by Frank Bergman

What does the future of the cloud industry look like? Several technology industry experts came out this week and spoke to CloudTweaks.com regarding their cloud computing analysis and predictions.

Bill Claybrook, marketing research analyst, said Software as a Service (Saas) will become very important to consumers throughout the year, especially in the mobile market. Mark Eisenberg, a tech consultant, sees Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) as a dominant force in the market. Meanwhile, Dan Sullivan, author and systems architect, believes an increasing variety in the tech world for consumers.

Whatever viewpoint technology experts have, the cloud industry is a booming market. According to research by Gartner, the public cloud services market could grow by $20 billion, or 18 percent, in 2013 to a total of $131 billion, Projections suggest that cloud spending could very well top $677 billion.

Security is a major factor, however. “Ultimately users are looking for confidence and reassurance that their data will be secure in the cloud, and that their chosen supplier is trustworthy and capable of supporting their business needs,” said Richard Pharro, chief executive of the certification organisation, APM Group, in an interview with Computer Weekly.

Echopass Corporation is a firm that is assisting in the enormous growth of the cloud industry by creating cloud-based contact center solutions. The IP-based call and contact center for public agencies and businesses that vary in size offers a range of services through its EchoSystem service integration platform.

Through the combination of leading partner technologies and services, it has become one of the leading SaaS providers in the cloud market. For more than a decade, Echopass has aided businesses with roughly 20,000 agents in different infrastructure environments, sites and complex applications.

Based in Pleasanton, California, Echopass provides an assortment of cloud-based contact center benefits, including quick wait-times, reductions in costs, improved business acumen and a conversion in IT and business applications and many more advantages.

Since its foundation in 2000, Echopass has rejuvenated firms’ relationships with its clientele. This is an important aspect, especially considering that research has suggested that customers are willing to spend more money and time with a company that provides a positive customer service experience. Some of the issues it can resolve is to handle customers efficiently, accurately and rapidly.

It does this by implementing several features, including integrated multi-channel access, chat and co-browse integration, flexible callback options, social media integration, mobile access and last agent routing

For the past five years, Overstock.com has saved more than $26 million because of the services offered by Echopass. Much of these savings came from the use of the organization’s cloud-based contact center.

With these results, the industry is putting Echopass under a microscope. Frost & Sullivan named Echopass as North American hosted contact center market share leader for the second consecutive year.

“As enterprise deployments are poised to grow faster in the next few years, the hosted sector is becoming more segmented by size and complexity of deployment,” said Keith Dawson, Frost & Sullivan Principal Analyst, in a press release. “In a fragmented and highly competitive market space, Echopass is one of the longest-tenured pure contact center hosting companies to come out of the ASP segment.”

The Echopass website consists of an extensive page of resources that helps visitors understand intricate issues and topics related to the cloud industry. Some of the features include analyst insights, webinars, videos, business solutions and whitepapers.

The prices of online travel search companies have jumped up as different players in the space are acquiring shares to shore up control of these firms. These developments have been great for investors who were shareholders before these purchases pushed share prices up. The question investors should ask today is whether any of the stocks in this space trade at reasonable valuations.

In this article, I will discuss Expedia (EXPE), Kayak Software (KYAK), Orbitz Worldwide (OWW), priceline.com (PCLN), and TripAdvisor (TRIP) to see if they are attractive investment candidates. I chose these five stocks because I believe they could offer the best investment opportunities for investors under the right market conditions. These are the most widely viewed travel websites on the market today.

Travel Search Company Takeovers

Liberty Interactive (LINTA) purchased $300 million in TripAdvisor shares from Barry Diller, who resigned as the Chairman of the firm. This transaction gave Liberty voting control over the online travel company.

Under the terms of the agreement, Liberty acquired 4.8 million shares at $62.50 per share from Mr. Diller and the Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation. Diller sold his shares at a 63% premium, as compared to Monday’s closing price. He only owned 3% of total shares in the company. After the transaction, Liberty Interactive will hold 18.2 million shares in the company, and 12.8 million Class B super voting rights shares. Hence, Liberty now has 57% voting control and 22% of total equity.

As a result of the transaction, TripAdvisor’s share price rose by 6.6% to $40.90 on Tuesday, December 11th, attaining its highest price level since July. To continue reading, click here.

Cisco (CSCO) has made the right decision in choosing to concentrate its innovation on open standards and open source. At the base level, Cisco’s technologies will be available on the open source platform while the company will continue to add value from the top. This is a very successful business model as limited versions of software programs and networking products can be made available to smaller businesses and developers, while professional grade products and services can be sold at premium prices to medium and large businesses.

By choosing to keep base level technologies on an open source platform, Cisco is effectively increasing its long-term profitability. A networking ecosystem that is premium at the upper levels and open source at a basic level will have a great appeal among developers, small, medium and large businesses.

Moreover, small businesses that need assistance from Cisco’s experts can go ahead and purchase networking solutions at an additional cost. The best part is, Cisco’s technological integrations can be used in any type of the industry, enabling production lines that are monitored by means of an intelligent network, with benefits for production management, product quality and cost reduction.

Cisco also announced a plan for global availability in the fourth quarter of 2012, bringing a teleconferencing and networking solution that incorporates tools for effective online meetings, both in the office and in mobile environments, albeit in a private cloud environment. To continue reading, click here.

In the first week of December, Chevron (CVX) announced that it will spend almost $37 billion in 2013 across the world. The increased capital budget spending will be used for oil exploration and building huge capital projects. The figure is a 12% increase from 2012 spending budget and an astonishing 70% increase since 2010. Based on my research, Chevron is taking the right steps to increase its profitability in the coming years. The increased capital spending will help Chevron to consolidate its existing assets and to discover profitable avenues which will increase the company’s revenue in the long run.

Of the $36.7 billion that is slated to be spent in 2013, $33 billion will be spent in exploration and production of oil and gas. Of the $33 billion, $7.5 billion will be spent in the U.S., $3.4 billion in West Africa and shale regions across the world, $2.7 billion for refining and other downstream operations and another $3.3 billion for expenditures of Chevron’s affiliates. Chevron will concentrate on Gulf of Mexico projects, operations in West Africa and the Gorgon LNG project in Australia, all of which are located in stable countries that do not have major risks.

The money that Chevron has decided to spend in 2013 will likely be used to build infrastructure and facilities that will help the company to transport what it drills. It is also important to note that Chevron wants to increase its worldwide oil and gas production to 3.3 million barrels per day by 2017. If Chevron wants to grow further, it will have to discover newer oil fields and consolidate existing oil fields, infrastructure and drilling facilities. To continue reading, click here.

Commodity bulls only tell a compelling, but oversimplified story. They envision globalization and rising affluence causing increased demand for a limited supply of commodities. Though demand will increase, what they don’t mention is that these forces also increase the supply of commodities. A global economy means a global pool of capital is being spent to develop energy projects. With more regions starting to produce oil and gas, investors should have a healthy fear of supply.

The Brazil Experience

The commodity bull story really isn’t consistent with events in Brazil, an emerging market. The government energy company, Petroleo Brasileiro’s Petrobras (PBR), is operating at a loss because its projects have been delayed, not merely because of rising demand. Its refining unit is losing over $8 billion this year as it continues to sell imported gasoline at 8% below cost. Due to increasing local demand without a corresponding increase in refining capacity, gasoline imports increased to 84,000 barrels per day – a 65% increase as of the third quarter. Losses from 2011 almost doubled to $8.4 billion. Project delays and cost overruns kept Petrobras from increasing its refining capacity to keep pace with surging demand, especially from first-time car buyers, aggravating the need to increase energy imports. The increased efficiency and improved production brought by the change in management of the refinery unit is not enough to keep up with demand.

Petrobras CFO Almir Barbassa hinted that the oil producer may be forced to sell assets or reduce investment if its government-run board doesn’t raise prices soon. The company plans to raise $14.8 billion in five years from asset sales and restructuring. To continue reading, click here.

Buyer beware! Japanese and U.S. automaker stocks may appear attractive based on low valuation multiples, but these discounts come at the cost of higher risk. Ford (F) is leveraged, and General Motors (GM) is following suit. Japanese carmakers are experiencing a backlash from angry Chinese customers and counterparties. In addition, the Yen is an expensive and appreciating currency, which makes their low price-to-book ratios less attractive to American investors.

The Bait: Cheap Valuations

Financial metrics show how these stocks appear attractive on the basis of price multiples:

Ford and GM are Closet Financial Companies

Ford’s high leverage is characteristic of a financial services company, not a manufacturing company. This, it is useful to think of it as an auto-loan company that also makes cars.

General Motors is following Ford’s lead by levering its balance sheet and acquiring more financial operations.

General Motors’ subsidiary GM Financial is buying Ally Financial’s European and Latin American operations for $4.2 billion. For Ally Financial, this follows a similar sale of its Canadian and Mexican operations in May in efforts to raise funds for faster repayment of US bailout funds. Also in May, Ally Financial’s mortgage unit Residential Capital filed for bankruptcy and recently the court judge approved the sale of its operations to Walter Investment Management and Ocwen Financial for $3 billion. Another $1.5 billion of the loan portfolio is offered for sale to Berkshire Hathaway. To continue reading, click here.

There is a global movement among the world’s governments to crack down on cigarette smoking. Investors should not be distracted by a legal win in recent news for U.S. tobacco companies: governments around the world are proposing and passing tobacco regulations.

This interplay between societal health issues and individual rights leads to compromises that challenge the outlook for tobacco company profits. In light of this, investors should demand low valuations. Unfortunately, many of these stocks are trading at too high a valuation to compensate investors for these risks.

Tobacco is Discretionary, Too

Tobacco products are viewed as recreational by some and additive by others. The truth is that some customers can curb their consumption in hard times. Thus, the idea that tobacco is an amazing recession-proof industry is faulty.

Philip Morris’ (PM) third quarter financial results demonstrated how tobacco products can be hit by an economic slowdown. Shipments of Philip Morris cigarettes to Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Canada fell 4.9% in the third quarter. Worse yet, shipments to European countries like Spain, Italy, France and Portugal declined eight percent.

Philip Morris CEO Louis Camilleri said, “Despite the difficult comparisons in the third-quarter, we remain confident that the fundamentals of our business are solid as a whole, which is testament to our progress, especially in our Asia and EEMA Regions.”

However, in contrast to these declining sales, Philip Morris has seen strong growth in Asian countries like Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. Sales in these Asian countries overwhelmed Japan’s declining sales for a slight 0.6% sales growth for Asia. The shipments of Philip Morris to the EEMA region (Middle East, Eastern Europe and Africa) rose 3%. To continue reading, click here.

The second half of this year has been great for gold. Prices have jumped from a low of $1560 in July to its current $1700. Early in October, prices were knocking on $1800, but failed to get over the milestone. However, gold has seen a pullback since then, and I believe that we could see a resurging gold market after these election results. Understandably, investors have been turning to gold as a hedge against the uncertainties that the market faces such as the U.S. fiscal cliff, Europe’s debt crisis and China’s cooling economy.

When it comes to gold, there are a wide variety of ways to invest. For the purposes of this article, we will talk about gold miners. My favorite play is AngloGold Ashanti (AU). To be fair, AngloGold recently settled a worker strike in South Africa, which was losing the company 32,000 ounces of gold each week. However, the strike is over, and workers will be heading back to work; hopefully, the company can make up a little of that production in the coming weeks.

Lets take a look at the fundamentals to determine the strength of AngloGold Ashanti. To start, the gold miner has a forward price to earnings ratio of 6.86, PEG of 0.96 and has a reasonable debt load, with the debt to equity ratio at 0.45. I like to see a current ratio of 2.72, because that tells me that the company is in strong enough financial position to pay off any unforeseen costs or liabilities. To continue reading, click here.

With interest rates remaining at historical lows, REIT investors have been nicely rewarded with growing share prices and healthy dividend yields. In some instances, especially in light of the recovering real estate market, REIT shares have risen year to date by as much as 20% or more.

While both the current and expected performance of most REITs has been positive, there is one REIT in particular that I feel could be a real winner in terms of longer-term income and growth due to its diversified portfolio and income-generating strategies. In this article, I will discuss why Two Harbors Investment (TWO) is a great fit for REIT buyers.

Although Two Harbors recently cut its dividend, the company still offers a nice yield of over 12%. Over the past 12 months, Two Harbor’s sales growth has increased by more than 400%, with income growth in excess of 250%. The company feels that this is due in large part to its diversified asset portfolio that consists of both agency and non-agency mortgage-backed securities, as well as the firm’s purchase of foreclosed single-family properties from big banks that are subsequently rented out for income generation.

Upon purchase of these homes, Two Harbors rolls the properties into an entity named Silver Bay Realty Trust. This trust has recently registered for its own IPO. Although Silver Bay is a new offering, it has an advantage when seeking financing from lenders in that it is owned by Two Harbors.

Two Harbors has a P/E ratio of 9, which is actually below that of the real estate industry overall of closer to 10, and substantially lower than the P/E ratio of 17.7 for the S&P 500 index. To continue reading, click here.

Falling, or rather plunging, natural gas prices have been hard on natural gas stocks and even big diversified energy stocks like Exxon Mobil Corporation (XOM) are feeling some of the pain, thanks to having exposure to natural gas. However, Exxon Mobil has remained resolute in its focus on natural gas for the long term, which begs the question: should investors be concerned about that?

Exxon Mobil and the Other Supermajors

To begin with, Exxon Mobil is the world’s largest publicly traded international oil and natural gas producer. In fact and at the end of last year, it had a resource base of 87 billion oil-equivalent barrels – the largest among international oil companies. That makes Exxon Mobil one of the supermajors with the others considered to be BP (BP), Chevron (CVX), Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A) and TOTAL (TOT) – and sometimes ConocoPhillips (COP). Together, these super large oil companies control roughly 6% of the world’s oil supply, with OPEC and state-owned entities controlling much of the rest or around 88% of the world’s oil.

Given its market cap and the fact that it is part of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Exxon Mobil is easily one of the most widely held stocks out there, but its performance has not exactly been overly spectacular over the last few years. Specifically, and as of the beginning of September, Exxon Mobil is only up around 2% since the start of the year, up 20% over the past year, up 1% over the past five years, and up 145% over the past ten years, but the stock also has a forward dividend of $2.28 for a dividend yield of around 2.6% – which cannot be completely ignored in the current zero interest rate environment.

Is There Really a Problem With Exxon Mobil’s Focus on Natural Gas?

One major reason some analysts have given for the stock’s somewhat uninspiring performance is Exxon Mobil’s conservative and long-term strategy, which is to be evenly diversified between oil and natural gas and to keep both upstream and downstream activities under one roof. To continue reading, click here.

Thanks to mortgage rates remaining at historical lows, mortgage REITs continue to reap the benefits while at the same time rewarding their investors with high dividend yields and growth of share price. In this article, I will discuss why American Capital Agency (AGNC) will continue providing its double-digit dividend at least through 2014.

Analyzing the Fundamentals

With its monthly dividend of $0.10 per share, American Capital has been paying out a dividend yield in excess of 17%. Although the company’s second-quarter 2012 financials were not as exhilarating as they were in 2011, or even in the first quarter of 2012, it is expected that this REIT industry leader will continue rewarding dividend-seeking investors with a yield between 10% and 14% in both the short and long run.

While using a great deal of leverage tends to increase the risk for investing in REITs, American Capital has reduced this risk in some areas by investing most of its assets in guaranteed U.S. government agency securities. Of late, American Capital has been providing investors with one-year returns of over 23%, and three-year annualized returns of approximately 30%. In addition, the company’s shares seem to be reasonably priced, with a book value of just under $29.50 per share.

Where Other REITs Stand in Comparison

Due to a recent decline in mortgage applications — primarily due to a slight hiccup in interest rates — many REITs have seen a slight lowering of share price. And, in a recent slew of downgraded ratings by FBR Capital Markets, even REIT industry leader Annaly Capital Management (NLY) was not immune. To continue reading, click here.