Hot Healthcare Equipment Stocks To Buy For 2014

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL  ) stockholders, rejoice!

On Friday, Apple's board of directors amended CEO Tim Cook's equity bonus compensation package to now be dependent on the company's stock performance. Before the revision, Tim Cook received restricted stock units after a specified period of time, regardless of how the Apple's stock performed relative to its S&P 500's constituents.

The takeaway here is that Apple investors should consider this to be the dawn of a new era for how it compensates executives. Additionally, it's officially in Cook's best interest for Apple's stock to outperform. �

The rule of thirds
Cook's original 1 million restricted stock units will still vest over a 10-year period, but now 800,000 units will be directly tied to Apple's stock performance. Of those 800,000 units, a maximum of 80,000 units can be awarded to Cook each year. For Cook to earn the entire 80,000 units allotted yearly, Apple's stock performance must rank in the in the top third of all S&P 500 companies. Ultimately, Apple's stock performance will be measured on a three-year rolling time horizon based on previous vesting dates, but in the beginning, performance will be measured on either one- or two-year time horizons until August 2016.

5 Best Integrated Utility Stocks To Buy For 2015: NanoViricides Inc (NNVC)

NanoViricides, Inc., incorporated on April 1, 2005, is a development-stage company. The Company is a nano-biopharmaceutical (nanomedicine) company whose business goals are to discover, develop and commercialize therapeutics to advance the care of patients suffering from life-threatening viral infections. The Company has several drugs in various stages of early development. The Company�� drugs are based on several patents, patent applications, provisional patent applications, and other property held by TheraCour Pharma, Inc. (TheraCou), to which the Company has exclusive licenses in perpetuity for the treatment of human viral diseases: Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV/AIDS), Influenza including Asian Bird Flu Virus (INF), Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV), Hepatitis C Virus (HCV), Hepatitis B Virus (HBV), and Rabies. As of June 30, 2012, the Company had six drug development programs: Oral FluCideTM, against all Influenzas; a Piggy-back version of Flucide for hospitalized patients; nanoviricide eye drops against adenoviral EKC and herpes keratitis; HIVCide - I against HIV/AIDS; HerpeCide - I skin cream formulation for herpes cold sores and genital warts, and DengueCide, a broad spectrum nanoviricide designed to attack all types of dengue viruses and expected to be effective in the Severe Dengue Disease syndromes including Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever (DHS) and Dengue Shock Syndrome (DSS). As of June 30, 2012, it had engaged in organizational activities, sourcing compounds and materials, developing novel compounds and nanomaterials, and experimentation with studies on cell cultures and animals. In September 2011, NanoViricides Inc's Inno-Haven LLC acquired a light industrial building.

The Company's product development programs are divided into three sectors: commercially important diseases, neglected tropical diseases (NTD��) and biosecurity/biodefense, and advanced technologies. The Company has collaborations with KARD Scientific, Inc., MA. and Southern Research Institute, AL for influenza viruse! s; National (Central) Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology (NIHE) (Vietnam), for H5N1 avian flu; The Long Island Jewish Medical System, Feinstein Institute of Medical Research (LIJMS), NY and TheVac, LLC. for viral diseases of the eye (adenoviruses, herpesviruses - epidemic kerato-conjunctivitis (EKC), Herpes Keratitis); TheVac, LLC and Northeastern Ohio Medical University (NEOMED) for herpes virus infections; University of California at Berkeley for dengue hemorrhagic fever viruses; Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and National (Central) Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology for rabies virus. The Company has developed lead drug candidates against a number of viral diseases.

The Company had consolidated all of its influenza drug programs into a single pan-influenza FluCide program. It is developing a single drug for all influenzas, whether pandemic, epidemic, seasonal, novel, emerging, human, swine, or avian. It is developing a nanoviricide against adenoviral EKC. The nanoviricide eye drug candidate is formulated as simple eye drops. It is developing an anti-HSV nanoviricide skin cream formulation for direct application to the lesions. It has designed the anti-HIV nanoviricides using rational drug design principles. The ligands it has designed in the case of HIV-1 are thought to be broadly neutralizing. In-silico modeling indicates that its ligands dock to the conserved CD4 binding site of gp120 of HIV-1. The Company is working on developing anti-Dengue therapeutics. Dengue is an important NTD. Its RabiCide program has resulted in candidates that have enabled survival of 20% to 30% of infected animals after disease has set in, using a particular animal model.

The Company competes with Roche, Glaxo SmithKline, BioCryst Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Gilead, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (BMS), Roche, Boehringer Ingelheim, Merck & Co., Inc. (Merck), Valeant, Schering, Pharmassett, Vertex, Intermune, Achillion and Novartis.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Roberto Pedone]

  
  

  One under-$10 nano-biopharmaceutical player that's starting to trend within range of triggering a big breakout trade is Nanoviricides (NNVC), which engages in the discovery, development and commercialization of anti-viral therapeutics primarily in the U.S. This stock has been ripping to the upside so far in 2013, with share up big by 198%.

  If you take a look at the chart for Nanoviricides, you'll notice that this stock has recently formed a double bottom chart pattern at $4.55 to $4.52 a share. Following that bottom, shares of NNVC have now started to uptrend and move within range of triggering a big breakout trade. That trade will hit if NNVC manages to take out the upper-end of its recent sideways trading chart pattern, which has seen NNVC trend between $4.55 and $5.74 a share.

  Traders should now look for long-biased trades in NNVC if it manages to break out above some near-term overhead resistance levels at Friday's high of $4.94 a share to its 50-day moving average of $5.28 a share, and then once it takes out some more key overhead resistance levels at $5.72 to $5.74 a share with high volume. Look for a sustained move or close above those levels with volume that hits near or above its three-month average volume of 234,994 shares. If that breakout triggers soon, then NNVC will set up to re-test or possibly take out its next major overhead resistance levels at $6.50 to its 52-week high at $7.59 a share.

  Traders can look to buy NNVC off weakness to anticipate that breakout and simply use a stop that sits right below some key near-term support levels at $4.55 to $4.52 a share. One can also buy NNVC off strength once it starts to clear those breakout levels with volume and then simply use a stop that sits a comfortable percentage from your entry point.

Hot Healthcare Equipment Stocks To Buy For 2014: XenoPort Inc.(XNPT)

XenoPort, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company, focuses on developing and commercializing internally discovered product candidates that utilize the body?s natural nutrient transport mechanisms to enhance the therapeutic benefits of drugs. The company licenses its lead product candidate Gabapentin Enacarbil, a transported prodrug of gabapentin, to Astellas Pharma Inc. in Japan and five Asian countries, as well as to Glaxo Group Limited in the United States. Astellas Pharma Inc. filed new drug application for the approval of Gabapentin Enacarbil as a treatment for restless legs syndrome in Japan. The company also develops Arbaclofen Placarbil, which completed a Phase II clinical trial for the treatment of spasticity in patients with spinal cord injury. In addition, it develops Arbaclofen Placarbil for the treatment of gastroesophageal reflux disease. Further, the company develops XP21279, which is in Phase II clinical trial for the treatment of Parkinson?s disease; and XP2382 9, a novel prodrug of methylhydrogenfumarate that is in preclinical stage. It has strategic alliances with Astellas Pharma, Inc. and Glaxo Group Limited. The company was founded in 1999 and is based in Santa Clara, California.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Max Macaluso, Ph.D.]

  Treatments for RLS
  While a better understanding of RLS and its long-term impact on health are needed, there are FDA-approved drugs available to treat the symptoms of this disorder. GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK  ) brought a RLS drug, Requip, to market eight years ago, and the drug was also approved for Parkinson's disease. Total sales of the medication have been falling in recent years due to generic competition and reached only 164 million pounds ($257.5 million) in 2012. Until recently, GSK also had a second RLS drug called Horizant in collaboration with biotech company XenoPort (NASDAQ: XNPT  ) . GSK recently handed the rights to the drug back to XenoPort after sales failed to meet its expectations, and the biotech is now commercializing the drug alone.

• [By CRWE]

  XenoPort, Inc. (Nasdaq:XNPT) reported that it has submitted an Investigational New Drug (IND) application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to begin clinical studies of XP23829 as a potential treatment for relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS).

• [By Sean Williams]

  Shareholders of XenoPort (NASDAQ: XNPT  ) are also glad for the long weekend after their stock tumbled this week following disappointing late-stage results for Arbaclofen Placarbil, or AP. Aimed at treating spasticity in patients with multiple sclerosis, AP was unsuccessful in delivering a statistically significant benefit compared to the placebo. XenoPort's management noted that the company plans to cease development of AP and instead focus on the commercial development of recently approved restless leg syndrome drug Horizant, and its remaining clinical pipeline.

Hot Healthcare Equipment Stocks To Buy For 2014: Vanguard Idx Fund (VTI)

Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (the Fund), formerly known as Vanguard Total Stock Market VIPERs, seeks to track the performance of an index that measures the investment return of the overall stock market. The Fund seeks to track the performance of Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) US Broad Market Index (the Index), which includes large, mid and small-cap equity stocks diversified across growth and value styles.

The Fund employs a passive management or indexing investment approach in seeking to track the Index. The Index represents 99.5% or more of the capitalization of the United States common stocks regularly traded on the New York and American Stock Exchanges, and the NASDAQ over-the-counter market. The Fund invests all, or substantially all, of its assets in a representative sample of the stocks that make up the Index.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Chris Ciovacco]

  The damage from Wednesday's session did little to disturb the market's longer-term risk tolerance profile, which is easy to understand when you consider the S&P 500 is still up 3 points for the week. However, we have seen some emerging cracks over the past two weeks. Demand for bonds has not surpassed stocks, but there is evidence of an attempt to mount a more formidable charge relative to stocks. Recent interest in defensive consumer staples (XLP) also tells us to keep an open mind about a "give back" after the S&P 500 gained 129 points from the October 9 low to the recent high. The observable evidence in the table above aligns with a growth-oriented allocation, including exposure to broad U.S. stock market (VTI), emerging markets (EEM), foreign stocks (EFA), and technology (QQQ).

Hot Healthcare Equipment Stocks To Buy For 2014: Syntel Inc.(SYNT)

Syntel, Inc. provides information technology (IT) and knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) services worldwide. It operates in four segments: Applications Outsourcing, KPO, e-Business, and TeamSourcing. The Applications Outsourcing segment provides software applications development, maintenance, testing, migration, and infrastructure services. The KPO segment offers a host of outsourced solutions for knowledge and business processes. It focuses on middle and back-office business processes of the transaction cycle in the capital markets, banking, healthcare, and insurance industries. The e-Business segment provides technology services in the areas of architecting, implementing, and maintaining Web solutions, data warehousing/business intelligence, enterprise application integration, business process management, and enterprise resource planning solutions. The TeamSourcing segment offers professional IT consulting services directly to customers on a staff augmentation basis. It s services include systems specification, design, development, implementation, and maintenance of complex IT applications involving computer hardware, software, data, and networking technologies and practices. Syntel, Inc. provides services to a range of companies primarily in the financial services, healthcare and life sciences, insurance, manufacturing, automotive, retail, logistics, and telecom industries. The company was founded in 1980 and is headquartered in Troy, Michigan.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Brian Pacampara]

  Based on the aggregated intelligence of 180,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, IT services specialist Syntel (NASDAQ: SYNT  ) has earned a coveted five-star ranking.