These two big tech companies are facing challenges in the years ahead but MoneyShow's Jim Jubak explains why he has a favorite.
If you need a reminder that Intel isn't Microsoft, the Intel's announcement of a new line of chips called Quark, on September 11, should be a good place to start. Now Microsoft—it's in a really kind of bind, because what they seem to have to do to move away from their dependence on PC software, is to help the PC industry make the transition onto a whole new set of devices, so they bought Nokia, they've done a tablet, they're pushing these devices. Well this is a software company that has to do investments in hardware in order to get the hardware companies to move up fast enough, so they can create a new market force. You could argue, and I would, that Microsoft is moving away from its traditional strengths in software, into a field where, despite the success of the Xbox, its record is kind of mixed. Remember the Zune—okay.
Intel, on the other hand, has got a similar problem, that PC sales are slowing; that the market seems to moving away from the desktop to mobile, whether it's a Smartphone or a tablet or an iPad-like device and Intel's been relatively late in coming to this market, so it doesn't really have much market share. It doesn't have chips that are very popular, haven't been designed in. It's really trailing people like Qualcomm and ARM Holdings. The Quark however, shows, I think, that Intel doesn't need to go out and start making devices. The Quark is a line of smaller, lower powered chips designed for a new emerging market and this is the sort of embedded market, the idea that you're going to have intelligent refrigerators that will be somehow connected to the internet and a part of that or intelligent posters. The Quark is actually small enough so that Intel says one of the uses could be ingestible diagnostic devices—medical devices that give readings on body conditions that you can actually swallow and give you a reading from the inside about certain processes. The whole point is that this really plays, not to Intel's moving to another area, but to Intel's strength.
Top 5 Performing Stocks To Watch Right Now: ANADIGICS Inc.(ANAD)
ANADIGICS, Inc. provides semiconductor solutions to the broadband wireless and wireline communications markets. Its products include radio frequency (RF) power amplifiers (PAs), tuner integrated circuits, active splitters, line amplifiers, and other components. The company?s RF power amplifier products enable mobile handsets, datacards, and other devices to access third generation (3G) wireless networks utilizing international standards, including wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA), high speed packet access (HSPA), code division multiple access (CDMA), and evolution data optimized (EVDO). In addition, the company provides RF power amplifiers for the fourth generation (4G) wireless services, including long term evolution (LTE) and worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX). ANADIGICS?s WiFi products enable connectivity for wireless mobile devices and other computing devices and its cable television (CATV) products enable fixed-point, wireline broa dband communications over cable modem and set-top box products, CATV infrastructure, and fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP). The company sells its products through direct sales, as well as through independent manufacturers? representatives and distributors. ANADIGICS, Inc. was founded in 1984 and is headquartered in Warren, New Jersey.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Tim Melvin]
CTL stock has lagged the overall market for the past year — down 9% vs. 20% gains for the S&P 500 — and it seems that those running the show do not expect that to change anytime soon.
Stocks to Sell: Anadigics (ANAD)Anadigics (ANAD) is another company that has not kept up with the market and is seeing selling near the lows. Five insiders, including the chairman, the CEO and the CFO, have been selling stock this month. All together, they have combined to sell more than 72,000 shares of the company at very low prices.
Top Tech Stocks To Invest In 2014: Silicon Laboratories Inc.(SLAB)
Silicon Laboratories Inc., a fabless semiconductor company, designs, develops, and markets analog-intensive and mixed-signal integrated circuits (ICs). The company offers broad-based products, which include microcontrollers, clocks and oscillators, wireless transceivers, digital isolators and related products, and human interface sensors and controllers; broadcast products comprising radio receivers and transmitters, and video tuners and demodulators; and access products consisting of embedded modems, subscriber line interface circuits, Voice over IP (VoIP) products, and power over Ethernet devices, as well as DSL analog front end ICs and IRDA devices. It provides ICs for use in various electronic applications, such as portable devices, AM/FM radios, and other consumer electronics, as well as networking, test and measurement, industrial monitoring and control, and customer premises equipment. The company markets its products through direct sales force, and through a networ k of independent sales representatives and distributors in the United States, Taiwan, China, South Korea, Japan, and internationally. Silicon Laboratories Inc. was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in Austin, Texas.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Garrett Cook]
In trading on Friday, technology shares were relative laggards, down on the day by about 0.80 percent. Top decliners in the sector included Silicon Laboratories (NASDAQ: SLAB), down 15.32 percent, and Informatica (NASDAQ: INFA), off 11.91 percent.
Top Tech Stocks To Invest In 2014: Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc.(ALNY)
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company, engages in discovering, developing, and commercializing novel therapeutics based on RNA interference (RNAi). Its core product programs under clinical or pre-clinical development include ALN-TTR, a Phase I clinical trial program for the treatment of transthyretin-mediated amyloidosis; ALN-APC, a Phase I clinical trial program for the treatment of hemophilia; ALN-PCS for the treatment of severe hypercholesterolemia; ALN-HPN, a pre-clinical development for the treatment of refractory anemia; and ALN-TMP, a pre-clinical development for the treatment of hemoglobinopathies, including beta-thalassemia and sickle cell anemia. The company?s partner-based programs comprise ALN-RSV01, a Phase II clinical trial program for the treatment of respiratory syncytial virus infection; ALN-VSP, a Phase I clinical trial completed program for the treatment of liver cancers; and ALN-HTT, a pre-clinical development for the treatment of Huntington?s disease. It has strategic alliances with Novartis Pharma AG; F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd; Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited; Isis Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; Medtronic Inc.; Kyowa Hakko Kirin Co., Ltd.; and Cubist Pharmaceuticals, Inc. The company was founded in 2002 and is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By John Udovich]
Small cap hepatitis stock�Achillion Pharmaceuticals, Inc (NASDAQ: ACHN) saw shares jump on Monday only to then have a minor implosion on Tuesday���meaning its worth taking a look at that hiccup and�the history of hiccups or�successes from other small cap hepatitis stocks like Idenix Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ: IDIX),�Arrowhead Research Corp (NASDAQ: ARWR) and Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc (NASDAQ: ALNY). It should be mentioned that Hepatitis A, B and C are viral infections that together affect an estimated 5% to 6% of Americans and while globally, 2 billion people (1 out of 3 people) have been infected with hepatitis B with� 400 million people chronically infected plus 130��50 million people have chronic hepatitis C - meaning there is plenty of room for large and small cap players alike in the space.
- [By Jake L'Ecuyer]
Equities Trading UP
Shares of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ALNY) got a boost, shooting up 53.25 percent to $101.47 after the company reported that it has acquired investigational RNAi Therapeutic assets from Merck (NYSE: MRK). Genzyme and Alnylam expanded their collaboration on rare genetic diseases. - [By Ben Levisohn]
Markey rates the stock a Buy with an $11 price target. Shares of MannKind have jumped 14% to $7.85 today. The SPDR Biotech ETF (XBI) has gained 0.7% to $119.85 today, while Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (ALNY) has gained 1% to $49.05, NPS Pharmaceuticals (NPSP) has fallen 4.1% to $23.56, and InterMune (ITMN) has risen 2.6% to $14.89.
Top Tech Stocks To Invest In 2014: Leidos Holdings Inc (LDOS)
Leidos Holdings, Inc. (Leidos), incorporated on August 12, 2005, is a science and technology solutions company focused on delivering solutions primarily in the areas of national security, health and engineering. The Company is a holding company whose direct 100%-owned subsidiary is Leidos, Inc., which delivers science and technology solutions in the areas of national security, health and engineering to agencies of the United States Department of Defense (DoD), the intelligence community, the United States Department of Homeland Security, and other United States Government civil agencies, state and local government agencies, foreign governments and customers across a variety of commercial markets. The Company�� segments include Health and Engineering and National Security Solutions. On September 27, 2013, Leidos completed the separation of its technical services and enterprise information technology services business into an independent, publicly traded company named Science Applications International Corporation.
The Company�� National Security Solutions segment provides solutions and systems for air, land, sea, space and cyberspace for the United States intelligence community, the DoD, the military services and the United States Department of Homeland Security. Its solutions deliver technology, intelligence systems, data analytics, cyber solutions, and intelligence analysis and operations support to critical missions around the world. The Company�� Health and Engineering segment provides health systems integration services to implement and optimize the use of electronic health records, apply data analytics and behavioral health research to help enable customers to improve healthcare quality and patient outcomes, detect and prevent diseases, enhance scientific discovery, and reduce costs to the healthcare system. Leidos also provides engineering services and solutions focused on solving energy, environmental and infrastructure challenges. These include solutions in energy generation! , efficiency and management, environmental services, securing critical infrastructure, and designing and building construction projects.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Maria Armental var popups = dojo.query(".socialByline .popC"); popups.forEach]
Leidos Holdings Inc.(LDOS) said fiscal first-quarter earnings slumped 52%, as revenue declined amid what the company described as a continued constrained federal funding environment. Shares dropped 3.5% to $36.61 premarket.
- [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 Steve Symington]
What:�Shares of�Leidos Holdings,� (NYSE: LDOS ) �or formerly�Science Applications International�-- fell more than 18% Thursday after the national security, health, and engineering solutions company turned in better-than-expected fiscal 2014 fourth-quarter results, but followed with disappointing guidance and announced the departure of its Chief Operating Officer.
- [By Jake L'Ecuyer]
Leidos Holdings (NYSE: LDOS) was down as well, falling 18.17 percent to $35.33 after the company announced its COO would leave, while releasing worse than expected guidance.
Top Tech Stocks To Invest In 2014: CEPHEID(CPHD)
Cepheid, a molecular diagnostics company, engages in developing, manufacturing, and marketing integrated systems for testing in the clinical market, as well as for application in legacy biothreat, industrial, and partner markets. Its systems enable molecular testing for organisms and genetic-based diseases by automation. The company offers GeneXpert system that integrates sample preparation in addition to DNA amplification and detection; and SmartCycler system, which integrates DNA amplification and detection to allow rapid analysis of a sample. The GeneXpert system is designed for reference laboratories, hospital central laboratories, and satellite testing locations, such as emergency departments and intensive care units within hospitals and doctors? offices. Cepheid also provides GeneXpert Infinity System for high volume testing. The company offers tests for the GeneXpert and the SmartCycler systems in the areas of healthcare associated infections, critical infectious d isease, genetics, women?s health, and oncology. These tests include U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cleared products, CE marked products, analyte specific reagents, and research use only tests in the clinical market. In the industrial market, it sells its SmartCycler system along with general use polymerase chain reaction reagents and reaction tubes. Cepheid sells its products its direct sales force and through third-party distributors worldwide. It has collaboration agreements with Novartis, Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics, Life Technologies Corporation, and Northrop Grumman Corporation. The company was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Jon C. Ogg]
Cepheid (NASDAQ: CPHD) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, but the firm actually raised its price target to $41 (versus a $39.04 close).
- [By Sean Williams]
What: Shares of Cepheid (NASDAQ: CPHD ) , a developer of molecular diagnostic tests for both clinical and non-clinical markets, plunged as much as 11% after the company reported its second-quarter earnings results following the closing bell last night.
Top Tech Stocks To Invest In 2014: Fabrinet (FN)
Fabrinet, incorporated on August 12, 1999, provides optical packaging and precision optical, electro-mechanical and electronic manufacturing services to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) of complex products, such as optical communication components, modules and sub-systems, industrial lasers and sensors. The Company offers a range of optical and electro-mechanical capabilities across the entire manufacturing processes, including process design and engineering, supply chain management, manufacturing, advanced packaging, final assembly and test.
The products that the Company manufactures for its OEM customers includes optical communications devices, such as selective switching products, such as reconfigurable optical add-drop modules (ROADMs), optical amplifiers, modulators and other optical components and modules that collectively enable network managers to route signals through fiber traffic at various wavelengths and over various distances; tunable transponders and transceivers that eliminate the need to stock individual fixed wavelength transponders and transceivers used in voice and data communications networks; and active optical cables providing high-speed interconnect capabilities for data centers and computing clusters, as well as Infiniband, Ethernet, fiber channel and optical backplane connectivity.
Solid state, diode-pumped, gas and fiber lasers (industrial lasers) used across a array of industries, including semiconductor processing (wafer inspection, wafer dicing, wafer scribing), biotechnology (DNA sequencing, flow cytometry, hematology, antibody detection), metrology (instrumentation, calibration, inspection), and material processing (photo processing, textile cutting, annealing, marking, engraving); and sensors, including differential pressure, micro-gyro, fuel and other sensors that are used in automobiles, and non-contact temperature measurement sensors for the medical industry. The Company also designs and fabricates application-specific crystals, pri! sms, mirrors, laser components and substrates (customized optics) and other custom and standard borosilicate, clear fused quartz, and synthetic fused silica glass products (customized glass).
The Company competes with Sanmina-SCI Corporation, Celestica Inc., Venture Corporation Limited, Benchmark Electronics, Inc, Browave Corporation, Fujian Castech Crystals, Inc., Research Electro-Optic, Inc. and Photop Technologies, Inc.
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 Fabrinet (NYSE: FN ) , whose recent revenue and earnings are plotted below. - [By Seth Jayson]
Fabrinet (NYSE: FN ) reported earnings on April 29. Here are the numbers you need to know.
The 10-second takeaway
For the quarter ended March 29 (Q3), Fabrinet beat expectations on revenues and beat expectations on earnings per share.
Top Tech Stocks To Invest In 2014: ACI Worldwide Inc (ACIW)
ACI Worldwide, Inc.(ACI), incorporated on November 2, 1993, develops, markets, installs and supports a line of software products and services primarily focused on facilitating electronic payments. In addition to its own products, it distributes, or acts as a sales agent for software developed by third parties. These products and services are used principally by financial institutions, retailers and electronic payment processors, both in domestic and international markets. Its products are sold and supported through distribution networks covering three geographic regions the Americas, Europe/Middle East/Africa (EMEA) and Asia/Pacific. Each distribution network has its own sales force that it supplements with independent reseller and/or distributor networks. Its products are marketed under the ACI Worldwide and ACI Payment Systems brands. In March 2013, it completed the acquisition of Online Resources Corp. In November 2013, the Company announced that it has completed the acquisition of Official Payments Holdings, Inc, a provider of electronic bill payment solutions.
The Company�� software products and hosted services deliver a broad range of solutions for payments processing, card and merchant management, online banking, mobile, branch and voice banking, fraud detection and trade finance. Trusted by more than 1,650 organizations globally, ACI serves three primary market audiences: Financial institutions, including national, regional and global banks, community banks and credit unions , Processors and Retailers. Its products cover several different domains within the payments and banking marketplace, which includes Online Banking and Cash Management ,includes the payments and cash flows across accounts globally through the online or mobile channel , Branch , includes the management and processing of monetary, non monetary, sales and account origination financial transactions, Trade Finance, includes the management of all trade related transaction types, both traditional trade and open acc! ount instruments with the ability for end users to view and track those transactions through the online channel, Community Financial Services, includes the online and mobile banking and payment systems, and security solutions that service community banks and credit unions , Retail Banking Payments provides the software to support in house issuance of payment instruments and the management of a consumer payment from transaction acquiring all through the lifecycle within the banking system to settlement; which it split into Payments Processing, and Card and Merchant Management , Wholesale Banking Payments , includes the management of primarily corporate payments and messages through their lifecycle including RTGS payments, ACH payments, and SWIFT transactions , Merchant Retail , includes the management of a consumer payment within a merchant retailer and supporting services such as the management of store and gift card and loyalty programs , Payment Fraud Management, includes securing of payments against fraud and money laundering and Payment Infrastructure, includes the tools and infrastructure to operate and optimize the payments system .
Online Banking and Cash Management, Branch and Trade Finance
Online Banking and Cash Management, Branch & Trade domain offers ACI Enterprise Banker is a comprehensive Internet-based business banking product for financial institutions including banks, brokerage firms and credit unions and can be flexibly packaged for small, medium and business customers. This product provides these customers with electronic payment initiation capability, information reporting, and numerous other payment related services that allow the business customer to manage all its banking needs via the Internet. ACI Global Banker provides single-window access to corporate cash management, trade finance, FXservices, reporting and data exchange. Global Banker supports single-window, Single Sign-On access to a bank�� corporate Internet banking platform. ACI Universal Onl! ine Banke! r is a comprehensive Internet-based banking product for financial institutions including banks, brokerage firms and credit unions and can be flexibly packaged for small, medium and business customers as well as individual consumers. This product provides these customers with electronic payment initiation capability, information reporting, and numerous other cash management services that allow the business customer to manage all its banking needs via the Internet as well as mobile channels.
InterACT Universal Banker is a multi-channel product suite which supports the processing of monetary, non-monetary, sales and account origination transactions across multiple channels including branch, call center and back office, as well as delivering extended branch support for browser based employees , such as relationship managers or calling officers. track their entire trade portfolio of traditional trade and open account instrument over the Internet. This product is also utilized in the wholesale domain. ACI Mobile Channel Manager allows organizations to provide consumers, business and corporate customers with mobile access to functions across the banking and payments spectrum. When used with ACI banking products and payment engines, Mobile Channel Manager enables mobile functions which might include account management, balance inquiries, transfers, bill payments, person-to-person (P2P) payments (including PayPal), pre-paid purchases, remote deposit capture, ATM/branch locator, SMS notifications. This solution is also utilized in the retail domain.
Community Financial Services
Online and Mobile Banking solutions for Community Banks and Credit Unions offers a full-featured self-service banking solution including online banking, voice banking and mobile banking for consumer and small-to-mid-size businesses, all from a single hosted platform. The WebFederal suite provides credit unions with online banking, business solutions, mobile banking, CRM Marketing, and Creative and ! Web Desig! n services. ACI Defense is a full-service security solutions for community banks and credit unions. The ACI Defense suite of solutions helps U.S. financial institutions address security compliance obligations with firewall and intrusion prevention services, security assessments, vulnerability testing, endpoint and mobile protection, email security and encryption and identity theft/anti-phishing services. Online Bill Payment and Presentment provides full-service bill payment solutions for community banks and credit unions, including pay-anyone functionality, online bill presentment, P2P and A2A payments and express pay services.
Retail Banking Payments Payments Processing
The Company's retail payments processing products are designed to acquire electronic payment transactions from transaction generators and route them to acquiring institutions so that they can be authorized for payment. The software often interfaces with regional or national switches to access the account-holding financial institution or card issuer for approval or denial of the transactions (authorization). The software returns messages to the original transaction generator (e.g. an ATM), thereby completing the transactions. Depending on how the software is configured, it can perform all of the functions necessary to authenticate, authorize, route and settle an electronic payment transaction, or it can interact with other systems to ensure that these functions are performed. Payments processing software may be required to interact with dozens of devices, switch interchanges and communication protocols around the world.
BASE24-eps is an integrated electronic payments processing product marketed to customers operating electronic payment networks in the retail banking and retail industries. The modular, open architecture of the product enables customers to select the application and system components that are required to operate their networks. BASE24-eps offers a broad range of features and function! s for ele! ctronic payment processing. BASE24-eps is licensed as a standalone electronic payments solution for financial institutions, retailers and electronic payment processors. BASE24-eps, which operates on International Business Machines��(IBM) System z, IBM System p, Hewlett-Packard Company (HP) NonStop, and Oracle Solaris servers, provides flexible integration points to other applications and data within enterprises to support 24-hour per day access to money, services and information. On the HP NonStop platform, BASE24-eps uses NET24-XPNET, an ACI developed message oriented middleware solution. ACI continues to support and maintain a number of other retail payments engines which are no longer actively marketed to new customers.
BASE24 is an integrated family of software products previously marketed to customers operating electronic payment networks in the retail banking and retail industries. A substantial portion of ACI�� revenues are derived from licensing the BASE24 family of products and providing related services and maintenance as it has been the core of the ACI business since the Company�� inception. The BASE24 product line operates exclusively on HP NonStop servers. The HP NonStop parallel-processing environment offers fault-tolerance, linear expandability and distributed processing capabilities. The combination of features offered by BASE24 and the HP NonStop technology are important characteristics in high volume, 24-hour per day electronic payment systems. BASE24 makes use of NET24-XPNET, an ACI developed message oriented middleware solution.
Postilion is an integrated electronic payments processing system. It authenticates, authorizes, routes and switches transactions generated at ATMs and merchant POS sites as well as provides flexible infrastructure to handle key aspects of the back office functions. The product is used widely across the world, with a particular emphasis in Africa. This product is also used in the merchant retail domain.
Retail Ban! king Paym! ents Card and Merchant Management
ACI Card and Merchant Management solutions are card issuing and merchant management products, which have been successfully used by the payments industry for many years. These products run on IBM System z, and various Unix and Microsoft Windows servers. ACI Issuer is a modern card and account management system. It has been developed to support national, international, and global financial institutions. The system has full multi-currency, multi-product, multi-institution and multi-language capabilities. It manages card portfolios in different countries and for different issuers on a single platform and has been built to fully comply with EMV standards. ACI Acquirer supports the full lifecycle of merchant portfolio management, including merchant onboarding, transaction acquisition, interchange fee qualification, settlement and statement generation. The system is enabled with the flexibility acquirers require to manage complex merchant portfolios.
ACI Interchange is the central monetary transaction manager, processing all incoming customer transactions and maintaining a central transactions database. ACI Interchange also manages the clearing and settlement communication with the international payment schemes, ensuring compliance with Visa, MasterCard, American Express, China Union Pay and JCB. The module can easily be adapted to manage clearing and settlement with additional networks such as domestic payment schemes. ACI Token Manager consists of a suite of products from ACI�� partner Bell Identification B.V. The Smart Card & Application Management System provides for central lifecycle management of smart cards and other tokens as well as the management of the applications activated within the scheme. The Key Management System facilitates the implementation of security concepts based on the generation, storage, recovery, import and distribution of cryptographic keys. The keys are used for encryption and decryption of data and for verific! ation and! authorization of trusted parties using digital certificates. ACI Token Manager for Mobile enables the delivery of payment tokens, such as wallets, to mobile phones.
ACI Payments Manager is an integrated, modular software solution that automates the processing, settlement and reconciliation of electronic transactions, as well as provides plastic card issuance and account management. This product is primarily marketed in North America. ACI Automated Dispute Manager enables issuers, acquirers, processors and payment networks to streamline and automate the dispute management process through workflow-based software components.
Wholesale Banking Payments
The Company�� wholesale banking solutions are focused on global, super-regional and regional financial institutions that provide treasury management services to corporations and correspondent banks. In addition, the market includes non-bank financial institutions with the need to conduct their own internal treasury management activities. ACI Money Transfer System provides high value payments processing, bulk payments processing and SWIFT financial messaging. The high value payments processing function, which produces the majority of revenues for the ACI Money Transfer System, is used to generate, authorize, enrich, route and settle high value wire transfer transactions in domestic and international environments. The ACI Money Transfer System product operates on IBM System p servers using the AIX operating system.
Merchant Retail
ACI Retail Commerce Server is a solution for retailers, is an integrated suite of electronic payments products that facilitate a broad range of capabilities. These capabilities include prepaid, debit and credit card processing, ACH processing, electronic benefits transfer, card issuance and management, check authorization, customer loyalty programs and returned check collection. The Retail Commerce Server product line operates on open systems technologies such as! Microsof! t Windows, UNIX and Linux, with the current installations deployed on the Microsoft Windows platform. ACI In-store Solution supports retailers and drives the retailer�� payment portion of the customer�� in-store purchase experience. The In-store solution prompts the consumer and gathers the necessary card payment details to process the payment request. Importantly, the solution helps retailers control the costs and risk of key regulatory issues such as PCI compliance and data theft at the point of sale.
Payment Fraud Management
ACI Proactive Risk Management is a payment fraud detection system designed to help card issuers, merchants, merchant acquirers and financial institutions combat fraud schemes. The system combines the pattern recognition capability of neural-network transaction scoring with custom risk models of rules-based strategies and advanced client/server account management software. The real time capability enables fraud assessment to be part of the authorization process preventing fraud from occurring. Proactive Risk Management operates on IBM System z, HP NonStop, Oracle Solaris and Microsoft Windows servers. This product offers customers the flexibility to automate activities and processes across the complete lifecycle of a case related to fraud. Cases are created when fraud officers checking an alert within Proactive Risk Manager identify fraud or money laundering. The solution is a basic framework that defines processes for researching and resolving cases, including investigation resources, timeframes, escalation paths and alerts.
Payments Infrastructure
The Payments Infrastructure products provide specific technology extensions to augment the business services provided in the business service domains. ACI Communication Services provides a range of communication services to enable message exchange on multiple platforms in particular enabling applications to support legacy protocols, such as SNA and X.25, running over TCP/IP net! works. It! also supports hybrid networking environments such as IBM�� HPR/IP. This set of products runs on HP NonStop, IBM System z and Unix platforms. ACI Enterprise Security Services is a suite of security solutions that secure access to systems and resources. These products run on the HP NonStop platform and are designed to take advantage of HP NonStop fundamentals.
ACI Web Access Services allows HP NonStop users to securely expose existing applications to peer systems as well as PC clients and Web browsers. Web Access Services supports new GUI client development, standard 6530 and 3270E terminal emulation or automated data stream transformation to give users a range of options for integrating NonStop services across the enterprise. ACI Payment Testing (ASSET) is a simulation and testing tool that allows companies involved in electronic payments to simulate devices and transactions, and perform application testing. ASSET is available for use with BASE24, BASE24-eps, Postilion, and ACI Proactive Risk Manager.
Prognosis is available for use with BASE24, BASE24-eps, Postilion, ACI Proactive Risk Manager, and ACI Money Transfer System. ACI Mobile Alerting powered by Spectrum MoneyGuard offers fraud or service alert options in near real-time with SMS messages to their mobile phones of events affecting their banking transactions. When used for fraud alerting, customers have the option of responding via text (two-way communication) and requesting a block of the card and a confirmation is sent.
Services
It offers its customers a wide range of professional services, including analysis, design, development, implementation, integration and training. It has service professionals within each of its three geographic regions who generally perform the majority of the work associated with installing and integrating its software products, rather than relying on third-party systems integrators. It utilizes a standard methodology to deliver customer project implementations ! across al! l products lines. Within the process, it provides customers with a variety of services, including on-site solution scoping reviews, project planning, training, site preparation, installation, product configuration, product customization, testing and go-live support, and project management throughout the project lifecycle. Product-support-funded services are available to customers after a solution has been installed and are based on the relevant product support category. A team of support analysts and an appointed customer manager are available to assist customers. Technical services are provided to customers who have licensed one or more of its software products. Services offered include programming and programming support, day-to-day systems operations, network operations, help desk staffing, problem resolution, system design, and performance planning and review. Technical services are typically priced according to the level of technical expertise required. ACI�� education courses provide students with knowledge at all levels, to enhance and improve their understanding of ACI products. ACI also provides further, more in-depth technical courses that allow students to use practical labs to enhance what they have learned in the classroom. The ACI trainers��ability to understand customers��systems means ACI can also provide tailored course materials for individual customers.
ACI�� testing services team works within the ACI customer base to establish testing practices and build a standard testing environment that meets an organization�� current needs, and is easily extensible for future requirements. It is important that any testing environment encompasses all aspects of the testing lifecycle (i.e., functional, acceptance, regression and stress testing), as well as allowing ease of use by the appropriate staff. ACI�� testing services can provide this environment as either a stand-alone deliverable or as a fully managed service.
ACI is committed to providing cons! ulting se! rvices to its customer base. In order to do this, it has assembled a team of technicians with many decades of experience, not only with ACI solutions, but also in the payments industry in general. Trusted globally, these consultants are available to provide technical assistance to ACI�� customers across the full range of the ACI portfolio. The consultants��knowledge and understanding of ACI�� customers allow them to define, design and build appropriate technical solutions. This in turn provides an enhanced business offering to customers, ultimately enabling a greater competitive advantage and increased satisfaction. It offers facilities management services whereby it operates a customer�� electronic payments system for multi-year periods. Pricing and payment terms for facilities management services vary on a case-by-case basis giving consideration to the complexity of the facility or system to be managed, the level and quantity of technical services required, and other factors relevant to the facilities management agreement.
The Company competes with Clear2Pay NV/SA (Clear2Pay), Intuit Corporation, Bottomline Technologies, ARGO, FIS, Fundtech Ltd, First Data Corporation, Fidelity National Information Services, Inc, Fiserv, Inc., China Systems, CSI, Misys, CGI, Clear2Pay, Computer Sciences Corporation, Fidelity National Information Services, Inc., Pegasystems Inc., OpenWay Group, Total System Services, Inc. (TSYS), Alaric Technology Inc., BPC Banking Technologies, PayEx Solutions AS, Financial Software and Systems, CR2, Lusis Payments Ltd., Opus Software Solutions Private Limited, Atos Origin S.A., Fidelity National Information Services, Inc., First Data Corporation, SiNSYS, TSYS, VISA, MasterCard, Dovetail Software, IBM, Logica Plc, Tieto Corporation, AJB Software Design, Inc., Retalix, Heartland Payment Systems, Inc., Servebase Computers Ltd, Tender Retail Inc., VeriFone Systems, Inc, Actimize, Inc., Fair Isaac Corporation, BAE Systems Detica, ReD, Memento Inc., Norkom Techn! ologies, ! and SAS Institute, Inc., CA Technologies, HP and Oracle USA, Inc.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By CRWE]
ACI Worldwide (Nasdaq:ACIW), a leading international provider of payment systems, released details of its product roadmaps to the market, and described how the combination of ACI and S1 adds innovation, new product capabilities and resources around the globe to support the needs of its customers.
- [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 ACI Worldwide (Nasdaq: ACIW ) , whose recent revenue and earnings are plotted below. - [By Vera Yuan]
Dear Fellow Shareholder: The U.S. economy continues to gradually expand, building on the 5+ year recovery from the Great Recession. Employment levels are improving, though progress has been slower than expected. Inflation, for now, remains subdued. As signaled and on cue, the Fed has been weaning the economy (and investors) off of the extraordinary ��uantitative easing��stimulus. Investors have generally shrugged off world events that might otherwise cause high anxiety (ISIS and the Middle East, Russia and Ukraine, etc.). As attention now turns to when the Fed will raise short-term interest rates, it seems plausible that volatility may intensify as the stimulus security blanket is removed. In the meantime, companies are taking advantage of the artificially low interest rate environment and sanguine investor sentiment. Merger activity remains robust, fueled by cheap and readily available credit. The IPO market has been very active, headlined by the successful Alibaba offering in September. Corporate treasurers continue to issue loads of debt on attractive terms, locking in generationally low interest rates for long terms. While these conditions will not last forever, they have helped opportunistic managers accelerate equity value growth at many companies.Investment Commentary and Outlook After three years of seemingly non-stop gains, the stock market took a pause in the third quarter. While most large cap indices eked out modest positive returns, the broader investing waters were far less placid. Small cap stocks sold off as the Russell 2000 declined more than 7% during the quarter. Energy stocks, both large and small, fell materially as investors worried about too much oil and gas supply coming online in North America (what a difference a decade makes). High yield bonds wobbled briefly in July, then again in September. Increasingly, investors are not treating all securities the same, and as stock pickers we welcome this development. Our equity funds��resu
- [By Roberto Pedone]
ACI Worldwide (ACIW) develops, markets, installs and supports a line of software products and services primarily focused on facilitating electronic payments. This stock closed up 5.6% at $51.50 in Monday's trading session.
Monday's Volume: 922,000
Three-Month Average Volume: 252,148
Volume % Change: 241%From a technical perspective, ACIW jumped higher here and broke out above some near-term overhead resistance at $49.941 with heavy upside volume. This move is coming after shares of ACIW recently dipped from $49.91 to $46 with heavy downside volume. Shares of ACIW are now trending within range of triggering a major breakout trade. That trade will hit if ACIW manages to take out its 52-week and Monday's intraday high of $51.88 with high volume.
Traders should now look for long-biased trades in ACIW as long as it's trending above that first breakout level of $49.91 or above more near-term support at $48 and then once it sustains a move or close above $51.88 with volume that's near or above 252,148 shares. If that breakout hits soon, then ACIW will set up to enter new 52-week-high territory, which is bullish technical price action. Some possible upside targets off that breakout are $55 to $60.
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