wall street

ARCHER DANIELS MIDLAND CO., $47.85, New York symbol ADM, processes corn, wheat, soybeans, canola, flax seed, peanuts, cocoa and other crops into a wide variety of food ingredients, such as flour, oils and sweeteners. It is also the largest maker of ethanol from corn in the U.S. This week, the company agreed to buy Switzerland-based WILD Flavors, a privately held firm that supplies natural ingredients to over 3,000 food and beverage makers. Archer Daniels will pay 2.3 billion euros (or $3.1 billion U.S.) for WILD when the deal closes by the end of 2014. That’s equal to 10% of Archer Daniels’ $31.3-billion market cap (or the total value of all its outstanding shares)....

TRANSCANADA CORP. $51.93 (Toronto symbol TRP; Shares outstanding: 708.0 million; Market cap: $36.3 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 3.7%; www.transcanada.com) has agreed to build a $1.9-billion, 260-kilometre pipeline that would pump natural gas from northeastern B.C.’s Dawson Creek area to a proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant at Kitimat, on the province’s coast. The plant is a joint venture between Chevron Corp. (New York symbol CVX) and Apache Corp. (New York symbol APA). Both are recommendations of Wall Street Stock Forecaster, our newsletter that focuses on U.S. stocks....

North American and European consumers continue to shift away from cash and toward credit and debit cards. As a result, banks on those two continents are buying fewer automated teller machines. But ATM demand remains high in developing nations, where many stores only accept cash. ATM makers NCR and Diebold are also diversifying into related products and offering more software and support services. We cover both of these stocks in our newsletter on U.S. investing, Wall Street Stock Forecaster. NCR CORP. (New York symbol NCR; www.ncr.com) gets 52% of its revenue from ATMs. It also makes cash registers and self-serve checkouts (32% of revenue) and kiosks for theatres and arenas (10%). Maintenance services supply the other 6%. Overseas markets account for 60% of NCR’s revenue....

PETSMART INC., $67.28, Nasdaq symbol PETM, operates 1,340 pet stores in the U.S. and Canada. It also has 200 in-store PetsHotel boarding facilities for dogs and cats. The stock jumped 12% this week on news that activist investment firm Jana Partners now owns 9.9% of the company. Jana has a history of pressuring companies to improve shareholder value, typically by spinning off certain operations, buying back more shares or raising their dividends. PetSmart currently pays a quarterly dividend of $0.195 a share, for a 1.2% annualized yield. Jana could also encourage PetSmart’s management to sell the entire company....

The shift toward online shopping continues to pick up speed: over the next 10 years, e-commerce could account for 40% of all retail sales in developed nations and 30% in emerging markets. We feel the best way to profit from this trend is through shares of companies that process online payments and fulfill orders. Here are two such stocks we cover in our newsletter on U.S. investing, Wall Street Stock Forecaster. VISA INC. (New York symbol V; www.visa.com) operates the world’s largest electronic payments network, through which it processes credit, debit, prepaid and commercial transactions....

Vanguard Financials ETF, $46.65, symbol VFH on New York (Units outstanding: 45.3 million; Market cap: $2.1 billion; www.vanguard.com), holds a number of stocks among its top holdings that we recommend in Wall Street Stock Forecaster, including Wells Fargo, J.P. Morgan Chase and American Express. It also holds some we don’t recommend, including its third-largest holding, Berkshire Hathaway. Unlike many holding companies, Berkshire Hathaway trades at a premium to its net asset value, and we think it is fully valued at today’s share price. What’s more, its chairman and CEO, famous investor Warren Buffett, celebrated his 83rd birthday last August. When he dies or if he becomes incapacitated, the stock is vulnerable to a sudden and severe downturn....

Every Wednesday, we publish our “Investor Toolkit” series on TSI Network. Whether you’re a beginning or experienced investor, these weekly updates are designed to give you advice on specific investment topics. Each Investor Toolkit update gives you a fundamental piece of investing strategy, and shows you how you can put it into practice right away. Today’s tip: “Selling half of hot stocks that surge helps you guard your profits. But apply this rule only to more aggressive stocks, and not to the well-established stocks that may surprise you by going a lot higher in the long run.” As you probably know, our Successful Investor business model has two parts. We publish investment advice through The Successful Investor Inc., and we manage investor portfolios through Successful Investor Wealth Management Inc. (These two companies are affiliated by common ownership; I own both but set them up as separate companies for regulatory purposes.)...

MONSANTO CO., $125.12, New York symbol MON, reported better-than-expected quarterly earnings this week. It also announced a new share buyback plan. Monsanto sells technology-based agricultural products, such as genetically modified seeds, to farmers, grain processors and food companies. It also sells weed- and pest-control products. In the third quarter of its 2014 fiscal year, which ended May 31, 2014, Monsanto earned $858 million, down 5.6% from $909 million a year earlier. Earnings per share fell 3.6%, to $1.62 from $1.68, on fewer shares outstanding. But even with the decline, the latest earnings beat the consensus forecast of $1.54....

EZChip Semiconductor Ltd., $25.08, symbol EZCH on Nasdaq (Shares outstanding: 29.1 million; Market cap: $740.4 million; www.ezchip.com), is an Israel-based company that specializes in chips that regulate and speed up the flow of data within computer networks. It focuses on design and outsources production to other chipmakers. The company gets nearly 75% of its revenue from three main customers: Cisco Systems, ZTE Corp. and Juniper Networks. (Cisco Systems is a recommendation of Wall Street Stock Forecaster.) This heavy reliance on just a few clients is a significant risk factor. For example, in September 2013, EZChip’s shares dropped from $31 to below $22 on news that Cisco is now developing its own networking chips....

ADOBE SYSTEMS INC., $72.61, Nasdaq symbol ADBE, rose 9% this week after reporting better-than-expected quarterly results. In its fiscal 2014 second quarter, which ended May 30, 2014, Adobe earned $186.3 million, up 1.9% from $182.9 million a year earlier. Due to fewer shares outstanding, earnings per share rose 2.8%, to $0.37 from $0.36. That beat the consensus forecast of $0.30. Revenue gained 5.7%, to $1.07 billion from $1.01 billion. That also beat the consensus forecast of $1.03 billion....