In late July, The Motley Fool started the "11 O'Clock Stock" series, challenging our analysts to pick 50 stocks across 50 days. In the relatively short time we've been watching this group of stocks, many have already seen impressive gains, while others have suffered setbacks.
In this column, we'll drill into a couple of outperforming stocks, and one that's been lagging. Then we'll check in with recent news on several other companies in the portfolio.
Two stocks soaring
The portfolio's top performer thus far has been Coach
Altria
One stock sinking
Since its recommendation, Lumber Liquidators
Three stocks in focus
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Marvell Technology
(Nasdaq: MRVL) released earnings last night, and its trend toward growing wireless networking and smartphone sales only continues to strengthen. While the company saw its share price shrink after hours on tepid guidance, the stock is up sharply today. The company's 3% sequential gain in hard drive disk controllers, which contribute 40% of revenue, was a healthy performance from a unit that held the company back last quarter. Marvell's reliance on the hard disk drive market for a large percentage of sales will continue to anchor the company's valuation behind some of its larger peers, but with booming sales in new markets and hard drive sales rebounding, the overall thesis from Marvell's buy recommendation remains strong. -
Qualcomm
(Nasdaq: QCOM) hosted its analyst day in New York this week. The company continues to see a strong rebound in the number of mobile phones sold and the selling prices associated with them. Qualcomm collects a percentage from every data-capable phone sold, so both of these trends benefit the company. Also of note was its plan to spend nearly $1 billion building out manufacturing for its Mirasol display technology. While Mirasol has the potential to be a game-changer, Qualcomm has been known to destroy shareholder value on these kinds of side projects. - One company watching General Ben's march on interest rates (the fabled QE2) is Annaly Capital
(NYSE: NLY) . Annaly's costs are essentially short-term interest, since it borrows at short-term rates to buy longer-term bonds. The spread between these rates powers Annaly's robust 15.2% dividend. QE2 attempts to lower long-term rates, potentially decreasing Annaly's interest revenue. That's not enough to change our thesis on the company, as evidenced by Ilan Moscovitz's updated buy recommendation in our new Rising Stars series. Since Annaly has bought a large amount of fixed long-term mortgage-backed securities, falling long-term rates will increase the value of its existing portfolio. Finally, as Ilan describes in his updated write-up, QE2 is overblown anyway.
If you're interested in seeing more selections from our "11 O'Clock Stock" series, we've put together a special report highlighting five of our top ideas from the series -- with two extra bonus picks for free. You can get access to the report by clicking here now.