. The Company provides electronic payment processing services to merchants and financial institutions throughout the United States of America. The Company markets its services through diverse distribution channels, including a direct sales force, relationships with a range of independent sales organizations (ISOs), merchant banks, value-added resellers and trade associations as well as arrangements with core processors. In December 2012, the Company acquired Litle & Co.
The Company provides small and mid-sized clients with the solutions. In addition, it takes a consultative approach to providing services that help its clients enhance their payments-related services. The Company is also providing payment solutions for markets, such as prepaid, ecommerce and mobile payment offerings, because it processes payment transactions across the entire payment processing value chain on a single platform. The Company distributes its services through direct and indirect distribution channels. Its direct channel includes a national sales force that targets financial institutions and national merchants, regional and mid-market sales teams that sell solutions to merchants and third-party reseller clients and a telesales operation that targets small and mid-sized merchants. Its indirect channel to merchants includes relationships with a range of ISOs, merchant banks, value-added resellers and trade associations that target merchants, including small and mid-sized merchants. Its indirect channel to financial institutions includes relationships with third-party resellers and core processors.
M! erchant Services
The Company provides a suite of payment processing services, including acquiring and processing transactions, value-added services and merchant services for banks and credit unions. The Company authorizes, clears, settles and provides reporting for electronic payment transactions for its merchant services clients. Its client base includes over 400,000 merchant locations. The Company enables merchants of all sizes to accept and process credit, debit and prepaid payments and provide them supporting services, such as information solutions, interchange management and fraud management, as well as vertical-specific solutions in sectors, such as grocery, pharmacy, retail, petroleum and restaurants, including, quick service restaurants (QSRs).
The Company competes with Bank of America Merchant Services, Chase Paymentech Solutions, Elavon Inc., First Data Corporation, Global Payments, Inc., Heartland Payment Systems, Inc. and WorldPay US, Inc.
Financial Institution Services
The Company provides integrated card issuer processing, payment network processing and value-added services to financial institutions. Its services include a suite of transaction processing capabilities, including fraud protection, card production, prepaid cards and automated teller machine (ATM) driving and allow financial institutions to offer electronic payments solutions to their customers on a technology platform. The Company serves a diverse set of financial institutions, including regional banks, community banks, credit unions and regional personal identification number (PIN) debit networks. The Company focuses on small to mid-sized institutions. It provides a turnkey solution to such institutions to enable them to offer payment processing solutions. Its client base includes over 1,300 financial institutions. Its bank clients include Capital One Bank, Fifth Third Bank and First Niagara.
The Company competes with Fidelity National Information Services, ! Inc., Fir! st Data Corporation, Fiserv, Inc., Total System Services, Inc. and Visa Debit Processing Service.
Advisors' Opinion:- [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 Vantiv (NYSE: VNTV ) , whose recent revenue and earnings are plotted below.
Best Net Payout Yield Stocks To Own Right Now: Intercept Pharmaceuticals Inc (ICPT)
Intercept Pharmaceuticals, Inc., incorporated on September 4, 2002, is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of therapeutics to treat chronic liver diseases utilizing its bile acid chemistry.The Company�� product candidates treat orphan and more prevalent liver diseases for which there are limited therapeutic solutions. The Company�� product candidate, obeticholic acid, or OCA, is a bile acid analog, a chemical substance that has a structure based on a naturally occurring human bile acid. It is developing OCA initially for primary biliary cirrhosis, or PBC, as a second line treatment for patients who have an inadequate response to or who are unable to tolerate standard of care therapy and therefore need additional treatment. The Company is conducting a Phase 3 clinical trial of OCA in PBC, which it calls the POISE trial, that serves as the basis for seeking regulatory approval in the United States and Europe. As of December 19, 2012, the Company completed enrollment of the POISE trial with 217 patients.
The Company�� clinical focus is on the development of OCA, orally administered, first-in-class FXR agonist that has broad liver-protective properties and may a variety of chronic insults to the liver that cause fibrosis, which can eventually lead to cirrhosis, liver transplant and death. The Company owns worldwide rights to OCA outside of Japan and China, where it has licensed the compound to Dainippon Sumitomo Pharma, or DSP, and granted it an option to license OCA in certain other Asian countries.The Company is sponsoring an independent study involving more than ten leading PBC centers in North America and Europe, or collectively the Global PBC Study Group, that are pooling their long-term patient data to evaluate the relationship between biochemical and clinical endpoints.
The Company competes with Eli Lilly, Exelixis, Inc., Phenex Pharmaceuticals AG, , Johnson & Johnson, NovImmune SA, Dr. Falk Pharma GmbH, Galmed Medical Researc! h Ltd., Immuron Ltd., Mochida Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., NasVax Ltd. , Raptor Pharmaceutical Corp. Astellas Pharma US, Inc., AstraZeneca, Salix Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Tioga Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Sean Williams]
For this week's round of "Better Know a Stock," I'm going to take a closer look at Intercept Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ICPT ) .
What Intercept Pharmaceuticals does
Intercept Pharmaceuticals is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing treatments aimed at chronic liver diseases. Specifically, Intercept differentiates itself through the utilization of its proprietary bile acid chemistry. The company's lead compound, known as obeticholic acid, or OCA, recently initiated phase 3 trials for primary biliary cirrhosis and has received orphan drug status from the Food and Drug Administration for this disease, which could ultimately expedite its review process and grant it seven years marketing exclusivity from the date of approval -- assuming it gets approved, of course! OCA is also being tested in a number of other indications. - [By Hilary Kramer]
InterMune is a $2.9 billion market cap company focused on developing drugs for pulmonology and orphan-status fibrotic diseases. Much like former GameChanger winner Intercept Pharmaceuticals (ICPT), ITMN develops drugs to treat a rare disease, which means that it targets a small domestic or global population.
- [By John Udovich]
Recent IPO�FibroGen Inc (NASDAQ: FGEN) surged 22.96% today, reportedly after the journal Hepatology published the results of a workshop between the FDA and the American Association for the Study of Liver Disease (AASLD) which laid out criteria for a phase three study of a treatment for non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH)���meaning its worth taking a closer look at the stock along with the performance of potential small cap or mid cap liver disease stock peers like Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ: CNAT), Intercept Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ: ICPT) and Raptor Pharmaceutical Corp (NASDAQ: RPTP) which rose 24.35%, 10.98% and 2.02%, respectively. According to Investors Business Daily, NASH (the more serious version of fatty liver disease) is potentially an enormous market with about 6 million�US patients but the�lack of previous treatments had left it unclear how the FDA would measure success against the disease while FibroGen Inc doesn't yet have a NASH human trial in the works, it has said it hopes to start one for its lead candidate FG-3019 (its in mid-stage trials for pulmonary fibrosis and liver fibrosis due to hepatitis B infection).
Best Net Payout Yield Stocks To Own Right Now: BYD Co Ltd (BYDDF)
BYD COMPANY LIMITED is principally engaged in the research, development, manufacture and distribution of automobiles, secondary rechargeable batteries and mobile phone components. The Company operates its businesses primarily through secondary rechargeable battery business, which provides lithium-ion batteries and nickel batteries, which are applied in mobile phones, digital cameras, electric tools, electric toys and other portable electronic devices; mobile phone components and assembly businesses, which offers casings, keypads, liquid crystal display (LCD) modules, cameras, flexible circuit boards, chargers, and mobile phone design and assembly services, as well as automobile business, which provides automobiles, including G6, S6 and other series. Advisors' Opinion:- [By Chris Isidore]
Shares of Tesla (TSLA) shot up as high as $196, before easing off those highs later in the day. That topped the previous record set Sept. 30 Shares of Chinese electric carmaker BYD (BYDDF), in which Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA, Fortune 500) has taken a stake, were also higher in trading in China and the United States.