Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over daily movements, we do like to keep an eye on market changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.

Stocks proved unable to gain back any ground from last week's big plunge, as investors remain nervous about a potential correction in advance of the Federal Reserve's last meeting under outgoing Chairman Ben Bernanke. Despite further declines for the major market indexes, Rayonier , Shanda Games , and YPF all posted big jumps today.

Rayonier climbed almost 10% after it said this morning that it would break into two separate companies. One of the resulting companies will concentrate on Rayonier's performance-fibers business, while the other will continue its forest-resources and real-estate operations. Rayonier is just following in the footsteps of many other companies in trying to separate out specialty-chemical operations from other, higher-value businesses -- timberlands in Rayonier's case. The company also reported solid fourth-quarter earnings, with a 26% jump in revenue producing adjusted earnings per share that were $0.13 higher than investors expected.

Shanda Games jumped 15% after getting a $1.9 billion offer to go private from a group led by controlling shareholder Shanda Interactive. The deal would pay U.S. shareholders $6.90 per American depositary share, or about 22% above where the stock started the day. Many analysts have pointed to an ongoing trend toward taking Chinese companies private, given a lack of confidence among U.S. investors that has led to low valuations. Chinese online gaming remains a competitive industry, but even with emerging-market concerns weighing on stocks, the growth potential for Shanda remains strong.

YPF rose almost 12% as the Argentine energy giant regained a portion of its 25% plunge last week. The company is near the epicenter of emerging-market concerns, with Argentina's currency falling sharply. Moreover, YPF has been wrapped in controversy ever since the Argentine government expropriated Spanish energy company Repsol's interest in the venture. Even though the two parties reached a tentative deal, YPF will remain a tough sell for investors who are nervous about Argentina's less than friendly attitude toward private property rights.

Tesla Motors passed a fresh milestone this week, after the electric-car maker officially connected its East Coast and West Coast Supercharger network. This will allow Model S drivers to travel virtually for free across the U.S. without ever using a drop of gas. Tesla's CEO, Elon Musk, wasn't shy about sharing the news. Yesterday he tweeted that approximately 80% of the U.S. population is now within range of a Supercharger station.

Source: Twitter

If you're not yet familiar with the term "Supercharger", it's Tesla's answer to range anxiety, a fear which has plagued electric vehicles up to this point. These highly energy-efficient EV-charging stations let Tesla drivers charge their cars along major highways throughout the United States and Europe. Moreover, the company's Supercharger technology delivers the fastest electric-vehicle charge in the world today -- recharging half the capacity of a Model S battery in as few as 20 minutes!

Electric cars have had a tough time catching on in the U.S., largely because of the lack of EV infrastructure. Today, Tesla is one step closer to changing that. While right now you'll need one of Tesla's $73,000 cars to use the supercharging stations, the network creates tremendous value for Tesla as it aims to convert more drivers into EV owners with the coming of its more affordable Model E.

Gas-free road trips forever
With this latest completion, coast-to-coast Model S travel is now a reality. Two Model S owners were the first to complete a cross-country drive using only the superchargers, according to PlugShare. Meanwhile, two groups from Tesla will attempt to set speed records driving across the U.S. later this week. Musk is also planning to get in on the Supercharger action, with plans for a cross-country trip with his family over spring break -- perhaps he'll be driving Tesla's upcoming Model X crossover.

Source: Twitter

Looking to the not-so-distant future, Tesla is now on track to have its Superchargers covering 98% of the U.S. population and parts of Canada by next year. The company is also expanding its charging network globally. In fact, Tesla says it will cover 100% of the population of Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Austria, Denmark, and Luxembourg with superchargers by the end of the year.

Supercharge your portfolio
Tesla has beaten incredible odds to get where it is today, and that success is reflected in the stock. However, with shares of Tesla up more than 300% in the past year, investors can unlock better returns with lesser-known growth stocks.

In this video from Friday's Market Checkup, Motley Fool health-care analyst David Williamson tells investors in the health-care sector why he has his eye on the Obamacare enrollment numbers at the moment.

So far, 800,000 people have signed up for private health plans through Obamacare in January, which boosts the total enrollment to 3 million with a week to go in the month. This shows that despite not reaching the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' original enrollment expectations for January because of healthcare.gov's rocky rollout, there is no lull in enrollment momentum, as the pace continues to remain strong in 2014.

David looks in this segment at why managed-care insurers such as WellPoint , which have a large exchange footprint, should benefit as enrollment continues upward.

The Department of Defense awarded eight new defense contracts Monday, worth $340.6 million in total. More than half of these funds went to one single company -- Britain's Rolls-Royce , which was awarded a $182.6 million firm-fixed-price requirements contract modification to continue performing maintenance work on Air Force C-130J aircraft propulsion systems through Jan. 31, 2015. But there were a handful of smaller winners as well: 

• General Dynamics  was awarded a $23.7 million contract modification funding research and development efforts for the U.S. Air Force's Hardened Materials Research and Survivability Studies Program. Specifically, General Dynamics will be working on hardening aircraft to protect pilots not just from anti-aircraft fire and other material hazards, but from "photonic light and electromagnetic energy" as well. This contract will now run through Jan. 21, 2016.
• L-3 Communications was awarded a $13.8 million option exercise to continue performing maintenance on F-16, F-18, H-60, and E-2C aircraft operated by U.S. Navy "adversary squadrons." Adversary squadrons consist of U.S. pilots flying either foreign-built planes or older U.S. planes, and flying them in styles similar to those used by foreign air forces. The unusual "air forces" involved in this training require specialized knowledge in how to maintain their planes. Wednesday's award extends L-3's contract to maintain these planes through October.
• Booz Allen Hamilton was awarded $12.5 million task order to support the Navy's office of Program Executive Office Enterprise Information Systems, Naval Enterprise Networks, providing program management, financial management, and administrative support through July.

Shares of Microsoft opened about 4% higher the day after the company reported solid earnings, with double-digit revenue growth in both its consumer and commercial segments. The launch of the Xbox One, as well as the sequential doubling of Surface sales, led to significant growth in the hardware division, while the commercial segment outpaced enterprise IT spend by winning market share. With the announcement of the company's next CEO coming soon, current CEO, Steve Ballmer, can leave on a high note.

A look at the results
Total revenue in the quarter rose 11% to $24.5 billion, with an impressive flat gross margin, given the launch of the Xbox One, which carries a very low gross margin, during the quarter. GAAP EPS rose by 3%, while non-GAAP EPS fell by 4%, reflecting items like pre-sales and deferred revenue in fiscal 2013.

Devices and consumer revenue rose by 13% to $11.91 billion. Windows OEM licensing revenue fell by 3%, a significant improvement compared to last quarter, which was driven by strong demand for Pro versions of Windows. While Office consumer revenue was down 24%, 16% of this decline was attributed to the shift to Office 365 Home Premium, Microsoft's subscription-based Office suite. This means that Office revenue, excluding this impact, outperformed the consumer PC market as a whole. Office 365 Home Premium now has 3.5 million subscribers, up from about 2 million just a few months ago.

Revenue from the Surface tablet more than doubled compared to last quarter, rising to $893 million, as the second generation of devices has resonated more with consumers than the first generation. Microsoft has sold 3.9 million Xbox One consoles in the retail channel, with the console beating out the PlayStation 4 in the U.S. market in December.

Things look even better on the commercial side. Windows volume licensing revenue rose 10%, reflecting the continued dominance of Windows in the enterprise. SQL server, Microsoft's entry into the database market, grew by double-digits while continuing to gain market share, with the premium version growing by more than 25%. Revenue from Office commercial rose by 10%, with the number of Office 365 seats more than doubling.

The cloud was particularly strong for Microsoft. Contained in the "commercial other" segment, which accounted for just $1.78 billion of revenue in the quarter, Microsoft's cloud business is small, but growing fast. Commercial cloud services revenue grew by 107% in the quarter, with the number of Azure customers and Dynamics CRM seats more than doubling. The cloud has the potential to be a very big business for Microsoft in the future, and the strong growth is encouraging.

Growing market share
While the consumer PC market remains weak, Microsoft is diversified enough that growth in other areas can make up for it. The fact that Microsoft is gaining market share with its various commercial products is a testament to how much enterprise customers rely on Microsoft, even with plenty of alternatives available.

One example is Hyper-V, Microsoft's virtualization solution. The leader in this space is VMware with a 57% market share, but this is down from a 65% market share in 2008. This loss has been Microsoft's gain, with Hyper-V now accounting for 28% of the virtualization market, up from 20% in 2008. Hyper-V gained five points of market share year-over-year for Microsoft in the second quarter, and this trend doesn't seem to be slowing down.

Microsoft has the advantage that, for enterprise customers already using Microsoft's other products, it makes sense to choose Hyper-V over the competition. In fact, Microsoft's System Center customers receive Hyper-V virtualization at no cost, and with System Center revenue growing in the double-digits during the second quarter, Microsoft's position in the virtualization market is only getting stronger. This is a big problem for VMware going forward, as battling Microsoft in the enterprise segment is likely a losing proposition.

On the consumer side, there's reason to be hopeful that the Windows licensing business can be boosted by the influx of Windows 8 tablets and convertibles, made possible by Intel's low-power Atom processors. During the recent conference call after Intel's earnings report, the company stated that more than 70 2-in-1 devices, offering both a tablet and laptop experience, would be available going into the back-to-school season this year. While it's not clear how many of these will be Windows devices, a majority will likely run Windows 8 instead of Android, which could help make up for weak consumer PC sales, helping Microsoft gain share in the tablet market.

The bottom line
Microsoft reported solid earnings, with the commercial segment especially strong. Any threats to Microsoft's dominance in enterprise have yet to have any serious impact, as both Windows and Office continue to grow. On the consumer side, adoption of Office 365 suggests that consumers are still willing to pay for Office, even with free alternatives available, and that bodes well for one of Microsoft's biggest cash cows. While Microsoft continually faces an almost innumerable number of threats, the company has done well fending them off, maintaining its dominance and hefty margins, plus proving that Microsoft is far from becoming irrelevant.

Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over daily movements, we do like to keep an eye on market changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.

Although U.S. stocks opened up this morning, they weren't able to sustain that momentum, as the S&P 500 fell 0.5% on Wednesday. The narrower Dow Jones Industrial Average fared slightly better, losing just 0.3%. There's good reason to believe the Dow will outperform the S&P 500 tomorrow as well, since the S&P 500's heaviest weighting, Apple , which isn't a Dow component, looks set for a tough day.

Sometimes there's just no pleasing Wall Street. Apple beat analysts' estimates for earnings per share and revenue, yet the stock is being punished in the after-hours session, down 8% at 7:47 p.m. ET. Indeed, the company posted record quarterly revenue of $57.6 billion, earning $14.50 per share, where analysts were looking for $57.5 billion and $14.09 per share, respectively, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Earnings per share were also much significantly higher than Apple's guidance suggested (admittedly, Apple has a long track record of under-promising and over-delivering in this manner). Going by the actual weighted average diluted share count during the quarter, and using the midpoint of the guidance range, produced an earnings-per-share forecast of just $13.30.

Why, then, the drop in the shares?

For one thing, quarterly profits of $13.1 billion are flat relative to the year-ago quarter ... which was itself flat compared with the fiscal first quarter of 2012. For a growth company, that's a long time to go without any growth.

Second, iPhone unit sales of 51 million were below analysts' expectations for 55 million.

Third, the market is forward-looking, and Apple's guidance for its fiscal second quarter falls well short of analysts' expectations. By my calculations, even using the top end of Apple's guidance range and an aggressive assumption for share count reduction, earnings per share would still be more than a dollar short of the $10.93 consensus estimate.

However, for investors whose time horizon extends beyond the next quarter, there were other, more positive elements to hang one's hat on.

Take the China Mobile deal, for example. Earlier this month, I wrote that this is "a long-term bet, not a short-term catalyst for a significant rerating in the shares." I still believe that, and so does Apple CEO Tim Cook, who told analysts and investors on the earnings call that the iPhone is available through China Mobile in only 16 cities so far, but that number will rise to 300 by the end of the year. "We've got a ramp in front of us," he concluded.

Or how about the opportunity in mobile payments, which The Wall Street Journal highlighted in a story last Friday? Cook weighed in by stating: "people are loving to be able to buy content, whether it's music or movies or books from the iPhones using Touch ID. It's incredibly simple and easy and elegant." Cook confirmed that mobile payments were one of the drivers for developing Touch ID (the fingerprint sensor on the iPhone 5s).

Last Wednesday, legendary investor Carl Icahn tweeted that he had bought $500 million worth of Apple shares within the past two weeks. Thursday, he again took to Twitter to announce that he had added another $500 million worth that very day, bringing his total position to $3.6 billion. If today's after-hours action is any indication, investors will get the opportunity to buy shares at a discount to the price this wily billionaire paid on a billion-dollar commitment. Just remember: Carl Icahn didn't accumulate a $20 billion fortune listening to Wall Street weathervanes.

The world's largest PC manufacturer, Chinese technology company Lenovo , will pay $2 billion in cash and $300 million in stock to acquire IBM's x86 low-end server business, also known as System X.

This is not the first time Lenovo acquired a business unit from Big Blue. In 2005, the company acquired IBM's ThinkPad line of PCs. The company eventually ended up becoming the biggest player in the PC arena. A shrinking PC industry was no impediment for Lenovo to establish a profitable PC business, helped by economies of scale and high quality standards in manufacturing. Lenovo posted a 36% hike in profits last November, but Lenovo wants more. It aims to conquer the smartphone space, and now, the low-end server market.

IBM wins
Overall, the latest acquisition seems to be a win-win situation for both Lenovo and IBM. Big Blue's low-end server business has been shrinking for a while, hurting the company's bottom line. This move also reduces IBM's dependency on hardware significantly. That's exactly what the company wants. Big Blue's new business priorities in its 2015 road map are cloud computing, Smarter Planet, business analytics, and growth markets. Moreover, between 2010 and 2013, the company spent roughly $12 billion in acquisitions, buying mainly software companies in the cloud space. 

There will always be a place for hardware
Note that although IBM is emphasizing software nowadays, the company is not retiring completely from the server world. It plans to stay in the high-end server and mainframe business, focusing on its System Z and Power lines, together with its storage systems.

In other words, Big Blue is basically selling the low-margin, high-volume segment. This is consistent with IBM's new strategy, which focuses on high-margin software sales, and using mainframe and System Z technologies as a way to cross-sell its recurrent service and profitable support contracts.

Apart from getting $2 billion in cash, IBM will have permission to continue selling System X servers as a reseller partner for Lenovo. Unlike System Z -- mainframe servers for large corporations -- IBM's System X portfolio of servers was basically targeted at mid-sized corporations, hosting companies, and clients with small cloud needs.

Lenovo wins, Hewlett-Packard loses
The recent acquisition puts Lenovo in a better position to compete against Hewlett-Packard  and Dell in the server market.

Hewlett-Packard will now face a rival that isn't afraid of aggressive pricing to capture market share. In the third quarter of the past year, Hewlett-Packard had the largest share in the $9.5 billion low-end server market, according to IDC.

This could change dramatically in the coming quarters, because the latest acquisition is expected to move Lenovo ahead five years in its plan to expand in servers, raising its global ranking among suppliers from No. 6 to No. 3, according to Peter Hortensius, senior vice president at Lenovo. 

Final Foolish takeaway
The acquisition of IBM's low-end server business by Lenovo may be a win-win situation. IBM, which reported its seventh straight quarter of declining revenue last week, is trying to reinvent itself once more by focusing on high-growth areas, such as cloud computing and software.

The deal will also give Lenovo about 12% of the world's server market. Although the acquired business unit is barely profitable, by increasing sales volume, Lenovo could transform IBM's low-end server unit into a cash-flow machine, as the company is well-known for using an aggressive pricing strategy combined with high-quality quality control to successfully capture market share.

It's no secret that the move to next generation semiconductor manufacturing technologies is becoming more expensive per generation. Not only are the actual capital requirements per wafer on an uptrend, but they are - for the first time in a long time - increasing at a rate that actually exceeds the benefits that come from the density improvements that come with next generation technology. This means that the cost per transistor heads in the wrong direction: up.

Why cost per transistor matters
In order to implement a particular function within a piece of silicon, a chip designer must use a certain number of transistors, which are devices that are used to amplify and switch electrical signals. Now, for the most part, a particular function will take a certain number of transistors to implement. The idea, then, is that if you can make your transistors both cheaper and lower power, then each generation you can pile more of them in the same space for the same cost/power.

Cost per transistor is heading in the wrong direction
After years of these great cost/transistor improvements generation after generation, the fabless semiconductor companies have begun to complain that cost/transistor is beginning to head (perhaps violently) in the wrong direction. Here's Broadcom's (a leading fabless semiconductor company) take on the matter:

(Source: Broadcom)

It gets worse, too. Not only do these new manufacturing technologies driving a higher COGS per-transistor, but the actual manpower required to design a chip around these new manufacturing technologies is actually growing at an alarming rate, as shown here:

(Source: Broadcom)

Why Apple is important
In the fabless semiconductor world, there are only a few foundries with leading-edge technology in real quantity: Intel , Taiwan Semiconductor , and Samsung . Now, what's interesting is that Intel already has some pretty substantial leading edge business via its PC chips, so it doesn't have to worry as much about filling its leading-edge plants and getting that next generation of technology paid for.

(Source: iMore)

Intel, of course, needs mobile to grow its business (and eventually will need those volumes to be able to sustain its leading edge capacity), but the issue isn't all that pressing today. TSMC and Samsung, on the other hand, need clients hungry for the leading edge in order to take that initial "hit". For Samsung, this client has traditionally (and ironically) been Apple , and for TSMC, this has traditionally been Qualcomm (the world's leading smartphone vendor).

Why even Qualcomm isn't enough
Qualcomm is well-known for powering high-end, flagship smartphones with its cutting-edge Snapdragon parts. However, while these high-end design wins are nice, the real volume is in the mid-range to low-end. In this space, cost matters, and so for the vast majority of Qualcomm's parts, the company is likely to want to stick to an optimal cost/transistor node since a mid-range smartphone doesn't need the bleeding edge (unless, of course, it's cheaper).

This means that while Qualcomm will help drive things at the very high end, the volumes here - particularly since Qualcomm already dual sources from Samsung and TSMC - probably won't be enough longer-term (especially since the high end of the smartphone market is slowing down). Apple, on the other hand, gets paid a real premium for its devices (and it prides itself on advancing performance, even with large die-sizes), so it will likely be the "first" to new, more expensive nodes going forward.

Apple will use its importance to its advantage
Apple knows that it is strategically important to the high-end foundry business, so investors will likely see the foundries bending over backwards to try to win Apple's business (which means that Apple will get the upper hand with respect to wafer pricing). The company that can deliver the best performing transistors to Apple for the best price will likely win the majority of the orders. TSMC is making a lot of noise about how its 16 FinFET node is superior to that from Samsung (and Global Foundries), but the tale will ultimately be told over the next few years.

At any rate, Apple's business - since it will likely be the single largest fabless consumer of ultra-high end apps processors - will be vital longer term. The only question now is how the chips will fall - something that the next generation iPhone launches will shed some serious light on. 

Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over daily movements, we do like to keep an eye on market changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.

Investors hoping for a reprieve from last week's downward drop in the stock market were disappointed Monday, as attempts throughout the day to regain at least a little lost ground ended up failing. Yet even though the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite fell around 0.5% to 1%, the losses were much worse at a few key stocks, including Geron , Regis , and Nam Tai Electronics .

Geron plummeted 15% after the biopharmaceutical company said in an SEC filing that roughly 25% of patients in a Mayo Clinic trial of its myelofibrosis candidate treatment imetelstat have discontinued treatment since it began in November 2012. Nevertheless, Geron believes that it will start its own phase 2 trial based on the preliminary data from the study. In the long run, the results from that study might overcome the concerns that the high proportion of those dropped from the Mayo study could point to potential problems.

Regis dropped 10% after the hair-salon company reported that same-store sales fell 6.2% during the December quarter, sending overall revenue down 7.5%. Regis ended up reversing a year-ago profit, posting a loss of $0.04 per share. CEO Dan Hanrahan pointed to more than $112 million in goodwill impairments and deferred-tax asset valuation allowances as weighing on results yet arguing that they "do not have any economic impact on our business model." Rival Ulta Salon has also struggled recently, though, and so the shortfall from Regis isn't terribly surprising.

Nam Tai fell 12% after the electronics manufacturer reported that revenue dropped by nearly a quarter, sending earnings down by three-quarters. More importantly, the company expects to transform itself into a real-estate development and management company, choosing to give up its manufacturing business entirely. That has many investors nervous about the company's future, especially given the dramatic shift that Nam Tai has in mind. Yet given the weakness in its past core business, desperate times clearly called for desperate measures in Nam Tai's attempt to survive.

Even though the markets took a beating over the past week and biotech stocks experienced a broader industry sell-off, one stock in this space stood out as the clear winner on the market on Monday. Shares of Oramed Pharmaceuticals were up more than 25% today, ahead of the company's report of phase 2 results for its oral insulin drug 0801 on Jan. 30. For diabetes-drug makers, oral insulin has long been a holy grail, and if these trial results are strong, the company will probably have no problem finding a partner, if not a buyer. In this video, Motley Fool health-care analyst David Williamson discusses why investors are jumping in today ahead of the news, and why this upcoming binary event could either be huge or devastating for the stock. He also tells investors in MannKind why they may need to watch this event closely, and why success here for Oramed could give MannKind trouble down the road.

While several biotech stocks sold off today in a broader industry sell-off, two stocks in this sector fell today because of their own bad news. Geron tumbled by about 15% today, after The Mayo Clinic announced that the trial for Geron's cancer drug Imetelstat for the myelofibrosis indication is closed, though no efficacy data was released. More than 25% of the patients in the trial have now dropped out, which has investors in Geron spooked.

Pfizer also lost today, as the company's lung cancer drug Dacomitinib failed two phase 3 trials. The drug was unable to prolong overall survival rate over the placebo or progression-free survival against Tarceva.

In this video, Motley Fool health-care analyst David Williamson gives investors his thoughts on Geron and Pfizer today.

Alaska is about to fund up to $5.9 billion of a $45 billion natural gas export project. It joins ConocoPhillips , ExxonMobil , and TransCanada  as an equity partner.

The state would take a 25% stake in a $25 billion liquefaction plant located on the Kenai Peninsula and an 800-mile pipeline from the North Slope to Kenai. The expanded plant will be able to ship 18 million tons per year of liquefied natural gas, or LNG.

The politics of energy
The announcement on the LNG heads of agreement comes on the heals of the repeal of the Palin Tax. Since Sarah Palin signed the tax on oil output in 2007, Alaskan North Slope, or ANS, production has been declining against sharp rises in Texas and North Dakota crude production in the Eagle Ford and Bakken.

Over the past 15 years, drilling costs per well have risen in some cases to over $16 million per well over the past 15 years. ConocoPhillips alone has contributed $14 billion in taxes and fees to the State of Alaska since 2007. It is estimated that repeal of the Palin tax will reestablish ANS crude and LNG as significant U.S. energy sources. But well-head cost inflation and taxation are only part of the story.

The prize fight
The traditional destination for ANS crude and LNG is the West Coast of the U.S. Even with rail transport, Bakken light, tight oil, or LTO, is cheaper than ANS crude. The largest West Coast refiner, Tesoro , uses water-borne and ANS substitute crude by rail and barge. It is expecting over 900,000 barrels per day by 2015.

Tesoro and Savage Services are working with the State of Washington on a $100 million rail port project. Savage is a bulk logistics provider that can transload over 70,000 barrels of oil per week at rail car loading stations in Utah for rail shipment by Union Pacific to the Port of Washington at Anacortes. Savage fills the gap with a 50,000-barrel-per-week trucking capability.

So what will it be? Bakken is in one corner and ANS in the other. Railways and water-borne shipping are in the fray. The referee in the middle will be the crude export ban.

A Foolish play?
Conoco is the largest energy producer in Alaska, lifting over 204,000 barrels of crude and liquids per day and 55 million cubic feet of natural gas per day on 1.2 million acres of land leased from Alaska and the federal Bureau of Land Management.

Conoco plans on 3%-5% per year growth in volumes with 5% per year growth in margins over the next five years. Conoco's divestment of Nigerian and Russian assets gives it the extra cash it needs to grow its Alaskan stake.

ANS crude prices look like Brent, Mars crude: greater than $100 per barrel. Crude-by-rail pricing has been influenced not only by the volume of crude transported but also by rail fuel prices rising by over 18% during the past year. Bakken delivered prices on the East and West Coast also approach Brent pricing with nationwide all-in rail costs from $10 to $15 per barrel. Will Bakken approach Brent?

ANS and LNG delivered to West Coast refineries may soon become competitive with the extra cost of increased rail traffic and delays in pipeline projects. Lifting the export ban on crude and LNG would open ConocoPhillips and the State of Alaska to Japan and East Asian markets that could deliver a premium of 20% over the West Coast.

Follow @mthalman5513

Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over daily movements, we do like to keep an eye on market changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.

After last week's report from China that the country's manufacturing industry was slowing, investors sent the major indexes lower for the fifth consecutive day today. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 41 points, or 0.26%, while the S&P 500 fell 0.49%. But of the three major indexes, the Nasdaq lost the most, down 1.08%. Since the technology-heavy index was by far the worst performer, let's look at which companies helped pull it lower.

Shares of Google dropped 2.01% during the regular trading session and then another 0.38% in after-hours trading. The move comes on the heels of Google's announcement that it's paying $400 million to buy Deep Mind, a European company developing artificial intelligence. This is Google's largest European purchase, and it comes as Google has been eating up robotic companies. Investors may be showing concern that Google is steering away from its core business of advertising, which could lead to lower profits and a weaker company. I don't think these moves will hurt Google in the long term, but they do make me wonder where the company is heading.  

Meanwhile, Facebook tumbled 1.65% during the trading day and another 0.84% after hours. Facebook will turn 10 years old on Feb. 4, and some investors are concerned that the company is no longer the "hot" thing in social media, as reports indicate that younger users are turning to other platforms. On the other hand, Twitter dropped 6.2% during the regular trading session and LinkedIn fell 5.6% today, so the overall sector decline may mean social-media stocks have a larger problem on its hands than just defecting teenagers. As for Facebook, its earnings release is scheduled for Jan. 29.

Finally, although Apple closed the day up 0.81% and technically helped the Nasdaq today, shares ended the extended trading session down 7.98%, or $43.00. The company reported better-than-expected revenue and earnings per share after the bell but gave lower-than-expected guidance for the coming quarter. Management believes it will post second-quarter revenue within a range of $42 billion to $44 billion, while analysts were estimating $46 billion. That has investors concerned that growth at the innovative technology company may be slowing. So even though Apple may have not hurt the Nasdaq on Monday, it certainly looks as if it will on Tuesday.

Following the drop in monthly dealer retail sales stats that Caterpillar reported last week, the market was ready for the heavy equipment manufacturer to completely go over the cliff when it reported fourth-quarter earnings this morning. That it handily beat analyst expectations is a cause for hope, but it's no reason to feel euphoric; there's still plenty to be worried about even if the worst fears haven't been realized. 

As we've had the misfortune to chronicle these past few months, Big Yellow dealer sales have yet to stop the pattern of falling month after month after month. It's now recorded 13 straight months of declining worldwide sales, and even if it was only a slightly less worse December than November, you need to transport yourself back almost four years in time to see an equally dismal resort.  

Yet on the strength of construction and power systems sales, Caterpillar was still able to say fourth-quarter profits rose 45% to $1 billion ($1.54 per share) from $698 million ($1.04 a share) in the year-earlier period, even as revenue fell to $14.4 billion from $16.1 billion. The mining industry's woes continue to weigh on performance as revenues in the segment tumbled 48% on slack demand as miners cut back on capital expenditures.

Barrick Gold slashed expenses in a bid to keep up with the falling price of that precious metal and just reset reserve estimates based on a per-ounce price of gold of $1,100, well below the $1,500 price it used last year. Other gold miners are expected to follow suit, too.

Resource miners like BHP Billiton, Vale, and Rio Tinto have similarly cut capex, fired workers, or sold assets, while Arch Coal has "diligently" been reducing costs. Analysts say mining industry capex tumbled more than 25% last year and may drop another 20% or more in 2014.

Joy Global is the world's second-largest mining equipment manufacturer, relying even more heavily on the coal industry's health than Caterpillar does (two-thirds of its sales coming from coal miners), and it's been dialing back expenses too as fourth-quarter bookings plunged 19%.

However, Caterpillar has been on a "cost lockdown binge" for months to meet the new lower demand, slashing tens of thousands of employees from the payroll, which ended up helping it maintain strong cash flows. As a result, the heavy equipment maker says it expects adjusted earnings for 2014 will be $5.30 per share, or when you back out restructuring costs they'll come in at $5.85 per share, up from prior expectations of $5.77 per share.

Cat remains hopeful that its cash position remains strong enough that it anticipates buying back some $1.7 billion worth of stock during the first quarter, and as much as $10 billion worth by the end of 2018. 

It's being helped by some better than expected results in construction, a sector that the Census Bureau says hit its highest levels spending since March 2009 in November, and Deere continues to sound a hopeful tone for construction equipment, projecting 10% sales growth for 2014. While I've been expecting Caterpillar to make this U-turn for a while now, I'll offer a word of caution about it. 

Although the National Association of Realtors points to 2013 as the best year for housing in the past seven, and the downturn the sector saw in December was blamed on poor weather, existing home sales missed expectations for four consecutive months and even the realtors association was forced to admit the industry's strength was sapped as the year progressed. The residential construction market is just not as strong as it appears. Much like Cat's results, the numbers are only just less bad, not good.

Still, with Caterpillar's retail dealer sales of industrial power systems having surged 30% last month, there is a basis to believe that Wall Street's worst-case scenario won't pan out and the heavy equipment manufacturer has found enough traction to dig itself out of the hole it's found itself in.

NQ Mobile jumped over 10% when it was announced that Sprint will provide a version of its NQ Live security software to Sprint Nextel's Android smartphones.

NQ's anti-virus software has long enjoyed good reviews, and NQ Live, released late last year, takes the platform in a new direction as an always-on malware preventer and privacy suite. Making this part of the default package for Sprint's Android users is a huge vote of confidence in the new software, and dramatically increases NQ's profile in the United States.

The jump on the announcement, and the relative lack of movement for the rest of the week, may have some believing this is a one-off boost that's already been baked into the price of the stock. Yet, a close look at the company's financials suggest there is significant room to run, and offers some compelling reasons to believe that the stock may rally further in the weeks to come.

Backstory on NQ
The elephant in the room, of course, is the late-October Muddy Waters fiasco, in which the short-selling research firm tapped the company as a virtual fraud whose cash-on-hand and paying user base both likely did not exist. The allegations chopped the price over 60%, from a peak near $25 to below $9.

The claims sparked a panic, but within a matter of days, NQ had refuted the worst of the allegations with independent verification of a significant cash deposit and user base. The stock recovered, but fears lingered and it hasn't since approached its 52-week high.

Analysts covering the stock since then have put in a very narrow range for fiscal 2014 earnings: $1.34-$1.50 per share, with the average being $1.41. These estimates came before the Sprint announcement, and while it is unclear how immediately that deal will start having additional effects on the bottom line, even the $1.41 is a P/E of 10.75.

That's an impressive bargain for a company that has been growing revenue strongly year-over-year, and the Sprint deal underscores that growth continuing.

Mobile security is a growth industry, too, and with companies like Deutsche Telekom investing in high-priced "secure smartphones," NQ is well-positioned to provide a more affordable alternative for the average user concerned about privacy. Not everyone can afford a several-thousand-dollar Fort Knox of a phone, but value-added pack-ins that Sprint is giving, like NQ Live, could drive some sales for consumers who want extra security. 

Sprint, not so much
While the news impacts positively on Sprint as well, the partnership with NQ is not enough to make it seem like a good buy at these levels. Sprint's financials are terrifying, with market cap, total debt, and annual revenue all floating around $35 billion, a trivial 1.2% operating margin and a negative return on equity.

Teaming up with NQ might attract some new customers to Sprint, and focusing on security is almost certainly the right move for any major telecom, but Sprint's chronic lack of profitability requires more than this shot in the arm. Even if Sprint has been spared the NSA surveillance fallout that companies like Verizon and AT&T have experienced, there is no sign of a mass exodus from those companies, and Sprint's road to capitalizing on this opportunity is a long and winding one indeed.

JPMorgan Chase has officially given its CEO, Jamie Dimon, a big pay bump, but does he deserve to make more than Wells Fargo's John Stumpf In this segment of The Motley Fool's financials-focused show, Where the Money Is, banking analysts Matt Koppenheffer and David Hanson discuss the raise and Dimon's abilities.

Iceland's banking system got into deep trouble, but its economy is now firing on all cylinders. In this segment of The Motley Fool's financials-focused show, Where the Money Is, banking analysts Matt Koppenheffer and David Hanson discuss the steps the Icelandic government took during the financial crisis.

Investor's consensus is that Visa and MasterCard are great operators, but how do these two behemoths actually make their money? In this segment of The Motley Fool's financials-focused show, Where the Money Is, banking analysts Matt Koppenheffer and David Hanson break down the various revenue streams of Visa and MasterCard and dispel some myths about the two.

Shares of Genworth Financial have rallied from their post-crisis lows but still trade at a deep discount to book value. In this segment from The Motley Fool's everything-financials show, Where the Money Is, banking analysts David Hanson and Matt Koppenheffer take a question from their mailbag about Genworth and discuss what the formerly troubled company needs to do to reward shareholders.

Care.com jumped big on the day of its IPO, but even after a 43% gain, it might still have a favorable valuation to dot-com peers Facebook , Twitter , Yelp , and LinkedIn . But, aside from possibly being cheaper, are there other reasons to invest in Care.com over its peers?

The standard for dot-com valuations
An effective IPO is measured by its ability to raise money for the company at a high price, while also leaving money on the table for new investors. Facebook was criticized after many believed its IPO was priced too high, and while Twitter was priced with an obscene multiple, it turns out that investors were willing to pay, making it a good IPO.

The standard of a good dot-com IPO is high price/sales multiples, which are often figured based on the growth rate of the company. This logic might explain why Twitter was priced so high and why investors were willing to pay higher multiples.

To explain, look at the chart below, which shows current price/sales multiples, revenue growth rates for the last year, and expected growth rates for 2014.

The above chart is easy to assess -- the company with the fastest growth also has the highest sales multiple.

Why are sales so important? Most of these dot-com companies are still in their growth phase, meaning that margins aren't a true reflection of how profitable these companies could ultimately become. Notice that Facebook trades with a greater multiple than LinkedIn, but LinkedIn's growth is slightly more aggressive. This is where margins have some impact on the valuations of these companies.

LinkedIn has operating margins of only 4.5% and continues to invest heavily in both sales and marketing and research and development. Meanwhile, Facebook has operating margins of 33.5%, as it has reached a point in its business cycle where year-over-year spending is accelerating at a slower pace and margins are rising.

Therefore, investors have given Facebook a slight nod over LinkedIn, but clearly, this weight is not nearly as evident as the impact of sales growth.

The new kid on the block
For the most part, dot-com IPOs have all followed the same valuation model with very few exceptions.

However, Care.com, which became public last Friday, soared 43% on its IPO. Care.com is a network of caregivers and families that can connect via the site. Care.com creates the majority of its revenue via memberships. Care.com's "families" join the site to find child care, nannies, senior care, pet care, special needs, and tutoring. Care.com claims to have 9.7 million members, with the balance of families to caregivers being 5.2:4.5, thus creating a very healthy supply and demand. But, most importantly, Care.com is growing rapidly.

After its 43% IPO rally, Care.com now trades with a market cap of $720 million. According to its prospectus, the company has trailing 12-month revenue of $74.9 million, which equates to a price/sales ratio of 9.6.

Clearly, 9.6 times sales is far less than what's seen with Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or Yelp. Therefore, assume that Care.com has either less growth or, as seen with Facebook and LinkedIn, it's spending a great deal of money to create growth, thus creating a smaller multiple.

Not so fast
In reality, however, neither apply. Care.com grew 81% year-over-year in the first nine months of 2013, and while current analyst coverage is minimal, early filings imply that growth in the range of 50%-65% is sustainable for 2014.

Furthermore, and perhaps most impressive, in the first nine months of 2013, Care.com's sales and marketing expenses increased just 23.5% year-over-year, which is well below its growth rate. Compared to Yelp, a company that might be closest in size and growth rate, its expenses during the same period and category soared 40%. While 40% is still below Yelp's growth rate, it is nowhere near the discount that Care.com has produced.

Final thoughts
One major difference between today's dot-com stocks and those of the late 90s is the fundamentals. Today's dot-com companies have real revenue and growth, but this doesn't mean that valuations aren't just as extreme, relative to dot-com stocks of the past.

Care.com might be an exception, a company that underwriters and Wall Street incorrectly valued at a deep discount to its industry-peers. Looking ahead, the market for Care.com is huge, and as its already proven, there is room to expand and offer new jobs in different categories to attract new families. As a result, the future looks quite bright for Care.com, and investors might find it to be a great opportunity for the future, one with a lot of upside left on the table for retail investors.