Best Asian Stocks To Invest In Right Now

Asian stocks steadied in morning trade to move modestly higher, led by gains in Hong Kong.

A rise in heavily-weighted Chinese bank stocks buoyed Hong Kong�� Hang Seng Index 0.9% higher to 22,022.10. China�� major banks this week have reported solid profits for 2013, easing for now lingering doubts around the sector�� financial health.

Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., the nation�� largest bank by assets, late Thursday said its net profit for 2013 rose 10% from a year earlier. Shares rose 1.5% Friday.

10 Best Bank Stocks To Buy Right Now: Ebix Inc(EBIX)

Ebix, Inc. provides on-demand software and e-commerce solutions to the insurance industry. The company operates data exchanges, which connects multiple entities within the insurance markets and enables the participant to carry and process data from one end to another in the areas of life insurance, annuities, employee health benefits, risk management, workers compensation, and property and casualty (P&C) insurance. It is also involved in designing and deploying broker systems comprising three back-end systems consisting of eGlobal for multinational P&C insurance brokers; WinBeat for P&C brokers in the Australian and New Zealand markets; and EbixASP for the P&C insurance brokers in the United States. In addition, the company offers business process outsourcing services, which include certificate origination, certificate tracking, claims adjudication call center, and back office support. Further, it focuses on designing and deploying on-demand and back-end carrier systems, s uch as Ebix Advantage and Ebix Advantageweb targeted at small, medium, and large P&C carriers in the United States and internationally that operate in the personal, commercial, and specialty line areas of insurance. Additionally, Ebix, Inc. provides software development, customization, and consulting services to various companies in the insurance industry, such as carriers, brokers, exchanges, and standard making bodies. The company was formerly known as Delphi Systems, Inc. and changed its name to Ebix, Inc. in December 2003. Ebix, Inc. was founded in 1976 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Jake L'Ecuyer]

  Shares of Ebix (NASDAQ: EBIX) got a boost, shooting up 4.42 percent to $17.00 after the company reported better-than-expected Q4 earnings.

  Liberty Media (NASDAQ: LMCA) was also up, gaining 7.06 percent to $135.04 after the company dropped its bid to buy SiriusXM (NASDAQ: SIRI). The company will reclassify common stock to create two groups.

• [By John Huber]

  Two Examples of Stocks where Value became the Catalyst
  Dell Inc. (DELL) and Ebix Inc. (EBIX) are two stocks that I've followed for some time now as both have shown up on Greenblatt's screen for months. I list these together because they have numerous similarities: Both got cheap because of certain problems, both have similar quality metrics such as above-average returns on capital, both are involved in a pending buyout, and both have CEOs with large stakes in the business.

• [By Rick Munarriz]

  2. Ebix comes undone
  Ebix (NASDAQ: EBIX  ) shares tumbled on Thursday after a leveraged buyout deal to take the company private cratered in light of a U.S. criminal probe.

Best Asian Stocks To Invest In Right Now: Pearson Plc(PSO)

Pearson plc engages in education, business information, and consumer publishing businesses worldwide. The company?s North American Education segment provides higher education services, such as higher education publishing; MyLab digital learning, homework, and assessment programs; and LearningStudio, a suite of learning management technologies, including eCollege and Fronter. This segment also offers assessment and information services; school curriculum services consisting of school publishing; enVisionMATH, a digital math curriculum; America's Choice school reform services; online learning platform for teachers and students; Poptropica video game; digital programs, such as digits, a digital middle school math?s program; Writing Coach, a blended print and online program; and Online Learning Exchange, a personalized digital learning program. Its International Education segment provides educational content, assessment, technologies, and related services to educational inst itutions. This segment offers spoken English training for adults, as well as provides eCollege and Fronter learning management systems. It also offers MyLab digital learning, homework, and assessment programs. The company?s Professional segment focuses on publishing, training, testing, and certification for professionals. Its Financial Times group segment provides business and financial news, data, comment, and analysis in print and online formats to the international business community. Its products include Financial Times newspaper; FT.com Website; financial magazines and online services; and Mergermarket, which provides forward-looking insights and intelligence to businesses and financial institutions. The company?s Penguin Group segment engages in book publishing business, under the Hamish Hamilton, Putnam, Berkley, Viking, Dorling Kindersley, Puffin, and Ladybird imprints. It also offers ebooks. The company was founded in 1844 and is headquartered in London, the Unite d Kingdom.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Andrew Marder]

  What's in it for Barnes & Noble investors?
  The reason the shares jumped is that the Nook is like a treasure chest, hidden deep in the world of Barnes & Noble. Microsoft purchased a $300 million stake in the Nook business last year, and then late in the year, Pearson (NYSE: PSO  ) spent $90 million on a 5% stake. That purchase valued the Nook business at $1.79 billion, up from a $1.7 billion valuation based on Microsoft's investment.

• [By Lisa Levin]

  Publishing - Books: This industry moved up 1.52% by 10:25 am. The top performer in this industry was Pearson plc (NYSE: PSO), which gained 1.8%. Pearson shares have dropped 1.94% over the past 52 weeks, while the S&P 500 index has gained 16.94% in the same period.

• [By Mike Arnold]

  Collectively, Glacier generated $21.2 million EBITDA in the first-half of 2013, of which 56% represents $11.9 million, or $23.8 million annualized. Comparables such as Daily Journal Corp. and to a lesser extent, Pearson plc (PSO) trade at EV/EBITDA multiples of 12x and 11.5x, respectively. If we assume 10x for the Glacier's business information services is a better proxy of value, we arrive at $238 million valuation for the segment.

• [By Mark Rogers]

  LONDON -- The shares of�Pearson� (LSE: PSON  ) (NYSE: PSO  ) were flat at 1,146p early this afternoon after the�Financial Times�publisher reported first-quarter sales rising 3%, to 拢1.2bn.

Best Asian Stocks To Invest In Right Now: EMC Insurance Group Inc. (EMCI)

EMC Insurance Group Inc., an insurance holding company, engages in property and casualty insurance, and reinsurance activities. It operates in two segments, Property and Casualty Insurance, and Reinsurance. The Property and Casualty Insurance segment writes commercial and personal lines of insurance with a focus on medium-sized commercial accounts. Its commercial lines of insurance products comprise automobile, property, workers� compensation, and liability, as well as other products that provide protection against burglary and theft loss, aircraft, marine, and other types of losses; and personal lines of insurance products include automobile, property, and liability. The Reinsurance segment provides reinsurance for other insurers and reinsurers. The company serves small to medium-sized businesses, institutions, and individual consumers. EMC Insurance Group Inc. sells its products through independent insurance agents. The company was founded in 1974 and is headquartered i n Des Moines, Iowa. EMC Insurance Group Inc. is a subsidiary of Employers Mutual Casualty Company.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Caroline Bennett]

  EMC Insurance (NASDAQ: EMCI  ) this week declared plans to keep its quarterly dividend payout steady at $0.21 per share of common stock.

Best Asian Stocks To Invest In Right Now: Amgen Inc.(AMGN)

Amgen Inc., a biotechnology medicines company, discovers, develops, manufactures, and markets human therapeutics based on advances in cellular and molecular biology for grievous illnesses primarily in the United States, Europe, and Canada. The company markets recombinant protein therapeutics in supportive cancer care, nephrology, and inflammation. Its principal products include Aranesp and EPOGEN erythropoietic-stimulating agents that stimulate the production of red blood cells; Neulasta and NEUPOGEN to stimulate the production of neutrophils, which is a type of white blood cell that helps the body to fight infections; and Enbrel, an inhibitor of tumor necrosis factor that plays a role in the body?s response to inflammatory diseases. The company also markets other products comprising Sensipar/Mimpara, a small molecule calcimimetic that lowers serum calcium levels; Vectibix, a monoclonal antibody that binds specifically to the epidermal growth factor receptor; and Nplate, a thrombopoietin (TPO) receptor agonist that mimics endogenous TPO, the primary driver of platelet production. In addition, it provides Denosumab, a human monoclonal antibody that targets RANKL, an essential regulator of osteoclasts. Further, the company offers product candidates in mid-to-late stage development in a variety of therapeutic areas, including oncology, hematology, inflammation, bone, nephrology, cardiovascular, and general medicine consisting of neurology. It markets its products to healthcare providers, including physicians or their clinics, dialysis centers, hospitals, and pharmacies; consumers; and wholesale distributors of pharmaceutical products. The company has various collaborative arrangements with Pfizer Inc.; GlaxoSmithKline plc; Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited; Daiichi Sankyo Company, Limited; Array BioPharma Inc.; Kyowa Hakko Kirin Co. Ltd.; and Cytokinetics, Inc. Amgen Inc. was founded in 1980 and is headquartered in Thousand Oaks, California.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Efsinvestment]

  Amgen (AMGN) is among the hottest large-cap biotech stocks of this year. The stock has been following an upward trend since last April. Most recently, it rallied past the previous 52-week highs. After this run, the stock even surpassed the 1-year target estimates of many analysts. While it still looks cheap based on forward P/E ratio, there are growing concerns among the investors. Traders are becoming more apprehensive about a looming correction. I think a modest correction is possible. However, the company can be a good long-term investment. Here, I look at the company's financial profile and its business prospects to prove my point.

• [By Ben Levisohn]

  Shares of Amgen (AMGN) are falling in after-hours trading after the biotech giant announced that a drug trial had failed and it had to recall one of its drugs due to visible particulates.

  Steve Remich

  Amgen said that it had recalled prefilled syringes of Aranesp, its anemia drug, from overseas distributors. At the same time, Amgen said that its drug Kyprolis failed to meet the primary endpoint of its so-call FOCUS trial in patients with multiple myeloma, a cancer of plasma cells.

  Piper Jaffray’s Joshua Schimmer doesn’t understand the fuss:

  Investors hand-wringing over the missed endpoint and what it might mean for EU reimbursement or the increase in renal AE relative to the label miss the forest for the trees, in our view. These are small incremental factors since ASPIRE will drive the program forward and a missed trial is a missed trial; the Street expected the top line result. There is a risk in over-interpreting the implications of a missed trial.

  Our global Kyprolis revenue estimate in 2020 is only $1B and yet we still see AMGN being able to comfortably deliver a 10%+ EPS CAGR through the end of the decade. Success of ASPIRE means our estimate may prove conservative, but the point is that Kyprolis is not a key driver of AMGN’s long-term outlook. Rather, its growing pipeline which includes evolocumab for LDL, romosozumab for osteoporosis, blinatumomab for ALL, AMG416 for hyperparathyroidism, T-vec for melanoma, AMG334 for migraine etc represent cumulatively multiple billions of dollars of upside to consensus.

  Shares of Amgen have dropped 2.3% to $124.39 at 4:30 p.m. in after-hours trading. It gained 0.8% during normal trading hours.

• [By Louis Navellier]

  Specifically, a former top scientist from Amgen (AMGN) has come aboard to cut programs that are underperforming and keep the labs focused on the biggest breakthroughs. While this won’t impact the current quarter’s numbers, if the company can beat estimates and show that it’s taking steps to bigger breakthroughs it should put additional buying pressure under the stock.

• [By Laura Brodbeck]

  Tuesday

  Earnings Expected: Express Scripts Holding Company (NASDAQ: ESRX), United Parcel Service, Inc. (NYSE: UPS), Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE), Aetna Inc. (NYSE: AET), Merck & Company, Inc. (NYSE: MRK), Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ: AMGN) Economic Releases Expected: Spanish retail sales, British consumer credit, the U.S. Redbook, Japanese industrial production

  Wednesday