5 Best Safest Stocks For 2014

Pipeline blaze in the Gulf. Photo credit: AP Photo/US Coast Guard, Petty Officer 3rd Class Carlos Vega.

So far, 2013 isn't shaping up to be the energy industry's safest year. A number of disasters have occurred, which have brought unwanted attention to the industry. Here's a look at the industry's five biggest blunders so far this year.

A Herculean disaster averted in the Gulf
Just this past week, a blowout occurred on a Hercules (NASDAQ: HERO  ) -owned rig operating in the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Natural gas leaking from a well off the coast of Louisiana caught fire and spread to the Hercules rig. Fortunately, all 48 personnel in the rig were safely evacuated. However, the incident underscores the risks of drilling offshore. It could have been a lot worse, as no one was hurt, and this is a natural gas well so the environmental threats are far less than if it were an oil well. While the well is not yet under control, Hercules investors appear to have caught a break, which is why stock was down only about 4% on the week.�

Top 10 Small Cap Stocks To Watch Right Now: Emerald Oil Inc (EOX)

Emerald Oil, Inc. (Emerald) incorporated on May 31, 2011, is an independent oil and natural gas exploration and production company. The Company focuses on developing oil wells in the Williston Basin of North Dakota and Montana primarily targeting the Bakken and three forks shale oil formations. Emerald controls approximately 35,000 net acres in the Williston Basin. In February 2014, Emerald Oil Inc acquired core Bakken and Three Forks producing properties and undeveloped leasehold in McKenzie and Williams Counties, North Dakota.

Emerald holds positions in the Rocky Mountain oil and natural gas plays. It has approximately 14,500 net acres in the Sand Wash Basin in northwest Colorado prospective for oil in the Niobrara formation. It has approximately 33,500 net acres in central Montana prospective for oil in the Heath formation. The Company also has approximately 72,800 net acres in the Tiger Ridge Field located in Blaine, Hill, and Chouteau Counties, Montana, prospective for natural gas, and another approximate 1,700 net acres in the Denver-Julesburg (DJ) Basin in Weld County, Colorado, prospective for oil in the Niobrara formation.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Monica Gerson]

  Emerald Oil (NYSE: EOX) is projected to post a Q4 loss at $0.02 per share on revenue of $18.04 million.

  Callon Petroleum Company (NYSE: CPE) is estimated to post its Q4 earnings at $0.00 per share on revenue of $26.83 million.

• [By Bret Jensen]

  Emerald Oil (EOX) is a small (~$330mm) capitalization Bakken producer that I think has significant upside. It has fast growing production with sales tracking to better than a 70% gain this fiscal year and analysts' consensus for FY2014 have revenue more than doubling. A beneficial owner obviously finds the shares attractive as the entity took more than a $16mm stake in the firm in late May.

5 Best Safest Stocks For 2014: Pacer International Inc.(PACR)

Pacer International, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides asset-light transportation and logistics services primarily in North America, Asia, Europe, Australia, South America, and Africa. It operates in two segments, Intermodal and Logistics. The Intermodal segment offers intermodal rail transportation, local cartage and trucking, intermodal marketing services, container capacity, on-site operational services, and door-to-door shipment management services. As of December 31, 2011, its equipment fleet consisted of 1,592 double-stack railcars, 18,183 containers, and 12,783 chassis. The Logistics segment provides highway brokerage, warehousing and distribution, international freight forwarding, ocean and air shipping, and supply chain management services, as well as offers non-vessel-operating common carrier to end-user customers. The company markets and supports its services to cargo owners, steamship lines, truckload carriers, truck brokers, and freight forwarders , as well as other third party transportation service providers, such as intermodal marketing companies, third-party logistics companies, and shippers? agents through its direct sales and customer service representatives. Pacer International, Inc. was founded in 1974 and is headquartered in Dublin, Ohio.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Vera Yuan]

  Pacer International, Inc. (PACR) was acquired by XPO Logistics, Inc. which remains in our portfolio. We eliminated our position in specialty pharmaceutical company Actavis PLC (ACT) as the price to intrinsic value relationship narrowed. We originally received shares when Actavis bought portfolio holding Warner Chilcott. We eliminated our position in convenience store distributor Core- Mark Holding Co., Inc.( CORE) as the stock rose almost 40% over the last year and reached our estimate of intrinsic value.

5 Best Safest Stocks For 2014: CGG SA (CGG)

CGG SA, formerly Compagnie Generale de Geophysique-Veritas, is a manufacturer of geophysical equipment and a provider of a range of seismic services in data acquisition and processing both onshore and offshore, principally to clients in the oil and gas exploration and production industry. The Company operates in two segments: Services and Equipment.

Services

The services segment includes land contract, marine contract, multi-client land and marine, and processing, imaging and reservoir. The land contract includes seismic data acquisition for land, transition zones and shallow water undertaken by the Company on behalf of a specific client. The marine contract includes seismic data acquisition offshore undertaken by the Company on behalf of a specific client. The multi-client land and marine includes seismic data acquisition undertaken by the Company and licensed to a number of clients on a non-exclusive basis. The processing, imaging and reservoir includes processing, imaging and interpretation of geophysical data, data management and reservoir studies for clients.

Land seismic acquisition includes all seismic surveying techniques where the recording sensor is either in direct contact with, or in close proximity to, the ground. The Company�� land business line offers integrated services, including the acquisition and on site processing of seismic data on land, in transition zones and on the ocean floor (shallow water and seabed surveys). It undertakes land surveys with both a contract and multi-client basis. The land operations include surveying and recording crews. Surveying crews lay out the lines to be recorded and mark the sites for shot-hole placement or equipment location. Recording crews produce acoustic impulses and use recording units to synchronize the shooting and record the seismic signals through geophones.

The Company provides a range of three-dimensional (3D) marine seismic services, principally in the Gulf of Mexico, the North Sea an! d off the coasts of West Africa and Brazil, as well as in the Asia-Pacific region. As of December 31, 2011, the Company had a fleet of 19 vessels, including 11 three dimension (3D) high capacity vessels (12 or more streamers), two 10 streamer 3D vessels, three eight streamer 3D vessels and three 3D/two dimension (2D) vessels of lower capacity. Marine seismic surveys are conducted through the deployment of submersible cables (streamers) and acoustic sources (airguns) from marine vessels.

Seismic data processing operations transform seismic data acquired in the field into 2D cross-sections, or 3D images of the earth�� subsurface or four-dimensional (4D) time-lapse seismic data using Geovation and Hampson-Russell software, or third party applications. These images are then interpreted by geophysicists and geologists for use by oil and gas companies in evaluating prospective areas, selecting drilling sites and managing producing reservoirs. The Company provides seismic data processing and reservoir services through the network of data processing centers and reservoir teams located worldwide. As of December 31, 2011, it operated 43 worldwide processing and imaging centers, including 13 dedicated client centers.

Equipment

The Company conducts its equipment development and production operations through Sercel and its subsidiaries. Sercel operates five seismic equipment manufacturing facilities, located in Nantes and Saint Gaudens in France, Houston, Singapore and Alfreton in England. In China, Sercel operates through Hebei Sercel-JunFeng Geophysical Equipment Co. Ltd, based in Hebei. Sercel offers and supports worldwide a range of geophysical equipment for seismic data acquisition, including seismic recording equipment, software and seismic sources, and provides its clients with integrated solutions. Sercel�� principal product line is seismic recording equipment, particularly the 400 family of recording systems, the 408UL and the 428XL. Sercel also markets for vibros! eismic ve! hicles and for vibrator electronic systems (VE 464). Sercel develops and produces a range of geophysical equipment for seismic data acquisition and other ancillary geophysical products, such as geophones, cables and connectors.

The Company competes with WesternGeco, Global Geophysical Services, BGP, Geokinetics, PGS, Fugro and Ion Geophysical Inc.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Holly LaFon]

  The largest detractor from the Fund�� performance for the past quarter ��and one of the largest detractors in the calendar year ��was a holding just added in June: CGG (CGG), an operator and provider of seismic acquisition and data processing.� As a seismic company, CGG relies directly on oil and gas companies' investments.� During the second half of 2013, in an environment with flat oil prices and continuing inflation across the supply chain, several oil and gas companies decided to further postpone their investments and wait until the economy improves to sanction new projects.� Positioned at the beginning of the supply chain, CGG has been hurt by the cancellation of several projects, as well as lower-than-expected price increases.� As a result, management smartly decided to launch a three-year plan to downsize CGG's fleet in order to lower fixed costs and to focus on the most profitable segments.� Despite these conditions, we think our investment case remains valid.� With the end of "easy oil," we believe that this offshore seismic company still offers an attractive investment opportunity.

• [By Ben Levisohn]

  As a result, the knives have come out. Cowen’s analysts downgraded six stocks–Baker Hughes (BHI), Cameron International (CAM), Nabors Industries (NBR), CGG (CGG), Superior Energy Services (SPN) and Helmerich & Payne (HP)–and cut their estimates on even more. Its analysts explain why:

• [By David Smith]

  Despite Craighead's relative ebullience regarding North America, it nevertheless appears that the sizzle at Baker Hughes lies in the international markets. As I noted last week, the company has teamed up with CGGVeritaz (NYSE: CGG  ) to add substantial seismic capabilities to its global repertoire. Further, it's working with Norway's Statoil (NYSE: STO  ) on new projects in the North Sea, the Norwegian Sea, and the Barents Sea. It's also been contracted by Chevron (NYSE: CVX  ) for work on the giant Gorgon project in Australia, and its gearing up with Russia's Lukoil and Statoil on the West Qurna-2 oil fields in Iraq.

• [By Jonas Elmerraji]

  First up is French oil service firm CGG Veritas (CGG)
  . The Eurozone-based energy stock hasn't exactly posted blockbuster performance in 2013, but investors who ignore CGG for the final stretch of the year could be making a big mistake. That's because of a bullish technical pattern that's emerging in shares right now.

  CGG spent most of the last eight months looking anything but bullish. But an ascending triangle pattern is changing that. The pattern is formed by horizontal resistance to the upside at $26, and uptrending support to the below shares. Basically, as CGG bounces in between those two technical levels, it's getting squeezed closer and closer to a breakout above $26. When that happens, traders have a buy signal.

  The ascending triangle pattern in CGG Veritas isn't exactly textbook. That's because the setup is forming at the bottom of a downtrend, rather than in the middle of an uptrend – but it's a mistake to get caught up on the textbook pictures of what trading patterns are supposed to look like. On a move through $26, the trading implications are just as actionable.

5 Best Safest Stocks For 2014: MEMSIC Inc.(MEMS)

MEMSIC, Inc. provides semiconductor sensor and system solutions based on integrated micro electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) technology and mixed signal circuit design. It offers sensor products, principally accelerometers. The company?s sensors are used for motion, direction, and pressure sensing applications; and accelerometer products are used to measure tilt, shock, vibration, and acceleration, as well as in various applications, such as mobile phones, automotive safety systems, video projectors, global positioning systems, video gaming systems, interactive toys, inclination sensing, earthquake detection, cardiac pacemakers, and image projectors. Its system solution products include wireless sensors that connect the physical environment with enterprise management and information systems to provide monitoring, automation, and control solutions for a range of industries, as well as inertial systems that provide end-users and systems integrators with MEMS-based solutions for the measurement of static and dynamic motion in a various environments, such as avionics, remotely operated vehicles, agricultural and construction vehicles, automotive test, and wind power turbines. The company also engages in the development of multi-sensor and MCU integrated system products at the integrated circuit level for the consumer and mobile market, as well as at the module level for the industrial, automotive, and general aviation markets. It sells its products directly, as well as through systems integrators, resellers, distributors, and sales representatives worldwide. The company was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in Andover, Massachusetts.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Triska Hamid]

  In Abu Dhabi, researchers at the ATIC-SRC Center of Excellence for Energy Efficient Electronic Systems (ACE4S), a center jointly established by the Advanced Technology Investment Company and the Semiconductor Research Corporation, are working on the development of systems on chip (SOC) and micro-electromechanical systems (MEMs) in health care.