Hot Promising Stocks To Own Right Now

We want our sports teams to dominate their leagues, and our fourth graders to dominate their spelling bees. Why shouldn't we want dominators among our stock picks and in our portfolios? Companies that grow to dominate their industry are generally great investments, especially if you catch them on their way up.

One way to ferret out world dominators and promising stock picks is to study lists of the top brands in the world. The folks at WPP and Millward Brown put out a ranking of global brands by brand value each year, and for 2013, the top three brands belonged, in order, to Apple, Google, and IBM. It's not news that those are global dominators, and actually, most of the names among their top 100 are familiar. Interestingly, though, while the top brands didn't change position much between 2012 and 2013, some names did jump ahead quite a bit. That suggests companies growing in brand power, which often translates to pricing power and hefty profit margins, things one likes to see in stock picks. Below are three companies on the list seeing big improvement:

Best Forestry Companies For 2015: Tele Celular Sul Participacoes S.A.(TSU)

TIM Participacoes S.A. provides mobile telecommunications services through global system mobile (GSM) technology to business and individual customers in Brazil. It provides prepaid and post paid services. The company also offers value-added services, including short message services or text messaging, multimedia messaging services, push-mail, Blackberry services, video call, turbo mail, wireless application protocol downloads, Web browsing, business data solutions, songs, games, TV access, voice mail, conference calling, chats, and other content and services, as well as interconnection services to fixed line and mobile service providers. In addition, it provides fixed telecommunications services for data, local, long distance, and international modalities. Further, the company sells handset models and BlackBerry from various manufacturers, including Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, Sony, Ericsson, and BlackBerry through its dealer network, which consists of its own stores, franch ises, authorized dealers, and department stores. As of December 31, 2010, its services were marketed through a distribution network of approximately 8,989 points of sale, which include approximately 70 company owned stores. The company also had 398,392 recharging points for prepaid services. It offers mobile telecommunications services under TIM brand to approximately 51 million customers. The company was formerly known as Tele Celular Sul Participacoes S.A. and changed its name to TIM Participacoes S.A. in August 2004. TIM Participacoes S.A. was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. TIM Participacoes S.A. is a subsidiary of TIM Brasil Servicos e Participacoes S.A.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Garrett Cook]

  In trading on Friday, telecommunications services shares were relative leaders, up on the day by about 1.19 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included TIM Participacoes S.A. (NYSE: TSU), up 3.3 percent, and China Mobile (NYSE: CHL), up 2.9 percent.

Hot Promising Stocks To Own Right Now: Eastern Insurance Holdings Inc.(EIHI)

Eastern Insurance Holdings, Inc., through its subsidiaries, provides workers compensation insurance and reinsurance products in the United States. The company?s Workers Compensation Insurance segment provides traditional workers compensation insurance coverage products, including guaranteed cost policies, policyholder dividend policies, retrospectively-rated policies, deductible policies, and alternative market products to employers. This segment distributes its workers? compensation products and services through its independent insurance agents primarily in Pennsylvania, Delaware, North Carolina, Maryland, Indiana, and Virginia. Its Segregated Portfolio Cell Reinsurance segment offers alternative market workers compensation solutions comprising program design, fronting, claims administration, risk management, segregated portfolio cell rental, asset management, and segregated portfolio management services to individual companies, groups, and associations. Eastern Insurance Holdings, Inc. is headquartered in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Lauren Pollock]

  ProAssurance Corp.(PRA) agreed to acquire Eastern Insurance Holdings Inc.(EIHI) for about $205 million, expanding the insurance company’s casualty insurance offerings. Eastern Insurance is a domestic casualty insurance group specializing in workers’ compensation products and services, among other things. ProAssurance plans to pay $24.50 in cash for each outstanding Eastern share, a 16% premium over Monday’s closing price.

Hot Promising Stocks To Own Right Now: Fenner PLC (FENR)

Fenner PLC is a manufacturer and distributor of reinforced polymer products. It operates in two segments: engineered conveyor solutions, which is engaged in the manufacture of rubber, polyvinyl chloride and steel cord conveyor belts, ply, solid woven and steel cord conveyor belting for mining, power generation and industrial applications and advanced engineered products, which is engaged in the manufacture of precision polymer products; problem-solving power transmission and motion transfer components; silicone and complex hoses for heavy duty trucks, buses and off-road vehicles; seals and sealing solutions for the fluid power and oil and gas industries; technical textiles for medical and industrial applications and silicone based products for medical applications; rollers for digital image processing and medical diagnostics, and fluropolymer components for fluid and gas handling. Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Inyoung Hwang]

  Fenner Plc (FENR) rallied 5.2 percent to 407.4 pence, its highest price since March 20. UBS AG started coverage of the conveyor-belt maker with a buy rating, saying shares are cheap. The bank predicted the stock will climb to 460 pence in the next 12 months.

Hot Promising Stocks To Own Right Now: Model N Inc (MODN)

Model N, Inc., incorporated on December 14, 1999, is a provider of revenue management solutions for the life science and technology industries. The Company�� solutions enable its customers to maximize revenues and reduce revenue compliance risk by transforming their revenue lifecycle from a series of tactical, disjointed operations into a strategic end-to-end process. The Company�� customers use its application suites to manage mission-critical functions, such as pricing, contracting, incentives and rebates. Its solutions include two complementary suites of software applications, Revenue Management Enterprise and Revenue Management Intelligence. On January 18, 2012, the Company acquired certain assets of LeapFrogRx, Inc. (LeapFrogRx), a privately held cloud-based analytics solution provider for the pharmaceutical industry.

The Company provides solutions that span the organizational and operational boundaries of functions such as sales, marketing and finance, and serve as a system of record for key revenue management processes including pricing, contracts, rebates and regulatory compliance. Its application suites are purpose-built for the life science and technology industries and are designed to work with enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) applications that do not typically provide revenue management capabilities by enabling real-time pricing, managing contracts and automating channel incentives management, including rebates.

Revenue Management Enterprise suite

A broad set of transactional applications that serve as a system of record for, and automate the execution of revenue management processes such as incentive and rebate management, pricing and contracting. This suite includes its Price Management, Deal Management, Contract Management, Incentive and Rebate Management and Regulatory Compliance Management applications, which can be purchased together as a suite or as separate stand-alone applications.

Revenue Management Intelligence suite

A broad set of intelligence applications that provide the analytical insights to define and optimize revenue management strategies. This suite includes its Price Strategy, Brand Strategy, Channel Strategy, Managed Markets Strategy and International Reference Pricing applications, which can be purchased together as a suite or as separate stand-alone applications.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Rick Munarriz]

  I went out on a limb last week, and now it's time to see how that decision played out.

  I predicted that Model N (NYSE: MODN  ) would post a smaller loss than analysts were expecting. The provider of revenue management solutions has been a dud since going public nearly a year ago, but one thing it has consistently done is post a smaller deficit than what the pros are forecasting. Wall Street was settling for a loss of $0.12 a share, and Model N sported only $0.03 a share in red ink. The stock soared 19% on Tuesday after the better-than-expected report. I was right. After more than a year of predicting that the tech-heavy Nasdaq would outperform the Dow Jones Industrial Average � (DJINDICES: ^DJI  ) , I mixed things up two weeks ago. I simply predicted that the Dow would bounce back after plunging 3.5% and 1.1% over the prior two weeks. I repeated the call this time around, and the Dow responded with a hearty 2.3% gain. I was right.� My final call was for LeapFrog (NYSE: LF  ) to beat Wall Street's income estimates in its latest quarter. The maker of electronic learning toys has been routinely beating Wall Street projections over the past year. I was banking on a repeat performance, but it wasn't to be. LeapFrog merely broke even on a sharper drop in revenue than expected. Analysts had been braced for a profit of $0.14 a share. I was wrong.

  Two out of three? I can do better than that. Let me once again whip out my trusty, dusty, and occasionally accurate crystal ball to make three calls that may play out over the next few trading days.

Hot Promising Stocks To Own Right Now: Cannabusiness Group Inc (CBGI)

Cannabusiness Group Inc, formerly Muscle Warfare International Inc, incorporated on June 24, 2005, focuses to research, evaluate, and acquire profitable private firms in the business segments of entertainment, technology, medical, energy, and business services for the benefit of its shareholders. The Company's subsidiaries include American West Baseball League and Elite Representation Associates. In April 2013, it announced acquiring 100% of Muscle Warfare, Inc. In July 2013, the Company announced the acquisition of a company that develops, manufactures, and markets sports nutrition products for athletes around the world in all sports, including both professional and amateur enthusiasts.

Elite Representation Associates is an athlete/coach management and marketing agency. The American West Baseball League is a professional, independent baseball organization located primarily in the Southwest United States. It operates in cities not served by major or minor league baseball team.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Dan Burrows]

  From questions regarding the accuracy of publicly-available information about these companies��operations to potential illegal activity, these marijuana stocks have incurred the wrath of federal regulators for good reason:

  GrowLife (PHOT) FusionPharm (FSPM) CannaBusiness Group (CBGI) Advanced Cannabis Solutions (CANN) Petrotech Oil and Gas (PTOG) Marijuana Stocks Asking for Trouble

  But it doesn’t end there. Investors should run away from all OTC marijuana stocks, including Medical Marijuana (MJNA), Cannabis Science (CBIS), CannaVest (CANV), MediSwipe (MWIP) and GreenGro Technologies (GRNH). As the SEC warns: