Joseph Gacinga

Quest Diagnostics and Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings are entrenched industry players that are very capable of weathering industry storms, such as the recent CMS reimbursement drama, quite well. Although there is a chance that Quest Diagnostics's new BRCA testing service might fail to gain traction, this is not likely to materially affect the company over the long-term.

The AT&T-DirecTV deal must still clear regulatory hurdles, but it has a fair chance of making it through, which will deliver substantial shareholder value.

Android device makers are now in a good position to use the information about Microsoft's Android patents that the Chinese Government divulged. If many of these makers end up winning patent court battles against Microsoft, that might mean less revenue from Android patents, which in turn threatens the future of loss-making Xbox division.

Microsoft has lowered the prices of its OneDrive to match those of Google Drive. This looks like a move meant to catch some of the migrating Ubuntu One users, after Ubuntu One was shut down in early June, as many former Ubuntu One users seemed destined for Google Drive, which had the largest allocation of free storage among all major cloud drives.

Oracle remains solidly profitable compared to many pure-play SaaS companies which are not. The company's other businesses will help insulate it against any losses as its cloud business matures.

The problems facing GNC are near-term issues rather than fundamental shifts. Investors should use this year's sell-off as a buying opportunity.

Symantec has been developing mobile security solutions showing strong growth. The company's cost-cutting measures have also been improving its operating margin. Its turnaround strategy is gaining traction, and the shares are a good buy.

Texas Instruments is rapidly growing its microcontroller product portfolio to help it tap into the strong demand being witnessed in the market. But, the company still needs its analog business to stabilize profit margins.

Facebook's new open source switch, Wedge, has a good chance to quickly gain traction in the market. But, this does not necessarily mean that Cisco will lose since the company has its own SDN strategy that's already gaining strong traction.

GameStop is showing strong signs of returning to robust revenue and profit growth. The company is also compensating lower software sales by strong digital and mobile sales. The expectations that the company might soon go under appear unfounded.

Red Hat has been steadily catching up in server virtualization. The company recently released new virtualization product offerings. As hypervisors continue to commoditize, cloud system software and management layers will become the new differentiator.

Facebook announced several new tools during this year's f8 conference. Some of these appear to have great potential to grow its ad revenue.

Although Amazon recently launched an AWS management console that will make it easier for VMware users to shift workloads to AWS, this might not materially affect VMware.

Amazon App Store is relatively unknown to developers, compared to both Google Play and Apple's App Store. But, the platform has the potential to be highly lucrative for developers, which could make it more popular in the future, potentially generating considerable revenue for Amazon.

TRW Automotive shares look quite cheap even after making impressive gains in recent years. The company has been increasing its production capacity, which should grow its revenue considerably in the coming years.

There is widespread speculation that Priceline may consider a merger with Yelp, after it agreed to buy OpenTable. But, a merger between Priceline and HomeAway would probably make more sense for Priceline.

Xerox has been moving away from the low-growth copier business to high-growth areas such as digital document storage and cloud storage. The shares are very cheap, and investors should hold as they wait for the company's turnaround efforts to bear fruit.

Google has announced that it will now support iOS for its popular Instant Buy API. This is a positive move for the company since it's likely to get more iOS users trying out its other apps.

Facebook is rapidly becoming a dominant force in online advertising. Although its business model limits its growth potential and makes it difficult to match Google in online ad revenue, the company's strong growth makes it a good investment candidate.

P&G seems to be finally coming around from its sales slump after undertaking serious restructuring efforts over the past few years. The company's shares are worth considering for income investors.