During the past two years, the Motley Fool has allowed the public to follow real-time stock picks by some of our top analysts absolutely free of charge. Within the last couple of weeks, three of their picks have popped up on my radar. Read below to find out which companies they picked, and at the end, you’ll get an offer to access a premium special report on one of the companies.
Clean Energy Fuels
This company has an easier-to-understand purpose than you might think. Natural gas has become ever more popular, due to its cheap price. Clean Energy Fuels is attempting to capitalize on this by building out a network of filling stations for cars and trucks that can run on natural gas.
Fool analyst Jason Moser likes the company’s position in the market enough that he recently added shares to his portfolio. Jason said he looks for four things in his investments. The first is management that he can trust and, with the backing of energy guru T. Boone Pickens, Jason’s happy with Clean Energy.
Second, Jason likes a business model that he can understand. As I pointed out above, the building out of fueling stations is pretty simple.
Third, Jason looks for long- or short-term catalysts that will enhance a company’s value. Looking at where alternative-fuel vehicles are, and where they’re headed, has Jason optimistic.
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration
Finally, Jason likes a stock at a reasonable price. He stated that, "If the company reaches profitability in 2014, I think the stock could be worth closer to $30 per share." With today’s price sitting at under $14, that’s a pretty good deal.
Baidu
The dominant Chinese search engine has been a popular choice among Fools lately, myself included. Recently, Andrew Tonner decided he wanted a piece of the action, as well.
He thinks concerns about the encroachment of companies like Qihoo 360 and Sohu
In essence, even if Qihoo and Sohu take some market share, which is by no means a sure thing, there are still about 335 million Chinese residents to come on-line before China reaches a level of Internet penetration commensurate with other wired nations.
A look at the company’s accelerating revenue and income take shows that recent trends are definitely on the company’s side.
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration
Western Digital
Finally, Fool analyst Jim Mueller is buying shares of a company he already knows and loves, Western Digital, which makes hard disk drives for the world’s computing needs.
When Jim first bought shares of the company one year ago, flooding in Thailand had made the inventory situation with hard disk drives look dire. Western Digital was also in a crowded field, with five major players at the time.
Since then, things have changed. Although the inventory situation of hard disk drives isn’t quite back to normal, it’s much improved. And with Seagate’s
And yet, Jim doesn’t think the market is appreciating Western’s improved situation, and at today’s prices, he thinks the company is a serious buy.
Want the full scoop?
My job with this article is just to give you a taste for what our analysts have been up to. You can click on any of the links above to hear the investing thesis straight from our analysts themselves.
But if you’d like access to special premium reports that cover all the bases, and provide exclusive continuing updates as the year goes on, we’ve got just the thing for you. Jason has put together a special report on Clean Energy Fuels, while Andrew has done the same with Baidu. Get a copy of either report today, and continue to benefit from up-to-the-date coverage throughout the year!
