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.

Even as Ben Bernanke left the office of Chairman of the Federal Reserve at the end of January, U.S. stocks were unable to give him a proper sendoff, recording their worst month since May 2012, with the benchmark S&P 500 losing 3.6% year to date. What a remarkable lack of gratitude investors are displaying, given that the Fed has been instrumental in reviving the stock market from its March 2009 low! (Still, the Financial Times' Michael Mackenzie is right to put January's decline in context, noting that "the full extent of [the S&P 500's] drop this month merely erased the gains seen during the last two weeks of 2013.")

Following are three graphs that illustrate Bernanke's tenure at the Fed, which began on Feb. 1, 2006, and which saw the bursting of three asset bubbles -- all three of which the Fed had a hand in stoking:

Home prices, adjusted for inflation

Call it extremely poor timing: Bernanke took office as Fed chairman almost at almost the very top of the U.S. housing bubble. Based on the S&P Case-Shiller 20-City Index, shown in the preceding graph, home prices went on to lose roughly a third of their value in real terms before stabilizing. A recovery, which began in 2012, is now under way.

If only the Fed had been more careful in monitoring lending standards and leverage in the financial-services industry and the development of a shadow banking industry that acted like a marvelous bubble engine. Instead, the housing bubble went hand-in-hand with a credit bubble, which, in turn, fed a stock market bubble via a bloated financial sector:

The S&P 500 versus the monetary base

This graph shows the S&P 500 (blue line, rebased at 100) versus the monetary base (red line, also rebased at 100). The monetary base represents the amount commercial banks' reserves held in deposit with the Federal Reserve plus the currency in circulation.

Even after the housing market had peaked, the stock bulls kept running until October 2007, before the stock market bloodletting of 2008, which ran into the first quarter of 2009. However, March 2009 marked the start of a roaring bull market that is nearing its fifth anniversary.

The preceding graph suggests that this recovery is linked to the Fed's three rounds of bond purchases (a.k.a. "quantitative easing"). Last month, the Fed continued to taper its third round of quantitative easing to a monthly rate of $65 billion. There is some evidence that stock valuations got ahead of themselves last year, during which the S&P 500 rose 30%. The $19 trillion question (roughly the total capitalization of all U.S. stocks) is whether stocks can stand on their own two feet even as the Fed begins to withdraw its stimulus.

Some investors, frightened by the notion that the Fed is debasing all "paper assets," have sought refuge in hard assets, such as gold. The irony is that if there is one asset whose price has been distorted by the Fed's unconventional policy measures, it's surely gold:

The price of gold versus real interest rates

One of the key drivers of the price of gold is real interest rates. As interest rates decline, the opportunity cost of owning gold, which has no yield, also falls. The preceding graph shows the price of gold (blue line, left axis) against the yield on five-year Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities, or TIPS, which is the rate investors expect to earn after inflation (green line, right axis). (In fact, it's the negative of the TIPS rate, i.e., when the rate falls, the green line goes up.)

The graph illustrates the tight link between gold and real interest rates in a period of falling rates and in 2013, as rates fell. If rates continue to normalize, investors who own bullion or (more likely) the SPDR Gold Shares ought to expect further losses.

Flickr source

If your home is destroyed by a natural disaster, the last thing you likely want to worry about is your mortgage, but that concern should be at the top of your list.It's important to realize that if your home is destroyed you are still obligated to pay off your home loan. You may be able to take advantage of several options to defer or reduce those mortgage payments, but you can't walk away from them without severely damaging your credit.

Update your homeowner's insurance
The looming possibility of earthquakes, tornadoes or hurricanes is why homeowners with a mortgage are required to have hazard insurance. It is essential that it be up to date, covering all the improvements you've made to your property. There are numerous insurance options to choose from, starting with basic dwelling insurance—that protects the structure—to a plan called Brand New Belongings, offered by Nationwide Insurance which provides full replacement value of personal effects.

Once you've called friends and relatives to assure them you've survived, speak with your insurance agent to start the claims process. During the conversation take extensive notes. Be sure to ask for a copy of your policy if you lost that as well. To forestall losing important documents like birth certificates, keep them off site in a secure location like a safe deposit box.

Recovering from your damaged home
Take multiple pictures of the damage. Evidence in the aftermath can change quickly as first responders look for victims and debris removal teams roll in.  Be sure to back up the images, both on disc and with prints. They are the key to your claim and you don't want to lose them.

The help you get depends on the size of the disaster. The president can declare an emergency declaration for any occasion when federal help is needed. He can make a major disaster declaration for any natural event of such severity that local governments are overwhelmed. With a disaster declaration, federal help will start to flow through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) where individuals can apply for assistance .

The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) usually places a 90-day freeze on foreclosures of FHA-insured loans in a federal disaster area. After Hurricane Sandy both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac told their servicers to help homeowners. If you hear of such an action after your disaster, you can see if your mortgage is owned by Fannie or Freddie by visiting their websites. Use that fact as leverage when talking with your own servicer, which should be your next call.

While speaking with your servicer, again take detailed notes. See what you can do to work out a mortgage forbearance so that you can suspend payment on your mortgage until you get back on your feet. The programs each lender offers will vary. The help you get will depend on your past payment records, current financial picture and future prospects. In some cases the payment suspension can last up to six months. Try to avoid having to catch up with a lump sum when the forbearance is over.

Unfortunately, if you are already in the midst of a loan modification, there's very little you can do except to maintain your current payments, because being late would violate the terms of your loan workout.

The big thing to keep in mind is to not lose heart. Remember that the lives of your family are worth far more than any material goods you lost.

This article originally appeared on MyBankTracker.com

There's no better place to hold dividend-paying stocks than in the confines of a retirement account, Fool contributor Tim Beyers says in the following video.

Why? Taxes. Each time you receive a dividend -- or a distribution from a publicly traded partnership or real estate investment trust, or REIT -- you're receiving income that can be taxed. That's true even if you reinvest the dividends to buy new fractional shares in the company paying you. (Pro tip: Many brokerages provide dividend reinvesting as a free service!)

As such, Tim says investors might do best to use a retirement accounts such as an IRA or a self-directed 401(k) to invest in dividend payers. You'll enjoy deferred taxes on all distributions, which means you can reinvest 100% of the proceeds in pursuit of ever-higher levels of income. Tim says following this very strategy has allowed him and his wife to develop a long-term position in Prospect Capital that, today, pays a better-than-20% effective yield.

He advises those just starting their pursuit of dividend payers to take a closer look at American Tower , a Rule Breaking REIT whose principal business is to construct towers that host wireless radios for distributing cell service and other forms of broadband to areas that need it. How big is the opportunity? More than 4 billion people remain disconnected from the Internet as of this writing, a huge gap that American Tower can help to bridge.

Now it's your turn to weigh in. Which stocks are in your dividend portfolio? Please watch the video for Tim's full take and then leave a comment to let us know what you think.

Last week, President Obama issued an executive order raising the minimum wage for federal contract workers to $10.10 per hour. With McDonald's , Wal-Mart , and many other employers facing controversy over minimum-wage workers, many economists worried about the adverse impact a higher minimum wage could have on employment. But at least some economists think that higher minimum wages could actually help businesses.

In the following video, Dan Caplinger, The Motley Fool's director of investment planning, goes through the arguments on both sides. Dan notes that many economists believe that higher wages force businesses to cut back on hiring. But he also goes through a study from the Center for Economic and Policy Research, detailing some other moves that businesses might make that could lead to less of a negative impact. The study looks at employers cutting labor costs elsewhere, as well as the potential productivity gains from lower turnover and workers actually working harder. Dan concludes that raising minimum wages for federal contract workers under contracts given to United Technologies , Raytheon , and other major contractors could give valuable data on the actual impact of rising minimum wages.

Swirling around the media, talk of a correction has many investors spooked. As of this writing, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is down about 6% from the 16,588.20 high that it reached at the end of December; the S&P 500 is down about 4% from its highs.

Although Foolish investors with long-term focus shouldn't be concerned, the uncertainty regarding the emerging markets and how it affects one's investments should certainly be considered. Nonetheless, one sector that continues to profit from the emerging markets is the solar sector.

It's always sunny in South Africa                                                              
Looking to secure over 17,000 MWs of solar power by 2030, South Africa is clearly committed to renewable energy. Abengoa Solar, headquartered in Seville, Spain, is developing two concentrating solar power, or CSP, plants in South Africa. Khi Solar One and Kaxu Solar One represent a combined 150 MW of solar power that will be incorporated into South Africa's grid. This is just part of the $5.4 billion that South Africa's Department of Energy has allotted for solar power development, with the goal of bringing 1.4 GW of wind, solar, and geothermal power online by 2016.

Solucar Complex Source: Abengoa Solar

U.S.-based companies also recognize the value in South African solar investments. Google contributed $12 million for an equity stake in a consortium of investors that is providing $260 million in financing for the 96 MW Jasper Power Project. Looking to begin construction in the second half of 2014, Total S.A. and affiliate SunPower  will be developing an 86 MW project in the province of the Northern Cape. The ground-mounted solar system will use SunPower's Oasis Power Blocks System, high-efficiency panels, and single axis trackers. SunPower will provide engineering, procurement, construction services and long-term operation and maintenance for the project.

In other southern news                                                                               
One country renewable energy companies are paying particularly close attention to is Chile. According to a report released in June of last year, the country's Environmental Evaluation Service (SEA) has already approved 4 GW of new projects with 2.2 GW under review. Taking advantage of this concerted effort to develop solar projects is SunPower. Building a 70 MW solar power plant in the Atacama desert, SunPower's majority shareholder, Total, will own 20% of the project by means of a long-term fixed price operation and maintenance agreement.

Another company operating in Chile is SunEdison . Construction is about to begin on SunEdison's 92 MW Gramadal PV power plant project, which is expected to be completed by the end of Q1 2014. Also expected to be completed in the first quarter is the 51 MW project, San Andres, located in the Atacama desert. Is SunEdison only looking at Chile for exposure to emerging markets? Not at all. Looking back at the Q3 2013 earnings release (Q4 is due out next week), the company noted that with construction activity up over nearly 180% quarter over quarter, 30% is comprised of projects in emerging markets.

Additional opportunity                                                                                 
Although the country is not currently heavily vested in solar power (about 2,000 MWs installed), India is making a big push toward having solar account for a larger parts of its energy needs. The country is currently working on converting 20,000 acres of arid land to one of the largest utility-scale solar power plants in the world. The government is attempting to build a facility capable of producing 4,000 MW of electricity. Constructed in phases over the next seven years at a cost of over $1.1 billion, the solar farm would dwarf what are currently the largest solar farms in the world.

Recently announcing that it would be supplying Delhi International Airport in India with a 2 MW solution, Canadian Solar  recognizes the value in the emerging markets. Last April, the company supplied a Chilean project with over 1,200 of its PV modules. During its last earnings conference call, management specifically mentioned the important role which emerging markets will play, "Our focus going forward is to continue executing the key elements of our strategy. That is, to grow and expand our module business by entering new emerging markets" Recent stock performance suggests that investors also recognize the value and importance in operating in various worldwide markets. When solar stocks suffered from news that Chinese PV demand would slow down in 2014, Canadian Solar seemed immune.

CSIQ data by YCharts

The Foolish conclusion...                                                                    
Those interested in solar may benefit from Buffett's famous advice, "Be greedy when others are fearful." Though investors may look to exercise caution in considering emerging markets, they must remember that where there may be weakness, there may also be opportunity. 

Fourth-quarter results from Eli Lilly were pretty tough and showed that the company is struggling to replace many of its blockbuster drugs, as they come off patent and see reduced sales as a result of generic competition.

Q4 profit fell by 12% versus the same period in the previous year, with Eli Lilly losing U.S. patent protection for its top product, the antidepressant Cymbalta, which has caused the introduction of a number of low-cost generic substitutes.

As if this wasn't bad enough, 2014 looks set to get worse before it gets better, as Eli Lilly expects to also lose patent protection for bone-building drug Evista as soon as March, which is likely to mean profits fall further than those reported for the fourth quarter of 2013.

This situation is something that shareholders in AstraZeneca can identify with. It is currently experiencing a patent cliff, where many of its blockbuster drugs are coming off patent and are suffering from low-cost generic copies. Moreover, it could be argued that AstraZeneca's patent cliff is larger than that of Eli Lilly, but still the market seems to be warming to AstraZeneca's response to the problem.

The response from Eli Lilly seems to be to take a similar route as the one AstraZeneca is taking, in terms of making multiple acquisitions to replace the loss of patent protection on various blockbuster drugs. This strategy was discussed in the fourth-quarter results update by Eli Lilly management, who also intend to target emerging-market sales, just as AstraZeneca has done.

Adding to the challenges Eli Lilly faces is the continual setback of its research-and-development function, with the company confirming at the results update that it will no longer seek regulatory approval for liprotamase, an enzyme replacement treatment for pancreatic disorders.

However, it's not all bad news for Eli Lilly. It has submitted four new drugs for regulatory review and has the financial firepower to make a series of acquisitions with which to address its patent cliff.

Moreover, its fourth-quarter results weren't the only ones to disappoint, and it does seem as though the health-care space is going through a period of major change, as companies look to restructure and modify their business models -- often in response to losing patent protection for key drugs.

Bristol-Myers Squibb , for one, released fourth-quarter results that were slightly disappointing (although they beat Wall Street expectations) as it seeks to restructure away from being a mass-market producer of drugs and toward a specialist, niche player. Like Eli Lilly and AstraZeneca, it's expected to post declining profits for 2014, but it could yet be a great medium- to long-term play, as it develops higher margins and reinvests the capital from its various divestments.

So while all three companies are yet to see bottom-line growth (and are highly unlikely to do so in 2014), they could yet offer significant upside for investors, as the market begins to view their turnaround stories as legitimate. Therefore, while fourth-quarter results for Eli Lilly may seem more hopeful than happening, it isn't necessarily all doom and gloom for shareholders.

On Friday, Zynga shareholders rejoiced after their company not only released better-than-expected quarterly results, but also announced cost-cutting efforts and a massive acquisition.  When all was said and done, Zynga stock had skyrocketed nearly 24%.

But you know what? After carefully considering the repercussions of everything the social-gaming specialist revealed, I'm still not impressed.

These numbers sound good ...
Now before you recoil in disbelief, hear me out: I know Zynga achieved a $0.03-per-share adjusted net loss on revenue of $176.4 million, which handily beat analysts' expectations for a $0.04-per-share loss on sales of just $138.42 million.

And though fourth-quarter bookings -- Zynga's key measure for in-game virtual goods purchases -- still trailed GAAP revenue after falling 44% to $147 million, Zynga told investors to expect full-year 2014 bookings to increase to a range of $760 million to $810 million, representing 6% to 13% growth over 2013.

That's where Zynga's $527 million acquisition of mobile game developer NaturalMotion comes in.

Specifically, Zynga says the purchase is expected to be accretive to non-GAAP earnings this year and should generate 2014 bookings of $70 million to $80 million. To be sure, I can't blame investors for being excited for the mobile play considering Zynga's Q4 mobile bookings fell 5.6% to $51 million over the same year-ago period -- an especially troubling statistic when we remember research firm SuperData recently reported the mobile gaming market grew 28% last year.

... but there's more than meets the eye
However, this acquisition is terribly ironic in more ways than one.

First, it seems as though the market doesn't remember just how badly Zynga's early 2012 acquisition of Draw Something creator OMGPOP turned out. You know, when Zynga forked out $180 million for OMGPOP, only to close its doors and suffer a $95.5 million impairment charge less than a year later.

And this time the stakes are much higher; Zynga is financing its latest purchase with a combination of $391 million in cash (or 25% of its $1.54 billion stockpile) and diluting investors further by issuing another 39.8 million shares of Zynga common stock. That's a steep price to pay for a company which is only expected to contribute $15 million to $25 million in adjusted EBITDA in 2014.

Worse yet, investors applauded Zynga's cost-cutting efforts, which namely involve generating pre-tax annual savings of roughly $34 million by eliminating 314 employees, or 15% of its workforce.

But keep in mind that NaturalMotion already has around 260 employees, which means Zynga is effectively reducing its workforce by only 54 people and spending almost $500 million more for the privilege. In short, those NaturalMotion workers had better be worth it.

To their credit, while NaturalMotion arguably has only two big hits in Clumsy Ninja and CSR Racing, I fully understand it also owns some slick gaming-development tools and simulation technologies. As a result, there's a decent chance Zynga will be able to take advantage of its newly acquired tech to pump out additional wildly popular, visually appealing titles going forward. In fact, I'd count on it.

But that still doesn't change the fact Zynga's business suffers from poor economics, anyway. After all, if it weren't already hard enough turning a consistent profit in the low-cost and free game segment in the first place, it's even more difficult continuously churning out titles to keep consumers' attention for any meaningful period of time.

In the end, that's why I still simply can't bring myself to get excited about Zynga as a long-term investment.

There's a deep-rooted pessimism in the market against solar companies. Maybe it's the after-effect of Solyndra or a belief that solar power is only competitive with the help of government subsidies and handouts.

There was a time when many of those beliefs were true, but today the solar industry is competing with the grid on economics, not subsidies. The solar feed-in tariff rate in Germany is lower than the cost of power from the grid, SunPower recently began construction on a utility scale project in Chile that will sell power in the spot market, and First Solar is building utility scale projects in the U.S. and selling power for nearly half the retail price of electricity.

When you consider that it's only becoming cheaper to build solar projects and demand will rise exponentially as costs fall, investors shorting solar stocks are playing a dangerous game. Fight the facts all you want, if my predictions are right and solar companies post impressive profit numbers for the fourth quarter these stocks could skyrocket. Some of that fuel will come from short sellers themselves.

Short interest in solar has gotten insane
When you short a stock, you're borrowing it from your broker and selling it to someone else with the promise to return the share to your broker in the future. If the share price goes up, you lose money and eventually your broker will limit the losses they're willing to take on the share you borrowed.

That's what's called a short squeeze. When a share's price starts to rise, short sellers or their brokers panic and buy back shares, increasing the number of buyers in the market. The most famous short squeeze in the past year was Telsa Motors, who was propelled from around $30 per share a year ago to more than $100 in a short time because of short sellers buying in bulk.

TSLA data by YCharts.

Short interest becomes a problem when everyone wants to close their short positions at the same time. If the percentage of shares outstanding sold short is too high, the short squeeze is more likely.

What's interesting in solar is that short interest has gotten out of control. Below, I have a table of the percentage of shares on the market sold short and the number of days the days to cover, or number of shares short divided by average daily volume.

Source: Nasdaq and SEC filings.

What's most notable is that 31.7% of SunPower's shares are sold short. This pulls out the 66% of the company Total owns and aren't going to be bought or sold in the open market anytime soon. That's even higher than Tesla's short interest when it went on a hot streak.

First Solar, SolarCity, Yingli, and Trina Solar aren't all that far behind at around 10% of shares sold short.

Why shorts should be worried
What should be worrisome for shorts is that financial conditions for solar companies are only getting better and Q4 may be a blowout. China reportedly installed as much as 12 GW of solar in 2013 and up to 8 GW of that may have come in the fourth quarter. If the reports are true, Yingli and Trina will have seen a tremendous amount of demand and likely raised prices as well. Financials may have improved so much that both companies could make a profit for the fourth quarter and project a profit in 2014.

First Solar and SunPower are already profitable and if they surprise investors with higher margins in Q4, these stocks could shoot higher. Then there's SolarCity, which continues to wow investors with the speed it can grow installations in the residential market.

Top-end solar companies have been outperforming expectations during 2013 and, with the momentum building in Q4, we could be in for a short squeeze when earnings come out. I certainly wouldn't want to be betting against solar right now.

China's first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning (PLAN CV-16). Source: Author photo, using Google Earth.

China has an aircraft carrier.

Indeed, by 2020, we could see the People's Liberation Army Navy equipped with two, three, or even four aircraft carriers. Meanwhile, we see the U.S. Navy slamming its carrier-building program into reverse.

Budget cuts and construction delays have pushed back the planned delivery date on America's newest supercarrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), to February 2016. U.S. Navy Chief of Staff Adm. Jonathan Greenert warns that any further cuts to defense spending could delay the carrier's arrival "by two years." By that time -- 2018 -- China could already have floated its second aircraft carrier.

And that's just the start of the bad news.

A billion here, a billion there
Over in Congress, negotiations over what to cut from the defense budget continue -- and aircraft carriers present a very big target. Annually, each American carrier strike groups costs taxpayers about $2.5 billion -- $6.5 million a day -- to operate. And that's just to pay for the "support staff."

Building the actual aircraft carrier at the center of the strike group centers costs nearly $13 billion. A further $3 billion comes due when the carrier reaches 25 years of age, the midlife point in her 50-year lifespan, and needs to be refueled and refurbished. Then, at the end of those 50 years, it's time to retire the ship -- taxpayers shell out a further $2 billion to have defense contractor Huntington Ingalls take the carrier apart.

Biggest budget bull's-eye on the blue ocean
So it's little wonder that when asked to find savings in the defense budget, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel's first instinct was to propose cutting carrier strike groups "from 11 to eight or nine."

Hagel pointed out that we'll soon have to do the midlife refueling work on the USS George Washington (CVN 73) at a cost of $3 billion. But if the Navy were to retire the Washington (at a cost of $2 billion) instead of refurbishing it, that alone would save $1 billion. Eliminate its strike group, and over the next 25 years, the Navy could save $62.5 billion. Eliminate a second carrier, and its strike group, and you're looking at combined savings of $125 billion or more.

USS Gerald R Ford (CVN-78) transiting the James River. A big ship -- and a bigger budget target? Source: U.S. Navy.

The high cost of saving money
Problem is, the Navy is operating with a reduced fleet of just 10 aircraft carriers today -- down from a high of 26 flat-tops in 1962, and down from the 15 aircraft carriers we operated in the 1980s. Ten carriers is actually even below even the minimum level of 11 aircraft carriers that the Navy is required to maintain by law. Reduce the force as much as SecDef Hagel is suggesting, and the Navy could end up with too few carriers to fulfill its mission.

From an investor's point of view, further reductions in the carrier force would also be bad news. For example, each of America's carriers carries more than six dozen aircraft of various types and configurations. Today, these include Sikorsky Seahawks from United Technologies , F/A-18 fighter jets from Boeing , and E-2 Hawkeyes from Northrop Grumman . Tomorrow, they'll probably include F-35C stealth fighters, specially designed for carrier use by Lockheed Martin .

Eliminate the carriers that carry these aircraft, and you eliminate the need for upward of 150 warplanes -- and billions and billions of dollars of revenues for the companies that build them.

The situation facing Huntington Ingalls could be even direr. Should the Navy cut its orders by even a single aircraft carrier, this would cost Huntington nearly $13 billion -- or about two years' worth of revenues. Eliminate two carriers, and Huntington would lose four years' worth of work. It's hard to see how the company could survive the blow.

Potentially, it wouldn't survive -- with the result that in an effort to save money, America would lose its only company capable of building its carriers today, and the ability to build aircraft carriers altogether.

Nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) under construction. Last of a dying breed? Photo: U.S. Navy.

Black Sails left port with a tailwind in premiering last month. Does that portend good things for the show's network parent, Starz ? Can the company become a cable powerhouse in the style of HBO or AMC Networks ?

Host Ellen Bowman puts these questions to Fool analysts Nathan Alderman and Tim Beyers in this week's episode of 1-Up On Wall Street, The Motley Fool's Web show in which we talk about the big-money names behind your favorite movies, toys, video games, comics, and more.

Tim says Starz appears to have selected well in backing Black Sails for two seasons right off the bat. At least 3.5 million tuned in across platforms during the show's opening weekend, a debut record for a Starz original.

Yet investors needn't rush in, Tim says. Starz has a checkered history when it comes to originals -- both Boss and Magic City failed to keep viewers engaged -- and we don't yet have an air date for Outlander, producer Ron Moore's much-anticipated adaptation of author Diana Gabaldon's books.

Nathan also isn't sure about Starz, though he prefers Starz's financials -- and rightly so. According to S&P Capital IQ, Starz has generated $1.19 billion in cash flow over the trailing 12 months, after accounting for working capital changes. AMC produced $626 million on the same basis over the same period. The message? If AMC can succeed while saddled with billions in debt, so can Starz.

Now it's your turn to weigh in. Are you watching Black Sails? Will you be watching Outlander? Please leave a comment to let us know what you think and then check back here often for more 1-Up On Wall Street segments.

One of the big movers in the health-care space in 2014 has been Ariad Pharmaceuticals . Shares in the biotechnology company that operates out of Cambridge, Mass., kicked off 2014 at $6.82, but on the back of a significant deal, shares hit $9.48 in the last week or so, before tailing off to close at $7.39 on Friday.

Certainly, 2014 has been a roller-coaster ride for Ariad shareholders!

The reason for the spike in the share price is news flow surrounding a leukemia treatment called Iclusig, with two pieces of positive news in the last couple of weeks.

The first was the announcement of the commercial availability of Iclusig for adult patients with chronic myeloid leukemia and Philadelphia-chromosome positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia in the United States. Ariad, therefore, began shipping Iclusig to Biologics, its exclusive specialty pharmacy, which is now filling prescriptions from physicians and distributing the cancer medicine to patients.

This news comes shortly after the FDA had stopped sales of the drug because of apparent dangers from life-threatening blood clots. In response, Ariad added new labeling and updated the prescribing information, meaning the drug is now back on sale.

In addition, Ariad also announced that it has given an Australian specialty-drug maker the rights to sell Iclusig in Australia. The deal is set to last for seven years, after which time Ariad has the option to take over the sales function or extend the agreement (under the terms of the current deal, Specialised Therapeutics Australia will be responsible for obtaining marketing authorization and pricing approval).

Although no financial terms from the deal in Australia have been released, it looks to be an encouraging step forward for the business, with shares responding accordingly.

Of course, Ariad isn't the only health-care stock whose share price has been highly volatile in 2014 as a result of news flow surrounding cancer drugs. For instance, Galena Biopharma's share price rose from less than $5 on New Year's Eve to hit more than $7 in less than three weeks, with positive news flow surrounding its oncology treatments.

Galena announced that the first patient had been enrolled in a phase 2 trial for GALE-301, which is targeted at high-risk endometrial and ovarian cancer patients. It also acquired Mills Pharmaceuticals, a biopharmaceutical company that specializes in the development and commercialization of targeted oncology treatments. Furthermore, Galena also announced a strategic partnership with Dr. Reddy's in India, which is focused on a commercialization partnership on NeuVax.

Clearly, cancer is a space where there is great demand for drug development. However, this is not just the case for human oncology patients, with shares in Aratana Therapeutics being a big mover in the last week because of encouraging progress made with a drug designed to treat T-cell lymphoma in dogs.

The drug was granted conditional approval by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to market the drug, although Aratana will run additional studies to further support its safety and effectiveness.

As a result, shares climbed from $18.76 at the start of the week to close at $21.51 on Friday -- a 15% gain.

So, with Ariad, Galena, and Aratana serving up a roller-coaster ride to the start of 2014, it has certainly been an interesting way to kick off the New Year for investors in those companies. Who would bet that the rest of 2014 will be any different?

Europe is still troublesome for many investors as the region grapples with the possibility of of deflation, slow economic growth, and debt concerns in peripheral nations. But from all this fear, some good values have become available. To find these two, I have focused on companies that pay a dividend, have a global reach, and trade at an attractive valuation.

Insurance
Insurance has a diverse field of competitors and can be hugely profitable if you have the next Berkshire Hathaway or portfolio-destroying if you have the next American International Group. Most other insurance companies fall somewhere between these two and have a fair level of stability while paying consistent dividends.

Aegon is a Dutch insurance company that looks pretty attractive right now. Trading below tangible book value and with a forward price-to-earnings ratio of less than 9, Aegon NV looks priced as a distressed company tied to entirely to Europe's economy.

While the company does have some peripheral exposure, it's far more than just another European insurance company. Aegon NV has found its way into the U.S. as owner of Transamerica and is part of a 50/50 joint venture to sell life insurance in China. With this international diversification, Aegon NV looks undervalued and priced like less diversified European stocks.

Dividend seekers should also consider Aegon NV. With a 3.3% dividend, Aegon NV carries a higher yield than U.S. insurers Prudential Financial, MetLife, and AIG.

Auto manufacturing
With the average age of cars on the road in the U.S. hitting an all-time record and the emerging middle class in developing economies continuing to drive up worldwide automotive demand, auto manufacturers appear to be in an excellent position to profit.

But not all automakers are equally good investments. For a large-scale approach to auto manufacturing, Volkswagen is tough to beat. Major acquisitions have seen Volkswagen become far more than just the Volkswagen brand. Today, the company owns not only the large-volume Volkswagen brand but also the luxury brands Porsche, Audi, and Bentley.

Although based in Germany, Volkswagen is a worldwide powerhouse. In addition to selling cars in North America, Volkswagen is also a major force in China, where it claimed the top spot in 2013, selling nearly 2.4 million vehicles in the country. Even with this growth potential, Volkswagen still trades at less than 10 times forward earnings, giving investors an attractive combination of value and growth.

Volkswagen also gives investors a dividend of nearly 2%, a level competitive with those of Honda and Toyota . If earnings continue to grow, more automakers could boost their dividends, and with Volkswagen's position in China, the company is among the best positioned to do so.

The bottom line
Aegon and Volkswagen are both worldwide companies with European-level valuations. This creates a situation where investors can grab attractive companies at reasonable valuations.

Dividends are another strong point for these companies, but investors should consider dividend withholding taxes. The Netherlands has a 15% dividend withholding tax, and Germany's is 26.38% (although there is a procedure to reclaim 11.375%). However, many U.S. investors could reduce their U.S. tax liability by noting foreign taxes on their returns. Before making an investment in these companies, investors should consult a tax professional regarding the treatment of foreign dividends.

The headline figure from Bristol-Myers Squibb's fourth-quarter results should have sent shockwaves down every shareholder's spine. Despite reporting higher drug sales, the health-care behemoth also reported profits that were down 21.5% compared with the previous year's fourth quarter.

Of course, delving down into the details showed that the reason profits were down by such a large extent was a one-off tax credit in the previous year that made it an unjust comparable. Therefore, the results weren't so bad and actually beat Wall Street estimates (as many companies seem to be doing lately) and showed that Bristol-Myers Squibb continues to make encouraging progress with its vast restructuring program.

This program will see Bristol-Myers Squibb transformed from mass-market drugmaker to specialist niche player. Company management hopes that such a move will enable the business to deliver higher margins in the long run. The restructuring included the sale of the company's stake in the diabetes alliance joint venture with AstraZeneca , with Bristol-Myers Squibb receiving up to $4.3 billion for its share.

Indeed, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson are following their own restructuring plans, so it seems as though such happenings are en vogue in the health-care space at present. While Bristol-Myers Squibb is focusing on becoming a creator of specialty drugs for complex disorders and is divesting assets such as its share of the diabetes alliance, AstraZeneca is on an acquisition spree through which it hopes to overcome its patent cliff issues. Unlike Bristol-Myers Squibb, it will focus on mass-market conditions such as diabetes, targeting growth in emerging markets as well as in more developed markets.

Meanwhile, Johnson & Johnson is following a path of divestment, where it is selling off slower-growth divisions such as its blood-testing unit that was sold to private equity firm Carlyle Group for more than $4 billion recently. Such a strategy is perhaps an obvious one, as Johnson & Johnson seeks to stimulate a top line that has delivered only sluggish growth in the past five years. Its strategy appears to lie somewhere in between the seeking of specialism by Bristol-Myers Squibb and the acquisition spree of AstraZeneca, combining aspects of both companies' plans.

Of course, Bristol-Myers Squibb is unlikely to sell assets and not buy any, especially as its former blockbusters continue to be hit hard by sales of generic drugs. Former blockbusters Plavix and Avapro (used to thin blood and treat high blood pressure, respectively) saw sales fall heavily, although there was positive news flow from improved sales of rheumatoid arthritis drug Orencia and hepatitis B treatment Baraclude. It was, however, a very mixed bag and was perhaps typical of a company going through a restructuring process.

However, this process could lead to a higher share price, even before it's concluded. For instance, AstraZeneca is still expected to report declining earnings over the next couple of years (as is Bristol-Myers Squibb) but has benefited from improved sentiment as the market begins to realize that it could be a strong turnaround story.

While change is awash at Bristol-Myers Squibb and results are slightly disappointing, progress with restructuring could mean shareholders benefit -- even if the bottom line doesn't for a few years yet.

Chipotle Mexican Grill delivered a truly spectacular earnings report for the fourth quarter of 2013. Other companies in the industry, such as McDonald's and Starbucks , are being affected by lackluster consumer demand, and this makes Chipotle's performance even more impressive by comparison. Should you take a bite of this spicy burrito company?

Mouthwatering growth
Revenues for the fourth quarter of 2013 increased by 20.7% versus the same quarter in the previous year to more than $844 million. Comparable-restaurant sales jumped by 9.3%, and the company opened 56 new restaurants during the quarter, bringing the total store count to 1,595 locations.

Food costs are rising, but Chipotle still managed to increase net profit margin to 9.4% of revenue, versus 8.8% of sales in the fourth quarter of 2012. Restaurant-level operating margin increased by 100 basis points to 25.6%, and diluted earnings per share grew by 29.7% versus the same quarter in the prior year to $2.53 per share.

The company achieved its fastest throughput rates ever during the quarter, with an average increase of six transactions during peak lunch hour and an increase of five transactions during peak dinner hour. That means not only better customer service, but also more efficiency and accelerating sales growth.

Moving forward
The company is firing on all cylinders, and comparable sales performance shows that Chipotle is far from reaching any kind of market saturation levels, as demand remains considerably strong and new store openings aren't cannibalizing sales at previously existing locations.

Even better, Chipotle is positioned for growth for years to come. The company continues taking care of its customers and focusing on its core "food with integrity" mission. Management expects the chain to become completely GMO-free by the end of this year, and product innovations such as its Sofritas vegan menu resonate well among its client base. Besides, Chipotle is successfully expanding its catering program, which is a great way to increase sales without incurring much in extra costs.

Even if the company has multiple opportunities for growth in areas such as international expansion and new concepts such as ShopHouse and Pizzeria Locale, it will continue prioritizing new Chipotle restaurants in the U.S. over the middle term.

Industry context
Global fast-food giant McDonald´s has been reporting stagnant sales for quite some time, and the December quarter was no exception at all. Global comparable sales decreased by 0.1% during the period as the average check was higher, but traffic declined versus the fourth quarter in 2012. Performance was even worse in the U.S., with comparable sales falling by 1.4%.

McDonald's problems can't be entirely blamed on industry conditions. The company is behind the competition in areas such as menu innovation, and the quality of the service has been suffering lately. Still, with nearly 34,500 stores around the planet and one of the most recognizable brands in the industry, what happens at McDonald's says a lot about the health of the quick-service restaurant business.

Even a remarkably successful player like Starbucks delivered lower-than-expected growth rates in North America for the fourth quarter of 2013. The company still reported a healthy increase of 8% in revenues in the region on the back of a 5% growth rate in comparable-store sales, but this was below analysts' expectations.

CEO Howard Schultz highlighted how changing consumer habits represent considerable challenges for different companies in the consumer business: "Holiday 2013 was the first in which many traditional brick-and-mortar retailers experienced in-store foot traffic give way to online shopping in a major way."

It's not easy to generate growth in the current consumer landscape, so Chipotle's results are even more extraordinary when interpreted in the context of challenging industry conditions.

Bottom line: Should you buy?
After rising by more than 11.7% on Friday, Chipotle is trading at a demanding valuation, with a forward P/E ratio near 35 times earnings estimates for the next year, so patience seems like a smart idea when building a position in the stock. On the other hand, Chipotle is a unique growth company with plenty of room for expansion in the coming years, so it's definitely a name to buy on pullbacks and hold for the long term.

Have you heard the news? United Technologies may soon sell or spin off its Sikorsky helicopter division.

Rumors of the whirlybird spinoff sparked heated debate among investors: Is it true that United Tech will unload one of its best-known brands? And if so, why? (And for how much?)

The answer to that last question is pretty easy. A true industrial conglomerate, United Technologies owns such valuable brands as Otis elevators, Carrier air conditioners, Pratt & Whitney engines -- and, of course, Sikorsky helicopters. As a whole, the company is valued at 1.65 times annual sales.

But historically, high-quality defense companies -- and United Technologies is the eighth biggest defense contractor in the world -- tend to sell for only about one-times their annual sales. With $6.2 billion in revenue recorded over the past year, a separate Sikorsky division would therefore probably be valued at about $6.2 billion -- a significant discount to the valuation of United Technologies as a whole. And this would be true whether Sikorsky is sold to an acquirer like Boeing , Textron , or Britain's BAE Systems -- or whether it gets spun off as an independent entity.

As for the other questions, though, those are a bit trickier. In the following slides, we'll lay out for you the pros and possible cons of a decision by United Technologies to unload Sikorsky. Read on, and prepare to be amazed -- and make sure to check out our special free report at the end. 

Investors in pharmaceutical stocks are all too familiar with the volatility that can be caused by the outcome of clinical trials. Sometimes it can be extremely positive news that causes shares to kick on to new highs, while at other times it can be disappointing news that leaves investors feeling despair at the falling share price.

This, it seems, simply comes with the territory of investing in pharmaceutical stocks. However, sometimes disappointment from a clinical trial can have a rather mooted effect on the share price. For instance, Pfizer announced last week that a possible treatment for an advanced form of lung cancer missed its primary objectives in a couple of late-stage studies.

The drug in question is called Dacomitinib, and it was unable to show a statistically significant improvement in progression-free survival when compared with another drug, Erlotinib. This occurred in two separate studies (although in the second study a placebo was used instead of Erlotinib), and the disappointing thing about the two trials is that they were both late-stage trials.

Therefore, this is one of the final hurdles before submitting the drug for approval, and to obtain such results from two trials is disappointing to say the least.

However, shares didn't react too strongly to the news, possibly because Pfizer announced that it's still waiting for the results of a third trial involving the drug. These results aren't due out until 2015, which should give Pfizer time to move further down the line with the restructuring it discussed in its recent fourth-quarter results.

While there was disappointment for Pfizer, pharmaceutical peer GlaxoSmithKline has enjoyed something of a purple patch at the start of 2014, as it has received positive news flow for three different drugs thus far.

The first was HIV treatment Tivicay, which the European Commission granted approval for use by adults and adolescents above 12. The second was Eperzan, which received a positive opinion from the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use in Europe, while the third was the meeting of the primary endpoint by a combination of Tafinlar and Mekinist in a phase 3 trial.

GlaxoSmithKline isn't the only pharmaceutical company that's had some encouraging news flow with regard to its drug pipeline in 2014. The diabetes alliance between Bristol-Myers Squibb and AstraZeneca , which has now been bought outright by AstraZeneca for around $4 billion, has received approval for two drugs in 2014: Farxiga in the U.S. and combination drug Xigduo in the European Union.

Of course, it must be pointed out that it's not all bad news for Pfizer. It's a partner (along with GlaxoSmithKline and Shionogi) in the ViiV Healthcare joint venture through which the aforementioned Tivicay HIV drug was granted European Commission approval. Furthermore, the diabetes alliance between Bristol-Myers Squibb and AstraZeneca has produced two approvals in 2014 but has been heavily criticized for its high costs and lack of tangible results, leaving some commentators to suggest that AstraZeneca has overpaid for Bristol-Myers Squibb's share.

Therefore, while disappointment in a late-stage trial is clearly not good news for Pfizer, the ups and downs of drug approval is something that comes with the territory of being a pharmaceutical company. Of keener interest for the long-term fortunes of Pfizer is how successful its restructuring program is, with the ups and downs of drug approvals taking second place at the moment. 

Defense contractor L-3 Communications enjoyed a banner year for its stock in 2013, gaining 39% in 12 months of trading. But heading into its Thursday earnings report, things were looking pretty bleak for the company. Earnings for the year were expected to be only $8.30 or thereabouts, less than a 4% increase over 2012 levels, and probably too little growth to support the stock's 13-times earnings P/E ratio. But then the numbers came out, and a miracle happened:

• 2013 sales declined 4% to just $12.6 billion, setting the stock up for a big drop in profits.
• Operating profit margins slipped 30 basis points (to 10%), potentially magnifying the drop.
• Yet somehow, L-3 managed to grow its earnings per share anyway -- up nearly 7% to $8.54.

How?

Well, a couple of factors worked to L-3's benefit in 2013. For one thing, with profitability being a bit lower, taxes didn't bite as deep. L-3's effective income-tax rate declined by four full percentage points, to 28.2%. For another thing, this defense company did what it could to defend its shareholders, deploying cash in a series of buybacks that shrank its share count by nearly 7%.

Result: Even though overall net profits declined, the fact that these profits were spread out among fewer shares resulted in a modest increase, rather than a decrease, in profits per diluted share.

Second verse, same as the first
L-3 shareholders had better hope L-3 makes even more buybacks this year. Otherwise, 2014 could prove painful. The company is projecting further slippage in sales, with full-year 2014 revenues estimated at no more than $12.1 billion -- another 4% decline. Curiously, however, the company believes it will find a way to squeeze extra profits out of these reduced revenues, and grow its operating margin back up to 10.5%.

That would be a neat trick, but even if L-3 manages to pull it off, an anticipated rise in effective tax rates, to 33%, could end up reducing profits per diluted share to as little as $8.15 per share. Absent further help from buybacks, that could result in an earnings decline of as much as 5% in 2014 -- even worse than what analysts are already expecting.

Given that the analysts already aren't expecting much out of L-3, and are projecting long-term earnings growth of only 2.4% annually, a failure to clear an already low bar could trip up L-3's stock pretty badly.

What a difference a year can make. In 2013, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 26.5%, while the S&P 500  ended the year higher by 29.6% and the Nasdaq recorded a 38.32% gain. But after just one month in 2014, all three indexes are down: 5.29% for the Dow, 3.55% for the S&P 500, and 1.74% for the Nasdaq.

Why have investors changed their tunes so dramatically in the past month? Heading into 2014, we heard one analyst after another saying why 2014 would be another big year for the markets. But now those opinions seem to be changing, and investors are nervous that a larger pullback is coming. On Wednesday, I even heard rumblings that some market participants thought the market was about to crash, because of some investors' concerns about what the Federal Reserve was going to do.

This kind of behavior tells me that the fear of losing money is greater than the satisfaction in making it.

In 2008, when the markets were tanking and the Dow lost 34% in one year, investors, politicians, pundits, everyone acted as if the world was coming to an end. There were investigations into why the markets fell, policies were changed to help boost the economy, and fear ran rampant that even more market value would be lost.

Flash forward to 2013: The Dow gains 26.5%, but there weren't any parades or the declaration of a national holiday, or anything else you'd consider the extreme equivalent of the overreaction to the 2008 market plunge.

Why do we act differently to gains and losses? Problem gamblers may give us some answers.

Some psychologists believe that problem gamblers actually like losing money more than they like winning it. The belief goes that these gamblers get more of an adrenaline rush from a sense of losing control, which excites them when they're losing. The thrill of winning money, in contrast, is much milder.

These findings are just theories, but they may give investors better insight into why they feel the way they do when the stock market falls. It may also help them pause and carefully re-evaluate their choices when they find themselves in such as overly excited state.

Many of the greatest investors have repeatedly noted that while investing takes some amount of skill and knowledge, being able to control one's emotions is even more important. And finding that control may be easier than many investors might think. All it takes is the proper perspective.

Here's what I mean. When the markets are soaring, it's hard to find good companies at a fair valuation. But when the markets are falling, finding good companies on the cheap becomes much easier, as all the good stocks start to fall within your reach. So if you think about a market pullback as a good thing, since you can get a bargain on stocks, then a falling Dow may not seem like such a bad thing anymore.

You won't find yourself tempted to sell in a panic. Instead, you might even feel like throwing a parade or declaring a holiday.

Most experts advise people to do an IRA rollover with their old 401(k) accounts after they leave their jobs. But is an IRA rollover ever a bad move?

In the following video, Dan Caplinger, The Motley Fool's director of investment planning, goes through a few situations where an IRA rollover might not be ideal. Dan notes that Franklin Templeton , AllianceBernstein , Goldman Sachs , and other companies often offer cheaper class of mutual funds that would otherwise carry sales loads or higher fees outside a 401(k). Dan also talks about company stock and the special rules for 401(k)s that own it, as well as the importance of looking at overall fees to decide if your 401(k) is the best place to invest or whether an IRA rollover will help you more.

One of my very favorite defense contractors reported earnings this past week: Raytheon . Its earnings "beat the Street." Investors cheered. But I'm still not buying the stock. And now I'll tell you why.

Reporting earnings for fiscal Q4 and full-year 2014 Thursday, Raytheon announced that:

• Fiscal 2013 sales declined 3%, capped by a veritable collapse in Q4 sales -- down 9%, but operating profit margins actually gained about 20 basis points, rising to 12.4% for the year.
• Net income climbed 6% as a result, and profits per diluted share grew 9% to $6.16, helped by a share-count reduction of 10 million.

So far, so good -- and it even gets better. Raytheon produced $2.4 billion in cash from operations in 2013, a 22% increase over 2012 operating cash flow. Combined with a modest reduction in cash outflows for capital investment, this translated into free cash flow of $2.1 billion, or a 30% improvement over 2012 FCF.

As a result, Raytheon's now generating about 5% more real, cash profit than it reports as net income under GAAP. Its true valuation is correspondingly cheaper. Rather than the 15.4 "P/E" ratio that you see as the stock's valuation on Yahoo! Finance, it may be better to think of the stock as selling for just 14.4 times free cash flow. Problem is -- that's still not cheap enough.

Valuation matters
With Raytheon trading at 14.4 times free cash flow today, you'd ordinarily want to see this stock growing its profits at about 12% annually to justify its stock price (taking into account Raytheon's 2.3% dividend yield). Heroic efforts to boost cash production, cut costs, and make up for a shrinking U.S. defense budget by selling more weapons systems abroad, however, were only sufficient to lift Raytheon up to 9% profit growth. (The free cash flow performance was better than that, but FCF is notoriously lumpy. Investors who are banking on seeing Raytheon continue to produce 30% cash profits growth year after year are bound to be disappointed.)

Given all this, it's hard to see how Raytheon achieves the 10.6% long-term growth in profits that Wall Street is expecting it to produce. And given that even if it does achieve 10.6% growth, the stock will still fall short of the level of growth necessary to justify its stock price, I can't recommend buying Raytheon stock at this point.

No matter how much I like it.