In this edition of The Motley Fool's "Ask a Fool" series, Motley Fool One analyst Jason Moser and Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst Brendan Mathews take a question from a reader who asks: "A hypothetical company goes out of business, and its stock becomes worthless. Would that also be bad to the people that shorted the stock?"

Brendan explains shorting: When you short a stock, you borrow shares from your broker and sell them. So you have cash, but you also have an obligation to return the shares that you've borrowed at some point. That means you need to buy back the shares at some point. If the value of the shares declines, then you can buy back at less than you previously sold - so you will have made a profit. If the shares become totally worthless, you won't need to buy back the shares, and the short-seller will have made a 100% profit.

See more in the following video.

Aside from the fact that the electronic-cigarette market has grown from virtually nothing to $1.7 billion in annual sales in a little over five years, one sign of the industry's maturation is the segmentation and innovation that's occurring absent government regulation. Having moved beyond simple nicotine replacement therapy, the industry now also encompasses "vaping" and "tanks," where users take pride in decking out their "mods" with bling as they enjoy flavored juices that they drip on coils.

Of course, politicians, anti-smoking crusaders, and regulators are trying to snuff out this cycle of growth and ingenuity through taxes, regulations, and prohibition, but the genie is already out of the bottle and it may be too difficult to contain it once again.

According to Wells Fargo, which assiduously tracks the e-cig market, sales are expected to hit $10 billion by 2017. That's still just a relatively small percentage of the overall $100 billion tobacco industry, but with triple-digit growth rates still in its future, e-cigs have the potential to eventually surpass tobacco sales.

Of course, the tobacco companies understand this, and it's why they've jumped into the market with both feet, buying up smaller e-cig and vaping players. Lorillard was among the first to recognize the market's potential and bought blu eCig for $135 million in 2012 (and, more recently, SkyCig), quickly capturing the lion's share of the market, or around 40% these days, but as more of the tobacco giants introduce their own products onto the market, we'll likely see those percentages change.

For example, Reynolds American  introduced its Vuse brand into the Colorado market last year and almost immediately captured 62% of the market there. Altria , which controls roughly half of the tobacco market, is rolling out its MarkTen brand and just purchased Green Smoke for $110 million, signaling the importance being placed on the category. Reynolds is even said to be eying a takeover of Lorillard in part to gain access to its lucrative e-cig business.

But perhaps more significant than all the jockeying for position going on with the tobacco giants is the culture growing up around e-cigs, vaping, and tanks, varying methods of all doing essentially the same thing: tobacco-less "smoking."

It's agreed that calling the early devices electronic cigarettes was an essential part of the growth process to get smokers to switch, but its equally true that calling anything a "cigarette" is going to be a lightning rod for controversy and carry with it a hard-to-shake stigmatism. That's part of the reason personal vaping systems are commonly referred to as "mods" these days, or a modified e-cig that describes a big-battery PVS. Some like to refer to them as "vaporizers," "wands," or "vape pens," but they can also connote marijuana usage as well and so invite a whole new level of disapproval.

MODE Vape. Source: facebook.com/ModeVape.

What these devices really want to do, though, is simply distinguish themselves from "cig-alikes." Rather than being used solely as an alternative to smoking, vaping involves heating up flavored juices and puffing on inhalers for the enjoyment realized. Rebuildable atomizers, or RBAs, allow users to adjust the draw to deliver more flavor; vaping bars provide like-minded people a place to hang out in and talk vaping culture; and the "vaping lifestyle" is even chronicled in the pages of magazines like VPR and Vape.

In short, the industry has already grown, and inasmuch as it offers a safer means of ingesting nicotine, it also is much more than that. Convenience Store News reports that Wells Fargo says vaping has the potential to upset the growth dynamic of e-cigs completely. Because vaping and tanks are growing faster and have more committed users than e-cigs, they could surpass e-cigs, though they risk becoming commoditized.

Because the marketplace has been left unregulated, we've seen tremendous innovation. That will be stifled to a certain degree after the FDA promulgates its rules, but regardless of the impact on public health, cig-alikes, vaping, and tanks are a huge opportunity for the tobacco industry -- and Altria, Lorillard, and Reynolds American will be sure to control large swaths of it for years to come.

The executives at New York Community Bancorp are in a bind. While they want to continue growing the bank's balance sheet, doing so could jeopardize its quarterly distribution to shareholders.

The reason for this is simple. By the end of last year, New York Community Bancorp's assets had reached $46.7 billion dollars. This is only $3.3 billion below the $50-billion threshold that transforms a bank into a systematically important financial institution, or SIFI.

Now, there's absolutely nothing wrong with crossing this line. In fact, if any bank should feel comfortable doing so, it's New York Community Bancorp. Over the past two decades, it's grown aggressively through acquisitions without putting even a dime of its shareholders' capital at risk.

But while crossing the SIFI threshold will probably have little impact on the bank itself, it doesn't seem that the same can be said for its dividend.

In 2013, it distributed 92.3% of its earnings to shareholders. By comparison, the Federal Reserve has been clear that it wants SIFIs to keep this figure at or below 30%. As the central bank noted in its guidance to this year's Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review process (emphasis added):

The Federal Reserve expects that capital plans will reflect conservative common dividend payout ratios. In particular, requests that imply common dividend payout ratios above 30 percent of projected after-tax net income available to common shareholders in either the BHC baseline or supervisory baseline will receive particularly close scrutiny.

Does this mean that New York Community Bancorp must choose between growth and maintaining its generous quarterly payout? Not necessarily, or at least not in CEO Joseph Ficalora's opinion. 

Here's how he answered an analyst's question on the subject at the beginning of last year: 

The whole concept of limiting dividends had to do with adequate capital, has nothing to do with paying shareholders for investing in your company. So the idea that we would be governed by what other people can afford to pay is not consistent with anything that has historically happened in the marketplace.

Ficalora obviously has a point. And, for what it's worth, I agree with him. However, it remains to be seen whether the Fed will adopt a similar philosophy. And in the meantime, given the central bank's otherwise unambiguous guidance, it's probably safer to assume that it won't.

U.S. stocks could not sustain the morning's gains on Wednesday, as the benchmark S&P 500 ended the session with an 0.7% loss. The narrower Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.6%. Shares of Citigroup managed to outperform the broad market today, but that won't be the case tomorrow, as the Federal Reserve announced after the market close that it has rejected the bank's capital return program, along with that of four other institutions (three subsidiaries of foreign banks and Zions Bancorporation). Shares of Citigroup fell 5.2% in after-hours trading, but while traders may be selling the stock, it's providing an opportunity for patient investors to take a closer look at them.

The rejection of Citigroup's capital return program did come as a bit of nasty surprise to the market, as the Fed announced last week that it had passed its annual "stress test," which looks at major banks' capital adequacy under adverse economic scenarios (this was not the case of Zions -- the only institution among the 30 being examined that failed to meet the Fed's requirements.)

If you're a trader, perhaps this is sufficient reason to sell the shares, but for a long-term, fundamentally oriented investor, I don't think it does much to alter the reasons for owning the stock. The likely outcome is that the dividend increase and share repurchases that investors were expecting this year will be approved a year from now. Is the difference worth a 5% haircut in the stock's value? Perhaps, but that looks like an upper bound -- combine a "normal" bank dividend and buyback yield, and you might just about get to 5%.

(Naturally, there may be other considerations; for example: Is Citigroup's common equity riskier than investors had thought before the Fed's announcement? My reply to that objection is that last week's result -- a pass on capital adequacy -- is more relevant in that regard.)

Besides, as of today's closing prices -- that is, before any price decline that may occur on Thursday -- Citi's shares already look reasonably compelling, trading at a 9% discount to their tangible book value and just 10.4 times next twelve months' earnings-per-share estimate. The latter multiple represents roughly a one-third discount to the S&P 500's forward earnings multiple, which stands at 16. Whether or not Citi's shares are significantly undervalued on an absolute basis (i.e., relative to their intrinsic value) may be a matter of legitimate debate (I happen to think they are), but that they represent better value than the broad market looks incontrovertible. In a market that looks a bit overheated, with fewer and fewer clear values, that alone makes Citigroup's shares worth a second look.

The Department of Defense awarded 14 separate defense contracts Wednesday, worth $2.25 billion in total. Among the publicly traded companies winning contracts:

• L-3 Communications won a $58.5 million indefinite-delivery requirements contract to provide logistics services and materials needed for maintenance work on U.S. Navy T45TS jet training systems and T-45 Goshawk jet training aircraft through July.
• Rolls-Royce was awarded a $39.6 million contract modification paying for 26,495 flight hours' worth of maintenance work on V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft, and also for 26 low power MV-22 repairs through February 2015.
• Olin Corp.'s Winchester Division was awarded a $28.7 million option exercise to supply the U.S. Army with an unspecified amount of .50 caliber and 5.56mm ammunition through Sept 30, 2016.
• Raytheon won a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract worth up to $33.7 million to design, fabricate, test, and deliver to the U.S. Air Force a space-flight ready instrument capable of conducting hypertemporal imaging from a geosynchronous earth orbit. Delivery is due January 2017.
• United Technologies was awarded a $10.2 million foreign military sales contract modification to begin acquiring long-lead components, parts, and materials necessary for the Low-Rate Initial Production of eight Lot VIII F135 Conventional Take-Off and Landing propulsion systems for F-35 fighter jets destined for the governments of Japan (six) and Israel (two). Delivery is due September 2016.

Is double-digit revenue growth a thing of the past for Apple ? Based on Apple's weak stock performance since September 2012, the market seems to believe that's the case. The question, then, for any Apple investor is simple: Do opportunities still exist for the company to jump-start its revenue growth?

Revenue growth: Apple vs. Google
In its first-quarter 2014 earnings, Apple showed 6% year-over-year revenue growth on sales of $58 billion. In comparable quarters, revenue growth came in at 18% and 73%, first quarter 2013 and first quarter 2012, respectively. Google , in comparison, posted revenue growth of 22% in its most recent period.

As revenue growth declines, investors are less willing to pay a premium for a company's stock. A stock's P/E ratio measures its premium, or the multiple being paid for future earnings.

Over the July 2012-July 2013 period, Apple's P/E declined by one-third. While the stock's P/E has recovered somewhat at 13.2, it remains exceedingly low relative to the P/E average of 18.1 for stocks that make up the S&P average. A P/E of 18.1 would have Apple stock trading above $700.

The divergence in P/E for Google and Apple over time (graph below) is a stark demonstration of investor confidence in each company's revenue growth prospects. For perspective, a P/E of 31.8 would have Apple stock trading above $1,200.

Source: Ycharts

In 2014, investors must determine what opportunities, if any, could significantly increase revenue growth for Apple. The chart below shows current sources of revenue and growth for the company.

Source: Apple quarterly reports

Column 1-4 shows quarterly revenue over the 2013 fiscal year-column 5 the the annual total. Column 6 the first quarter 2014 growth rates by region and product line. Column 7 is incremental revenue for 2014 based on growth rates (column 6). The last column calculates how much the additional revenue would impact 2014 revenues.

Example: In FY 2013, Apple's Greater China revenue was $25.4 billion. A growth rate of 29% leads to $7.4 billion in incremental revenue for Apple's in 2014-an overall increase of 4.3% in total annual level.

The green rows are the regions and product lines currently showing double digit revenue growth-the type of growth the street is looking for in a tech stock. Yet, the green columns also present Apple's current revenue challenge: The company's fastest growing regions (China, Japan) and product lines (Mac, Software/Services) are currently not large enough to push total company revenue growth into double digits. If growth rates don't change the company would see 2014 revenue growth in the range of 6.4%-7%. (The difference in the growth rates between tables is due to the rounding errors caused by a region vs. product line comparison.)

The question for long-term investors becomes, do opportunities exist for Apple to drive revenue growth back into double-digits? The China Mobile iPhone distribution agreement, the anticipated release of a large-screen iPhone (iPhone 6), and wearable technology (iWatch) are three possible catalysts for company growth.

The next analysis is an effort to quantify revenue growth for each of the three initiatives across, what are hopefully, reasonable sales ranges.

China Mobile
China Mobile iPhone sales begin impacting Apple's sales for the first time this quarter. Analyst estimates of the impact of China Mobile vary widely; estimates for additional iPhone sales ranged from 5 million-39 million. However, China Mobile's recent earnings announcement placed iPhones sales at 1 million in the first 28 days of availability. 

Based on China Mobile's first month of sales data, a range of 8 million-15 million additional iPhone sales seems reasonable. Using revenue of $608 per phone, the FY 2013 iPhone average selling price, provides revenue ranging from $4.9 billion-$9.1 billion. The additional revenue lifts the 2014 growth estimate of 6.4% into a range between 9.2%-11.7%.

Large-screen iPhone
Large-screen smartphones now make up a significant share of the smartphone market. Computerworld estimates "phablets" now account for 22% of all smartphones shipped. BlueFin Research Partners, in a recent Barron's article, estimated a large-screen iPhone could boost 2014 iPhone sales as much as 16%, or 24 million units. 

Hypothetical increases in iPhones sales range from 14 million-24 million units and a $608 ASP would provide revenue of $8.5 billion-$14.6 billion and put annual revenue growth between 11.4%-15%.

iWatch 
Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Hubert estimates that an Apple iWatch could generate as much as $17.5 billion in its first year. Given the high level of uncertainty for a new category, and the bullishness of Hubert's estimate -- $17.5 billion is $5.5 billion higher than iPad sales in its launch year -- a more conservative revenue range seems appropriate. $7.5 billion-$12.5 billion in iWatch sales would boost Apple growth rates to 10.8%-13.7%.

Key take-aways
Current growth rates for Apple's fastest-growing products and regions will not take the company's growth back to double digits. Without increased growth, there is significant risk that Apple will continue trading at a discounted P/E. China Mobile sales alone may not be enough to drive Apple revenue growth rates back to double-digits. The introduction of a larger-screen iPhone and an iWatch are likely to move company revenue growth back into the double-digits. Extended delays in the introduction of a wearable or a large screen iPhone would likely result in weak performance by Apple stock through 2014.

The Department of Defense awarded 14 separate defense contracts Wednesday, worth $2.25 billion in total. General Dynamics didn't win the biggest of these contracts -- but its Gulfstream Aerospace subsidiary did win the second biggest.

Gulfstream's big win, an option exercise worth up to $102.1 million, hires the company to continue performing logistics support work on U.S. Air Force, Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard C-20 (militarized Gulfstream III) and C-37 (militarized Gulfstream V) transport aircraft through Jan. 31, 2015.

Additionally, General Dynamics' Advanced Information Systems division was awarded a $10.5 million contract modification to develop and produce multi-purpose processor cabinets and Total Ship Monitoring Systems for the U.S. submarine fleet. Work on this contract is now expected to continue through December 2015.

Separately, new Textron subsidiary Beechcraft won a $24.5 million firm-fixed-price and cost-reimbursable, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity foreign military sales contract to train Iraqi aircraft maintenance crews in King Air 350 aircraft maintenance using standard commercial off-the-shelf King Air 350 Proline 21 avionics. This contract will be performed at New Al-Muthana Airbase in Iraq, and also in Wichita, Kan., and is expected to be completed by Dec. 31, 2015.

Fresh off yesterday's 91-point win, the Dow Jones Industrial Average  dropped 99 points Wednesday following more war-like words from world leaders in the wake of Russia's Crimea business.

Obama calls out Putin in Brussels speech, rattles markets
Straight out of Brussels, the leaders of the free world are showing their muscles. The artist formerly known as the "Group of 8" (Russia got booted last week), the Group of 7 met in Belgium for three days' worth of emergency geopolitical policy meetings focused on Russia after its recent "merger/acquisition" of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula.

In his big speech to cap off the summit, President Obama made clear that this "isn't the Cold War" and that in the 21st century big nations can't "bully" around little ones. He also directly countered Vladimir Putin's claim that U.S. intervention in Iraq, Afghanistan, and (back in the '90s) Yugoslavia were no different from Russia's Crimea snag, arguing that we didn't annex those countries for our own personal resource gain.

The takeaway is that Obama already instituted a round of trade restrictions last week, which sent the Russian stock market down -- and now investors are worried the growing trade restrictions may escalate further. And since Russia supplies 30% of Europe's natural gas through Ukraine, things could get ugly.

King Digital drops 16% in first day trading as public stock
The Street has spoken, and it thinks that initial investors got ripped-off in Tuesday's initial public offering of King Digital Entertainment . The company raised $500 million Tuesday by selling about 22 million shares to VIP, institutional, and retail investors at $22.50 each. On Wednesday the shares were dumped into the masses at the New York Stock Exchange and they sank big, gradually falling 16% for a horrible first trading day.

Even though Candy Crush will bring in more than $2 billion of revenue alone next year, investors know how quickly consumers quit these smartphone games. Remember when Farmville was a moneymaker for Zynga? Old McDonald doesn't want to lose his farm again. 

The Street still believes King Digital will bring in big profits (hence the $6 billion value of all the shares as of the end of the first trading day). But Thursday's stock price drop from $22.50 to $19 shows that those IPO investors already got burned 16%.

Citigroup fails 2nd round of Federal Reserve "stress tests"
Nothing's worse than taking a test twice, especially the Federal Reserve's stress test. Last Friday, the nation's central bank reported that all 30 participants of its annual exam got a thumbs-up. But following the second round of the stress test, only 25 banks made it through -- and the losers were RBS, Santander, Zions, HSBC, and Citigroup .

Keep in mind that this is just a test. Since the financial crisis in 2008, the Fed uses annual stress tests to determine how America's largest financial institutions would hold up given a sudden market collapse. Basically, the Fed uses a bunch of economic disaster scenarios to tell whether the banks could keep on functioning and whether they could still lend if the world fell apart. This second test was about reserves and presents for shareholders.

Citibank wants to hook its shareholders up with more cash (dividends and share buybacks), but all the banks need approval from the Fed on their dividend plans. Since Citigroup failed, it will have to hold off on the early Christmas gifts for investors.

After-hours traders are punishing Citi with big drops in the stock price. The Fed determined that Citi's plans were way too generous, and it needs to resubmit a new application if it wants to release capital. That's worse than having to wait a second time in the line at the DMV. 

Thursday:

• U.S. GDP reading
• Weekly Jobless Claims
• Pending Home Sales

MarketSnacks Fact of the Day: Bacon sales climbed 9.5% last year to an all-time high of $4 billion.

The meetings and events industry covers the gambit from backyard weddings to massive citywide festivals like SXSW, plus conferences, galas, fundraisers, and celebrations. It's a huge industry that does its business anonymously, hidden from view, and often during odd hours. Total yearly economic contribution from the events industry is approximately $393 billion, which is more contribution to GDP than "air transportation, motion picture, sound recording, performing arts, and the spectator sport industries." Powering this industry are both professionals that plan and organize the events, as well as the venues that host and service them. The technology company connecting these two groups, and doing a slew of other interesting things in the space, is Cvent . 

Carving out its own market
Cvent is an event management cloud platform that serves two markets: event planners and venues. Last month, Cvent provided guidance for 2014 that reflects yearly revenue of $138 million, which will represent a 20% increase over 2013. That growth is coming from a company that was started in 1999 and has largely grown organically in its prior 13 years. Its growth and success has come from having out-sized and out-played competitors over the years.

During the dot-com bubble, over $1 billion in venture capital went into the event technology space, and subsequently left once the bust came. This created a dire situation within Cvent that forced the company to lay off 80% of its staff (from 126 to 26), and it was on the verge of closing shop in 2001. Management persevered through this period, and 11 of 12 executives are still with the company today. Now, Cvent dominates the market that it essentially created, without a true pure-play competitor. This affords it an enviable position to make the market its own. 

Supplier network
The supplier network side of the business is steady and growing, accounting for 30% of 2013 revenue. Venues pay Cvent for RFP's that are generated through the platform. In 2013, 5,700 partners paid for this marketing to the tune of $36 million. Notable partners that have been using the RFP service include Marriott International  and Caesars Entertainment , which collectively generated over $10 billion in total revenue in 2013. A large driver of room bookings and predictable average room rates are group bookings generated from events taking place at the venue. These large players view Cvent as indispensable to their sales goals, not only in current years, but in the future. Sometimes, RFPs go out years in advance, as planners put out feelers on where to hold their conferences. 

Conference and meeting planners
In 2013, 60,000 users were on the planner side, producing $77.5 million of 2013 revenue, which was 70% of Cvent's business activity. Clients use the service to control budgets, register attendees, sell tickets, find venues, and arrange RFPs all from one place -- the cloud. Planners have traditionally done everything manually, taking an enormous amount of their time. Cvent makes what could otherwise be a very stressful job simple and organized. The pricing model for planners is a subscription payment based on the number of attendees. Each projected attendee is paid for up front, whether they actually end up registering or not. This way, Cvent gets paid no matter how well-attended the event actually is. Subscriptions represent one of the most reliable streams of revenue, and it's comforting to know that planners amount to 70% of sales. 

Perseverance and a start-up culture of innovation
Reggie Agarwall, the company's founder and CEO, was awarded the title "CEO of the year" by the Washington Business Journal. "Aggarwal was selected from among the 50 'Most Admired CEOs' list of nominees, which included CEOs from some of the largest and most prominent organizations such as Marriott International, Lockheed Martin, George Washington University, General Dynamics, Inova Health Systems and the Carlyle Group."  Agarwall has stated that he personally interviewed 80% of the 1,400 employees who work at Cvent. He is passionate about getting A-players and fostering teams that operate at exceptional standards. Clearly, Reggie is a strong leader. 

Looking forward
Seed Labs and TicketMob were acquisitions that have been integrated into the Crowdtorch brand. Crowdtorch develops mobile app solutions that engage attendees at live events, pushing Cvent beyond just corporate meetings. The company is now creating mobile apps for venues, shows, and festivals, which allow fans to engage with artists and other attendees through social media, buy and sell tickets, and receive news. Promoters, entertainers, and venues can use the apps to track engagement, marketing metrics, and consumer behavior data.

There are also ticketing platforms that help eliminate friction points that prevent attendees from making purchases. Cvent competes directly with Live Nation's Ticketmaster by offering a next-gen ticketing platform for artists and venues. Clients can use the platform to create custom tickets and emails, sell on Facebook, offer merchandise, and collect payments. It gives sellers much greater control over the process. Last year, Ticketing revenue (excluding face value) from Ticketmaster was $1.4 billion. The tickets business is clearly no slouch and offers Crowdtorch a big opportunity to take market share.

If you're a shareholder of Zions Bancorporation , then there's a good chance you're irritated at the Utah-based bank. At the end of last week, investors learned it was the only major bank to fail this year's regulatory stress test.

The purpose of the annual examine is to ensure that bank holding companies like Zions have enough capital to withstand "highly stressful operating environments and be able to continue operations, maintain ready access to funding, meet obligations to creditors and counterparties, and serve as credit intermediaries."

The Federal Reserve determines this by assuming a number of adverse economic scenarios and then modeling the impacts on the participating bank's balance sheets and profitability.

While every bank that underwent the test experienced deep hypothetical losses that eroded their capital bases, none was hit as hard as Zions. Under the most extreme economic scenario modeled by the Fed, Zions saw its Tier 1 common capital ratio fall from 10.5% of risk-weighted assets all the way down to 3.5%, which is below the 5% regulatory minimum.

Indeed, even seemingly riskier investment banks like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley fared better. Goldman Sachs' Tier 1 common capital ratio dropped from 14.2% down to 6.8%, and Morgan Stanley's went from 12.6% to 6.1%.

So, here's the question: Why did Zions come up short?

The answer to this lies in its loan portfolio. As you can see in the chart above, 90% of Zions' capital losses derived from loan loss provisions -- these are what a bank sets aside to cover bad loans. And more specifically, commercial real estate (CRE) loans alone accounted for 54% of total losses.

It's important to note in this regard that CRE loans by nature are one of the riskiest categories of bank loans. Under the stress test's "severely adverse" scenario, the Fed predicted that 8% of all CRE loans would have to be written off by the lenders. This compares to a 5% loss rate for general commercial loans and 6% for residential mortgages.

On top of this, there's reason to believe that the quality of Zions' CRE portfolio is worse than its competitors. I say this because Comerica also has a proportionally large CRE portfolio, accounting for an analogous 20% of its total loans, but it still sailed through the stress test.

And herein lies the issue for Zions' shareholders. If the latter is indeed true, it's an ominous sign, as a banker's greatest responsibility is to underwrite good loans. Consequently, if Zions isn't doing that, then investors should beware.

Just one day after TASER International updated investors on the latest sales successes for its AXON on-body wearable camcorders for police officers, the company came out with news of yet another sale of the AXON on Thursday. And this one was bigger than all the other sales reported the previous day -- combined.

This new sale to the Fort Worth Police Department of 400 AXON flex on-body cameras includes 20 units provided free of charge as "spares," and a five-year contract to provide EVIDENCE.com digital video storage service for the devices. When delivered sometime in the first half of this year, this shipment will triple the number of AXON flex cameras in the Department's inventory.

In a statement on the sale, Fort Worth Police Chief Jeffrey W. Halstead called TASER's camera "a game changer for all of law enforcement." Echoing the sentiment, TASER CEO Rick Smith repeated his prediction that "body-worn video cameras will become standard equipment [for police officers nationwide] within the next 5-10 years."

Smith noted further that when TASER's cameras are filming interactions between police officers and civilians, and providing documented proof of what has happens during interactions between the two, "across the country, agencies that deploy our AXON camera systems have seen reduction in use of force and reduction in complaints."

TASER did not disclose the price of this sale, but at the AXON flex's advertised price of $499 per unit, this sale would appear to add nearly $190,000 to TASER's H1 2014 revenues, plus ongoing recurring monthly EVIDENCE.com revenues of perhaps $4,000.

Looking at the broad stock market benchmarks, Thursday appeared to be a largely meaningless day for the market, as investors saw only small declines pegged largely to ongoing uncertainties about international economic and political issues. Yet, even as signs of U.S. economic growth continued to show up in data releases, several stocks posted substantial losses, including Leidos Holdings , SFX Entertainment , and QIWI .

Leidos plunged 18% as the company's earnings release this morning included troubling guidance for the coming fiscal year. Although Leidos' fiscal fourth-quarter results came in ahead of what investors had expected to see from the national-security services company, its projections for fiscal 2015 earnings and revenue fell well short of what shareholders had wanted to see, with earnings 10% to 18% below consensus estimates, and revenue falling short by 7% to 10%. The departure of Chief Operating Officer Stu Shea also hinted at leadership issues among Leidos' top corporate ranks, and with the company just recently having split up from SAIC, solid strategic direction is more important than ever for Leidos to establish itself as a strong independent entity.

Source: Wikimedia Commons, Jean-Pierre Lavoie.

SFX Entertainment dropped 12% after announcing its results this morning. The live-events coordinator reported a much-larger loss than shareholders had expected, with revenue coming in about 25% below investors' projections. The stock has performed terribly since coming public less than six months ago, with today's loss taking its drop from its first-day closing price to more than 40%. The question for SFX is whether its recent string of acquisitions after its IPO will end up producing profits in the long run; but for now, investors are unimpressed with SFX's efforts to find sufficient marketing and sponsorship initiatives to reap the partnership-related revenue that will drive its future results.

QIWI fell 11% as the continuing fallout from economic sanctions against Russia hits the company's money-transfer business. Some foreign central banks have refused to accept wire transfers from various Russian financial entities in order to support the sanctions, and that spells trouble for QIWI given its reliance on foreign remittances to drive its business. As sanctions expose risk among certain Western financial institutions that have done substantial amounts of business with Russia, the question will be whether Western governments blink first and free up QIWI to resume its normal operations. If sanctions last for a long time, they'll eventually eat into QIWI's growth.

Microsoft had long been blasted as being a stale technology company that "missed mobile" and couldn't innovate. While long-suffering shareholders for the past 10 years dealt with a frustratingly range-bound stock in owning Microsoft, shareholders of names like Apple and Google have been very richly rewarded over that timeframe. However, something interesting has been happening in the markets over the past few weeks -- is Microsoft getting Google's money, or is something bigger going on? 

What's been happening?
Over the past month, shares of Google are down 7.23%. Over that same period, shares of Microsoft are up a respectable 6.2%. Now, one could reasonably say that these moves aren't related -- it's just that Microsoft is breaking out to multi-year highs and Google is seeing a healthy pullback after such a massive run. While the direct Microsoft/Google inverse correlation may not exist, the past month has seen a general bias toward value rather than growth.

The following chart is split into two columns. On the left, we have the one-month returns of a number of household "value" technology stocks (all with price-to-earnings ratios under 15), and on the right, we have the 1-month returns of a number of household "growth" names. The trend is, for lack of a better word, interesting:

Notice a trend? The high-growth names that have done so well over the past year are starting to pretty severely underperform. What's going on here? Why is growth suddenly out of vogue and why is value now in?

Could it be buyer exhaustion?
Keep in mind that while the "growth" names in the right column have underperformed over the short term, they're still wildly outperforming almost all of their value brethren. Facebook is still up a whopping 172% from its 52-week low, and 3D Systems is still up 81% over the past year. While value name HP has performed quite well, up 40% over the past year, and while Microsoft has been a surprisingly potent performer, up 40.85% over the past year, the growth names have done better.

Could this be a case of buyer exhaustion? No matter how many companies Facebook manages to buy with its stock, there's still no escaping the fact that at its peak, Facebook's market capitalization nearly topped $200 billion on about $1.68 billion in trailing-12-month net income. At what point have all of the investors who are going to invest, invested? At what point do the valuations start to look ridiculous even with the most optimistic of assumptions?

When the growth names are all bid up, focus turns to value
The reason it's so interesting to look at value versus growth is to try to get a sense of what's going on here. Is it really a coincidence that as the valuations on the high-growth names become stretched that investors may be interested in taking their gains and putting those winnings into something a bit less risky to preserve that capital? Could that explain what's happening here?

Foolish takeaway
I'm not trying to disparage the "growth" names I've mentioned. When they're hot, they're hot, and they'll make investors much more money than most value-oriented names could hope to. However, when it's time for a stock like Facebook, Google, or Twitter to take a breather, that money has  to go somewhere, and that somewhere appears to be value-oriented tech names.

Although all three major U.S. indices lost ground on Thursday, the mood on Wall Street wasn't "bearish" by any means, and only 49% of publicly traded companies declined. While the overall losses were moderate by most standards, three poor performers still managed to lose investors gobs of money. Citigroup , Accenture , and Windstream Corporation all finished at the most abject depths of the S&P 500 Index Thursday, as the benchmark lost just three points, or 0.2%, to end at 1,849.

Citigroup, which seems to go belly up and then get bailed out once every decade or two for good measure, lost 5.4% Thursday. It seems Uncle Sam's starting to catch on to Citigroup's eternally recurring moral hazard (Nietzsche meets Gekko, anyone?), and the Federal Reserve, for one, is sick of it. The Fed denied Citigroup's request to boost its dividend and go through with a $6 billion share buyback due to the bank's recent stress test, in which Citigroup failed to allocate for potential losses correctly.

Stock in consulting and IT company Accenture shed 5% today, and when you hear what's been amiss at the company, you'll want to sell it, too, even if you don't own shares. First of all, the company missed both revenue and earnings expectations in the most recent quarter. Then, Accenture dropped the bomb: Its pride and its joy, its bread and its butter, its sun and its moon -- the consulting business -- probably won't grow this year, and may even see a decline. Consulting brings in more than 50% of Accenture's revenue currently, and its consulting business has fallen in six of the last seven quarters. That part of its business is dying -- if you can't consult your clients into keeping you, either they don't need you, or your consulting isn't effective (or both). 

Finally, Windstream Holdings stock slumped 4.2% today. Shares of the telecom services company have been extremely stable in the last year, a stability that often comes with dividends as high as Windstream's. It dishes out nearly 12% annually to its shareholders, and four times a year, its stock stumbles when investors know they can get the next quarterly dividend and run with it. Today was one of those rare "ex-dividend" dates, where people cashing in on the $0.25 quarterly dividend sold the stock off to the tune of $0.25, or 3%, with the rest of the losses perhaps being due to worries about the high dividend, even though it looks sustainable for the time being.

The Department of Defense awarded 19 separate defense contracts Thursday, worth $6.64 billion in total. The biggest award by far was a $5.79 billion multiple-award, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (ID/IQ) contract for Network-Centric Solutions-2 (NETCENTS-2) network operations and infrastructure solutions, parceled out to a dozen federally defined small businesses, all privately held defense contractors. But publicly traded companies landed a few contract wins, as well. Among them:

• Exelis was awarded a $17.8 million contract modification to continue post-production maintenance support of Joint Service Explosive Ordnance Disposal Counter Radio Controlled Improvised Explosive Device Electronic Warfare (JSEOD CREW) devices aimed at jamming the signals used to detonate roadside IEDs. This contract will now continue in force through March 2015.
• Cardinal Health was awarded an option exercise (the second of four possible) worth up to $16.8 million, to continue supplying U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and federal civilian agencies with "various laboratory supplies" through April 12, 2015.
• United Technologies' Sikorsky Aircraft Corp division received a $14.9 million cost-plus-fixed-fee delivery order to redesign the cabin on the VH-3D In-Service Presidential Helicopter (aka "Marine One"), aiming to reduce the vehicle's total gross weight so as to improve lift capability. This work should be completed in July 2016.
• FLIR Systems subsidiary ICx Technologies was awarded a $12.3 million contract modification to supply the U.S. Army with 12 "dismounted reconnaissance sets, kits, and outfits army configuration systems" by March 25, 2015. 

By now, most investors know that Facebook allocated another $2 billion to acquisitions this week, this time putting virtual reality in its sights with the purchase of Oculus. Analysts are trying to figure out whether the acquisition was a sound one, but forward-thinking investors should look at the opportunities the virtual reality technology could afford in the near future.

Source: Oculus

Here's the deal
A whopping $2 billion is on the line for the acquisition of Oculus, which has yet to ship a unit of its virtual reality headset, the Oculus Rift. Though only $400 million of the total price tag consists of cash, the unproven revenue stream from Oculus has plenty of investors worried. In addition to the initial cash and share payment, benchmarks will be rewarded with incentives, if met down the line.

More than a game
So far, the Oculus team has sent out 75,000 kits to game developers (at $350 a pop), which is at the top on the list of applications for virtual reality. In fact, Sony is currently promoting its own virtual reality headset, Project Morpheus, set to work with the PlayStation 4. Game-console rival Microsoft is also reportedly in the development stage for a complementary headset to its Xbox One.

While the Oculus Rift may not be the only player in the gaming landscape, its development outside of a strictly gaming atmosphere lends to its ability to be used in other arenas. Mark Zuckerberg himself nodded to the use of virtual reality within various spheres, while explaining the reasoning behind the acquisition:

After games, we're going to make Oculus a platform for many other experiences. Imagine enjoying a court side seat at a game, studying in a classroom of students and teachers all over the world or consulting with a doctor face-to-face -- just by putting on goggles in your home. ... One day, we believe this kind of immersive, augmented reality will become a part of daily life for billions of people.

This openness to additional uses for the Oculus Rift is exactly where Facebook could really exploit the technology.

Streaming revenue
While direct sales of the Rift units will be a major factor in Facebook's plan for the device, there's an opportunity for the company to begin a whole new mode of revenue generation -- licensing fees.

With the virtual experience provided by the Rift units, the company could line up universities as clients, with student benefiting from sessions in boardrooms, operation rooms, court rooms, and other theaters where it's difficult to file in a large number of onlookers.

The U.S. military is another big potential client, using virtual reality for training purposes. The University of Southern California's Institute for Creative Technologies (where Oculus lead, Palmer Luckey, worked as a lab technician) has already developed projects that would allow training in urban war zones or Naval battleships. Though the department has its own VR headset and other hardware, Facebook's newly acquired Oculus Rift could prove a worthy replacement.

A user tries out the USC MxR virtual reality system with the Naval simulator "BlueShark." Photo Credit: Popular Mechanics and USC MxR

Of course Facebook will focus heavily on the potential for virtual reality within the social network environment. But by allowing the technology's use within other fields, any potential revenue sources will provide a buffer for the company while it determines the best use for the Rift in conjunction with its social network platforms.

Looking for potential
While the exact use of the Oculus Rift is still open for debate, it's clear that Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg made the decision to purchase the virtual reality start-up for its potential to disrupt several markets. Investors may still be scratching their heads about the acquisition, but with the potential for multiple uses (and multiple revenue streams), Facebook's latest purchase may be its best yet.

Would you subscribe to an Apple streaming music service? You may soon have the option, Billboard reports. Fool contributor Tim Beyers explains the implications of the proposed move in the following video.

We're still too early in the process to know exactly what's planned. But if Billboard's reporting is to be believed, Apple's streaming service would mirror Spotify by giving listeners the ability to find, play, and even purchase the music they want on demand.  The Mac maker is also toying with the idea of releasing an iTunes app for Android.

Investors should like the strategy. Billboard cites Nielsen Soundscan data that shows sales of digital albums and tracks falling by double-digits as streaming alternatives grow more popular. In fact, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), Spotify and its peers were responsible for more than $1 billion in revenue last year -- a 51% year-over-year improvement. The download disruption is already well under way.

If Apple's music business hasn't taken a noticeable hit, it's because the iTunes Store is a more diversified enterprise than it used to be. Revenue zoomed 19% to $4.4 billion in the latest quarter from not only music, but also apps and, at last count, 800,000 TV episodes and 300,000 movies daily.

So what can investors expect from an Apple streaming music service? A fight for share that's likely to involve -- at least in the short term -- cheaper prices for premium versions of Spotify and Beats Music. Pandora Media isn't likely to be as affected, Tim says, if only because the company is targeting terrestrial radio as others focus on disrupting the album distribution business. Do you agree? Leave a comment below to let us know what you think of the prospects for an Apple streaming music service.

Stock markets are looking overvalued, and investors looking to squeeze some extra value from their stocks should consider a covered call option strategy. 

A covered call is just a share of stock that's covered by an option you've sold to someone else. If the option expires above the strike price, the other party exercises the option, and you get the strike price and the premium paid to you when you sold the option. 

The better news comes when shares end below the strike price, leaving the option worthless at expiration. You still get to keep the premium paid for the option, which is cash in your brokerage account. 

In the video below, Fool contributor Travis Hoium covers a few interesting stocks for covered calls, and three pointers investors should always keep in mind. 

The Nasdaq Composite's performance in 2013 beat the Dow Jones Industrial Average by 37% to 27%. But most of the gains were due to multiple expansion, and now the Nasdaq's average P/E ratio is 24 to just 16 on the Dow. 

Investors looking for value in an economy that's growing at a snail's pace should look to the Dow for better options. In fact, value is why the Dow will outperform the Nasdaq this year.

In the video below, Motley Fool contributor Travis Hoium highlights why Verizon , Microsoft , and Cisco provide the kind of value and competitive moat that investors should be looking for in 2014. 

Stocks ended mostly flat today as the continuing sell-off of momentum and tech stocks countered strong economic data. The Dow Jones Industrial Average  ended down just five points or 0.3%, while the S&P 500 dropped 0.2%, and the Nasdaq lost 0.5%. 

In its third and final estimate of fourth-quarter GDP, the Commerce Department reported a 2.6% improvement, as consumer spending grew at the fastest pace in three years. That figure was up from the previous estimate at 2.4%, and in line with analyst expectations. Initial unemployment claims last week fell to 311,000, hitting a four-month low, and the four-week moving average dropped to a six-month low, indicating robust job growth in March. The reading was better than estimates at 330,000, and was down from 321,000 the week before. Meanwhile, February pending home sales dipped 0.8%, the latest evidence that growth in the housing market may be flattening. 

Among stocks moving higher today was lululemon athletica , which finished up 6.2% after its fourth-quarter earnings report beat lowered expectations. The yoga-apparel retailer is coming off a forgettable 2013 that featured a product recall, the surprise resignation of its CEO, and an embarrassing remark by its founder about women's bodies. Earnings at Lululemon held flat at $0.75 a share, but that beat estimates of just $0.72. Sales of $621 million also topped expectations at $615 million, but same-store sales actually fell 2% on a constant-dollar basis, its first drop since 2009, a warning sign for what was once a hot growth stock. Lululemon's guidance wasn't any better, as it expects a decline in EPS in  2014 to $1.80-$1.90, below estimates at $2.14. Still, new CEO Laurent Potdevin promised to aggressively expand the store base, giving investors faith in a long-term comeback.

Caption: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella introduced Office for iPad today. Source: Flickr

Elsewhere, Microsoft  confirmed earlier rumors by saying today at a presentation that it would make its Office suite available for the iPad. The move signals a change in strategy for Microsoft, as it had been trying to compete with the iPad by offering its own tablet, the Surface, which came with Office pre-installed at no extra charge. The initiative was new CEO Satya Nadella's first major move at the helm of the software giant. The Office suite was designed as "touch-first" for the iPad, and Nadella notably steered clear of discussions of the Surface or PCs. Analysts believe Microsoft stands to make anywhere between $840 million and $6.7 billion in revenue a year from the new offering, which had existed for years, but was not brought to market for strategic reasons. Microsoft shares, which jumped 4% last week when rumors broke about the program, actually fell 1.1% today. Apple shares closed 0.4% lower.