It seems that one industry that has become highly defensive in recent times is the pet industry. It would appear that no matter how hard the economic situation has become, pets still get care and attention from their owners.
In addition, pets require almost constant medical attention as this guidance from the Royal Society for the Protection of Animals in the UK shows:
When puppies and kittens are born they are usually protected from infections by their mother's milk, providing she has been regularly vaccinated. However, this protection only lasts a few weeks so they need regular vaccinations from an early age.
Puppies are typically vaccinated at eight and 10 weeks, kittens at nine and 12 weeks, with an initial course of two injections. Your young pet should then be given a booster 12 months after their first vaccination.
Pet treatments are needed
So, like the market for human pharmaceuticals, pet treatments are in demand. In addition, demand for animal pharmaceuticals is not limited to dogs and cats.�Zoetis (NYSE: ZTS ) , which was recently spun off from parent Pfizer, develops and produces animal health medicines and vaccines for livestock around the world. A more defensive play than a company that just supplies the pet market, Zoetis is experiencing near record demand for its products as beef and pork consumption rises in China and the African continent starts to develop -- there are now several large multi-national farming conglomerates operating on the African continent. Currently, Zoetis is only generating 2% of its revenue in China, but this figure should be set to rise dramatically in the near term.
Top Net Payout Yield Companies To Watch For 2015: Briggs & Stratton Corporation (BGG)
Briggs & Stratton Corporation designs, manufactures, markets, and services air cooled gasoline engines for outdoor power equipment. It operates in two segments, Engines and Products. The Engines segment offers four-cycle aluminum alloy gasoline engines that are used primarily by the lawn and garden equipment industry. Its products are used in various lawn and garden equipment applications, including walk-behind lawn mowers, riding lawn mowers, garden tillers, and snow throwers, as well as on products for industrial, construction, agricultural, and other consumer applications that include portable and standby generators, pumps, and pressure washers. This segment also manufactures and sells replacement engines and service parts to sales and service distributors. The Products segment offers portable and standby generators, pressure washers, snow throwers, and lawn and garden powered equipment. This segment sells its products through various channels of retail distribution, in cluding consumer home centers, warehouse clubs, mass merchants, and independent dealers under its brands, which include Briggs & Stratton, Snapper, Simplicity, Ferris, Snapper Pro, Murray, and Victa, as well as other brands, such as Craftsman, John Deere, GE, and Troy-Bilt. The company serves original equipment manufacturers worldwide. Briggs & Stratton Corporation was founded in 1908 and is based in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Rich Duprey]
Small-engine maker�Briggs & Stratton� (NYSE: BGG ) announced today its third-quarter dividend of $0.12 per share, the same rate it's paid for the past four quarters after raising the payout 9% from $0.11 per share.
- [By Jake L'Ecuyer]
Briggs & Stratton (NYSE: BGG) shares tumbled 7.70 percent to $20.98 after the company reported downbeat Q2 results and lowered its FY14 earnings forecast.
Top 5 Defensive Companies To Buy For 2014: NTN Buzztime Inc (NTN)
NTN Buzztime, Inc. (Buzztime), incorporated in 1984, is an interactive entertainment network. The Company provides media, advertising and consumer marketing services. The Company's games, as of December 31, 2011, were available in over 3,900 locations in the United States and Canada, where they are shown on approximately 20,000 screens daily. The Company has over 2.4 million registered users and over 52 million games is played each year. The Company generates revenues by charging subscription fees for its service to its Network Subscribers and also from the sale of advertising aired on in-venue screens, as well as in conjunction with customized games. Approximately 34% of the Company's Network Subscriber venues, as of December 31, 2011, were related to national and regional restaurants and includes Wild Wings, Black Angus, Hooters, Native New Yorker and Old Chicago. In October 2011, the Company acquired the Stump! Trivia hosted live trivia business.
The Company's Buzztime Network system uses a 900 mega hertz (MHz) wireless Playmaker, a hand-held radio frequency device with a monochrome liquid crystal display (LCD) display and sealed keypad that players use to enter choices and selections. The Playmakers have been manufactured primarily by a non-affiliated manufacturer in Taiwan and are a rugged combination of hardware and firmware optimized for hospitality environments. The Company also offers the Buzztime Mobile Playmaker, an application that allows its players to interact in-venue with its game content using iPhones, iPod Touches and Android phones. The Company's primary product is the distribution of a variety of multi-player interactive games that entertain and challenge a player's skill and knowledge while prompting the customer of the hospitality venue.
The Company provides premium trivia competitions during evening hours, particularly in the restaurants and sports bars. In addition to game interaction, other consumer features available on the Playmaker include player ! chat and real-time sports scores transmitted directly to the units.
The Company has developed and produced a number of interactive sports games, including predicts the Play sports games. Predict the Play sports games call for participants to predict the outcome of events before they happen, primarily in an intensive play-by-play method. One such game in this category is QB1, a live, play-along football game. In addition to the Company's Predict the Play games, the Company offers a series of pre-event prediction games. Race Day consists of two game play components: one predictive before the race and one trivia during the race.
The Company offers a suite of Playmaker only games. This suite of games is independent of the Buzztime Network and they are played directly on the Company's wireless Playmakers rather than on one of the television screens in the hospitality venue. As of December 31, 2011, the Company has Playmaker Poker, Acey Duecey, Crystal Ball and Shark Attack Playmaker only games.
The Company competes with Touchtunes Interactive Networks, The Answer Is . . . Productions Inc. and Livewire/Incredible Technologies, Inc.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Damian Illia]
Another initiative introduced in the guest experience business model is the installment of tablets in all of its restaurants to provide exclusive social gaming opportunities. Teaming up with NTN Buzztime Inc. (NTN) Buffalo uses Beond tablets to allow guests order food and drinks, play games, and pay their bill. Also, the three-year collaboration with National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has enabled the company to be an authorized hangout for the NCAA March Madness sports series, increasing visibility as a brand and attracting more customers to their outlets. These efforts, along with more intense advertising initiatives, new point-of-sales programs, improved supply chain and remodeling of its restaurants are expected to boost sales, and strengthen the business in the long run. Buffalo Wild Wings has selected the NCR Corp. (NCR) Aloha Online Ordering solution for its locations to help drive its takeout ordering business. The NCR technology will enable Buffalo to handle both on and off-premise transactions within one system.
- [By abirk]
On March 6, 2014, Buffalo Wild Wings announced its partnership with NTN Buzztime Inc. (NTN) to bring the company's BEOND tablet-based entertainment platform to all of their North America restaurant locations by the end of 2015. Buzztime's BEOND tablet lets Buffalo Wild Wings Guests order food, request songs and television programming, play games (both multi-player and arcade-style), and pay the bill.
Top 5 Defensive Companies To Buy For 2014: Rhoen Klinikum AG (RHK)
Rhoen Klinikum AG is a Germany-based provider of health care services. It is primarily engaged in building, acquiring and operating privately owned hospitals. The Company�� portfolio comprises basic and standard care, intermediate care, maximum care, specialist care, medical care centers (MVZ) at hospitals, portal clinics, university hospitals and academic teaching hospitals. These hospitals offer treatment in several specialist fields, including psychiatry, anesthesiology, dermatology, ophthalmology, various types of surgery, women�� medicine and obstetrics, geriatrics, neurology, rehabilitation, urology and internal medicine, among others. The Company operated a number of hospitals and medical care centers. In addition to the hospitals in Bad Berka, Frankfurt, Hildesheim, Karlsruhe, Munich, Pforzheim and Wiesbaden, among others, it has MVZ companies located in Germany, as well as two research and education companies and service companies. Advisors' Opinion:- [By Corinne Gretler]
Fresenius rose 3.6 percent after its Helios subsidiary agreed to buy 43 hospitals from Rhoen-Klinikum (RHK) AG. BHP Billiton Ltd. and Anglo American Plc both dropped at least 2 percent, contributing the most to a decline by a gauge of commodity producers. TDC A/S fell 3.1 percent as a group of private-equity firms sold its stake in Denmark�� biggest phone company.
Top 5 Defensive Companies To Buy For 2014: Amdocs Limited (DOX)
Amdocs Limited, together with its subsidiaries, provides software and services for communications, media, and entertainment industry service providers worldwide. It offers revenue management products, including convergent charging and billing, mediation, partner management, service delivery, compact convergence, and machine-to-machine solutions that manage the end-to-end network services revenue stream from offer definition to cash-in-hand and spans the consumer, business, and partner domains. The company also provides customer management products comprising multichannel selling, multichannel care, and proactive insight products that enable service providers to simplify the customer experience in all interaction channels and touch points; operations support systems, such as network planning, service fulfillment, service assurance, inventory and discovery, business service capture, network navigator, and radio parameter manager for fixed line, wireless, and cable networks; and network control products consisting of service controllers, home subscriber servers, policy controllers, data and Wi-Fi experience solutions, and intelligent diameter routing agents. In addition, it offers digital services, which include connected home solutions, mobile payments, digital commerce solutions, personalization, and unified communications and foundation. Further, the company provides advertising and media solutions that comprise sales experience, business agility, small-medium business experience, and business content and advertising syndication solutions. Additionally, it offers business consulting, system integration, information technology outsourcing and value process operation managed services, managed transformation, and product support services. Amdocs Limited was founded in 1988 and is based in St. Peter Port, Channel Islands.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Seth Jayson]
Calling all cash flows
When you are trying to buy the market's best stocks, it's worth checking up on your companies' free cash flow once a quarter or so, to see whether it bears any relationship to the net income in the headlines. That's what we do with this series. Today, we're checking in on Amdocs (NYSE: DOX ) , whose recent revenue and earnings are plotted below. - [By Ben Levisohn]
Shares of Iron Mountain have fallen 2.3% to $25.72 today, while comparable have been mixed. Leidos Holdings (LDOS) has ticked up 0.6% to $46.28 and Amdocs (DOX) has risen 0.8% to $37.20. Maximus (MMS), on the other hand, has fallen 1.2% to $46.22 and Xerox (XRX) is off 0.3% to $10.62.
- [By Omar Venerio]
The company has a current ROE of 19.09%, which is higher than the industry median and the ones exhibited by CGI Group (GIB) and Amdocs (DOX). In general, analysts consider ROE ratios in the 15-20% range as representing attractive levels for investment. So for investors looking those levels or more, Teradata (TDC) could be the option. For more attractive ROE, Gartner (IT) and Igate (IGTE) have extremely good ratios. It is very important to understand this metric before investing and it is important to look at the trend in ROE over time.
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