Top 5 Oil Service Companies To Buy For 2014

There is a lot of buzz over recent energy activity in Sub-Saharan Africa. With Anadarko Petroleum (NYSE: APC  ) and Eni (NYSE: E  ) making large gas finds off the coast of Mozambique, several majors are now looking to get in the game as well. BP plans to spend $540 million over the next five years to develop a part of this gas field that could hold well over 100 trillion cubic feet.�

Better drilling technology and relative political stability in the region have allowed several companies to start investing money in the region, and if some of these plays hit paydirt, some companies could be in for big paydays. In this video, Fool.com contributor Tyler Crowe talks with Aimee Duffy about some of the hot energy plays on the African continent and what we should expect from this region in the years to come. �

With more than 94% of its capital investments coming in the international markets for 2013, National Oilwell Varco is positioning itself to be the leader in oil services around the world. To help determine whether it could be a good fit for your portfolio, you're invited to check out The Motley Fool's premium research report featuring in-depth analysis on whether NOV is a buy today. For instant access to this valuable investor's resource, simply click here now to claim your copy.

Top 5 Medical Stocks To Invest In 2015: American Homes 4 Rent (AMH)

American Homes 4 Rent, incorporated on October 19, 2012, is an internally managed Maryland real estate investment trust (REIT). The Company is focused on acquiring, renovating, leasing and operating single-family homes as rental properties.

As of September 30, 2013, the Company owned 21,267 properties in desirable markets in 22 states including Cincinnati, Ohio; Columbus, Ohio ; Raleigh, North Carolina, Charlotte, North Carolina, Houston, Texas , Chicago, Illinois; Indianapolis, Indiana; Nashville, Tennessee ; Dallas / Fort Worth, Texas , and Columbia, South Carolina. In addition to single-family properties, the Company also focuses to invest in condominium units, townhouses and real estate-related debt investments.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Jon C. Ogg]

  We saw the analyst quiet period end for American Homes 4 Rent (NYSE: AMH) and we have seen some mixed coverage in the name: BofA/Merrill Lynch was at Neutral, Goldman Sachs was at Neutral, Wells Fargo was at Market Perform and J.P. Morgan was at Overweight.

• [By Will Ashworth]

  PSA fills a need that�� not likely to disappear. In the latest fiscal year ended Dec. 31, 2013, PSA generated core funds from operations of $7.44 — 11.4% higher than in 2012. Same-store rental income increased 5.4% year-over-year due to higher rents and higher occupancies. It�� a winning combination that over time has proved successful. Although it�� only yielding 3.3% at the moment, it�� a very stable stock, having seen a negative return just once in the past decade. I like its odds.

  Pure-Play REITs: American Homes 4 Rent (AMH)

  This is the brand child of Public Storage founder Wayne Hughes, who started the company in 2011 to take advantage of falling prices in the single-family home market. Private equity firms such as�Blackstone Group (BX), Hughes and others have been actively buying up houses on the cheap with plans to rent them out until prices rise to the point where they��e no longer worth holding on to. As a result of this intense competition, prices have risen faster than anticipated — slowing the number of home purchases made by institutional investors.

Top 5 Oil Service Companies To Buy For 2014: SWS Group Inc.(SWS)

SWS Group, Inc., a diversified financial services holding company, provides a range of investment and commercial banking, and related financial services to individual, corporate, and institutional investors, as well as broker/dealers, governmental entities, and financial intermediaries in the United States. It operates in four segments: Clearing, Retail, Institutional, and Banking. The Clearing segment provides clearing and execution services for general securities broker/dealers, bank affiliated firms, and firms specializing in high volume trading. The Retail segment offers retail securities products and services, such as equities, mutual funds, and fixed income products; insurance products; and managed accounts. The Institutional segment provides securities lending, investment banking and public finance, fixed income sales and trading, proprietary trading, and agency execution services to institutional customers. The Banking segment offers various banking products and se rvices, including certificates of deposit, money market accounts, interest-bearing demand accounts, savings accounts, federal home loan bank advances, federal funds purchased, and non interest-bearing demand accounts, as well as one to four family residential loans and construction loans, lot and land development loans, commercial real estate loans, multi family loans, commercial loans, and consumer loans. SWS Group, Inc. was founded in 1972 and is headquartered in Dallas, Texas.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Tim Melvin]

  SWS Group (SWS) also catches my eye at the current valuation. The Dallas-based company is in the brokerage, investment banking and banking business in the Southwest. They struggled with losses at the banking subsidiary and eventually had to find a capital infusion. They ended up borrowing $100 million from noted investors Gerald Ford and Robert Bass. The core brokerage and investment banking business are well positioned and should do well over the next few years. I wouldn�� be shocked if this firm was eventually sold off, with Mr. Ford keeping the banking assets and selling the brokerage and I-Bank units to a larger firm. With the stock trading at just 65% of book value, the long-term potential is very high for this stock.

• [By Lauren Pollock]

  Hilltop Holdings Inc.(HTH) offered to buy the rest of SWS Group Inc.(SWS) that it doesn’t already own, valuing the financial-services company at about $231 million. Hilltop, a regional banking and insurance company, offered $7 a share, a 16% premium over Thursday’s close. SWS surged 19% to $7.20 premarket,�topping the offer price.

Top 5 Oil Service Companies To Buy For 2014: Australian Dollar(AU)

AngloGold Ashanti Limited primarily engages in the exploration and production of gold. It also produces silver, uranium oxide, and sulfuric acid. The company conducts gold-mining operations in South Africa; continental Africa, including Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Namibia, and Tanzania; Australia; and the Americas, which include Argentina, Brazil, and the United States. It also has mining or exploration operations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guinea, and Colombia. As of December 31, 2010, the company had proved and probable gold reserves of 71.2 million ounces. The company has a strategic alliance with Thani Dubai Mining Limited to explore, develop, and operate mines across the Middle East and parts of North Africa. AngloGold Ashanti Limited, formerly known as Vaal Reefs Exploration and Mining Company Limited, was founded in 1944 and is headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Brianna Valleskey]

  The result is that gold producers are not a particularly exciting part of markets in South Africa anymore, Theron said. Most of the large gold companies, like AngloGold Ashanti Limited (NYSE: AU) and Gold Fields Limited (NYSE: GFI), have internationalized their operations, he said, but still have a footprint in South Africa.

Top 5 Oil Service Companies To Buy For 2014: Iron Mountain Incorporated(IRM)

Iron Mountain Incorporated, together with its subsidiaries, provides information management services primarily in North America, Europe, Latin America, and the Asia Pacific. The company offers records management services, including records management program development and implementation based on best-practices to help customers comply with specific regulatory requirements; implementation of policy-based programs that feature storage for various media comprising paper; flexible retrieval access and retention management; hybrid services to help organizations gain control over their paper records; and specialized services for vital records and regulated industries, such as healthcare, energy, government, and financial services. It also provides data protection and recovery services, such as disaster preparedness; off-site vaulting of data backup media for data recovery in the event of a disaster, human error, or virus; online backup and recovery solutions for desktop and la ptop computers, and remote servers; and technology escrow services to protect and manage source code and other proprietary information. In addition, the company offers information destruction services that primarily consist of physical secure shredding operations; and is involved in the shredding of sensitive documents to third-party recyclers. Further, it provides fulfillment services that assemble custom marketing packages and orders, as well as provide reporting on customer marketing literature inventories; and professional consulting services to develop and implement comprehensive records and information management programs. Iron Mountain Incorporated serves commercial, legal, banking, health care, accounting, insurance, entertainment, and government organizations. The company was founded in 1951 and is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Ben Levisohn]

  Think of Iron Mountain (IRM) as any heavy metal band after Nirvana broke in 1991. Suddenly, a way of playing music that had been wildly successful was looked at as an anachronism and bands like Metallica cut their hair, wore flannel and did just about anything they could think of to fit in in a changed world.

  Getty Images/Lonely Planet Image

  That’s Iron Mountain today. It has a business that was once fantastic–storing paper files for corporations. But in a digital world, that business is pass茅, even if it still brings in tons of money. Sure, Iron Mountain is doing everything it can to change its stripes–offering digital services, trying to morph into a REIT–but Iron Mountain is still what it is.

  And that’s a struggling business.

  On Friday, Iron Mountain released financial results and promptly fell 4.3%, as its earnings and revenue were in line with analyst forecasts but Iron Mountain’s North American storage growth turned negative, perhaps for the first time ever, notes Jefferies’ Dan Dolev and Trevor Young.

  So what now? Dolev and Young don’t think emerging markets can fix what ails Iron Mountain:

  It was encouraging to see international storage internal growth decelerate only slightly (-20bps to +6.3%) as it faced +70bps tougher compares…Is the strength sustainable? We are hopeful, but are not holding our breath given that 1) 4Q storage internal growth in developed international markets (e.g. Western Europe) was already below the FY average (+2.2% vs. +2.5% for the FY), and 2) although 4Q EM storage internal growth accelerated (+13.4% vs. +13.2% for the FY), history suggests that EMs can skip decades of technology evolution and upgrade directly to the newest technology (e.g. smartphones in China).

  Dolev and Young�also doubt Iron Mountain’s M&A strategy. They explain why:

  With FY13 global storage internal growth 3x slower than during the Great Re

• [By Sally Jones] 12% over 12 months, Iron Mountain Inc. has a market cap of 5.46 billion; its shares were traded at around $28.56 with a P/E ratio of 69.70. The dividend yield is 3.78%.

  The company reported financial results for the third quarter of 2013 with revenue of $756 million, up from $748 million in the same quarter of 2012. Iron Mountain reported adjusted OIBDA at $240 million in the third quarter, down from the prior-year quarter at $244 million. The third quarter 2013 adjusted EPS of $0.03 per share (GAAP) was also down from the year-ago quarter at $0.31 (GAAP). Year-to-date revenue is $2.25 billion, up slightly from $2.24 billion in third quarter of 2012.

  In October, Iron Mountain bought Cornerstone Records Management, another records storage and data protection company for $191 million. According to a company press release, the Cornerstone deal follows other recent acquisitions of similar companies in Colombia and Peru. Iron Mountain has completed acquisitions valued at approximately $320 million in 2013. The company is also utilizing Paragon Solutions, an advisory consulting and systems integration firm, to be able to advise clients about managing their electronic records.

  GuruFocus currently ranks Iron Mountain with 3 out of 5 stars for Business Predictability.

  Iron Mountain has a real estate network of 64 million square feet across nearly 1,000 facilities in 36 countries. The company operates in five segments: North American Physical Business, Worldwide Digital Business, Europe, Latin America and Asia Pacific.

  Track share pricing, revenue and net income:

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  Real Time Guru Action: As of Nov. 18, 2013, Chris Davis reduced his IRM position by 1.91%, selling 72,606 shares at an average price of $27.48 per share, gaining 3.9%.

  This trade follows his third quarter reduction as of Sept. 30, 2013, when Chris Davis reduced his position by 51.23%, selling 6,628,314 shares at an average price of $64.10, for a g

• [By John Divine]

  Far and away the biggest disappointment in the index today was Iron Mountain (NYSE: IRM  ) , as shares in the business information management company slumped 15.8%. The culprit behind the mass sell-off was actually the Internal Revenue Service, which took a hard line with the company on its request to be taxed as a REIT. REITs, or Real Estate Investment Trusts, enjoy certain tax advantages that other corporate structures don't allow. Unfortunately for Iron Mountain shareholders, the IRS has formed an internal "working group" to examine its current requirements for companies seeking REIT status.