Recommendations. All that and more on nightly Business Report for friday, february 14th. Good evening, im sue herera. Good evening from me as well. Im tyler plath son by the way. For stocks today capped the best week so far this year. The dow, nasdaq and s p 500 all gained more than 2 . The week. Nasdaq touched its highest level in nearly 14 years and ran its win streak to seven consecutive sessions. The longest such streak since last july. Now all ten of the s p 500 sectors were positive for the week led by utilities, health care and materials. Investors shrugged off a drop in Industrial Production data and today at least said, snow what, to winter weather. The dow gained 126 points. The s p 500 rose more than 8. The nasdaq picked up 3. Gold was higher by 19 an ounce closing at 1319. In the process it broke through a key level and traders say look for gold to rise now in small increments. Lets turn to Chris Gaffney for his market analysis. Hes Senior Market strategist with everbank. Nice to have you here. Thank you. We posed the question at the start of the show whether or not this correction is over after such a rocky start to the new year. What do you think . We think it is over. We certainly had a rocky start to the new year. But since hitting the bottoms, stocks have recovered. As tyler stated in the beginning of the show, were back to levels that were pretty much at the beginning of the year. So we do think its over. What changed . Well, i think sentiment changed. The drop was mainly due to fear. We had an emerging markets crisis, a couple of emerging Market Countries had currency crisis. We had a slowdown in china. The combination of those two created a lot of fear and negative sentiment. I think the market was primed for a pullback. So we got what we wanted. And i think were establishing a base to move higher now. Yet on the other hand weve seen a number of the big houses on wall street cut their gdp estimates because of the bad weather that weve had. Whats your sense of the economy as a whole . And whether or not this recent spate of bad weather might derail the economic recovery, to a certain extent the recovery on wall street . Sure. I think that going into 2014, many investors and many of the investment houses had an exaggerated expectation of what 2014 would bring as far as the u. S. Economic recovery. Recent data has certainly brought us back to reality. We think that youre going to see continued slow growth here in the u. S. But it is going to be growth. We will see some volatility. As far as the markets, we do think that well see some volatility continue and some pullbacks as we have seen. This probably wont be the last of 2014. But we are looking better now. How would you deploy your money . Lets say you had 100,000 worth of inxremtal cash that you wanted to put to work. How would you apportion it sort of between stocks, bonds, Precious Metals, real estate, so forth . Well, diversification is the key. At everbank Wealth Management we have welldiversified portfolios. In fact we have pretty good positions in both currencies and commodities. And these are more defensive positions, if you will. But we like to have a very diversified portfolio across all Asset Classes that are noncore related. So when the market goes down youve got other parts of your portfolio that are moving up. What worries you about the market, if anything at all . Well, i think the weather as you pointed out earlier, sue. Its a worry. I think its going to be a drag on the u. S. Economy during the first quarter. While earnings in the last quarter of 2014 came in basically positive, we saw a lot of negative forward guidance. So i do think that we will see the weather impact gdp in the first quarter. But, you know, what can you do about the weather . Very quickly, are your positions in some of those nontraditional Asset Classes, currencies, commodities, relatively higher now then they would typically be very quickly . No. We keep a fairly stable asset class diversification. So we really we bought some more into Precious Metals at the end of last year with the big drop that we saw there. So we did reallocate a little bit. But theyre fairly typical. All right, chris, thanks so much for joining us. Chris gaffney, Senior Market strategist with everbank, have a great long weekend. Thank you. More evidence that the unrelenting cold, stormy wet they are winter is impacting the economy. Factory output in the u. S. Unexpectedly fell by. 8 last month. The most in more than four and a half years. The Federal Reserve said the bat weather curtailed production. And although the philadelphia feds Quarterly Survey did not blame the weather per se, economists do expect the economy to grow at a rate of just 2 this quarter. Thats down. 5 from the last estimate. But economists there did raise their full year growth estimate by. 2 to 2. 8 . Believe it or not traders and investors are talking about something besides weather. Remember stock pickers . Theyve seemed out of style in recent years as momentum stocks and broad industry etfes have taken over. But with the bull market maybe moving at a slightly slower pace and volatility predicted this year it may be time to go back to the basics. Dominic choo explains. Back to normal again. Thats how many traders are describing this market because stocks now trade more on Company Fundamentals and not as much on just large swings in investor sentiment. That happened during the financial crisis when everything was either down or up in tandem. But now weve got a real difference in the market. Stocks that are shorts are actually going down. And stocks that are quality that are based on Quality Companies are actually going up. So this is why they call it a stock pickers market. And thats more true this year than it was last year or in years past. That means theres an opportunity to do some research and actually outperform the broader market. Even within specific Industry Groups were already seeing divergence in the way some stocks trade against others. For instance the pharmaceuticals industry. Big drugmakers like merck and pfizer have similar lines of business. But so far this year merck shares have gained 11 . Pfizer shares have risen by just 4 . A similar story is playing out in the world of hightech computer chips. Shares of memory Chipmaker Micron Technology are up 14 . Meanwhile, shares of intel, the worlds biggest maker of chips for personal computers, theyre down 5 . These types of performance discrepancies are allowing some professional Money Managers to earn bigger profits for their clients. And this kind of scenario could be here for the foreseeable future. I think this year youre going to finally see for the first in five or six years rapid management does outperform. Whether picking individual stocks yourself or looking for the Mutual Fund Managers who are able to do that for you, i think thats where investors want to be. Thats not to say things cant and wont change back to the way they were during the crisis. But for now, stock pickers will take normal and be happy. And well be getting stock picks from our market monitor guests coming up a bit later in the program. Weight watchers used to be the Gold Standard for shedding unwanted pounds. But the company may be oh so yesterday. Weight watchers stock fell nearly 28 today. Its worst loss on record. Joss lipton tells us why. Weight watchers is a company focused on helping consumers cut weight. Today investors cut their positions in the stock. Weight watchers nosedived in todays trade losing onequarter of its value. The company told investors on its Conference Call that 2014 will be a challenging year. Part of the problem, they say, headwinds coming from new technologies. Instead of attending weight loss meetings, people are using free apps, such as my fitness pal and lose it, to track weight loss. Weight watchers is also dealing with increasing competition of wearables, Tiny Computers that track activities and calories which consumers wear on their wrists. I think overall if the company doesnt improve its entire technology platform, mobile apps, online platform, wearable technologies, i think its going to be left in a difficult position. I think consumers have fully embraced the idea of using smartphones and wearables to manage weight loss programs. And i think that the company has to embrace that. Theres a lot of buzz about wearables. Specifically for fitness enthusiasts. Canalis, the Tech Research firm, predicts smart bands will reach 8 million shipments this year and jump to 23 million by next year. The leaders in wearables include nike, fit fit, as well as jawbone, maker of the upwrist band which helps you understand how you sleep, move and eat and costs about 150. Bigname invest investors are moving into wearable. Jawbone is poised to complete a new 250 million round of funding valuing the company at more than 3 billion. Analysts say the wearables market will continue to evolve over the next few years, adding new functions for consumers. Theyll continue to improve on not only telling you what youre eating, how youre exercising, but how youre doing physically at any given point in time. There may be an alert out if you might have a heart or tack. Other things like people tell other people where your location is if youve got a medical problem. They continue to advance kind of on this health vector. Wearables pose a real threat to Companies Like weight watchers. Analysts say even if they figure out wearables or risk becoming obsolete. Still ahead, one of the biggest ponzi schemes of alltime. Nope, not bernie madoff. Allen stanford. And five years after he was accused of bilking investors after billions, why are his victims still suffering . Are subprime mortgages making a comeback . Not quite yet but wells fargo is moving that way. The bank is looking for ways to stop its revenue decline as overall mortgage volume has fallen since the subprime bust, banks have lent only to the safest borrowers. If wells fargo loosens even a few of its tight loan requirements, other banks may follow. Which could boost demand for homes. Toyota is recalling more than 261,000 latemodel lexus and toyota vehicles here because of various Safety Systems that could stop working. These include stability control and antilock brake systems in the cars and trucks are all 2012 and 13 models. The United Auto Workers is trying to build support among workers at the 17yearold mercedes plant in vance, alabama. Union organizers following the same route they used to reach this weeks vote among workers at the chattanooga volkswagen plant. That voting ends tonight. The uaw has been working with german unions and the Labor Management group at mercedes parent daimler. Investors are taking interest in general motors. That is where we begin market focus. According to Regulatory Filings as of the end of december Jana Partners added to its position upping it to nearly 8 million shares. Leon cooperman of omega advisers opened a stake in the largest u. S. Automaker buying more than 1 million shares. That sent the stock up 2 today. To 35. 95. Vf corporation saw Fourth Quarter earnings climb 10 on sales growth in its outdoor brands like the north face. But results fell short of estimates because of declines in some of the companys units like its jeans business. And that contributed to an outlook wranglers. Shares tumbled 5 to 56. 85. J. M. Smucker missed earnings estimates. The coffeemaker took a hit because of competition in its Peanut Butter issues. Healthconscious consumers didnt help business since many are aviding artificial sweeteners. A weak outlook topped off the bad report from smuckers. Shares fell to 90. 51, almost a 5 decline. However, this miserable winter hasnt been so bad for campbells soup. More americans bought soup which sent profits up more than 70 . And the late thanksgiving holiday also helped by pushing shipments to retailers into the companys last quarter. The foodmaker reaffirmed its outlook as well so shares rose 5 to 43. 01. After a series of back and forth buyout offers with mens wear house, joseph a. Bank said it would buy eddie bauer in an effort to stay independent. Bank is buying the privately held company for about 800 million because it said the deal provided better shareholder value than buying or selling to mens wear house. The chain upped its Share Buyback plan. The stock rose sleetly to 55. 12. There are reports that the u. S. Speed Skating Federation is requesting to switch the teams suits which are designed by under armour. The team is trying to make sense of its poor performance and now the speculation has turned to the competitors new hightech suits. The uniform was designed by the sports retailer with help from defense contractor lockheed martin. Shares fell more than 2 for under armour. Big companies arent the only ones the that pay attractive dividends that grow over time. Small and Mediumsized Companies do too. Jill coniff, president of edge asset management, good to have you with us. Thanks, glad to be here. Why are dividends so important to you . Dividends are a sign of a companys strengths. And a company that pays a solid dividend, as well as grows that dividend over time, shows a commitment to shareholders. We believe thats a big driver to total return. Its also the search for yield, is it not, in a relatively low Interest Rate environment . So far in 2014 and all of 2013 . Absolutely. If you think about whats happening across the world and aging demographics, yield is very important. And were also in a very lowyielding environment with Interest Rates. So given that stocks have run and investors are looking for places to go, dividendpaying strategies ar great alternative for investors for income as well as the potential for total Capital Appreciation over time. Lets get to some of your stock picks. One that doesnt have all that high a dividend but is going to capitalize, at least from your point of view, on the growth in Domestic Energy production. Tell me about Marathon Petroleum and why. Marathon is definitely benefiting from that team of the u. S. Energy independence. The u. S. Is generating about 83 of its domestic oil needs right now. And thats going to continue. So whats happening is that production and that infrastructure around that needs to be built out. And marathon, as one of the largest independent refiners, has done a very good job of capitalizing on that opportunity. They made a smart acquisition last year. They have a strong balance sheet. The yield is about 2 right now. As you said thats not all that high, but whats important is that they grew it by 20 last year. So not only the yield and the good, strong fundamentals of the company, but that growth of the dividend is important to edge. And jill, another thing, you dont always go to the larger cap companies, you look for small and Mediumsized Companies that as you say may not have a large dividend but grow that dividend by a large percentage basis. And i would assume that your next pick calumet specialty partners fits under that umbrella . Thats absolutely right, sue. At edge we look for companies that may not be tracked by wall street, overlooked by the average investor. So calumet specially products is about a 2 billion market cap company. You may not have heard of them but theyre very good at what they do. They make over 35 hydrocarbon products that go into things that you do know. Like baby oil and cosmetics and wd40. So their specialty and focus really distinguishes them. And they do pay a very healthy dividend of just under 10 right now. So good, Strong Company and good, strong dividend. All right, weve got two sort of oil or petroleumbased companies. The third one is anything but. Alexandria real estate equities. Why that one . Its important to have diversification. And at edge we focus on dividendpaying strategies. And alexandria is a specialty read. We like specialty reads versus largecap reads. We believe large cap has been a bit overpriced. So this is a different way to play that space. And what alexandria does is lease lab space to people like Big Pharmaceutical Companies or biotech or universities. And the biotech segment of the market has been on fire. So this is a slightly different way to play that space. And theyve consistently grown their dividend over time. And a yield of about 4. 1 . Jill, thank you very much. Do you have any disclosures to make with respect to these stocks . I dont hold any of these personally. But we do hold them in our dividendpaying strategies at edge asset management. All right, jill. Have a great weekend. Thank you, you too. Jill coniff, president of edge asset management. Five years ago monday, a massive ponzi scheme shocked the world. Were not talking about bernie madoff. Allen stanford, a globetrotting multibillionaire from texas, was accused of bilking investors out of 7 billion. His scam gets overshadowed by mr. Madoffs but five years later, stanfords victims have fared considerably worse. Hello, im Allen Stanford. Reporter Allen Stanford exude the american dream. Sellmail billionaire from rural texas who became a royal knight in the caribbean nation of antigua and an international booster of cricket. The mastermind and thunder of the whole project, sir Allen Stanford. Reporter inves