In perhaps his most provocative post, advisor and investment thought leader Eric Nelson measures Warren Buffett, Jeremy Grantham and John Bogle and finds them all wanting in comparison with his own favored DFA approach to investing.
Nelson, a CFA and registered investment advisor with Servo Wealth Management, regularly analyzes the relative merits of asset-class investing, most particularly with the value-based and small-cap tilt associated with Dimensional Fund Advisors' funds.
His current post in his “Servo Thoughts” series compares asset-class investing — combining assets with low or negative correlations — by setting up the best known proxies for various approaches.
To stand in for active management, Nelson hauls in Warren Buffett, specifically his Berkshire Hathaway Class B shares (NYSE:BRK.B).
As a proxy for tactical management, Nelson brings in Jeremy Grantham’s GMO Global Asset Allocation Fund III (GMWAX).
Representing an indexing approach is the Vanguard Balanced Index Admiral Shares (VBIAX), the 60-40 U.S. stock-bond portfolio that John Bogle recommends for his own family.
Hot Healthcare Technology Companies To Own In Right Now: Galena Biopharma Inc (GALE)
Galena Biopharma, Inc. (Galena), formerly RXi Pharmaceuticals Corporation, incorporated on April 3, 2006, is a biotechnology company focused on discovering, developing and commercializing therapies addressing unmet medical needs using targeted biotherapeutics. The Company is pursuing the development of cancer therapeutics using peptide-based immunotherapy products, including its main product candidate, NeuVaxTM (E75), for the treatment of breast cancer and other tumors. NeuVax is a peptide-based immunotherapy intended to reduce the recurrence of breast cancer in low-to-intermediate HER2-positive breast cancer patients not eligible for trastuzumab (Herceptin; Genentech/Roche). On January 19, 2012, the Company initiated enrollment in its Phase 3 PRESENT clinical trial for NeuVax (E75 peptide plus GM-CSF) vaccine in low-to-intermediate HER2 1+ and 2+ breast cancer patients in the adjuvant setting to prevent recurrence (Clinicaltrials.gov identifier NCT01479244). The Prevention of Recurrence in Early-Stage, Node-Positive Breast Cancer with Low to Intermediate HER2 Expression with NeuVax Treatment study is a randomized, multicenter, multinational clinical trial that will enroll approximately 700 breast cancer patients. The Company�� Phase 2 trial of NeuVax achieved its primary endpoint of disease-free survival (DFS). On April 13, 2011, the Company completed its acquisition of Apthera, Inc.,(Apthera).
The Company focuses to start a Phase 2 trial comparing NeuVax in combination with trastuzumab (Herceptin) versus trastuzumab, alone, in a 300-patient, randomized study in the adjuvant breast cancer setting. The Company's second product candidate, Folate Binding Protein-E39 (FBP), is a vaccine, consisting of the peptides E39 and J65, aimed at preventing the recurrence of ovarian, endometrial, and breast cancers. On February 14, 2012, the Company announced the initiation of a Phase 1/2 clinical trial in two gynecological cancers: ovarian and endometrial adenocarcinomas. Folate binding protein has ! very limited tissue distribution and expression in non-malignant tissue and is over-expressed in more than 90% of ovarian and endometrial cancers, as well as in 20% to 50% of breast, lung, colorectal and renal cell carcinomas.
In April 2011, the Company acquired Apthera Inc and its NeuVax product candidate. The Company focuses on developing a pipeline of immunotherapy product candidates for the treatment of various cancers based on the E75 peptide, the advanced of which is NeuVax, which is targeted at preventing the recurrence of breast cancer. NeuVax has had positive Phase 1/2 clinical trial results for the prevention of breast cancer recurrence in patients who have had breast cancer and received the standard of care treatment (surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and hormonal therapy as indicated). The Company had also initiated its Phase 3 PRESENT clinical trial of NeuVax for the prevention of breast cancer recurrence in early-stage low-to-intermediate HER2 breast cancer patients. NeuVax directs killer T-cells to target and destroy cancer cells that express HER2/neu, a protein associated with epithelial tumors in breast, ovarian, pancreatic, colon, bladder and prostate cancers. NeuVax is comprised of a HER2/neu-derived peptide called E75. E75 is a nine-amino acid sequence that is immunogenic (produces an immune response) and GM-CSF is a commercially available protein that acts to stimulate and activate components of the immune system such as macrophages and dendritic cells.
The Company also develops novel applications for NeuVax based on preclinical studies and phases 2 clinical trials which suggest that combining NeuVax and trastuzumab (Herceptin; Genentech/Roche) can increase antigen presentation by tumor cells by promoting receptor internalization and subsequent proteosomal degradation of the HER2 protein. The Company also is pursuing additional therapeutic indications for NeuVax that are in Phase 1/2 clinical trials. RXI-109, is a dermal anti-scarring therapy that targets! connecti! ve tissue growth factor (CTGF) and that may inhibit connective tissue formation in human fibrotic disease.
The Company competes with Roche Laboratories, Inc., Pfizer Inc., Bayer HealthCare AG, Sanofi-Aventis, US, LLC, Amgen, Inc., GlaxoSmithKline plc, Renovo Group plc, CoDa Therapeutics, Inc., Sirnaomics, Inc., FirstString Research, Inc., Merz Pharmaceuticals, LLC, Capstone Therapeutics, Halscion, Inc., Garnet Bio Therapeutics, Inc., AkPharma Inc., Promedior, Inc., Kissei Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., Eyegene, Derma Sciences, Inc., Healthpoint Biotherapeutics, Pharmaxon, Excaliard Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Marina Biotech, Inc., Tacere Therapeutics, Inc., Benitec Limited, OPKO Health, Inc., Silence Therapeutics plc, Quark Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Rosetta Genomics Ltd., Lorus Therapeutics, Inc., Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corporation, Arrowhead Research Corporation, Regulus Therapeutics Inc. and Santaris.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Paul Ausick]
Stocks on the move: Galena Biopharma Inc. (NASDAQ: GALE) is down 15.4% at $1.93 after pricing a secondary offering of 17.5 million units at $2.00. Safeway Inc. (NYSE: SWY) is up 6.1% at $28.21, after an analyst�� upgrade which sent shares to a new 52-week high of $28.88 earlier. Avanir Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: AVNR) is down 18.2% at $4.08.
- [By James E. Brumley]
The last two weeks have been absolutely fantastic ones for Galena Biopharma Inc. (NASDAQ:GALE). Shares have soared from $2.37 to the current price of $3.32 - a 40% pop - rewarding investors who had been patiently waiting through late October for the runup to take hold. Congratulations if that's you. But, if that was you, then now might be a great time to take the money and run with the trade, as GALE looks poised to make a sizeable pullback. More on that in a moment.
- [By James E. Brumley]
It may look like little more than a choppy mess with just a quick glance at Galena Biopharma Inc. (NASDAQ:GALE). But, the more you study the chart - and the company - the more you realize there's enough long-term potential from the company's pipeline to keep spurring GALE in a generally-upward direction. In fact, the bulls look like they're on the verge of taking Galena Biopharma out of second gear and putting it into third. As such, it may not be a bad bet at this point.
5 Best Warren Buffett Stocks To Watch Right Now: Gafisa SA (GFA)
Gafisa S.A. (Gafisa), incorporated on November 12, 1996, is a diversified national homebuilder serving all demographic segments of the Brazilian market. The Company�� brands include Tenda, which serves the affordable entry-level housing segments, Gafisa, which offers a variety of residential options to the mid to higher income segments and Alphaville, which focuses on the identification, development and sale of residential communities. In addition, it provides construction services to third parties. Gafisa�� core business is the development of residential units in attractive locations. During the year ended December 31, 2009, approximately 55% of the value of its launches was derived from high and mid high-level residential developments under the Gafisa brand. It is also engaged in the development of land subdivisions, also known as residential communities, representing approximately 18% of the value of its launches under the Alphaville brand, and affordable entry-level housing, which represents approximately 27% of the value of its launches under the Tenda brand. In addition, it provides construction services to third parties. Gafisa operates in more than 120 cities, including Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Fortaleza, Natal, Curitiba, Belo Horizonte, Manaus, Porto Alegre and Belem, across 21 states and the Federal District.
Real Estate Activities
The Company�� real estate business includes developments for sale of residential units; land subdivisions (also known as residential communities); commercial buildings; construction services to third parties, and sale of units through its brokerage subsidiaries, Gafisa Vendas and Gafisa Vendas Rio, jointly referred to as Gafisa Vendas. In the residential buildings product category, Gafisa develops three main types of products: luxury buildings targeted at upper-income customers, buildings targeted at middle-income customers; and affordable entry-level housing targeted at lower-income customers. Quality residential buildi! ngs for middle- and upper-income customers are its core products. Luxury buildings units usually have over 180 square meters of private area, at least four bedrooms and three parking spaces. The development includes swimming pools, gyms, visitor parking, and other amenities.
Buildings targeted at middle-income customers have accounted for the majority of its sales. Units usually have between 90 and 180 square meters of private area, three or four bedrooms and two to three underground parking spaces. Buildings are usually developed in large tracts of land as part of multi-building developments and, to a lesser extent, in smaller lots in attractive neighborhoods. Affordable entry-level housing consists of building and house units. Units usually have between 42 to 60 square meters of indoor private area and two to three bedrooms.
Commercial Buildings
During 2009, the Company launched four commercial buildings. These buildings include Centro Empresarial Madureira, Paulista Corporate, Reserva Eco Office Life and Global Offices.
Construction Service
Gafisa provide construction services to third parties, building residential and commercial projects for developers in Brazil. The Company�� principal construction services clients are large companies, many of them developers that do not build their own projects. As of December 31, 2009, its principal construction services clients were Fibra Empreendimentos Imobiliarios S.A., Sisan-Grupo Silvio Santos, Camargo Correa Desenvolvimento Imobiliario S.A., Helbor Empreendimentos Imobiliarios Ltda., InCons S.A., SDI Desenvolvimento Imobiliario Ltda. and Abyara. It also provides construction services on certain developments where it retains an equity interest.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Jon C. Ogg]
Gafisa S.A. (NYSE: GFA) is a homebuilder in Brazil, supposedly with more than $1 billion in projects for 2014 alone. This ADR trades at $3.05 against a 52-week range of $2.22 to $5.24, and this is down only about 2% so far in 2014.
- [By Roberto Pedone]
Gafisa (GFA) is a homebuilder in Brazil. This stock closed up 5% to $3.13 in Tuesday's trading session.
Tuesday's Range: $2.97-$3.15
52-Week Range: $2.22-$5.24
Tuesday's Volume: 1.70 million
Three-Month Average Volume: 1.77 millionFrom a technical perspective, GFA ripped higher here right above some near-term support at $2.80 with decent upside volume. This stock has been uptrending strong for the last month, with shares moving higher from its low of $2.27 to its intraday high of $3.15. During that move, shares of GFA have been consistently making higher lows and higher highs, which is bullish technical price action. That move has now pushed shares of GFA within range of triggering a big breakout trade. That trade will hit if GFA manages to take out Tuesday's high of $3.15 to some past resistance at $3.30 with high volume.
Traders should now look for long-biased trades in GFA as long as it's trending above support at $2.80 and then once it sustains a move or close above those breakout levels with volume that hits near or above 1.77 million shares. If that breakout triggers soon, then GFA will set up to re-test or possibly take out its next major overhead resistance levels at its 200-day moving average of $3.68 to more resistance at $4.20 to $4.70.
5 Best Warren Buffett Stocks To Watch Right Now: First Horizon National Corp (FHN)
First Horizon National Corporation (FHN), incorporated in 1968, is a bank holding company. The Company provides financial services through its subsidiary, First Tennessee Bank National Association (the Bank), and its subsidiaries. The Company�� two brands First Tennessee and FTN Financial provide customers with a range of products and services. First Tennessee provides retail and commercial banking services throughout Tennessee. FTN Financial (FTNF) is engaged in fixed income sales, trading, and strategies for institutional clients in the United States and abroad. FHN has four operating business segments: regional banking, capital markets, corporate, and non-strategic. As of December 31, 2011, the Bank had $16.4 billion in total deposits and $16 billion in total net loans. As of December 31, 2011, the Company�� subsidiaries had over 200 business locations in 17 the United States states, Hong Kong, and Tokyo, excluding off-premises automated teller machines (ATMs). As of December 31, 2011, the Bank had 183 branch locations in four states, which include 172 branches in metropolitan areas of Tennessee; two branches in northwestern Georgia; seven branches in northwestern Mississippi, and two branches in North Carolina. As of December 31, 2011, FTN Financial products and services were offered through 18 offices in total, including 16 offices in 14 states plus an office in each of Hong Kong and Tokyo.
The regional banking segment offers financial products and services, including traditional lending and deposit taking, to retail and commercial customers in Tennessee and surrounding markets. Regional banking provides investments, financial planning, trust services and asset management, credit card, cash management, and first lien mortgage originations within the Tennessee footprint. In addition, the regional banking segment includes correspondent banking, which provides credit, depository, and other banking related services to other financial institutions.
The capital markets se! gment consists of fixed income sales, trading, and strategies for institutional clients in the United States and abroad, as well as loan sales, portfolio advisory, and derivative sales. The corporate segment consists of gains on the extinguishment of debt, unallocated corporate expenses, expense on subordinated debt issuances and preferred stock, bank-owned life insurance, unallocated interest income associated with excess equity, net impact of raising incremental capital, revenue and expense associated with deferred compensation plans, funds management, low income housing investment activities, and charges related to restructuring, repositioning, and efficiency. The non-strategic segment consists of the wind-down national consumer lending activities, legacy mortgage banking elements, including servicing fees, and the associated ancillary revenues and expenses related to these businesses. Non-strategic also includes the wind-down trust preferred loan portfolio and exited businesses along with the associated restructuring, repositioning, and efficiency charges.
As of December 31, 2011, the Company provided services through its subsidiaries, which include general banking services for consumers, businesses, financial institutions, and governments; through FTN Financial fixed income sales and trading, underwriting of bank, loan sales, advisory services and derivative sales; discount brokerage and full-service brokerage; correspondent banking; transaction processing, such as nationwide check clearing services and remittance processing; trust, fiduciary, and agency services; credit card products; equipment finance; investment and financial advisory services; mutual fund sales as agent; retail insurance sales as agent, and mortgage banking services.
As of December 31, 2011, the commercial, financial, and industrial (C&I) portfolio was eight billion dollars, and is consisted of loans used for general business purposes, and consisted of relationship customers in Tennessee and certain n! eighborin! g states, which are managed within the regional bank. Products include working capital lines of credit, term loan financing of owner-occupied real estate and fixed assets, and trade credit enhancement through letters of credit. As of December 31, 2011, the unpaid principal balance (UPB) of trust preferred loans totaled $447.2 million with the UPB of other bank-related loans totaling approximately $161.8 million. The commercial real estate portfolio includes both financings for commercial construction and non-construction loans. This portfolio is segregated between income commercial real estate (CRE) loans which contain loans, lines, and letters of credit to commercial real estate developers for the construction and mini- permanent financing of income-producing real estate, and residential CRE loans. The residential CRE portfolio includes loans to residential builders and developers for the purpose of constructing single-family detached homes, condominiums, and town homes. As of December 31, 2011, the residential CRE portfolio was $.1 billion. As of December 31, 2011, the consumer real estate portfolio was $5.3 billion, and is composed of home equity lines and installment loans. As of December 31, 2011, the credit card and other portfolios were $.3 billion, and primarily include credit card receivables, automobile loans, and over-the-counter (OTC) construction loans and other consumer related credits.
FHN�� investment portfolio consists of debt securities, including government agency issued mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and government agency issued collateralized mortgage obligations (CMO). During the year ended December 31, 2011, Government agency issued MBS and CMO, and other agencies averaged $2.9 billion. During 2011, the United States treasury securities and municipal bonds averaged $79.5 million. During 2011, investments in equity securities averaged $222.3 million.
During 2011, short-term funds (certificates of deposit greater than $100,000, federal funds purchased (! FFP), sec! urities sold under agreements to repurchase, trading liabilities, and other short-term borrowings) averaged $3.6 billion. During 2011, other borrowings increased to $.3 billion. Term borrowings include senior and subordinated borrowings and advances with original maturities greater than one year. During 2011, average term borrowings averaged $2.6 billion.
The Company competes with Regions Bank, SunTrust Bank, Wells Fargo Bank N.A., Bank of America N.A., and Pinnacle National Bank.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Monica Gerson]
First Horizon National (NYSE: FHN) is expected to report its Q2 earnings at $0.17 per share on revenue of $286.98 million.
Synacor (NASDAQ: SYNC) is estimated to post a Q1 loss at $0.05 per share on revenue of $24.53 million.
5 Best Warren Buffett Stocks To Watch Right Now: Rally Software Development Corp (RALY)
Rally Software Development Corp., incorporated on July 12, 2001, is a global provider of cloud-based solutions for managing Agile software development. The Company's platform transforms the way organizations manage the software development lifecycle by enabling close alignment of software development and strategic business objectives, facilitating collaboration, increasing transparency, and automating manual processes. Organizations use its solutions to accelerate the pace of innovation, improve productivity and more effectively adapt to rapidly-changing customer needs and competitive dynamics. Its enterprise-class platform is extensible, cost-effective and designed to be easy to use. Agile is a software development methodology characterized by short, iterative and adaptable development cycles.
The Company provides a common platform on which organizations can collaborate across globally-distributed software development teams, solicit ideas and feedback from customers, and gain transparency into Agile software development projects. Its solutions automate and optimize activities such as project planning and scheduling, resource allocation and reporting on progress and cost, enabling users to manage the entire Agile software development lifecycle. Its cloud-based platform of management solutions is designed to address the application lifecycle market, which IDC defines as comprising the software configuration management, information technology (IT) project and portfolio management, and automated software markets.
Agile Management Solutions
It offers Agile management solutions that its customers use for planning, collaborating, tracking and reporting on the creation of new software products and applications. Its solutions support the full software development lifecycle with key capabilities that include Idea Management, Agile Portfolio Management, Time and Cost Management, Agile Project Management, Requirements Management and Quality Management. Its Idea Management c! apability, Rally Idea Manager, is used by its customers to engage with their end users to solicit ideas for products and manage feedback on proposed features and enhancements. This capability establishes a communication channel between its customers and their end-users. Teams and organizations use this capability to engage directly with end-users in an online community, collect information to assess customer needs and automatically communicate development status to end-users.
Its Agile Portfolio Management capability, Rally Portfolio Manager, bridges the gap between business leaders and development teams. Business leaders are provided up-to-date and accurate information on the status of key projects while development teams are provided clear visibility into the priorities of the business in order to better align their feature backlogs. Our Time and Cost Management capability, Rally Time Tracker, enables key financial functions related to software development, such as software capitalization, cost tracking, budget management and billing. This capability reduces double entry in other systems and ensures data is captured and aggregated into reports. Teams and organizations use this capability to reduce daily overhead of tracking time by integrating into the daily process, design and generate aggregate timesheets to meet accounting, budgeting or billing requirements , ensure that time entries meet audit and compliance requirements and integrate time tracking information into existing back office and time and attendance applications.
Its Agile Project Management capability allows cross-functional teams to efficiently plan and manage software releases. Teams and organizations use this capability to manage product and release backlogs that reflect the priorities of the business, schedule all or parts of requirements from backlogs into releases based on capacity and real-time visibility into the status of features, priorities, roadblocks and risks. Its Requirements Management capabil! ity enabl! es business leaders and analysts to centrally manage and prioritize features for development. Users can elaborate requirements with needed details, break them up into smaller units and organize them to match the changing structures of their teams or technology components. Its Quality Management capability, Rally Quality Manager, enables testing engineers to integrate testing into the development process from the beginning of a project. This capability provides a full enterprise solution to plan and track the execution of test activities.
Platform Capabilities
Its platform employs a analytics and reporting engine. In addition to over 25 pre-built standard reports, its platform includes a custom reporting engine that allows customers to create reports to meet their needs. Its platform also includes dashboard technology to present personalized content and then share that content for consistent use across a team or organization. Its platform provides enterprise-class security capabilities simplifying the administration of thousands of users. It can integrate its platform with its customers' existing security infrastructure to provide end-users with the ability to have single-sign-on (SSO) and provide advanced security measures to reduce risk and meet the needs of enterprises. This adaptability also ensures its solutions can be configured to meet the changing needs of an organization. It offers an open Web services application programming interface (WSAPI) providing full read-write access to all of the data within its platform. The WSAPI is versioned so that integrations or customizations are insulated from changes in the WSAPI, thereby preserving a customer's investment in custom functionality.
It provides customization services that produce Apps for specific customer needs. Examples of Apps that are available in its catalog include Dependency Status Dashboard enables organizations to view dependencies between teams and forecast potential impediments and stoppages in ! a project! ; System Requirement Validation Document generates a document for signature and archival typically used by customers in regulated industries to validate that the requirements of a system or application have been met; Agile Earned-Value Management provides a report based on traditional project management practices that provides what-if scenarios for planning scope, schedule and budget, and There are over 40 integrations available for its platform. It has 25 pre-built integrations with complementary products that synchronize their data with its platform. Additionally, there are over 20 integrations that third parties have created with its platform that they offer to their customers. It also integrates with open-source development tools, including Subversion, Jenkins and Eclipse, as well as commercial products, including Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Visual Studio and HP QualityCenter.
Editions
It offers four editions of its Agile management solution. Each edition is built on the same software code base. Rally Community Edition is designed for an individual team that operates independently, even if it is part of a larger organization. Community Edition includes a basic version of Agile Project Management and Requirements Management capabilities and is available for free for 10 users and one project.
Rally eXpress Edition is designed for both and small organizations and scales from a single team to multiple, independent teams and projects. eXpress Edition includes a basic version of Agile Project Management and Requirements Management capabilities. eXpress Edition supports unlimited users and projects.
Rally Enterprise Edition is targeted at medium to organizations focused on coordinating projects across multiple teams. Enterprise Edition includes Agile Project Management, Requirements Management and basic Quality Management capabilities. Enterprise Edition supports unlimited users and projects.
Rally Unlimited Edition is built for organizations and ! offers it! s full set of capabilities for managing the entire software lifecycle, including Idea Management, Agile Portfolio Management, Time and Cost Management, Agile Project Management, Requirements Management and Quality Management. Unlimited Edition supports unlimited users and projects.
On-Premise Deployment Option
A small percentage of its customers deploy its solutions on-premise. When its software is installed at the customer site, it specifies the hardware requirements and deliver its solutions on a virtual software appliance.
Professional Services
It offers a broad array of professional services to its customers to assist them in the implementation of its platform and adoption of Agile techniques.It offers its services globally. It offer public and private courses educating customers on Agile practices. A number of its training courses are certified by the independent organization Scrum Alliance. Through its Agile University brand, it offers Agile-related education and coursework taught by its consultants and a network of instructors. It offers a broad set of services that help customers implement Agile practices across their organization. It aims to make organizations self-sufficient so they can continue expanding their usage of Agile after it concludes its services engagement. Its implementation services combine workshops and training to help organizations incorporate its platform into their development process. These services include process training and product customization to help organizations take advantage of the full breadth of capabilities its platform offers. Customers can elect to leverage its platform extension services to customize its platform to meet the specific needs of their organization. It creates custom Apps and customized integrations to ensure that its solutions fit a customer's infrastructure and practices, and it offers data migration services to migrate data from a customer's legacy application into its platform.
The ! Company competes with Atlassian, CollabNet, VersionOne, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Microsoft.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Evan Niu, CFA]
What: Shares of Rally Software (NYSE: RALY ) rallied today by as much as 20% after the company announced fiscal first quarter results.
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