Hot Companies To Invest In 2014

When President Obama's budget proposal came out earlier this week, it included provisions to replace existing cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security with an alternative method using what's called the chained consumer price index. Immediately, politicians came out with wildly disparate characterizations of what impact switching to a chained CPI would have, most of which happened to coincide with their particular political views.

But rather than relying on biased opinions, you owe it to yourself to learn the facts. With that goal, here's a brief explanation of what chained CPI is and why it has led to such strong debate in Washington and across the nation.

The basics of chained CPI
To understand the chained CPI, you have to go to the group that calculates it: the Bureau of Labor Statistics. More than a decade ago, the BLS started calculating what it called the C-CPI-U, or Chained Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers. In 2003, a paper from three BLS economists�(link opens PDF file) explained the new inflation benchmark in great detail.

Hot Companies To Invest In 2014: Capitaland Limited (C31.SI)

CapitaLand Limited, an investment holding company, engages in the real estate development, investment in real estate financial products and real estate assets, and management of serviced residences, as well as provision of advisory and management services. Its real estate and hospitality portfolio includes homes, offices, shopping malls, serviced residences, and mixed developments. The company is involved in the development and sale of residential properties; residential, commercial, and integrated property development; ownership and management of commercial and industrial properties; management of real estate funds and real estate investment trusts; and provision of financial advisory services. CapitaLand Limited operates primarily in Singapore, China, Australia, Europe, and other Asian countries. The company is headquartered in Singapore.

Hot Companies To Invest In 2014: Aspen Group(APZ.AX)

Aspen Group operates as a property investment and management company in Australia. The company primarily focuses on acquiring commercial properties, including office, retail, and industrial properties. It also offers managed funds, which provide investment opportunities across various property sectors, including tourist parks, residential land subdivisions, CBD office developments, private hospital developments, and retirement and accommodation villages. The company is based in Perth, Australia.

Hot Clean Energy Companies To Watch For 2014: Amalphi AG (AMI)

Amalphi AG is a Germany-based company that offers multivendor services for the maintenance of hardware and software of all kinds of Information Technology (IT) equipment. Its main activity is the sale of services including quality assurance, whereas the physical services are provided via international service providers. The Company's products include amalphi ip and ip-pack. amalphi ip is a maintenance service concept for IT-, office- and other technical equipment based on electronic components, which include hardware and software maintenance, help desk service, patch management and asset management. ip-pack offers service packs for the OEM with Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for Hewlett-Packard and IBM products. The Company has a sales network throughout Germany. ES Investment GmbH holds approximately a 49%-stake in the Company.

Hot Companies To Invest In 2014: Universal Detection Technology (UNDT)

Universal Detection Technology, incorporated on December 24, 1971, is engaged in the research, development and marketing of bioterrorism detection devices. The Company�� flagship product is an automated real-time bacterial spore detector, called BSM-2000, used for detection of abnormal levels of airborne endospores, such as anthrax. BSM-2000 combines a bio-aerosol capture device with a chemical test for bacterial spores that is designed to detect anthrax attack. The Company also provides various counter-terrorism products and services that are complimentary to BSM-2000. These products and services include handheld assays used for detection of five bioterrorism agents, training courses for first responders, event security, threat evaluation and consulting, radiation detection systems, and digital versatile discs (DVDs) aimed at providing information and training regarding combating terrorism and managing emergency situations. Its bioterrorism detection kits can be used by emergency personnel to determine whether a suspicious substance is actually anthrax, botulinum toxin, ricin toxin and plague.

The Company�� BSM-2000 consists of four components: an air sampler for aerosol capture, which collects aerosolized particles on a fiber tape; thermal lysis for releasing the dipicolinic acid from the spores; reagent delivery via syringe pump, and a lifetime gated luminescence detection of the terbium-dipicolinate complex. The BSM-2000 is designed to continuously monitor the air and measure the concentration of airborne bacterial spores. The testing intervals are adjustable to respond to varying client needs and can be as short as 15 minutes. Bacterial spores are captured on the glass fiber tape. Next, thermal lysis pops the endospores, releasing a chemical from inside the endospore called dipicolinic acid, which is unique to bacterial spores. Then, a syringe pump adds a drop of terbium containing solution to the tape on the location where the endospores were lysed. Finally, a lifetime gated ph! otometer measures the resultant terbium dipicolinate luminescence intensity, which is proportional to the bacterial spore concentration on the tape. A large change in endospore concentration is an indication of an anthrax attack, because endospores are the means by which anthrax travels.

Pursuant to the Company�� development plan, if an increase in spore concentration is detected, an alarm can sound notifying both a building's internal security, as well as local emergency services through the device's landline or wireless networking capability. The system can be adjusted to ensure that the maximum time it takes to detect, and generate an alarm in response to a release of bacterial spores is approximately 15 minutes, which is designed to be adequate to substantially reduce the likelihood of widespread contamination. The system is designed for constant and unattended monitoring of spaces, such as public facilities and commercial buildings. Its device does not detect spores from other microorganisms, such as fungi and molds, and discriminates against detecting aerosol components, such as dust. In addition, upon installation of the device, the Company operates it for 7 to 10 days to measure the natural concentrations of bacterial spores in the area, in which the device operates, so that the triggering threshold of that device will be set at an appropriate level for that environment. BSM-2000 device is designed to function as a complement to an existing bioterrorism detection device in places, such as public buildings and stadiums. The United States Army, Washington DC Fire and Safety Management, and the Burbank Police Department have purchased the Company�� detection test kits.

The Company competes with Cepheid and Northrop Grumnan.

Hot Companies To Invest In 2014: Crosstex Energy L.P.(XTEX)

Crosstex Energy, L.P. operates as an independent midstream energy company. The company, through its subsidiary, Crosstex Energy Services, L.P., engages in gathering, transmission, processing, and marketing natural gas and natural gas liquids (NGLs) in the north Texas Barnett shale area and Louisiana. Its activities include connecting the wells of natural gas producers to its gathering systems; processing natural gas for the removal of NGLs; fractionating NGLs into purity products, such as ethane, propane, isobutene, normal butane, natural gasoline, and stabilized condensate; marketing those NGL products; transporting natural gas; and providing it to various markets. The company also purchases natural gas from natural gas producers and other supply sources, and sells that natural gas to utilities, industrial consumers, and other marketers and pipelines. In addition, it purchases natural gas from producers not connected to its gathering systems for resale. The company operat es approximately 3,300 miles of natural gas gathering and transmission, and NGL pipelines. Crosstex Energy GP, LLC serves as the general partner of the company. Crosstex Energy, L.P. was founded in 1992 and is headquartered in Dallas, Texas.

Hot Companies To Invest In 2014: Centaur Holdings(CAU.L)

Centaur Media plc, through its subsidiaries, engages in the creation and dissemination of business and professional information through publications, exhibitions, conferences, and electronic services in the United Kingdom. Its products include various print and online products, and events. Its print product line primarily includes various weekly titles comprising Marketing Week, Money Marketing, The Lawyer, Design Week, and New Media Age; fortnightlies, such as The Engineer and Recruiter; and monthly magazines, including Creative Review, Employee Benefits, Homebuilding & Renovating, Period Living, and ABC&D, as well as books and directories related to the creative, marketing, and building and home communities. It also operates Web-based community sites, such as mad.co.uk for the marketing, media, advertising, and design community; The Lawyer.com for the legal community; The Engineer Online for the engineering community; Money Marketing Online for the financial community; a nd NMA Online for the new media community. In addition, it produces a range of Web sites for journalists in specialist sectors, principally financial and automotive; provides financial information services; and owns Pro-Talk, a collection of 13 Web sites covering various markets. Further, the company conducts a series of annual exhibitions, conferences, award shows, and summits. Additionally, its other products include Centaur Direct Marketing that provides resource of business data in the United Kingdom; and YouGovCentaur, which offers insights and customized research projects to marketers and researchers. The company also operates fundweb.co.uk, a news service for investment professionals; and Pitch, an online publication, which provides news and views on marketing communications. Centaur Media plc was founded in 1982 and is based in London, the United Kingdom.