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On January 11, Emulex (ELX) announced that its OneConnect™ Universal Converged Network Adapters (UCNAs) doubled the performance of best-in-class 8Gb Fibre Channel HBAs and 10Gb Converged Network Adapters in side-by-side testing with competitive products from Broadcom (BRCM), Brocade (BRCD) and QLogic (QLGC).Top Pick Selection for 2010This announcement is significant because Emulex is enjoing first mover advantage with a product that has a clear tehcnology advantage. That's one reason why they're Canaccord|Adams top pick for 2010. In a December Daily Letter, Paul Mansky writes, Complete Story »

Steve Alexander submits:Every year, Forbes creates a list of the top 200 best small companies in America. To be eligible for the list, a company must have annual revenue between $5 and $750 million, be publicly traded for at least a year, and have a stock price of at least $5. The rankings are done based on earnings growth, sales growth, and return on equity. Forbes has found that this group of stocks has outperformed the benchmark Russell 2000 of small stocks by about 10% annually.This list is especially interesting for Magic Formula investors, as a staple of MFI is purchasing small-cap stocks, which are often under-followed and thus inefficiently priced in the market. Taking the Forbes list and pulling out the current Magic Formula stocks could find us some attractive investment ideas from the number of declining businesses or cyclical entities on the screen. Here is a table of current MFI stocks that appear in the top 200 list:Complete Story »

Frederic Ruffy submits: SentimentStocks fell despite merger news, a better-than-expected earnings report from Wal-Mart (WMT), and data that showed a decline in weekly jobless claims. Wal-Mart is one of only 5 Dow stocks moving higher after the retailer reported a quarterly profit of 84 cents, which beat Street estimates by 3 cents. On the economic front, the latest weekly jobless claims showed some improvement. According to the Labor Department, filings fell by 12,000 to 502,000 in the week ended November 7. Economists were looking for a smaller 4,000 drop. Meanwhile, the tech sector was in focus on news H-P (HPQ) made a bid for 3Com (COMS) and Advanced Micro (AMD) rallied on news of a long-awaited settlement with Intel (INTC).However, the tech-heavy NASDAQ gave up its early gains and weakness in the commodities markets sent many metals, mining and energy names lower. Crude oil is down $2.52 to $76.76 on bearish weekly inventory data. Gold lost $8.50 to $1106.10 after the buck bounced a bit higher against the euro.Complete Story »

On October 6, the Wall Street Journal reported an oxymoron: “Brocade Communications Systems Inc.(BRCD) has quietly put itself up for sale.”Since then, news from one of the most widely read publications in the world has taken on a life of it’s own as the industry leveraged the full capabilities of social networking to speculate on the endless possibilities.Complete Story »

Hickey and Walters (Bespoke) submit:
As noted earlier, Friday marks the two-year anniversary of the S&P 500's closing peak. As of Thursday's close (10/8), only 57 of the 500 stocks currently in the index are up since then. Needless to say, it has been a lousy two years. Below we highlight the 25 best performing stocks in the index over the last two years. As shown, sectors which are the most heavily represented include Technology (7), Energy (6), Consumer Discretionary (5), and Health Care (5). Check back Friday morning for a list of the top performing Mid and Small Cap stocks since 10/9/07.click to enlargeComplete Story »