From Buybacks To Growth;JC Penney Improves

We're forecasting about a 10% upside for the year-closer to an average return than the past few years,said Savita Subramanian,head of US equity and quantitative strategy at Bank of America/Merrill Lynch.Once we get a better sense of the economy as improving,there's no better place to be than the stock market.The market is actually rewarding the companies that spend on growth,whether through acquisition or capex.Investors want growth,not necessarily buybacks to return cash.
We really want to look at company spoecifics.It's less about picking the right asset class,and more about picking the right stocks.
It just doesn't make sense anymore to buy back stock,when prices have returned to more normal levels.Companies have not been spending on economic growth,but I think that's what we're gonna see this year,Ms.Subramanian projected.
She likes the technology,industrial and energy sectors.*
In the retail sector,it's been a big improvement for JC Penney,according to Chad Green of Sterne Agee.It looks a lot better for them than it did 12 months ago.Their store looks a lot better.It looks like the old JC Penney.
The big question for them is getting their traffic back,clearing through former CEO Don Johnson's mistakes,Mr.Green noted.*
JC Penney(JCP)

Should You Buy Hewlett-Packard Shares

Hewlett-Packard reported mixed Q2 results,beating estimates on earnings,or profit,but missing estimates on revenue,or sales.The PC group was particularly weak on revenue.They have to transform their business model,said David Pearl,Chief Investment Officer at Epoch Investments.It wants to look a little more like IBM.
The stock is very cheap,but they have a lot of transformation to do in their business.It's gonna be a multi-year process.
Shaw Wu,Senior Research Analyst at Sterne Agee,said we like this stock.We have a buy rating on it.They're actually very profitable.We think they're in the best position for a turnaround.They have about a 30% exposure to the PC market.Our price target for the stock is 33.00.
HP CEO Meg Whitman indicated they may sell some of their smaller businesses.They will defend their PC business by bringing down prices through bringing down the cost of making them.
HP is competing with China's Lenovo in the PC space.
Shaw Wu was recently ranked #2 for stock picking and #3 for accuracy by StarMine.He has a BS in Finance and Information Systems from New York University's Stern School of Business.Sterne Agee is a brokerage,advisory and trust company with offices nationwide.It was founded in 1901.
Hewlett-Packard(HPQ)