10 Best Performing Stocks To Own Right Now

LONDON -- Yesterday's pause in the FTSE 100's (FTSEINDICES: ^FTSE  ) recent slide didn't last long, and the U.K.'s major index has fallen another 80 points by 8:25 a.m. EDT today to 6,251.

It seems like only yesterday that pundits were wondering when we'd see the FTSE break the 7,000 level, but it's looking more likely to fall back through 6,000 at this rate.

But which individual shares are leading the market down? Here are three names that are underperforming and look set to lag the FTSE today.

Home Retail (LSE: HOME  )
Home Retail shares have been on a strong recovery since last summer, but they took a knock today after a quarterly update told us the company's Homebase DIY chain�had been adversely affected by the variable weather. Although sales rose 0.2%, with like-for-likes up 1.4%, the performance was a little behind expectations.

The group's Argos chain had a better quarter, with total sales up 1.2% and like-for-like sales up 1.9% -- and that's after shop closures had reduced sales by 0.7%.

10 Best Performing Stocks To Own Right Now: Stikine Gold Corporation(SKY.V)

Stikine Energy Corp. engages in the acquisition, exploration, and development of resource properties in Canada. It focuses on the production of frac sand from silica sources in north eastern British Columbia. Frac sand is a component used in the development of the gas plays in the Horn River Basin, the Liard Basin, and the Montney Basin. The company was formerly known as Stikine Gold Corporation and changed its name to Stikine Energy Corp. in August 2010. Stikine Energy Corp. was incorporated in 2000 and is based in Vancouver, Canada.

10 Best Performing Stocks To Own Right Now: King Solomon Mines Ltd (KSO.AX)

King Solomon Mines Limited, through its subsidiaries, engages in the acquisition, exploration, and development of mineral resource properties in China. It primarily explores for gold, copper, and other metallic deposits. The company�s properties located in the Sonid Zuoqi county, Inner Mongolia include the Marmot copper�molybdenum�gold project that covers an area of 39.7 square kilometers; Sonid North gold project covering an area of 24.8 square kilometers; and Naogaoshandu gold project, which covers an area of 47.2 square kilometers. It also holds interest in Bu Dun Hua porphyry copper�molybdenum project covering an area of 25.1 square kilometers in the Wengniute County, Inner Mongolia. The company was founded in 2003 and is based in Auckland, New Zealand.

Top Dividend Stocks To Watch Right Now: (MPHASIS.NS)

MphasiS Limited provides application development and maintenance, infrastructure technology outsourcing (ITO), and business process outsourcing (BPO) services worldwide. The company?s application services include applications development, maintenance, and support services; enterprise application services, such as consulting, evaluation, selection, implementation, application maintenance and support, upgrades, and testing in the areas of enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management, human capital management, business intelligence and data warehousing, and supply chain management; testing, data engineering, applications modernization, and transition services; and consulting services. Its BPO offerings consist of customer sales and support; finance and accounting; and human resources outsourcing services supporting benefits administration, payroll, compensation management, recruitment and staffing, workforce administration, workforce development, and learnin g and development. The company's ITO services cover infrastructure management services and service/technical help desks, such as monitoring and support for data center, network, endpoint, and security services; workplace services supporting personal computers, laptops, mobile, and thin computing devices; data center services; network services, such as network management, network security, application performance management, unified communications, and telecom management; and infrastructure service compliance solutions. It serves banking and capital markets, insurance, manufacturing, communications, media and entertainment, healthcare and life sciences, transportation and logistics, retail and consumer packaged goods, energy and utilities, and government sectors. MphasiS Limited was formerly known as MphasiS BFL Limited and changed its name to MphasiS Limited in November 2006. The company is headquartered in Bangalore, India.

10 Best Performing Stocks To Own Right Now: Spectra Energy Corp(SE)

Spectra Energy Corp, through its subsidiaries, engages in the ownership and operation of a portfolio of complementary natural gas-related energy assets in the United States and Canada. The company operates in four segments: U.S. Transmission, Distribution, Western Canada Transmission and Processing, and Field Services. The U.S. Transmission segment engages in the transportation and storage of natural gas for customers in various regions of the northeastern and southeastern United States and the Maritime Provinces in Canada. Its natural gas pipeline systems consist of approximately 19,000 miles of transmission pipelines; and storage capacity comprises 305 billion cubic feet in the United States and Canada. The Distribution segment engages in the natural gas storage, transmission, and distribution in Western Canada and the United States. This segment has approximately 37,600 miles of distribution main and service pipelines serving approximately 1.3 million residential, comme rcial, and industrial customers. The Western Canada Transmission and Processing segment provides natural gas transportation, and gas gathering and processing services; and provides services to natural gas producers to remove impurities from the raw gas stream including water, carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, and other substances. This segment serves local distribution companies, end-use industrial and commercial customers, marketers, and exploration and production companies. The Field Services segment gathers and processes natural gas, as well as fractionates, markets, and trades natural gas liquids. It engages in gathering raw natural gas through gathering systems located in nine natural gas producing regions consisting of the Mid-Continent, Rocky Mountain, east Texas-north Louisiana, Barnett Shale, Gulf Coast, South Texas, Central Texas, Antrim Shale, and Permian Basin. The company is headquartered in Houston, Texas.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Brian Pacampara]

  What: Shares of Spectra Energy (NYSE: SE  ) climbed 10% today after announcing that it will drop down all U.S. transmission and storage assets to its publicly traded MLP, Spectra Energy Partners (NYSE: SEP  ) .

10 Best Performing Stocks To Own Right Now: Cedar Fair L.P. (FUN)

Cedar Fair, L.P. owns and operates amusement and water parks in the United States and Canada. As of February 19, 2013, the company operated 11 amusement parks, 4 outdoor water parks, 1 indoor water park, and 5 hotels, as well as the Gilroy Gardens Family Theme Park in California under a management contract. Its amusement parks include Cedar Point located on Lake Erie between Cleveland and Toledo in Sandusky, Ohio; Kings Island near Cincinnati, Ohio; Canada's Wonderland near Toronto, Canada; Dorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom located near Allentown in South Whitehall Township, Pennsylvania; Valleyfair located near Minneapolis/St. Paul in Shakopee, Minnesota; Michigan's Adventure located near Muskegon, Michigan; Kings Dominion near Richmond, Virginia; Carowinds in Charlotte, North Carolina; Worlds of Fun located in Kansas City, Missouri; Knott's Berry Farm located near Los Angeles in Buena Park, California; and California's Great America located in Santa Clara, California, as w ell as manages and operates Gilroy Gardens Family Theme Park in Gilroy, California. The company also owns and operates the Castaway Bay Indoor Waterpark Resort in Sandusky, Ohio. Cedar Fair Management, Inc. serves as the general partner of Cedar Fair, L.P. The company was founded in 1983 and is based in Sandusky, Ohio.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By John Udovich]

  Theme park stocks SeaWorld Entertainment Inc (NYSE: SEAS), Six Flags Entertainment Corp (NYSE: SIX), Cedar Fair, L.P. (NYSE: FUN)�and Independent Film Development Corporation (OTCMKTS: IFLM) have been producing a steady floe of news this week along with some pretty good returns for investors (for the most part) since the start of the year or longer. Just consider the following news:

• [By Rick Munarriz]

  Magic Mountain now has a record 18 roller coasters, two more than Cedar Fair's (NYSE: FUN  ) Cedar Point park in Ohio. The two seemed to be jockeying back and forth for the crown a few years ago, but Cedar Fair eventually figured that this wasn't an arms race worth battling.

10 Best Performing Stocks To Own Right Now: Pendragon(PDG.L)

Pendragon PLC, together with its subsidiaries, operates franchised motor car dealerships in the United Kingdom and California. It sells new and used motor cars and motorbikes, as well as offers after sales services, body repairs, and parts sales under the Stratstone and Evans Halshaw brand names. The company also provides new and used trucks and commercial vehicles, as well as after sales services, body repairs, and parts sales under the Chatfields brand name. In addition, it offers Pinnacle, a Web enabled dealer management system with manufacturer interface and modules for vehicle sales and marketing, after sales, and bookkeeping and accounts generation to dealers and fleet operators under the Pinewood brand name; and software for the leasing, contract hire, fleet, and rental markets, as well as distributes parts under the Quickco brand name. Further, the company provides automotive fleet leasing and management facilities; contract hire services under the Pendragon Contra cts, Bramall Contracts, and Vardy Contract Motoring brand names; motor vehicle finance and insurance services; and management and marketing services, as well as involves in property holding activities. Pendragon PLC operates 245 franchise points. The company is based in Nottingham, the United Kingdom.

10 Best Performing Stocks To Own Right Now: Pankl Racing Systems AG (PARS)

Pankl Racing Systems AG is an Austria-based holding company that develops, produces and distributes mechanical technology systems for the automotive and aviation industries, and specializes in the niche markets of motor racing, luxury vehicles and aerospace. The Company operates through two main segments: combined segment Racing/High Performance and Aerospace. The Racing segment supplies engine as well as drive train components and systems for the racing market. The High Performance segment is specialized in the production of engine and drive train components for luxury vehicles, engine parts for the aftermarket and aluminum forged parts. The Aerospace segment produces lightweight and flexible transmission components as well as systems for over 50 types of fixed and rotary wing aircraft. As of December 31, 2011, Pankl Racing Systems AG operated through 16 subsidiaries located in Austria, the United Kingdom, Slovakia and the United States. The Company is a subsidiary of the CROSS Group.

10 Best Performing Stocks To Own Right Now: Alto Palermo S.A.(APSA)

Alto Palermo S.A. engages in the ownership, acquisition, development, leasing, management, and operation of shopping centers, as well as residential and commercial complexes in Argentina. As of June 30, 2007, it owned and operated ten shopping centers covering a total of 264,995 square meters in Argentina, including six in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area and four in the provinces of Cordoba, Mendoza, Salta, and Santa Fe; and a condominium called Torres de Abasto located in front of the Abasto Shopping Center in Buenos Aires. The company offers leases to retail tenants in its ten shopping centers; administration and maintenance of common areas; administration of contributions made by tenants to finance promotional efforts for the shopping centers; and parking lot services for visitors. The company also offers credit card consumer finance service, through the issuance of its Tarjeta Shopping and Tarjeta Shopping Metroshop credit cards, for consumers at shopping centers, h ypermarkets, and street stores. It also engages in the development and sale of residential properties, and acquisition and sale of undeveloped parcels of land for future development. In addition, it engages in the development of condominiums associated with its shopping centers. The company was founded in 1889 and is headquartered in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

10 Best Performing Stocks To Own Right Now: Violin Memory Inc (VMEM)

Violin Memory, Inc., incorporated on March 9, 2005, is pioneering a new class of flash-based storage systems that are designed to bring storage performance in-line with high-speed applications, servers and networks. The Company�� Flash Memory Arrays are specifically designed at each level of the system architecture starting with memory and optimized through the array to leverage the inherent capabilities of flash memory and meet the sustained requirements of business-critical applications, virtualized environments and Big Data solutions in enterprise data centers. The Company�� Velocity Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe), Flash Memory Cards leverage its persistent memory-based architecture in servers and are optimized for applications that require continuous access to quantities of low latency persistent memory located directly in servers.

The Company�� storage systems are based on a four-layer hardware architecture, which is integrated with its Violin Memory Operating System (vMOS), software stack to optimize the management of flash memory at each level of its system architecture. The Company�� Velocity PCIe Flash Memory Cards leverage its expertise in persistent memory-based storage and controller design, as well as its vMOS software stack, to offer a differentiated architecture in a deployable PCIe form factor.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Mani]

  Violin Memory, Inc. (NYSE: VMEM) is well positioned to take advantage of the strong secular growth of flash in the enterprise. The combination of its proprietary hardware, a growing software portfolio and resulting industry-leading price/performance should translate into robust growth over a multi-year time frame.

• [By Paul Ausick]

  Stocks on the Move: J.C. Penney Co. Inc. (NYSE: JCP) is down 13.9% at $8.97 after a secondary stock offering�that might have been designed to drive out short sellers. Violin Memory Inc. (NASDAQ: VMEM) is down 21% at $7.11 on a lousy IPO�day. RingCentral Inc. (NYSE: RNG) is up 39.5% at $18.14 on a good IPO day.

• [By Jayson Derrick]

  Violin Memory (NASDAQ: VMEM) dove following its third quarter results and guidance that was released last night. The company reported a third quarter EPS loss of $0.63 while the Street was looking for a loss of $0.47. Revenue of $28.3 million fell short of the Street's expectation of $31.7 million. Shares were downgraded by J.P. Morgan, (NYSE: JPM) Deutsche Bank (NYSE: DB) and Pacific Crest. Shares lost 48.33 percent, closing at $3.10.

• [By Steve Symington]

  What: Shares of Violin Memory, (NYSE: VMEM  ) plunged 48% Friday after the high-speed data storage specialist came up well short of analysts' estimates with its first quarterly report as a public company.

10 Best Performing Stocks To Own Right Now: Wells Fargo & Company(WFC)

Wells Fargo & Company, through its subsidiaries, provides retail, commercial, and corporate banking services primarily in the United States. The company operates in three segments: Community Banking; Wholesale Banking; and Wealth, Brokerage, and Retirement. The Community Banking segment offers deposits, including checking, market rate, and individual retirement accounts; savings and time deposits; and debit cards. Its loan products comprise lines of credit, auto floor plans, equity lines and loans, equipment and transportation loans, education loans, residential mortgage loans, health savings accounts, and credit cards. This segment also provides equipment leases, real estate financing, small business administration financing, venture capital financing, cash management, payroll services, retirement plans, loans secured by autos, and merchant payment processing services; purchases sales finance contracts from retail merchants; and a family of funds, and investment managemen t services. The Wholesale Banking segment offers commercial and corporate banking products and services, including commercial loans and lines of credit, letters of credit, asset-based lending, equipment leasing, international trade facilities, trade financing, collection services, foreign exchange services, treasury and investment management, institutional fixed-income sales, commodity and equity risk management, insurance, corporate trust fiduciary and agency services, and investment banking services. This segment also provides banking products for commercial real estate market, and real estate and mortgage brokerage services. The Wealth, Brokerage, and Retirement segment offers financial advisory, brokerage, and institutional retirement and trust services. As of December 31, 2010, the company served its customers through approximately 9,000 banking stores in 39 States and the District of Columbia. Wells Fargo & Company was founded in 1929 and is headquartered in San Franci sco, California.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Jay Jenkins]

  Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC  ) is the nation's second-largest private student loan lender, with just less than $23 billion in student loans as of Q1. Wells reported in its first-quarter earnings supplement that the average student loan borrower has a credit score of 764, and that 78% of new originations in the quarter were co-signed with another adult. Acquiring Sallie Mae would propel Wells head and shoulders above the competition in the student loan marketplace. Wells' challenge would be finding efficiencies after the purchase to maximize the return on investment.

• [By Holly LaFon]

  Last quarter, there were four winners: Chihin, Errold, Luishernandez and Clemo69. They correctly guessed that Buffett bought DaVita (DVA), Wells Fargo (WFC) and IBM (IBM). Congratulations!

• [By Amanda Alix]

  It's no longer any secret that the biggest banks are being forced to acknowledge that the mortgage-lending mini-boom that gave Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC  ) and JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM  ) such lifts in revenue last year is fading fast. Though neither bank turned in lousy first-quarter earnings reports, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon noted�that loan growth was stagnating throughout the industry. Wells reported a dip in refinancing, which had helped stoke profits last year, of 65% of new mortgages, from 76% in the year-ago period.

• [By Alex Dumortier, CFA]

  Now, NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is going back to the well. He intends to sue Bank of America (NYSE: BAC  ) and Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC  ) for violating rules regarding loan modifications. This is no longer a matter of transgressions that occurred during the frenzy of the credit and housing bubble or the pandemonium of the immediate crisis that followed; Schneiderman alleges that the organizations did not respect the terms of the $25 billion global settlement regulators finalized with banks in February 2012.