Top 10 Clean Energy Stocks To Watch For 2014

Utilities that operate nuclear generation facilities have been hurt by pricing pressures created during the downturn in natural gas prices. As is evident in Exelon's (NYSE: EXC  ) latest release, these pressures still exist. As a generator of base load energy, Exelon has found itself battling the likes of natural gas, solar, and wind power as all three forms continue to expand their reach within the nuclear segment. This triumvirate has caused a depression in the prices that Exelon is able to charge customers.

Friday will bring a direct comparison to Exelon when Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK  ) reports, as it is the largest utility in the country and has a large nuclear presence in the Southeast. I expect that some margin pressure will be felt, but continued benefits from its own merger with Progress Energy should provide similar tailwinds as those Exelon experienced.

A trimmed dividend is leading to a fortress of a balance sheet
As the nation moves increasingly toward clean energy, Exelon is perfectly positioned to capitalize on having the largest nuclear fleet in North America. This strength, combined with an increased focus on balance sheet health and its recent merger with Constellation, places Exelon and its resized dividend on a short list of the top utilities. To determine if Exelon is a good long-term fit for your portfolio, you're invited to check out The Motley Fool's premium research report on the company. Simply click here now for instant access.

Top 10 Clean Energy Stocks To Watch For 2014: Sprint Nextel Corp (S.C)

Sprint Nextel Corporation (Sprint), incorporated on November 15, 1938, is a holding company, with its operations primarily conducted by its subsidiaries. The Company operates in two segments: Wireless and Wireline. Sprint is a communications company offering a range of wireless and wireline communications products and services that are designed to meet the needs of individual consumers, businesses, government subscribers and resellers. Its operations are organized to meet the needs of its targeted subscriber groups through focused communications solutions that incorporate the capabilities of its wireless and wireline services. Its services are provided through its ownership of extensive wireless networks, an all-digital global long distance network. The Company offers wireless and wireline voice and data transmission services to subscribers in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and the United States Virgin Islands under the Sprint corporate brand, which includes its retail brands of Sprint, Nextel, Boost Mobile, Virgin Mobile, and Assurance Wireless on networks that utilize third generation (3G) code division multiple access (CDMA), integrated Digital Enhanced Network (iDEN), or Internet protocol (IP) technologies. The Company also offers fourth generation (4G) services utilizing Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) technology through its mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) wholesale relationship with Clearwire Corporation and its subsidiary Clearwire Communications LLC (together Clearwire) and, in October 2011, it announced its focus to deploy Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology as part of its network modernization plan, Network Vision. As of October 19, 2012, the Company controls 50.8% interest in Clearwire Corp.

Wireless

The Company offers wireless services on a postpaid and prepaid payment basis to retail subscribers and also on a wholesale and affiliate basis, which includes the sale of wireless services that utilize the Sprint network but are sold under! the wholesaler's brand. The Company supports the open development of applications, content, and devices on its network platforms through products and services, such as Google Voice, which allows for functionality, such as one phone number for all devices (home, wireless and office), routing calls between devices, and in-call options to switch between devices during a call and Google Wallet, which provides the ability to store loyalty, gift and credit cards, and to tap and pay while the customer shop using their wireless device. The Company has also launched multiple Sprint ID packs that download applications, widgets and other content related to a person's interest at the push of a button. In addition, it enables a variety of business and consumer third-party relationships, through its portfolio of machine-to-machine solutions, which it offers on a retail postpaid and wholesale basis. Its machine-to-machine solutions portfolio provides a secure, real-time and reliable wireless two-way data connection across a range of connected devices, including original equipment manufacturer (OEM) devices and after-market in-vehicle connectivity and electric vehicle charging stations, point-of-sale systems, kiosks and vending machines, asset tracking, digital signage, security, smartgrid utilities, medical equipment and a variety of other consumer electronics and appliances.

The Company offers price plans tailored to business subscribers, such as Business Advantage, which allows for the mix and match plans that include voice, voice and messaging, or voice, messaging and data to meet individual business needs and which also includes its Any Mobile Anytime feature with certain plans. Its prepaid portfolio includes multiple brands, each designed to appeal to specific subscriber segments. Virgin Mobile serves subscribers who are device and data-oriented with Beyond Talk plans and its broadband plan, Broadband2Go, that offer subscribers control and connectivity through various communication vehicles. Assuran! ce Wirele! ss provides eligible subscribers, who meet income requirements or are receiving government assistance, with a free wireless phone and 250 free minutes of local and long distance monthly service. Wireless data communications services include mobile productivity applications, such as Internet access, messaging and email services; wireless photo and video offerings; location-based capabilities, including asset and fleet management, dispatch services and navigation tools, and mobile entertainment applications, including the ability to view live television, listen to satellite radio, download and listen to music, and game play with full-color graphics and polyphonic and real-music sounds from a wireless handset.

Wireless voice communications services include basic local and long distance wireless voice services throughout the United States, as well as voicemail, call waiting, three-way calling, caller identification, directory assistance and call forwarding. It also provides voice and data services to areas in numerous countries outside of the United States through roaming arrangements. It offers customized design, development, implementation and support for wireless services provided to companies and government agencies. Its services are provided using a variety of multi-functional devices, including smartphones, mobile broadband devices, such as air cards and hotspots, and embedded tablets and laptops manufactured by various suppliers for use with its voice and data services. It sells accessories, such as carrying cases, hands-free devices, batteries, battery chargers and other items to subscribers, and it sells devices and accessories to agents and other third-party distributors for resale.

The Company delivers wireless services to subscribers primarily through its existing networks or as a reseller of 4G services through its MVNO wholesale relationship with Clearwire. Its Sprint platform, an all-digital wireless network with spectrum licenses that allows the Company to provide! service ! in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands, uses a single frequency band and a digital spread-spectrum wireless technology, code division multiple access (CDMA), that allows a number of users to access the band by assigning a code to all voice and data bits, sending a scrambled transmission of the encoded bits over the air and reassembling the voice and data into its original format. It provides nationwide service through a combination of operating its own digital network in United States metropolitan areas and rural connecting routes, affiliations under commercial arrangements with third-party affiliates (Affiliates) and roaming on other providers' networks.

The Company markets its postpaid services under the Sprint and Nextel brands. It offers these services on a contract basis typically for one or two-year periods, with services billed on a monthly basis according to the applicable pricing plan. As it deploy Network Vision, it will continue to focus on the Sprint platform postpaid subscriber base, including the migration of existing Nextel platform subscribers to other offerings on its Sprint platform, which includes future offerings on its multi-mode network, such as Sprint Direct Connect. It markets its prepaid services under the Boost Mobile, Virgin Mobile, and Assurance Wireless brands as a means to provide value-driven prepaid service plans to particular markets. Its wholesale customers are resellers of its wireless services rather than end-use subscribers and market their products and services using their brands.

The Company competes with AT&T, Verizon Wireless (Verizon), T-Mobile, Metro PCS Communications, Inc., Leap Wireless International, Inc. and TracFone Wireless.

Wireline

The Company provides a suite of wireline voice and data communications services to other communications companies and targeted business and consumer subscribers. In addition, it provides voice, data and IP communication services to its Wireles! s segment! , and IP and other services to cable Multiple System Operators (MSOs). Cable MSOs resell its local and long distance services and use its back office systems and network assets in support of their telephone service provided over cable facilities primarily to residential end-user subscribers. The Company is a provider of long distance services and operate all-digital global long distance and Tier 1 IP networks.

The Company�� services and products include domestic and international data communications using various protocols such as multiprotocol label switching technologies (MPLS), IP, managed network services, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), Session Initiated Protocol (SIP) and traditional voice services. Its IP services can also be combined with wireless services. Such services include its Sprint Mobile Integration service, which enables a wireless handset to operate as part of a subscriber's wireline voice network, and its DataLinkSM service, which uses its wireless networks to connect a subscriber location into their primarily wireline wide-area IP/MPLS data network.

The Company also provides wholesale voice local and long distance services to cable MSOs, which they offer as part of their bundled service offerings, as well as traditional voice and data services for their enterprise use. The Company also continues to provide voice services to residential consumers. Its Wireline segment markets and sells its services primarily through direct sales representatives. It offers VoIP-based services to business subscribers and transport VoIP-originated traffic for various cable companies.

The Company competes with AT&T, Verizon Communications, CenturyLink and Level 3 Communications, Inc.

Top 10 Clean Energy Stocks To Watch For 2014: MSB Financial Corp.(MSBF)

MSB Financial Corp. operates as the holding company for Millington Savings Bank that offers various banking products and services in New Jersey. It offers various deposit products, including checking and savings accounts, certificates of deposit, and fixed or variable rate individual retirement accounts. The company?s loan portfolio comprises one-to-four family loans, construction loans, commercial loans, home equity loans, and lines of credit, as well as consumer loans, including new and used auto loans, secured and unsecured personal loans, account loans, and overdraft lines of credit. It also provides financing for commercial real estate, including multi family dwellings/apartment buildings, service/retail and mixed-use properties, churches and non-profit properties, medical and dental facilities, and other commercial real estates. The company was founded in 1911 and is based in Millington, New Jersey. MSB Financial Corp. is a subsidiary of MSB Financial, MHC.

Top Insurance Companies For 2014: Twin Butte Energy Com Npv (TBE.TO)

Twin Butte Energy Ltd. engages in the acquisition, exploration, development, and production of petroleum and natural gas properties in Western Canada. The company�s principal properties include the Frog Lake property, Silverdale area, Freemont area, and Primate area located in the Lloydminster region of Saskatchewan and Alberta, Canada. It has approximately 220,000 net undeveloped acres of land. The company was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in Calgary, Canada.

Top 10 Clean Energy Stocks To Watch For 2014: Urban Communications Inc. (UBN.V)

Urban Communications Inc., a telecommunications company, develops and operates telecommunications networks for the delivery of video, telephone, and Internet services to commercial and residential customers in Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia. The company engages in the construction and maintenance of fiber, cable, and wireless residential and commercial telecommunications networks to national and regional service providers. It also provides Ethernet services; and broadband services, including entertainment content and gaming portals. The company was formerly known as Boulevard Capital Ltd. and changed its name to Urban Communications Inc. in June 2001. Urban Communications Inc. was incorporated in 1988 and is headquartered in Burnaby, Canada.

Top 10 Clean Energy Stocks To Watch For 2014: Ampal-American Israel Corporation(AMPL)

Ampal-American Israel Corp. acquires interests in businesses located in the State of Israel or that are Israel-related. It invests in companies in energy, real estate and project development, and leisure. The company provides its investee companies with ongoing support through its involvement in the investees? strategic decisions and introduction to the financial community, investment bankers, and other potential investors both in and outside of Israel. Ampal-American Israel Corp. was founded in 1942 and is based in Herzliya, Israel with an additional office in New York, New York.

Top 10 Clean Energy Stocks To Watch For 2014: Blueknight Energy(BKEP)

Blueknight Energy Partners, L.P., together with its subsidiaries, provides integrated terminalling, storage, processing, gathering, and transportation services for companies engaged in the production, distribution and marketing of crude oil and asphalt products in the United States. The company offers crude oil terminalling and storage services, which enables it customers to manage their crude oil inventories, marketing, and operating activities, as well as asphalt services that enables its customers to manage their asphalt product storage and processing, and marketing activities. It also provides crude oil pipeline and crude oil trucking services. In addition, the company offers producer field services, including gathering condensates by way of bobtail trucks for natural gas companies to hauling produced water to disposal wells; provision of hot and cold fresh water; chemical and down hole well treatment services; wet oil clean up services; and building and maintaining se paration facilities. As of July 19, 2011, it owned and operated a portfolio of midstream energy assets consisting of approximately 8.1 million barrels of crude oil storage facilities located in Oklahoma and Texas; approximately 1,285 miles of crude oil pipeline network located primarily in Oklahoma and Texas; approximately 300 crude oil transportation and oilfield services vehicles deployed in Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas; and approximately 7.4 million barrels of combined asphalt product and residual fuel oil storage facilities located at 45 terminals in 22 states. The company was formerly known as SemGroup Energy Partners, L.P. Blueknight Energy Partners, L.P. is based in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Top 10 Clean Energy Stocks To Watch For 2014: Exactech Inc.(EXAC)

Exactech, Inc. develops, manufactures, markets, distributes, and sells orthopaedic implant devices, and related surgical instrumentation and biologic services. It offers knee implants that address orthopedic surgeons? concerns for contact stress, patellar tracking, polyethylene wear, joint stability, bone preservation, and instrumentation; and hip implants for hip arthroplasty, hip fractures, and primary hip surgery. The company also provides biologics and spine products for the healing and regeneration of bone and soft tissue; and allograft tissue implants for oral and dental applications. In addition, it offers shoulder systems for the treatment of degenerative disease and trauma; hip, knee, and shoulder spacers that are used in two stage revision procedures; and an air-driven impact handpiece that surgeons could use during joint implant revision procedures to remove failed prostheses and bone cement. The company markets its orthopedic implant products through a network of independent sales agencies, direct sales representatives, and independent distributors to hospitals, surgeons and other physicians, and clinics in the United States and internationally. It has a strategic partnership with Genzyme Biosurgery Corporation for the development of polymer-based synthetic biomaterials. The company was founded in 1985 and is based in Gainesville, Florida.

Top 10 Clean Energy Stocks To Watch For 2014: NewBridge Bancorp(NBBC)

NewBridge Bancorp operates as a bank holding company for NewBridge Bank that provides various banking products to small to medium-sized businesses and retail clients. It accepts various deposit products, including interest bearing and noninterest bearing demand deposit accounts, certificates of deposits, savings accounts, NOW accounts, and individual retirement accounts. The company also provides a range of lending products comprising construction, commercial, real estate, and consumer loans. In addition, it offers overdraft protection, personal and corporate trust services, safe deposit boxes, online banking, corporate cash management, brokerage, financial planning and asset management, and mortgage production, as well as secured and unsecured loans. As of December 31, 2010, the company operated 31 branch offices, 2 commercial loan production offices, and 2 mortgage loan production offices in the Piedmont Triad region and coastal region of North Carolina, and the Shenando ah Valley region of Virginia; 1 mortgage loan production office in Raleigh, North Carolina; and 1 in Charlotte, North Carolina. NewBridge Bancorp was founded in 1949 and is based in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Top 10 Clean Energy Stocks To Watch For 2014: Cornerstone Progressive Return Fund(CFP)

Cornerstone Progressive Return Fund is a closed-ended equity fund of fund launched and managed by Cornerstone Advisors, Inc. The fund invests funds investing in the public equity markets of the United States. It invests in stocks of companies operating across diversified sectors. Cornerstone Progressive Return Fund was formed on April 26, 2007 and is domiciled in the United States.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Dan Caplinger]

  But you can see in several places the consequences of the stampede toward high yield. Here are just a few:

  Closed-end funds Cornerstone Progressive (NYSEMKT: CFP  ) and Pimco High Income (NYSE: PHK  ) both make fixed payments back to fund shareholders on a monthly basis, and their distribution yields are truly extraordinary, at about 17% and 12%, respectively. Those dividends have enticed shareholders to pay $1.30 to $1.40 or more for each $1 of assets in the funds. Yet during most months, a substantial portion of those distribution payments has simply been a return of investor capital rather than true income from the funds' investments. A recent study discussed in The Wall Street Journal found that returns on a portfolio with a combined value and dividend-income strategy outperformed a strategy focused more exclusively on maximizing dividends by an average of 1.7 percentage points per year, a huge edge in long-run returns. In the dividend ETF arena, most funds tend to focus on maximizing yield. Although the popular Vanguard Dividend Appreciation (NYSEMKT: VIG  ) ETF bucks the trend by screening first for consistent dividend growth and only then looking at yield as a factor, many rival ETFs start with high-yielding stocks as their baseline and only then consider other desirable traits. Others focus solely on high-dividend niches of the market, such as iShares FTSE NAREIT Mortgage-Plus (NYSEMKT: REM  ) and its concentration on high-yield mortgage REITs.

  When dividend stocks get too popular, their prices get out of line with both their dividend income and the fundamentals of the businesses that underlie those stocks. In simpler terms, when dividend stocks become bad values, it's time to consider looking elsewhere for a margin of safety.

Top 10 Clean Energy Stocks To Watch For 2014: Ocean Power Technologies Inc.(OPTT)

Ocean Power Technologies, Inc. engages in the development and commercialization of proprietary systems that generate electricity by harnessing the renewable energy of ocean waves primarily in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. The company offers utility PowerBuoy system to supply electricity to a local or regional electric power grid; and autonomous PowerBuoy system that is designed to generate power for use independent of the power grid in remote locations. Its autonomous PowerBuoy system is also used in various applications, including homeland security, off-shore oil and gas platforms, aquaculture, and ocean-based communication and data gathering, such as tsunami warnings. The company sells its products to public utilities, independent power producers, and other governmental entities and agencies, as well as public and private entities that use electricity in and near the ocean. Ocean Power Technologies, Inc. was incorporated in 1984 and is headquartered in Penn ington, New Jersey.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Dr. Kent Moors]

  But Ocean Power Technologies Inc. (Nasdaq GM: OPTT) - a firm I have followed for some time - is different.

  The whole company is worth just $16 million at the moment. But it's having success now using stationary buoys to generate power.

• [By Konrad Kuhn]

  Ocean Power Technologies (OPTT) is a pioneer in wave energy technology that harnesses ocean wave resources, to generate clean and environmentally-beneficial electricity.

• [By Lisa Levin]

  Ocean Power Technologies (NASDAQ: OPTT) surged 23.89% to $2.80 in the pre-market session after the company received a $2.6 million contract from Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding Co.