intel

PLEASE NOTE: One week from today, on January 24, 2014, shortly after the stock market closes at 4:00 p.m. Toronto time, we will reveal our #1 Aggressive Stock of 2014 to subscribers of Stock Pickers Digest. You can be among the first to hear about our #1 pick for 2014. Because you’re a loyal subscriber, we are happy to offer you a bargain-priced, no-risk introduction to Stock Pickers Digest. It gives you the first month—and the 2014 Stock of the Year—FREE. But you must act now. Click here. GOOGLE INC., $1,150.53, Nasdaq symbol GOOG, announced this week that it is buying Nest Labs Inc. Nest is a privately held California-based company that was founded by two former Apple engineers. It makes thermostats that adjust a house’s temperature depending on the time of day, the occupants’ habits and other factors. This lowers heating and cooling costs....

INTEL CORP. $25 (Nasdaq symbol INTC; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 5.0 billion; Market cap: $125.0 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.4; Dividend yield: 3.7%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.intel.com) is selling its Intel Media business, which is developing a service calle...

POWERSHARES QQQ ETF $85.49 (Nasdaq symbol QQQQ; buy or sell through brokers; www.invescopowershares- .com), formerly called Nasdaq 100 Trust Shares, holds stocks that represent the Nasdaq 100 Index, which consists of the 100 largest shares on the Nasdaq exchange, based on market cap.

The Nasdaq 100 Index contains shares of companies in a number of major industries, including computer hardware and software, telecommunications, retail/wholesale trade and biotechnology. It does not contain financial companies. The fund’s expenses are about 0.20% of its assets.

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Exchange traded funds (ETFs) are set up to mirror the performance of a stock-market index or subindex. They hold a more or less fixed selection of securities that represent the holdings that go into the calculation of the index or sub-index.

ETFs trade on stock exchanges, just like stocks....

J.P. MORGAN CHASE & CO., $57.46, New York symbol JPM, has agreed to settle a number of lawsuits with the U.S. Justice Department related to securities backed by subprime mortgages. Morgan, Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual sold these investments during the pre-2008 housing boom. When real estate values fell and borrowers defaulted on their mortgages, the value of these securities plunged. Morgan acquired Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual in 2008, after they collapsed, but it is still liable for these lawsuits, which claim these companies deliberately understated the risk of these investments. Under the settlement, Morgan will pay $9 billion in cash to federal and state agencies. In addition, it will reduce the principal owed on current mortgages, reduce the payment on other loans, and demolish abandoned properties. In all, these concessions total $4 billion....

ARM Holdings plc (ADRs), $49.32, symbol ARMH on Nasdaq (ADRs outstanding: 466.4 million; Market cap: $23.5 billion; www.arm.com) designs chips and software for a variety of electronic devices, including cellphones, tablets, network routers, digital cameras and automobile-control systems. The Cambridge, U.K.-based company does not make its chips. Instead, it earns royalties by licensing its technology to makers of electronic products. Its major customers include Qualcomm, Samsung and Nvidia. Apple is also using ARM’s technology in its A7 processors, which power its new iPhone 5S. Intel is challenging ARM’s dominance of the mobile market and has gained momentum in smartphones since introducing its Medfield chips in 2012. Intel is scheduled to roll out its new design, called Silvermont, by the end of this year. That will help it further compete in the mobile chip market....

GOOGLE INC., $1,011.41, Nasdaq symbol GOOG, jumped 14% on Friday after the company reported better-than-expected earnings and revenue. In the three months ended September 30, 2013, earnings rose 23.3%, to $3.6 billion from $3.0 billion a year earlier. Due to more shares outstanding, earnings per share rose at a slower rate of 21.1%, to $10.74 from $8.87....

VANGUARD GROWTH ETF $82.43 (New York symbol VUG; buy or sell through brokers) aims to track the CRSP U.S. Large Cap Growth Index, a broadly diversified index that mainly consists of shares of large U.S. companies. The fund’s MER is just 0.10%.

The $32.6-billion Vanguard Growth ETF’s top holdings are Apple, IBM, Google, Coca-Cola, Philip Morris International, Oracle, Comcast, Qualcomm and Intel.

The fund’s breakdown by industry is as follows: Technology (26.1%), Consumer Services (20.9%), Financials (12.0%), Consumer Goods (10.6%), Industrials (11.5%), Health Care (9.3%), Oil and Gas (7.2%), Materials (1.6%), Telecommunication Services (0.4%) and Utilities (0.4%).
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Pennsylvania-based Vanguard Group is one of the world’s largest investment-management companies. The group administers over $2 trillion U.S. in 170 mutual funds.

Vanguard, which went into business in 1975, offers low-fee index mutual funds. Generally speaking, Canadians can’t buy units of mutual funds that are registered in the U.S., because they aren’t registered with provincial securities commissions....

POWERSHARES QQQ ETF $76.42 (Nasdaq symbol QQQQ; buy or sell through brokers; www.invescopowershares- .com), formerly called Nasdaq 100 Trust Shares, holds stocks that represent the Nasdaq 100 Index, which consists of the 100 largest shares on the Nasdaq exchange, based on market cap.

The Nasdaq 100 Index contains shares of companies in a number of major industries, including computer hardware and software, telecommunications, retail/wholesale trade and biotechnology. It does not contain financial companies. The fund’s expenses are about 0.20% of its assets.

The index’s highest-weighted stocks are Apple, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Google, Cisco Systems, Intel, Amazon.com, Gilead Sciences, Comcast Corp. and Amgen.
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