Hot Financial Stocks To Invest In Right Now

I am a financial writer, publisher, and New York Times bestselling-author. Each week, nearly a million readers around the world receive my Thoughts From the Frontline free investment newsletter. My most recent book is Code Red: How to Protect Your Savings from the Coming Crisis. I appear regularly on CNBC and Bloomberg TV. I�� also Chairman of Mauldin Economics, a research group that provides monthly analysis and recommendations to thousands of readers around the world. I was previously CEO of the American Bureau of Economic Research. Today I am President of the investment advisory firm Millennium Wave Advisors, LLC. I am also president and registered principal of Millennium Wave Securities, LLC a FINRA and SIPC registered broker dealer. When I�� not traveling to speak at conferences and events, I live in Dallas, TX. I�� also the proud father of seven children.

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The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.

10 Best High Tech Stocks To Watch Right Now: Market Vectors Coal ETF (KOL)

Market Vectors-Coal ETF�� (the Fund) investment objective is to replicate as closely as possible, before fees and expenses, the price and yield performance of the Stowe Coal Index (the Coal Index). Van Eck Associates Corporation is the investment adviser to The Fund.

As of December 31, 2007, the Stowe Coal Index consists of the stocks of 60 publicly traded companies. These companies are engaged in the mining and/or transportation of coal, the manufacture of coal mining equipment and the production of clean coal.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Jonathan Yates]

  As a result, the exchange traded funds for gold, SPDR Gold Shares (NYSE: GLD) and its coal-related counterpart, Market Vectors Coal (NYSE: KOL), are both down by more than 20 percent for 2013. Demand from Asia, the largest consumer of coal and gold, is needed to raise the share prices of Market Vectors Coal and SPDR Gold Shares.

Hot Financial Stocks To Invest In Right Now: Mercury General Corporation (MCY)

Mercury General Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, engages in writing personal automobile insurance products. The company also writes homeowners, commercial automobile and property, mechanical breakdown, fire, and umbrella insurance products. Its insurance products cover collision, property damage liability, bodily injury liability, comprehensive, personal injury protection, underinsured and uninsured motorist, and other hazards for automobile policy holders. The company sells its policies through a network of independent agents in California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Texas, Oklahoma, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, and Michigan. Mercury General Corporation was founded in 1960 and is headquartered in Los Angeles, California.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Chuck Carnevale] their website:

  ��ercury General (NYSE-MCY) is the leading independent broker and agency writer of automobile insurance in California and has been one of the fastest growing automobile insurers in the nation. It is ranked as the third largest private passenger automobile insurer in California, with total assets over $4 billion. Mercury also writes automobile insurance in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia. In addition to automobile insurance, Mercury writes other lines of insurance in various states, including mechanical breakdown and homeowners insurance.��/p>

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  Performance and Dividends Impacted by Operating Stress

  It should be clear from the above graphs that the earnings records of these three Dividend Champions have been far from steady, consistent or reliable. Therefore, I cannot get comfortable either recommending them or investing in them because I cannot get comfortable predicting what their future operating results may be. Furthermore, by examining the performance results associated with the above earnings and price-correlated graphs illustrates a lot of uncertainty. A focus on the earnings growth rate column illustrates a lot of stress on each company�� ability to keep their dividend streaks alive (Blue Circles).

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  The Overvaluation Rejection

  Other reasons besides irregular earnings growth that caused a Dividend Champion to be rejected include one of my all-time favorites, valuation. Or to be more precise ��overvaluation. The following example, McCormick & Co. (MKC), represents one of my favorite Dividend Champions based on a very consistent above-average record of earnings growth that produced its impressive dividend streak. The only reason that this Dividend Champion was rejected was because of current overvaluation.

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• [By Fredrik Arnold]

  Ten Champion dogs that promised the biggest dividend yields into July included firms representing five of nine market sectors. The top stocks were three of five from the financial sector: Universal Health Realty Trust (UHT); Mercury General Corp. (MCY); Old Republic Int'l (ORI). The other two financial firms, HCP Inc., and United Bankshares Inc. (UBSI), placed sixth and eighth.

• [By John Udovich]

  Auto sales are booming and that�� good news for large cap auto insurer�the Progressive Corporation (NYSE: PGR) along with small cap auto insurers Safety Insurance Group, Inc (NASDAQ: SAFT) and�Mercury General Corporation (NYSE: MCY) as they offer income to yield hungry investors as well as income in the form of dividends. Specifically, a Yahoo! Autos blog recently noted that last month, automakers sold 1.5 million new vehicles for the highest rate in years with�most industry forecasters expecting sales to�return to the level they hit before the 2008 recession of 16 million vehicles a year. The blog post then went on to note the three forces driving auto sales:

Hot Financial Stocks To Invest In Right Now: Hilltop Holdings Inc. (HTH)

Hilltop Holdings Inc., through its subsidiary, NLASCO, Inc., operates as a property and casualty insurance company in the United States. The company�s personal product line includes homeowners, dwelling fire, manufactured home, flood, and vacant insurance policies; and commercial product line consists of commercial, builders risk, builders risk renovation, sports liability, and inland marine insurance policies. It distributes its insurance products through a network of independent agents and managing general agents. The company was formerly known as Affordable Residential Communities Inc. and changed its name to Hilltop Holdings Inc. in July 2007. Hilltop Holdings Inc. was founded in 1948 and is headquartered in Dallas, Texas.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [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.

• [By Jake L'Ecuyer]

  Meanwhile, top decliners in the sector included United Fire Group (NASDAQ: UFCS), down 4.9 percent, and Hilltop Holdings (NYSE: HTH), off 3.7 percent.

Hot Financial Stocks To Invest In Right Now: Vanguard Utilities ETF (VPU)

Vanguard Utilities ETF is an exchange-traded class of shares issued by Vanguard Utilities Index Fund (the Fund). The Fund employs a passive management or indexing investment approach designed to track the performance of the Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) United States Investable Market Utilities Index (the Index), an index made up of stocks of large, medium-size and small United States companies in the utilities sector, as classified under the Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS).

This GICS sector is made up of electric, gas and water utility companies, as well as companies that operate as independent producers and/or distributors of power. The sector includes both nuclear and non-nuclear facilities. The Fund attempts to replicate the target index by investing all, or substantially all, of its assets in the stocks that make up the Index, holding each stock in approximately the same proportion as its weighting in the Index.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Richard Stavros]

  In early August, Vanguard Utilities ETF (NYSE: VPU), iShares US Utilities (NYSE: IDU), and Fidelity MSCI Utilities Index ETF (NYSE: FUTY) added almost $250 million in new assets combined, more than enough to offset outflows from Utilities Select Sector SPDR Fund (NSDQ: XLU).

• [By Bruce Vanderveen]

  Vanguard Utilities ETF (VPU) is similar to XLU. It has the same top ten holdings, but has a more diverse base, with smaller utilities included.