Top 10 Tech Stocks To Watch Right Now

By Hal M. Bundrick

NEW YORK (MainStreet) It may be time to make a bet on bitcoin. At least one Wall Street hedge fund manager thinks so. Michael Novogratz, co-chief investment officer of the Fortress Investment Group, made the surprising call at a UBS investor forum in New York this week, according to the Financial Times. He is perhaps the highest-profile Wall Street investor to endorse the crypto currency as an investment.

Bitcoin is an open-source method of payment that uses peer-to-peer technology to complete transactions. It has been called "cash for the Internet."

When asked to offer his best investment idea for the coming year, Novogratz said, "Put a little money in bitcoin. Come back in a few years, and it's going to be worth a lot." In fact, Bitcoin has doubled in value in just the last few weeks, following the raid by the U.S. Department of Justice on Silk Road earlier this month, and online black market that was a major global player in bitcoin merchant transactions. Novogratz said that he and a colleague took positions in bitcoins three months ago, but wouldn't say how much he has invested in the digital currency, though he did admit it was "Enough that I am smiling that it has doubled." Fortress has not made an investment in the currency for its portfolios, deciding it was too speculative. A division of the Chinese Internet service Baidu began accepting bitcoin payments October 14th, which spurred increased trading in the currency. A Chinese bitcoin exchange, BTC China, is now the third largest trading platform, based on 30-day volume, according to Bitcoinity.org. Online exchange Mt.Gox reports bitcoin has been trading at highs well over $200 this week. It is the second time this year that the currency has traded at such a level. Jason Williams, founder of BitPOS, a bitcoin exchange, told ZDNet this week that as the bitcoin price soars, investors are beginning to be concerned with a possible market bubble. --Written by Hal M. Bundrick for MainStreet

Top 5 Electric Utility Stocks To Watch For 2015: Hittite Microwave Corporation(HITT)

Hittite Microwave Corporation designs, develops, and sells integrated circuits (ICs), modules, subsystems, and instrumentation products for radio frequency (RF) microwave and millimeterwave applications worldwide. The company?s IC products include amplifiers, digital and voltage variable attenuators, broadband time delays, automatic gain control products, clocks and timing products, comparators, cross point switches, data converters, direct current power conditioning and power management products, dielectric resonator oscillators, frequency dividers and detectors, frequency multipliers, digital logic products, intermediate frequency signal processing products, interface, and limiting amplifiers. Its IC products also comprise mixers and converters, modulators and demodulators, multiplexers/demultiplexers, optical modulator drivers, passives, phase lock loops, phase lock loops with integrated voltage controlled oscillators, phase shifters, power detectors, sensors, switches , Successive detection logarithmic video amplifiers, transimpedance amplifiers, tunable filters, variable gain amplifiers, and voltage controlled and phase locked oscillators. In addition, the company provides signal generators/instrumentation products for engineering, production, and screening applications; connectorized modules for use in test and measurement equipment; RF, microwave, and millimeterwave receivers and synthesizers that are used in military communication, targeting, guidance, and countermeasure systems; and phase locked oscillator modules, which are used in fiber optic test systems. Further, it outsources wafer manufacturing to multiple third party fabricators and foundries. The company sells its products through direct sales force and applications engineering staff, sales representatives, and distributors, as well as through its Web site. Hittite Microwave Corporation was founded in 1985 and is headquartered in Chelmsford, Massachusetts.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Ant贸nio Costa]

  Hittite Microwave Corp (NASDAQ: HITT) is holding up well and looks ready to move higher from here. Next buy point for HITT is at 65.2.

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  Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) hits a new 52 week high and held up very well when the nasdaq was tanking. The stock is on fire.

• [By Harsh Chauhan]

  It is not just auto companies that are benefiting from this growth. Even chipmakers have cashed in on this trend as vehicles get more advanced and are equipped with more technology. Analog Devices (NASDAQ: ADI  ) is one such semiconductor company which has trained its sights on the resurgent auto market. It recently announced the acquisition of Hittite Microwave (NASDAQ: HITT  ) to bolster its position in automotive, along with other verticals.�

• [By Ben Levisohn]

  Walt Disney rose 1% to $85.48, making it the biggest percentage gainer in the Dow Industrial Averages. International Game Technology jumped 14% to $55.31 today, putting it atop the S&P 500. Reuters reported that International Game Technology has hired Morgan Stanley to help sell the company.
  Analog Devices advanced 5% to $55.31 today, making it the big winner in the Nasdaq 100. Analog Devices agreed to buy chip-maker Hittite Microwave (HITT) for $78 a share. Hittite soared 29% to $77.90 today.Idenix Pharmaceuticals more than tripled today after Merck (MRK) agreed to purchase the biotech company for nearly $4 billion. Idenix surged 229% to $23.79 today, while Merck ticked up 0.2% to $57.94.

Top 10 Tech Stocks To Watch Right Now: Vonage Holdings Corp.(VG)

Vonage Holdings Corp. provides broadband communication services in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. The company offers voice and messaging services through session initiation protocol (SIP) based voice over Internet protocol network. The company?s primary product offering is Vonage World, a residential plan with unlimited calling domestically and to approximately 60 countries, including India, Mexico, and China for a flat monthly rate. It also provides broadband telephone replacement services to residential, small office, and home office customers through various service plans with a range of basic features, including call waiting, caller ID with name, call forwarding, and voicemail. In addition, the company offers mobile services through mobile applications that can be downloaded for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Android OS devices. Further, the company provides Vonage Mobile, a free downloadable mobile application that provides free calling and messagi ng between users who have the application, as well as traditional paid international calling to any other phone. It markets its services through in-bound telemarketing and online direct sales, as well as through regional and national retailers. As of December 31, 2011, the company had approximately 2.4 million subscriber lines. Vonage Holdings Corp. was incorporated in 2000 and is headquartered in Holmdel, New Jersey.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Johan Seijkens]

  The first one is a company called Vonage Holdings (NYSE: VG  ) and the second is magicJack VocalTec, Ltd (NASDAQ: CALL  ) .

Top 10 Tech Stocks To Watch Right Now: Orbotech Ltd.(ORBK)

Orbotech Ltd. engages in designing, developing, manufacturing, marketing, and servicing yield-enhancing and production solutions for specialized applications in the supply chain of the electronics industry. The company?s products include automated optical inspection (AOI), automated optical repair, laser direct imaging, digital legend printing, laser drilling, laser plotters, computer-aided manufacturing, and engineering solutions for printed circuit boards (PCBs) and other electronics component manufacturing; and AOI, test, repair, and process monitoring systems for flat panel display (FPD) manufacturing. It also develops and markets character recognition solutions and services primarily to banks, financial institutions, and other payment processing institutions for use in check and healthcare payment processing. In addition, the company is involved in the research and development of products for the deposition of anti-reflective coating on crystalline silicon photovolta ic wafers for solar energy panels. It primarily serves manufacturer of PCB, FPD, liquid crystal displays, and other electronic components worldwide. The company was formerly known as Optrotech Ltd. and changed its name to Orbotech Ltd. as a result of its merger with Orbot Systems Ltd. in October 1992. Orbotech Ltd. was founded in 1981 and is headquartered in Yavne, Israel.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By John Emerson]

  AOI companies had little in the way of competition since they held a specialty niche and their systems were protected by patents. Years of R&D would be required to unseat them by way of technological superiority; therefore it made more sense for a larger company to assimilate them should they wish to enter the AOI sector. That said, CAMT was much smaller than its archrival Orbitech (ORBK) in the PCB AOI sector; thus their key to long term growth lied in their penetration into the rapidly expanding semiconductor AOI sector. In that area, their main completion was August Semiconductor.

• [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 Orbotech (Nasdaq: ORBK  ) , whose recent revenue and earnings are plotted below.

Top 10 Tech Stocks To Watch Right Now: Portola Pharmaceuticals Inc (PTLA)

Portola Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Portola), incorporated on September 2, 2003, is a biopharmaceutical company developing product candidates that have the potential to represent advances in the fields of thrombosis and hematology. The Company is advancing its three wholly owned programs using biomarker and genetic approaches.

Betrixaban

Portola's compound, betrixaban, is an oral, once-daily Factor Xa inhibitor being evaluated in the only biomarker-based Phase-III study for hospital to home prophylaxis of venous thromboembolism (VTE) in acute medically ill patients. Betrixaban's properties particularly suited to potentially demonstrate efficacy without increasing bleeding in this patient population.

Andexanet Alfa

Portola's second development candidate, andexanet alfa (PRT4445), has the potential to be a reversal agent to directly reverse the effects of Factor Xa inhibitors in patients who suffer a bleeding episode or who require emergency surgery. Portola has entered into clinical collaboration agreements with all of the manufacturers of direct Factor Xa inhibitors, including Bristol-Myers Squibb and Pfizer (Eliquis [apixaban]), Bayer HealthCare and Janssen Pharmaceuticals (XARELTO [rivaroxaban]), and Daiichi Sankyo (Savaysa [edoxaban]), while retaining all decision-making and commercial rights to the program.

Cerdulatinib (PRT2070) and PRT2607

Portola's third wholly owned product candidate, cerdulatinib (PRT2070), is an orally available kinase inhibitor that uniquely inhibits two validated tumor proliferation pathways - spleen tyrosine kinase (Syk) and janus kinase (JAK). It is being studied in patients with leukemias or lymphomas with a focus on genetically-defined subtypes, as well as in patients who have failed therapy due to relapse or acquired mutations. Portola's fourth program is partnered with Biogen Idec and is focused on the development of PRT2607, a selective Syk inhibitor.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Todd Campbell]

  That leads me to Medivation (NASDAQ: MDVN  ) , Ophthotech (NASDAQ: OPHT  ) , and Portola (NASDAQ: PTLA  ) , three companies with important therapies that may very well be destined to become top sellers.

Top 10 Tech Stocks To Watch Right Now: CDW Corp (CDW)

CDW Corporation (CDW), incorporated on May 25, 2007, is a provider of integrated information technology (IT) solutions in the United States and Canada. Its range of offerings range from discrete hardware and software products to integrated IT solutions, such as mobility, security, data center optimization, cloud computing, virtualization and collaboration. The Company has two segments: Corporate and Public. Corporate segment consists of primarily of private sector business customers. Public segment consists of government agencies and education and healthcare institutions. CDW also has two other operating segments, CDW Advanced Services and Canada (combined together as Other). The Company is a sales channel partner for many original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and software publishers (collectively, its vendor partners), whose products it sells or include in the solutions CDW offers. The Company helps its customer base of more than 250,000 small, medium and large business, government, education and healthcare customers by delivering solutions to their IT needs.

The Company�� Corporate segment is divided into a medium-large business customer channel, primarily serving customers with more than 100 employees, and a small business customer channel, primarily serving customers with up to 100 employees. The CDW Advanced Services business consists primarily of customized engineering services delivered by technology specialists and engineers and managed services that include infrastructure as a service (IaaS) offerings. The Company�� product portfolio includes more than 100,000 products from more than 1,000 brands. Revenues from the sale of hardware, software, custom configuration and third-party provided services are recorded within its Corporate and Public segments.

The Company�� revenue from professional services is either recognized as incurred for services billed at an hourly rate or recognized using a proportional performance model for services provided at a fixed fee.! Revenue from software as a service (SaaS) arrangements, IaaS arrangements, and data center services, including Internet connectivity, Web hosting, server co-location and managed services, is recognized over the period service is provided. The Company also sells certain products for which it acts as an agent. Products in this category include the sale of third-party services, warranties or software assurance (SA) or third-party-hosted SaaS and IaaS arrangements. The Company offer over 1,000 brands, from companies, such as APC, Apple, Cisco, EMC, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Lenovo, Microsoft, NetApp, Symantec and VMware, to vendor partners, such as Drobo, Fusion-io, Meraki, Nimble Storage, Salesforce.com, Sophos and Splunk.

The Company competes with Dimension Data, ePlus, Insight Enterprises, PC Connection, PCM, Presidio, Softchoice, World Wide Technology, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Apple, Amazon, Newegg, TigerDirect.com, Buy.com, IBM, Accenture, Staples, Office Depot and Office Max.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Rich Smith]

  Just over six years after leaving the public stock markets in a $7.3 billion leveraged buyout, IT equipment supplier CDW (NASDAQ: CDW  ) is back on the Nasdaq again!

Top 10 Tech Stocks To Watch Right Now: Harmonic Inc.(HLIT)

Harmonic Inc. designs, manufactures, and sells video infrastructure products and system solutions to create, prepare, and deliver a range of video services for television and media platforms in the united States and internationally. Its products include video production platforms and playout solutions, such as video servers used by broadcasters, content owners, and multi-channel network operators to create and play-to-air television channels; video-optimized storage, which provides storage capacity and access bandwidth to support media production applications comprising video editing, content transformation, and media library management; and media applications that provide media integrated management and workflow control over content stored on its systems. The company offers video processing products, including broadcast encoders; contribution and distribution encoders; stream processing and statistical multiplexing solutions; content preparation and delivery for multi-scr een applications; decoders and descramblers; and management and control software. It also provides edge products that integrate routing, multiplexing, scrambling, and modulation into a single package; optical transmitters and amplifiers, which operates at various optical wavelengths and serves long-haul and local transport applications in the cable distribution network; optical nodes to supports network architectures for bandwidth delivered to a service area; and return path transmitters that support two-way transmission capabilities for analog or digital transport. In addition, the company offers technical support and professional services, such as maintenance and support; and consulting, implementation, and integration services. Harmonic Inc. sells its products through direct sales force, independent distributors, and integrators to cable, satellite and telco, and broadcast and media companies. The company was founded in 1988 and is headquartered in San Jose, California. Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Garrett Cook]

  Shares of Harmonic (NASDAQ: HLIT) were down 8.91 percent to $6.50 after the company lowered its Q2 forecast and issued a weak Q3 guidance.

  Riverbed Technology (NASDAQ: RVBD) shares tumbled 5.85 percent to $19.16 after the company lowered its Q2 revenue forecast.

Top 10 Tech Stocks To Watch Right Now: OncoGenex Pharmaceuticals Inc.(OGXI)

OncoGenex Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company, engages in the development and commercialization of new cancer therapies that address treatment resistance in cancer patients. The company?s clinical stage products include Custirsen, a phase III clinical stage product for treatment in men with metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer; OGX-427, which is in phase II clinical development stage is designed to inhibit heat shock protein 27; and SN2310 that completed phase I stage of clinical development is designed to evaluate safety in patients with advanced cancer. Its pre clinical stage products include GX-225 that is focused on reducing the production of IGFBP-2 and IGFBP-5; and CSP-9222, lead compound from a family of caspase activators. OncoGenex Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is based in Bothell, Washington.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By John McCamant]

  2014 is shaping up to be the most important year for OncoGenex Pharmaceuticals (OGXI), and, we believe, it can very well represent a major inflection point for the company with positive Synergy results.

• [By Lauren Pollock var popups = dojo.query(".socialByline .popC"); popups.forEach]

  Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.(TEVA) and OncoGenex Pharmaceuticals Inc.(OGXI) said their experimental drug for hard-to-treat cases of prostate cancer didn’t result in statistically significant improvement in overall survival in a Phase 3 study. OncoGenex shares dropped 48% to $5 premarket.