Joseph Gacinga

As online travel agencies such as Priceline and Expedia continue to spend massive amounts of money on online ads,Google is the biggest beneficiary. Although Google has its own vertical online search product, it also benefits when its rivals are doing well and spending large sums of money on online ads.

There are several retailers that seem to have credible defenses against Amazon.These retailers are likely to survive the Amazon onslaught with minimal damage to their topline growth.

Cisco's decision to build an intercloud for its channel partners and resellers on the OpenStack open source framework is a good idea since it will allow resellers to build out their own cloud networks at minimal cost.

Starbucks must perform a delicate balancing act when it launches its mobile pre-ordering program to avoid lowering the quality of its customer service.The program, if successful, could provide a much-needed boost to revenue growth for the company.

Abercrombie & Fitch shares have seen a huge year-to-date gain of 25% after the teen-clothing retailer showed solid signs of recovery. The company's price alignment and ongoing restructuring efforts should help it see much better sales and profits in the current fiscal year.

Tablet ASPs, or average selling prices, are expected to fall by a much smaller margin this year than they did in the last two years.This will help leading tablet manufacturers such as Apple to maintain healthy tablet revenues, even as growth in tablet sales continues to slow down.

Many Amazon shareholders fear that the company's decision to hike the price of its Amazon Prime service will lead to many members leaving. However, the extra fee will provide a nice boost to Amazon's bottom line.

Microsoft will see the market share of its Windows platform grow considerably between 2014-2018 helped by its cheaper Windows Phone, which will help it compete effectively in the lower-end markets against Android. Microsoft will also benefit from the ability of the platform to integrate seamlessly across Windows 8.1, Office 365, and Xbox.

The Big Data and Analytics sub-sector is experiencing rapid growth, with upstarts, such as Splunk and Tableau,growing at a blistering pace. For investors interested in fast growth in the technology sector,this is the right place to look.

Michael Kors is likely to see more robust growth in the coming years from its North American, European, and Chinese markets.

Shares of Caterpillar and its peers with a high exposure to the non-residential construction industry are likely to benefit from growth in the sector, despite declining capital spending in mining equipment.

As smartphones become more ubiquitous around the world, their average selling prices, or ASPs, are likely to fall.This will mean lower royalties for Qualcomm for every smartphone sold, since it collects a certain percentage of royalty for every smartphone that uses its chips.But the higher volume of smartphones sold, and the transition of China to LTE, will help offset the lower prices.

J.C. Penney's turnaround strategy seems to be on course, and the company is showing solid signs of making a comeback. Meanwhile its ailing peer Sears plans to monetize some of its extensive real estate properties while converting others into data centers.The viability of this strategy still remains debatable, thus J.C.Penney looks like a better turnaround bet than Sears.

Facebook is unlikely to increase the volume of ads displayed to its users despite complaints by marketers criticizing the social platform for giving inadequate business value through its advertising services.The chief reason why Facebook is unlikely to do this is because its users, unlike Google's, would resent mountains of ads shoved into their faces.

Erstwhile high-flyer Ross Stores has disappointed its investors for the second quarter running. The recovering economy is partly to blame for this, as is the company's blistering past growth rate, which will be difficult to sustain over the long-term.

America's most-hated companies with the worst service records are, surprisingly, the stocks that recorded some of the best returns in 2013.

Gaming consoles are unlikely to be fully substituted by smartphones no matter how advanced mobile hardware gets. Consoles appeal to a certain niche market and have several hardware advantages over smartphones.

Salesforce.com's marketing expenses currently account for half of its sales revenue, which is unusually high for its industry, and makes it very hard for the company to turn a profit. Its revenue growth,however, remains the highest in its industry, and its investors have been willing to overlook its lack of profits so long as the company continues to grow its topline admirably.

The huge growth in mobile payments and the industry shift to EMV credit cards will help both VeriFone and NCR grow their revenues significantly in the next two years or so.

There are some good bargains to be had in the consumer discretionary sector. These stocks are not only cheap, but they are also backed by companies that have strong growth runways.