1,829 Shares in Ecolab Inc. (ECL) Acquired by Argus Investors Counsel Inc.

Argus Investors Counsel Inc. bought a new position in Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL) during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm bought 1,829 shares of the basic materials company’s stock, valued at approximately $257,000.

A number of other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of ECL. Wagner Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in Ecolab in the fourth quarter worth approximately $112,000. Signaturefd LLC bought a new position in Ecolab in the first quarter worth approximately $131,000. Ashburton Jersey Ltd raised its position in Ecolab by 302.9% in the fourth quarter. Ashburton Jersey Ltd now owns 1,370 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $184,000 after acquiring an additional 1,030 shares during the period. Retirement Income Solutions Inc. bought a new position in Ecolab in the first quarter worth approximately $216,000. Finally, Greenleaf Trust raised its position in Ecolab by 540.7% in the first quarter. Greenleaf Trust now owns 1,730 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $237,000 after acquiring an additional 1,460 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 75.95% of the company’s stock.

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Several research analysts have weighed in on the stock. Nomura increased their price target on shares of Ecolab from $136.00 to $146.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, June 28th. Credit Suisse Group increased their price target on shares of Ecolab from $137.00 to $140.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, May 2nd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgraded shares of Ecolab from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, May 2nd. Zacks Investment Research upgraded shares of Ecolab from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $165.00 price target on the stock in a research report on Thursday, May 3rd. Finally, Deutsche Bank increased their price target on shares of Ecolab to $140.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, May 8th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have issued a hold rating and nine have assigned a buy rating to the company. The company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $145.44.

Shares of ECL stock traded down $2.10 on Thursday, hitting $141.90. 1,148,900 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 1,276,900. The company has a market capitalization of $41.47 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.26, a PEG ratio of 2.11 and a beta of 1.00. Ecolab Inc. has a 52 week low of $125.74 and a 52 week high of $150.46. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.83, a current ratio of 1.15 and a quick ratio of 0.77.

Ecolab (NYSE:ECL) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, May 1st. The basic materials company reported $0.91 EPS for the quarter, beating the Thomson Reuters’ consensus estimate of $0.89 by $0.02. The firm had revenue of $3.47 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.38 billion. Ecolab had a net margin of 10.62% and a return on equity of 19.01%. The company’s revenue was up 9.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the firm earned $0.80 EPS. equities research analysts expect that Ecolab Inc. will post 5.39 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, July 16th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, June 19th were given a dividend of $0.41 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, June 18th. This represents a $1.64 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.16%. Ecolab’s payout ratio is 34.97%.

Ecolab Company Profile

Ecolab Inc provides water, hygiene, and energy technologies and services for customers worldwide. The company operates through Global Industrial, Global Institutional, and Global Energy segments. The Global Industrial segment provides water treatment and process applications, and cleaning and sanitizing solutions primarily to large industrial customers within the manufacturing, food and beverage processing, chemical, mining and primary metals, power generation, pulp and paper, and commercial laundry industries.

Featured Article: Short Selling Stocks, A Beginner��s Guide

Hot China Stocks To Buy For 2019

tags:SINA,SOL,NTES,CDTI,

It has now been over 3 years since I wrote my first electric vehicle [EV] article back in March 2015 titled "Chinese Electric Vehicle Companies About To Boom." At that time it was becoming increasingly clear to me that China would lead the world towards a new way of travel - a way that was pollution free. In hindsight it all seems quite obvious especially if ever you have traveled to or lived in a highly polluted Asian or Chinese city.

In this article I want to take a look over the past 3 years and just see how far we have come and where we may be going next. Below is a brief summary of some of the major headlines (with links) to get a perspective.

EV news highlights 2015-2018 2015 Tesla Model S named best overall vehicle by consumer reports. Tesla Model X production begins. China electric car sales increased 223% in 2015. Global electric car sales reach 540,000 in 2015, up 70% on 2014, representing 0.6% of the global market share.

Tesla Model X production begins

Hot China Stocks To Buy For 2019: Sina Corporation(SINA)

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Jack Delaney]

  SINA Corp. (Nasdaq: SINA) operates Weibo Corp. (Nasdaq: WB), a social media platform with 411 million monthly active users (MAUs) as of Q1 2018.

  It's considered the Twitter Inc. (NYSE: TWTR) of China.

• [By Lisa Levin] Gainers Cocrystal Pharma, Inc. (NASDAQ: COCP) rose 15.3 percent to $2.41 in pre-market trading after declining 25.09 percent on Thursday. Expedia Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: EXPE) shares rose 10.7 percent to $117.75 in pre-market trading after the company reported stronger-than-expected earnings for its first quarter on Thursday. DMC Global Inc. (NASDAQ: BOOM) rose 10.6 percent to $35.00 in pre-market trading after reporting Q1 results. Genprex, Inc. (NASDAQ: GNPX) rose 10.2 percent to $12.12 in pre-market trading after climbing 86.76 percent on Thursday. Sprint Corporation (NYSE: S) shares rose 7 percent to $6.42 in pre-market trading on reports that the company has made progress on merger talks with T-Mobile. Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) rose 6.9 percent to $1,621.95 in pre-market trading after the company posted upbeat results for its first quarter. The company sees second quarter operating income of $1.1 billion - $1.9 billion and sales of $51 billion - $54 billion. Riot Blockchain, Inc. (NASDAQ: RIOT) shares rose 5.5 percent to $7.88 in pre-market trading after gaining 1.49 percent on Thursday. Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) rose 5.3 percent to $55.86 in pre-market trading as the company reported better-than-expected results for its first quarter and also raised its FY18 sales outlook. 8x8, Inc. (NASDAQ: EGHT) rose 5.3 percent to $21.00 in pre-market trading. Southwestern Energy Company (NYSE: SWN) shares rose 5.1 percent to $4.75 in pre-market trading as the company reported better-than-expected earnings for its first quarter. Diamond Offshore Drilling, Inc. (NYSE: DO) rose 5 percent to $20.24 in pre-market trading. Baidu, Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU) rose 4.5 percent to $249.50 in pre-market trading following upbeat Q1 profit. Charter Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: CHTR) rose 4.3 percent to $311 in pre-market trading. Charter is expected to release quarterly earnings today. SINA Corporation (NASDAQ: SINA) shares rose 3.9 pe
• [By Ethan Ryder]

  Eagle Global Advisors LLC decreased its position in Sina Corp (NASDAQ:SINA) by 1.8% during the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 84,875 shares of the technology company’s stock after selling 1,595 shares during the period. Eagle Global Advisors LLC owned about 0.12% of Sina worth $8,850,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

• [By Steve Symington]

  You wouldn't know it by the market's knee-jerk reaction, but�SINA Corp.�(NASDAQ:SINA)�just announced another stronger-than-expected quarter early Wednesday.�Shares of the Chinese internet media company fell 10% when all was said and done today -- though it's not the first time we've seen the stock fall on positive news.

• [By Steve Symington]

  Shares of SINA Corp. (NASDAQ:SINA) were down 10.2% as of 3:30 p.m. EDT Wednesday despite strong first-quarter 2018 results from the Chinese internet media company.

Hot China Stocks To Buy For 2019: Renesola Ltd.(SOL)

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Joseph Griffin]

  These are some of the media headlines that may have impacted Accern’s scoring:

  Get ReneSola alerts: ReneSola Sells North Carolina Solar Project To Greenbacker (solarindustrymag.com) ReneSola (SOL) Rating Increased to Neutral at Roth Capital (americanbankingnews.com) ReneSola (SOL) Q1 Earnings in Line, Revenues Top Estimates (zacks.com) ReneSola’s (SOL) CEO Xianshou Li on Q1 2018 Results – Earnings Call Transcript (seekingalpha.com) ReneSola (SOL) Releases Earnings Results (americanbankingnews.com)

  Shares of ReneSola traded up $0.08, hitting $2.76, during trading on Friday, Marketbeat.com reports. The stock had a trading volume of 124,969 shares, compared to its average volume of 108,565. The firm has a market capitalization of $102.11 million, a PE ratio of 21.23 and a beta of 2.05. The company has a current ratio of 1.17, a quick ratio of 1.17 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.36. ReneSola has a 12 month low of $2.12 and a 12 month high of $3.79.

Hot China Stocks To Buy For 2019: Netease.com Inc.(NTES)

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Asit Sharma]

  Shares of�NetEase, Inc.�(NASDAQ:NTES) have dipped 26.8% in the first six months of 2018, according to data from�S&P Global Market Intelligence.

• [By Shane Hupp]

  News articles about NetEase (NASDAQ:NTES) have been trending somewhat positive this week, Accern reports. Accern ranks the sentiment of news coverage by reviewing more than 20 million news and blog sources. Accern ranks coverage of companies on a scale of negative one to one, with scores closest to one being the most favorable. NetEase earned a media sentiment score of 0.23 on Accern’s scale. Accern also assigned news coverage about the technology company an impact score of 47.5808045346287 out of 100, meaning that recent news coverage is somewhat unlikely to have an effect on the company’s share price in the next few days.

• [By Harsh Chauhan]

  Over the years, NetEase (NASDAQ:NTES) has made the most of the opportunities presented by China's mobile and online gaming market, and has also diversified into fast-growing verticals like ecommerce to supercharge its prospects. Not surprisingly, NetEase investors have been a happy lot, as their investment in the Chinese internet specialist has experienced five�straight years of double-digit percentage gains.

• [By Dan Caplinger]

  Investors in NetEase (NASDAQ:NTES) have generally seen their company benefit from a strong environment in the Chinese video game industry. Impressive growth in revenue and profits in past years helped fuel impressive gains for NetEase shares, and the appetite for more from consumers in China and elsewhere has seemed insatiable. Yet in every growth stock's experience, a company eventually starts to face challenges in sustaining growth, and the key question becomes what that company does to restart its growth engines.

• [By Dan Caplinger]

  Thursday was a relatively quiet day on Wall Street, and action in different parts of the market showed mixed signals for investors. On one hand, small-cap stocks moved higher, with key benchmarks in that area hitting record highs. Yet the better-known large-cap stock indexes like the S&P 500 gave up early gains. Looking more closely at individual stocks, some companies suffered from bad news that sent their shares falling. J.C. Penney (NYSE:JCP), NetEase (NASDAQ:NTES), and Jounce Therapeutics (NASDAQ:JNCE) were among the worst performers on the day. Here's why they did so poorly.

• [By Anders Bylund]

  Chinese online media giant NetEase Inc. (NASDAQ:NTES) is hardly the talk of the town.�Sporting a $30 billion market cap, NetEase works in a consumer-facing industry, and share prices have bounced between $222 and $378 over the last year. And these are the hallmarks of the market's most-discussed tickers.

Hot China Stocks To Buy For 2019: Clean Diesel Technologies Inc.(CDTI)

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Stephan Byrd]

  Here are some of the media stories that may have impacted Accern Sentiment’s analysis:

  Get Molecular Templates alerts: Trading Center: Watching the Levels for Molecular Templates, Inc. (:MTEM): Move of 0.02 Since the Open (stocknewscaller.com) Molecular Templates (MTEM) Announces Clinical Data at 2018 ASCO Meeting (streetinsider.com) Gallbladder Cancer Treatment Sales Market Size by Players, Regions, Type, Application and Forecast to 2025 (exclusivereportage.com) ATR in spotlight EnSync, Inc. (NYSE:ESNC), CDTi Advanced Materials, Inc. (NASDAQ:CDTI), Molecular Templates, Inc … (stocksnewspoint.com)

  MTEM has been the subject of several research analyst reports. ValuEngine lowered shares of Molecular Templates from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Thursday, March 1st. Zacks Investment Research raised shares of Molecular Templates from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, June 7th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the stock. The company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $5.20.

Texas Instruments CEO Resigns Over Personal Conduct Violations

Texas Instruments (NASDAQ:TXN) President and CEO Brian Crutcher is no longer with the company.

Source: VEX Robotics via Flickr

According to a statement from the company, Texas Instruments CEO Brian Crutcher has resigned from his roles at the company after violating its code of conduct. The company doesn’t say exactly what happened, but it notes that the former CEO’s actions are not consistent with its ethics and core values.

With Brian Crutcher gone, Texas Instruments is reverting back to its previous President and CEO, Rich Templeton. Templeton will be taking over as the next Texas Instruments CEO and the company won’t be holding a search for another. He will also still remain the Chairman of the Board for TXN.

“For decades, our company’s core values and code of conduct have been foundational to how we operate and behave, and we have no tolerance for violations of our code of conduct,” Mark Blinn, lead director of the TI Board, said in a statement. “Over the past 14 years, Rich has successfully led TI to become the company it is today, and we have great confidence in his values and ability to continue to lead this company forward.”

Brian Crutcher’s time as Texas Instruments CEO was short. He had only been serving in these roles for less than two months when news of his resignation was announced. Luckily, Rich Templeton has 14 years of experience as TXN’s CEO and is able to easily take over the role.

TXN stock was down 1% as of Wednesday morning.

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Best Safest Stocks To Buy For 2019

tags:ACNB,IAE,FII,SSNLF,IRL,XIV,

The stock market’s relentless march upward has pushed the prices of many companies higher. As investors bid up good and bad businesses alike, that can make it hard to discern which companies are the best dividend growth stocks for long-term investors.

That’s especially true in the world of dividend stocks, where income-starved investors face great temptation to reach for high-dividend stocks that offer juicy yields.

Fortunately, Simply Safe Dividends identified the 10 best dividend growth stocks that investors can rely on for secure, fast-growing income.

These companies all have very healthy Dividend Safety Scores, which measure a firm’s most important financial metrics to gauge how likely it is to cut its dividend in the future.

Let’s take a look at 10 of the safest dividend growth stocks in the market. These companies generate excellent free cash flow, maintain safe payout ratios, are committed to rewarding shareholders with healthy dividend increases and have bright long-term outlooks.

Best Safest Stocks To Buy For 2019: ACNB Corporation(ACNB)

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Ethan Ryder]

  BidaskClub upgraded shares of ACNB (NASDAQ:ACNB) from a buy rating to a strong-buy rating in a research report sent to investors on Monday morning.

• [By Max Byerly]

  John W. Rosenthal Capital Management Inc. lowered its holdings in shares of ACNB Co. (NASDAQ:ACNB) by 11.8% during the first quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 15,000 shares of the bank’s stock after selling 2,000 shares during the period. John W. Rosenthal Capital Management Inc.’s holdings in ACNB were worth $439,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Best Safest Stocks To Buy For 2019: Voya Asia Pacific High Dividend Equity Income Fund(IAE)

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Shane Hupp]

  Voya Asia Pacific High (NYSE:IAE)’s share price reached a new 52-week high and low during trading on Tuesday . The stock traded as low as $10.04 and last traded at $10.18, with a volume of 200 shares traded. The stock had previously closed at $10.18.

Best Safest Stocks To Buy For 2019: Federated Investors, Inc.(FII)

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Benzinga News Desk]

  Maybe AT&T’s (NYSE: T) $85 billion merger with Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) is in trouble, after all: Link

  ECONOMIC DATA USA S&P/CS HPI Composite - 20 n.s.a. (YoY) for Mar 6.80% vs 6.40% Est; Prior 6.80% The Conference Board’s consumer confidence index for May will be released at 10:00 a.m. ET. The Dallas Fed manufacturing index for May is schedule for release at 10:30 a.m. ET. The Treasury is set to auction 3-and 6-month bills at 11:30 a.m. ET. The Treasury will auction 4-week bills at 1:00 p.m. ET. ANALYST RATINGS Morgan Stanley upgrades Roku (NASDAQ: ROKU) from Underweight to Equal-Weight KBW upgrades Federated Investors (NYSE: FII) from Underperform to Market Perform HSBC downgrades Novartis (NYSE: NVS) from Buy to Hold Jefferies downgrades Infinera (NASDAQ: INFN) from Hold to Underperform

  This is a tool used by the Benzinga News Desk each trading day — it's a look at everything happening in the market, in five minutes. To get the full version of this note every morning, click here.

• [By Joseph Griffin]

  Federated Investors (NYSE:FII) declared a quarterly dividend on Thursday, April 26th, RTT News reports. Investors of record on Tuesday, May 8th will be paid a dividend of 0.27 per share by the asset manager on Tuesday, May 15th. This represents a $1.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 4.26%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, May 7th. This is an increase from Federated Investors’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.25.

• [By Max Byerly]

  Wells Fargo & Company MN lessened its stake in shares of Federated Investors Inc (NYSE:FII) by 7.3% in the 1st quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 540,433 shares of the asset manager’s stock after selling 42,515 shares during the period. Wells Fargo & Company MN’s holdings in Federated Investors were worth $18,051,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

• [By Lisa Levin]

  Check out these big penny stock gainers and losers

  Losers World Fuel Services Corporation (NYSE: INT) tumbled 18 percent to $22.90 following Q1 results. Biglari Holdings Inc. (NYSE: BH) fell 17.4 percent to $349.52. Washington Prime Group will replace Biglari Holdings in the S&P SmallCap 600 on Tuesday, May 1. Flex Ltd. (NASDAQ: FLEX) dipped 15.7 percent to $14.03 after a mixed fourth quarter report. FormFactor, Inc. (NASDAQ: FORM) fell 15.3 percent to $11.65. FormFactor is expected to release Q1 results on May 2. Data I/O Corporation (NASDAQ: DAIO) dropped 14.3 percent to $6.24 following Q1 results. National Instruments Corporation (NASDAQ: NATI) fell 14.3 percent to $ 42.34 after reporting Q1 results. United States Steel Corporation (NYSE: X) dipped 14.2 percent to $32.37 following Q1 results. Civeo Corporation (NYSE: CVEO) dropped 13.5 percent to $3.33. Civeo posted a Q1 loss of $0.42 per share on sales of $101.504 million. athenahealth, Inc. (NASDAQ: ATHN) fell 12.4 percent to $125.310 after reporting Q1 results. Charter Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: CHTR) shares tumbled 12.1 percent to $262.06 as the company posted Q1 results. Value Line, Inc. (NASDAQ: VALU) fell 11.3 percent to $19.10. Federated Investors, Inc. (NYSE: FII) shares dropped 11.2 percent to $27.605 after the company posted downbeat quarterly earnings. AV Homes, Inc. (NASDAQ: AVHI) declined 10.7 percent to $17.20 following Q1 results. CalAmp Corp. (NASDAQ: CAMP) dropped 9.4 percent to $21.01 after reporting Q4 results. Tandem Diabetes Care, Inc. (NASDAQ: TNDM) shares fell 8.9 percent to $7.280 following mixed Q1 results. Sony Corporation (NYSE: SNE) shares fell 8.4 percent to $45.97 after reporting Q4 results. LogMeIn Inc (NASDAQ: LOGM) fell 8.2 percent to $109.825. LogMeIn reported upbeat earnings for its first quarter, but issued weak second quarter and FY18 earning guidance. Eleven Biotherapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: EBIO
• [By Joseph Griffin]

  California Public Employees Retirement System reduced its position in Federated Investors Inc (NYSE:FII) by 3.3% in the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 232,169 shares of the asset manager’s stock after selling 8,016 shares during the quarter. California Public Employees Retirement System owned approximately 0.23% of Federated Investors worth $7,754,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Best Safest Stocks To Buy For 2019: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (SSNLF)

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Leo Sun]

  Micron controlled 23% of the global DRAM market during the first quarter, making it the third-largest manufacturer after Korean tech giants Samsung (NASDAQOTH:SSNLF) and SK Hynix. China is the world's largest importer of memory chips, consuming 20% of DRAM and 25% of NAND chips worldwide.

• [By ]

  Currently, the company operates in seven geographic regions and one reportable business segment - manufacturing and servicing of wafer processing semiconductor manufacturing equipment. The company supplies its products to leading non-volatile memory, DRAM memory, and logic devices manufacturers such as Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU), Samsung Electronics (OTC:SSNLF) or Toshiba (OTCPK:TOSYY).

• [By ]

  Big foreign brands like Samsung (OTC:SSNLF), Nestle (OTCPK:NSRGY), BMW (OTCPK:BMWYY), or Nintendo (OTCPK:NTDOY) should sound familiar to many Americans. While you would not see any of those popular names on NYSE or any other major exchange in the US, the OTC market does offer the access for US investors to own a piece of those foreign businesses that are large-scale, well-established and hopefully wonderful.

Best Safest Stocks To Buy For 2019: New Ireland Fund, Inc. (IRL)

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Logan Wallace]

  IrishCoin (CURRENCY:IRL) traded down 14.1% against the dollar during the twenty-four hour period ending at 18:00 PM Eastern on May 15th. One IrishCoin coin can now be purchased for approximately $0.0082 or 0.00000097 BTC on major exchanges. Over the last week, IrishCoin has traded 34.1% lower against the dollar. IrishCoin has a market capitalization of $291,706.00 and $248.00 worth of IrishCoin was traded on exchanges in the last 24 hours.

• [By Ethan Ryder]

  IrishCoin (CURRENCY:IRL) traded down 4.5% against the U.S. dollar during the one day period ending at 20:00 PM ET on June 22nd. In the last week, IrishCoin has traded 7.3% higher against the U.S. dollar. IrishCoin has a total market capitalization of $229,642.00 and $26.00 worth of IrishCoin was traded on exchanges in the last 24 hours. One IrishCoin coin can now be bought for about $0.0065 or 0.00000107 BTC on exchanges.

Best Safest Stocks To Buy For 2019: region(XIV)

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Money Morning News Team]

  This led some traders to purchase leveraged ETFs that move inverse to the VIX, like the�VelocityShares Daily Inv VIX Short Term�(Nasdaq: XIV).

  The VIX is a derivative of the broad S&P 500, and the XIV is a derivative of that derivative.

Top 5 trends on D-Street today: RIL's re-entry to $100 bn m-cap club, OMCs' surge post crude fall do

Driven by positive global cues as well as a good start to earnings season, backed by TCS, pushed the markets to fresh records on Thursday. Investors looked to cash in on the bullish momentum as buying was visible across sectors. Having said that, the Street closed off the day's high points.

The Sensex slipped over 100 points after notching record high.The Nifty, meanwhile, managed to cross 11,000-mark for the first time since February 1 and maintained the momentum through the afternoon. It closed above the psychological 11K-mark.

At the close of market hours, the Sensex ended up 282.48 points or 0.78% at 36548.41, while the Nifty was up 74.90 points or 0.68% at 11023.20. Here are the top five trends:

Fresh milestones for indices

related news PayPal tells woman her death violated account policies, apologises Canadian farmer puts 6-year-old McDonald��s burger, fries for sale on eBay In pictures: The spectacular aircraft that flies like a plane and takes off like a helicopter

Amid the news, the markets have witnessed a new record highs. The 30-stock Sensex ended 248.48 points up at�36548.41, while the 50-stock Nifty crossed the 11k mark for the first time after February 2018 marking a close at slightly above the mark at 11,023.20.

RIL re-visits USD 100-billion m-cap club

A key highlight of the markets was a huge surge in the shares of oil-to-telecom giant, Reliance Industries as it crossed a market capitalization of USD 100 billion after a decade.

The figure now stands at Rs 6.85 lakh crore. The company had previously crossed the same benchmark in 2008 when the rupee was close to 40 to the dollar. This makes the company in line with TCS as the only two Indian companies to have entered the billion dollar club.

The stock has witnessed a 13 percent growth post the Annual General Meet (AGM) held on July 5. Analysts and market participants remain bullish on the stock.

Crude prices cool off

With tension escalating in the US-China Trade War and Libya's talk on new crude facilities, shares of global oil major, Brent Crude saw its biggest drop on Wednesday.

The major beneficiaries have been oil marketing companies (OMCs). Shares of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited and Indian Oil Corporation gained between 1 to 3 percent on Thursday.

Aviation stocks take off

Shares of Indian aviation companies were also gainers in the market with crude oil prices falling globally. The shares major aviation companies like Jet Airways, SpiceJet, and Interglobe Aviation (IndiGo) surged up gaining 3 to 6 percent in the markets.

Midcaps witness selling pressure

The bears managed to take over the bulls as Nifty mid-cap ends in red. The Nifty mid-cap ticked on a high note and managed to gain 1 percent in the morning trading session. But selling pressure across segments resulted in the index turning flat at the closing hours eventually ending in red. The index has been one of the top losers of the day.

  First Published on Jul 12, 2018 05:50 pm

India's tech firms grow in popularity with country's grads

India's top tech firms are becoming more popular with the country's budding engineers.

Companies such as Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys (INFY) and Wipro (WIT), the leading players in India's vast outsourcing industry, have all surged up an annual ranking of preferred employers for Indian engineering students.

The rankings are based on Universum's annual survey, which had over 1.3 million participants from more than 50 countries. In India, more than 10,500 engineering and IT students from the country's major universities took part.

Infosys, which dropped out of the top 10 for the first time last year, regained 9th spot. TCS, the country's biggest outsourcing firm, and Bangalore-based Wipro both climbed five spots to rank 13th and 20th respectively.

Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Apple (AAPL), Facebook (FB) and Amazon (AMZN) still occupy the first five places on the list. India is a key market for most of them �� Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon have all taken steps to do more business in the country recently.

Indian students still list "an international career" as their number one goal, just ahead of "work/life balance" and a "secure or stable" career, but they're increasingly willing to consider options closer to home.

"Having an international career still remains the most important career goal ... but it has declined in importance since last year," said Pratik Sabherwal, head of advisory for Universum in the Asia Pacific region.

"This is another indicator of Indian talent acknowledging India's growing international stature," he added.

It's not just the big outsourcing firms that are proving more attractive to Indian students.

Flipkart, the online shopping firm bought by Walmart for $16 billion, ranked nine places higher than last year at 24th. And Reliance Industries, the conglomerate owned by India's wealthiest man Mukesh Ambani, rose 12 spots to 34th.

Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon also feature in the top 10 rankings among business students, where the only Indian employers are the Reserve Bank of India �� the country's central bank �� and the State Bank of India, its largest state-run bank.

Emcor Group Inc (EME) Plans Quarterly Dividend of $0.08

Emcor Group Inc (NYSE:EME) declared a quarterly dividend on Monday, July 9th, RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Friday, July 20th will be given a dividend of 0.08 per share by the construction company on Tuesday, July 31st. This represents a $0.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.41%.

Emcor Group has a dividend payout ratio of 8.4% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect Emcor Group to earn $4.91 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.32 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 6.5%.

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Shares of Emcor Group traded up $1.00, reaching $78.69, on Monday, Marketbeat Ratings reports. 853 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 217,180. The stock has a market capitalization of $4.54 billion, a PE ratio of 19.14, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.15 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.43 and a quick ratio of 1.41. Emcor Group has a one year low of $62.15 and a one year high of $85.08.

Emcor Group (NYSE:EME) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, April 26th. The construction company reported $0.94 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the Zacks’ consensus estimate of $0.85 by $0.09. The company had revenue of $1.90 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.80 billion. Emcor Group had a net margin of 2.99% and a return on equity of 14.89%. The business’s revenue was up .5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $0.88 EPS. analysts anticipate that Emcor Group will post 4.49 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Separately, Zacks Investment Research cut shares of Emcor Group from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, May 1st. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have given a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the company. The company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $86.00.

Emcor Group Company Profile

EMCOR Group, Inc provides electrical and mechanical construction, and facilities services in the United States. The company designs, integrates, installs, starts-up, operates, and maintains electric power transmission and distribution systems; premises electrical and lighting systems; process instrumentation in the refining, chemical process, food process, and mining industries; low-voltage, voice and data communications, fire protection, water and wastewater treatment, and controls and filtration systems; roadway and transit lighting and fiber-optic lines; heating, ventilation, air conditioning, refrigeration, and clean-room process ventilation systems; plumbing, processing, and piping systems; and central plant heating and cooling systems, as well as offers cranes and rigging, millwrighting, and steel fabrication, erection, and welding services.

Financial Survey: Bridgestone (BRDCY) and Cooper Tire & Rubber (CTB)

Bridgestone (OTCMKTS: BRDCY) and Cooper Tire & Rubber (NYSE:CTB) are both auto/tires/trucks companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, dividends, profitability, valuation, earnings, institutional ownership and risk.

Volatility and Risk

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Bridgestone has a beta of 0.55, suggesting that its share price is 45% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Cooper Tire & Rubber has a beta of 0.61, suggesting that its share price is 39% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Dividends

Bridgestone pays an annual dividend of $0.29 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.5%. Cooper Tire & Rubber pays an annual dividend of $0.42 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.5%. Bridgestone pays out 18.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Cooper Tire & Rubber pays out 13.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings and recommmendations for Bridgestone and Cooper Tire & Rubber, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Bridgestone	0	0	0	0	N/A
Cooper Tire & Rubber	0	3	5	0	2.63

Cooper Tire & Rubber has a consensus price target of $42.14, indicating a potential upside of 51.87%. Given Cooper Tire & Rubber’s higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Cooper Tire & Rubber is more favorable than Bridgestone.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Bridgestone and Cooper Tire & Rubber’s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Bridgestone	$32.50 billion	0.88	$2.57 billion	$1.56	12.06
Cooper Tire & Rubber	$2.85 billion	0.49	$95.40 million	$3.10	8.95

Bridgestone has higher revenue and earnings than Cooper Tire & Rubber. Cooper Tire & Rubber is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Bridgestone, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Bridgestone and Cooper Tire & Rubber’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Bridgestone	8.00%	11.35%	6.93%
Cooper Tire & Rubber	2.60%	11.73%	5.31%

Institutional & Insider Ownership

0.2% of Bridgestone shares are held by institutional investors. 57.1% of Bridgestone shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 1.7% of Cooper Tire & Rubber shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Summary

Bridgestone beats Cooper Tire & Rubber on 9 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Bridgestone

Bridgestone Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, manufactures and sells tires and rubber products worldwide. The company provides tires and tire tubes for passenger cars, trucks, buses, construction/mining vehicles, industrial machines, agricultural machines, aircraft, and motorcycles and scooters; and tire related products, retread materials and services, tire raw materials, and automotive maintenance and repair services. It also offers vehicle parts, polyurethane foam and related products, electronic precision parts, industrial materials related products, civil engineering and construction materials and equipment, and other products; commercial roofing and other materials; golf balls, golf clubs, other sports products; and bicycles, bicycle related and other products, as well as finance and other services. The company was founded in 1931 and is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.

About Cooper Tire & Rubber

Cooper Tire & Rubber Company, together with its subsidiaries, designs, manufactures, and markets replacement tires in North America, Latin America, Europe, and Asia. The company operates through Americas Tire Operations and International Tire Operations segments. It manufactures and markets passenger car, light truck, motorcycle, and racing tires, as well as tire retread material; and distributes tires for racing, medium trucks, and motorcycles. The company sells its products to independent tire dealers, wholesale distributors, regional and national retail tire chains, and other tire and automotive product retail chains, as well as original equipment manufacturers; and directly to end users through three owned retail stores. Cooper Tire & Rubber Company was founded in 1913 and is headquartered in Findlay, Ohio.

Why Juniper Pharmaceuticals Shares Jumped

Juniper Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: JNP) shares rallied early on Tuesday after the company announced that it would be acquired by Catalent. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2018.

Catalent will acquire all outstanding shares of Juniper for $11.50 apiece in a tender offer. The transaction represents a total equity value of approximately $139.6 million on a fully diluted basis and a premium of 59.7% to Juniper’s unaffected share price on January 30, 2018, the last trading day prior to the date on which Juniper announced its intention to explore strategic alternatives.

The transaction also is offering a premium of 32% and 58% to the 50-day and 200-day moving averages of $8.70 and $7.25, respectively.

This deal has been unanimously approved by the Juniper board of directors following the recommendation of a special committee of independent directors. The board believes that this is the culmination of a diligent and extensive process to pursue strategic alternatives in order to maximize shareholder value.

Jonathan Arnold, president of Catalent Oral Drug Delivery, commented:

Juniper’s expertise and capabilities in pharmaceutical services will further support Catalent’s strategic goal to be the comprehensive partner of choice for pharmaceutical innovators. Juniper’s proven scientific expertise in early-phase product development and supply-chain management will help our customers unlock the full potential of their molecules and provide better treatments to patients, faster.

Shares of Juniper traded early Tuesday at $11.40, a gain of about 31% on the day. The consensus analyst price target is $20.00, and a 52-week trading range of $4.30 to $13.25.

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Brokerages Anticipate GATX Co. (GATX) Will Post Earnings of $0.92 Per Share

Wall Street analysts forecast that GATX Co. (NYSE:GATX) will post earnings of $0.92 per share for the current quarter, according to Zacks Investment Research. Three analysts have provided estimates for GATX’s earnings. The lowest EPS estimate is $0.83 and the highest is $0.97. GATX posted earnings of $1.32 per share during the same quarter last year, which would suggest a negative year-over-year growth rate of 30.3%. The business is expected to issue its next quarterly earnings report on Thursday, July 19th.

According to Zacks, analysts expect that GATX will report full-year earnings of $4.70 per share for the current year, with EPS estimates ranging from $4.60 to $4.80. For the next financial year, analysts expect that the business will report earnings of $4.84 per share, with EPS estimates ranging from $4.55 to $5.05. Zacks Investment Research’s earnings per share averages are an average based on a survey of research firms that cover GATX.

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GATX (NYSE:GATX) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, April 19th. The transportation company reported $1.98 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the Thomson Reuters’ consensus estimate of $1.17 by $0.81. GATX had a return on equity of 12.45% and a net margin of 38.12%. The firm had revenue of $305.30 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $304.46 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $1.44 earnings per share. The company’s revenue was down 3.4% compared to the same quarter last year.

Several research firms have recently commented on GATX. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price objective on GATX from $60.00 to $65.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a report on Wednesday, March 28th. Mizuho began coverage on GATX in a report on Thursday. They issued a “buy” rating and a $88.00 price objective on the stock. Zacks Investment Research downgraded GATX from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Monday, March 26th. Finally, ValuEngine downgraded GATX from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Wednesday, June 13th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have assigned a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company. GATX presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $73.17.

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Zurcher Kantonalbank Zurich Cantonalbank increased its holdings in GATX by 56.9% during the 4th quarter. Zurcher Kantonalbank Zurich Cantonalbank now owns 1,983 shares of the transportation company’s stock valued at $123,000 after purchasing an additional 719 shares during the period. US Bancorp DE grew its holdings in shares of GATX by 3.2% during the 1st quarter. US Bancorp DE now owns 24,791 shares of the transportation company’s stock worth $1,698,000 after acquiring an additional 766 shares during the period. Victory Capital Management Inc. grew its holdings in shares of GATX by 6.5% during the 4th quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. now owns 13,881 shares of the transportation company’s stock worth $863,000 after acquiring an additional 843 shares during the period. Crossmark Global Holdings Inc. grew its holdings in shares of GATX by 26.5% during the 4th quarter. Crossmark Global Holdings Inc. now owns 4,786 shares of the transportation company’s stock worth $297,000 after acquiring an additional 1,003 shares during the period. Finally, GWM Advisors LLC grew its holdings in shares of GATX by 5.4% during the 1st quarter. GWM Advisors LLC now owns 20,311 shares of the transportation company’s stock worth $1,360,000 after acquiring an additional 1,035 shares during the period.

GATX stock traded up $5.15 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $74.23. 570,673 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 225,382. The company has a quick ratio of 3.08, a current ratio of 3.08 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.38. GATX has a 12 month low of $56.00 and a 12 month high of $76.26. The firm has a market cap of $2.75 billion, a P/E ratio of 15.79, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.05 and a beta of 1.25.

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Saturday, June 30th. Investors of record on Friday, June 15th were issued a dividend of $0.44 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, June 14th. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.37%. GATX’s dividend payout ratio is presently 37.45%.

GATX Company Profile

GATX Corporation leases, operates, manages, and remarkets assets in the rail and marine markets in North America and internationally. The company operates through four segments: Rail North America, Rail International, American Steamship Company (ASC), and Portfolio Management. The Rail North America segment primarily leases railcars and locomotives.

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