Top Services Companies To Invest In 2014

“I was expecting the William Tell overture as my introduction music,” former congressman Barney Frank said to laughter at the TD Ameritrade 2013 Elite Summit in Palm Beach, Fla., on Wednesday morning.

The legendary curmudgeon and bane of political opponents was well-received by the advisors in attendance as he described the reasoning behind the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, as well as his views on the fiduciary standard.

The 16-term congressman and former chairman of the House Financial Services Committee began by noting the “two important systems” on which the country runs, the private and the public.

“The private system creates wealth and innovation,” he noted as a way to introduce his explanation of Dodd-Frank. “The public system sets the rules by which the private sector conducts itself, as well as doing the things the private sector can’t, but which citizens still demand.”

Top 5 Asian Companies To Own In Right Now: Sbc Sveriges Bostadsrattscentrum AB (SBC)

SBC Sveriges BostadsrattsCentrum AB (SBC) is a Sweden-based company active within the real estate sector. It offers services to condominiums within three business areas, namely Financial Management, Technical Management and Legal Expertise. The Financial Management area offers services to real estate managers and residents, including services, such as accounting, payment management and budget optimization, among others. The Technical Management business area offers a range of services, including property inspection, documentation management and cost control, among others. Within the Legal Expertise area, the Company offers services, such as assistance in civil cases, assisting in negotiations, drafting of contracts and assistance in tax matters, among others. The Company has six offices located in the Swedish cities of Sundsvall, Uppsala, Vasteras, Stockholm, Malmo and Goteborg. As of December 31, 2011, it had two wholly owned subsidiaries, namely SBC Mark AB and Liljeholmsberget AB. Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Nitish]

  Stock-Based Compensation (SBC) ��In the second quarter of 2014, the total charge related to SBC was $880 million compared to $743 million in the second quarter of 2013. The analysts currently estimate SBC charges for grants made to employees prior to June 30, 2014 to be approximately $3.42 billion for 2014. This estimate does not include expenses to be recognized related to employee stock awards that are granted after June 30, 2014 or nonemployee stock awards that have been or may be granted.

Top Services Companies To Invest In 2014: Chindex International Inc.(CHDX)

Chindex International, Inc. engages in the provision of healthcare services; and sale of medical equipment, instrumentation, and products. The company operates in two segments, Healthcare Services and Medical Products. The Healthcare Services segment owns and operates the United Family Healthcare network of private hospitals and clinics in the Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou markets. This segment also operates a managed clinic in the city of Wuxi, south of Shanghai. It offers a range of family healthcare services, including 24/7 emergency rooms, intensive care units, and neonatal intensive care units, operating rooms, clinical laboratory, radiology, and blood banking services for men, women, and children. The Medical Products segment markets, distributes, and sells medical capital equipment, instrumentation, and other medical products for use in hospitals in China and Hong Kong. It offers diagnostic color ultrasound imaging devices, robotic surgical systems and instrument ation, mammography and breast biopsy devices, and lasers for cosmetic surgery. This segment sells its products through its direct sales force. The company was founded in 1981 and is based in Bethesda, Maryland.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Jake L'Ecuyer]

  Leading the sector was strength from Forest Laboratories (NYSE: FRX) and Chindex International (NASDAQ: CHDX) on acquisition news. In trading on Tuesday, non-cyclical consumer goods & services shares were relative laggards, down on the day by 0.2%.

Top Services Companies To Invest In 2014: Koninklijke Ahold NV (AHONY)

Koninklijke Ahold N.V. (Ahold), incorporated on April 29, 1920, is engaged in the operation of retail food stores in the United States and Europe through subsidiaries and joint ventures. Ahold�� retail operations are presented in four segments: Stop & Shop/Giant-Landover, Giant-Carlisle, Albert Heijn and Albert/Hypernova. During the fiscal year ended January 3, 2010 (fiscal 2009), it operated 2,909 stores. On February 8, 2010, Ahold�� Giant-Carlisle acquired 25 stores from Ukrop�� Super Markets.

Franchisees operated 783 of the Albert Heijn, Etos and Gall & Gall stores, 463 of which were either owned by the franchisees or leased independently from Ahold. Of the 2,446 stores, 20% were company-owned and 80% were leased. Ahold�� stores range in size from 20 to over 10,000 square meters. Albert Heijn is a food retailer in the Netherlands. Etos is a health and beauty retailer in the Netherlands. Gall & Gall is a wine and liquor specialist in the Netherlands. Stop & Shop is a supermarket brand, operating in six states in the northeast United States. Giant-Landover is a supermarket brand, operating in four states in the mid-Atlantic United States. Peapod is an online grocery delivery service working in partnership with Stop & Shop and Giant-Landover. It also serves the metropolitan areas of Chicago, Illinois; Milwaukee and Madison, Wisconsin, and the northern areas of Indiana.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Rich Duprey]

  As mentioned, Kroger is still swallowing Harris Teeter and has said it needs time to make more acquisitions. Royal Ahold (NASDAQOTH: AHONY  ) is also said to be leery about doing large acquisitions these days, while Cerberus recently finished acquiring the Albertsons and Acme chains from SUPERVALU (NYSE: SVU  ) �for $3.3 billion.

Top Services Companies To Invest In 2014: Canterbury Park Holding Corporation(CPHC)

Canterbury Park Holding Corporation conducts pari-mutuel wagering operations and hosts unbanked card games at its Canterbury Park racetrack and card room facility in Shakopee, Minnesota. The company operates in three segments: Horse Racing, Card Room, and Concessions. The Horse Racing segment operates year-round pari-mutuel wagering on simulcast horse races, and live thoroughbred and quarter horse races held on a seasonal basis. The Card Room segment offers unbanked card games, which include poker and casino games. The Concessions segment provides food and beverage services for simulcast and live racing, and the card room, as well as for the special events. The company also offers facilities for special events, such as snowmobile races, arts and crafts shows, trade shows, concerts, fundraisers, automobile shows and competitions, vehicle and boat storage, and private parties. In addition, it provides advertising signage space; leases excess parking lot space for various aut omotive activities and vehicle storage; and sells various daily pari-mutuel publications. Canterbury Park Holding Corporation was founded in 1994 and is based in Shakopee, Minnesota.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Monica Wolfe]

  Lastly, Gabelli increased his position in Canterbury Park Holding (CPHC). Gabelli upped his stake 3.18% by purchasing a total of 13,824 shares. He bought these shares at an average price of $11.11 per share, and since then the price per share is up about 3%. Gabelli now holds 447,944 shares, representing 10.74% of the company�� shares outstanding.

Top Services Companies To Invest In 2014: Volt Information Sciences Inc (VISI)

Volt Information Sciences, Inc., incorporated in 1957, provides staffing services, and telecommunications and information solutions. The Company is organized in two businesses: Staffing Services and Telecommunications and Information Solutions. Staffing services segment provides a range of employee staffing services to a range of customers throughout North America, Europe and Asia/Pac, and has expanded operations in Latin America. Telecommunications services provide telecommunications and other services, including design, engineering, construction, installation, maintenance and removal of telecommunications equipment for the outside plant and central offices of telecommunications and cable companies. In September 2008, the Company sold the net assets of its DataNational and Directory Systems divisions.

Staffing Services

Services offered by the Staffing Services segment fall within three major functional areas: staffing solutions, information technology (IT) solutions and e-procurement solutions. Staffing solutions provides managed staffing, temporary/contract personnel employment and workforce solutions. This functional area comprises the Technical Resources (Technical) division and the Administrative and Industrial (A&I) division. This functional area also provides direct placement services and, upon request from customers, subject to contractual conditions, is focused to allow the customer to convert the temporary employees to full-time customer employees under negotiated terms. In addition, the Company's Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) services deliver end-to-end recruitment and hiring outsourced solutions to customers. The Technical division provides skilled employees, such as computer and other IT specialties, engineering, design, life sciences and technical support. The A&I division provides administrative, clerical, accounting and financial, call center and light industrial personnel.

E-procurement solutions provide global bid human capital acquisiti! on and management solutions by combining Web-based tools and business process outsourcing services. IT solutions provides a range of services, including consulting, outsourcing and turnkey project management in the software and hardware development, IT infrastructure services and customer contact markets.

Telecommunications and Information Solutions

This segment is divided into three sub segments: telecommunications services, computer systems, and printing and other. Telecommunications Services segment designs, engineers, constructs, installs and maintains voice, data, video and utility infrastructure for public and private businesses, military, and government agencies.

Computer Systems segment provides directory and operator systems and services primarily for the telecommunications industry and provides IT maintenance services. The segment also sells information systems to its customers and, in addition, provides an application service provider (ASP) model, which also provides information services, including infrastructure and database data services to others. This segment consists of Volt Delta Resources LLC, Volt Delta International, LSSiData and the Maintech computer maintenance division.

Printing and other segment provides printing services and publishes telephone directories in Uruguay. The telephone directory revenues of this segment are derived from the sales of telephone directory advertising for the books it publishes.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Geoff Gannon]

  1. Steel Excel (SXCL)
  2. FormFactor (FORM)
  3. Imation (IMN)
  4. Tuesday Morning (TUES)
  5. Pacific Biosciences (PACB)
  6. Maxygen (MAXY)
  7. Westell (WSTL)
  8. Volt Information Sciences (VISI)
  9. Yasheng Group (YHGG)

Top Services Companies To Invest In 2014: Rhoen Klinikum AG (RHK)

Rhoen Klinikum AG is a Germany-based provider of health care services. It is primarily engaged in building, acquiring and operating privately owned hospitals. The Company�� portfolio comprises basic and standard care, intermediate care, maximum care, specialist care, medical care centers (MVZ) at hospitals, portal clinics, university hospitals and academic teaching hospitals. These hospitals offer treatment in several specialist fields, including psychiatry, anesthesiology, dermatology, ophthalmology, various types of surgery, women�� medicine and obstetrics, geriatrics, neurology, rehabilitation, urology and internal medicine, among others. The Company operated a number of hospitals and medical care centers. In addition to the hospitals in Bad Berka, Frankfurt, Hildesheim, Karlsruhe, Munich, Pforzheim and Wiesbaden, among others, it has MVZ companies located in Germany, as well as two research and education companies and service companies. Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Corinne Gretler]

  Fresenius rose 3.6 percent after its Helios subsidiary agreed to buy 43 hospitals from Rhoen-Klinikum (RHK) AG. BHP Billiton Ltd. and Anglo American Plc both dropped at least 2 percent, contributing the most to a decline by a gauge of commodity producers. TDC A/S fell 3.1 percent as a group of private-equity firms sold its stake in Denmark�� biggest phone company.