Unless you're an HBO Go addict, Amazon's FireTV is just about the best set-top box you can buy. It's faster than the Apple TV, packing features Apple's set-top box lacks, including voice search and the ability to play video games. It's more expensive than Google's Chromecast, but offers access to more content and isn't chained to a mobile device.

But while Amazon is in the lead today, its advantage may only be temporary: Both Apple and Google are widely expected to unveil updated TV solutions later this year.

Waiting for the "real" Apple TV
Apple's management has been content to label its current Apple TV a "hobby" -- but that hobby could be maturing into a full-fledged product category. Analysts have been expecting Apple to a release a TV set for years (or at least a more compelling set-top box) but those rumors have intensified in just the last few months.

Both Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal have reported that Apple is working on a much-improved version of the Apple TV, one that could ship later this year. Comcast mentioned a forthcoming set-top box from the company in a recent filing with the FCC.

Until the device is formally unveiled, it's impossible to compare it to Amazon's FireTV, but I would expect it to stack up quite favorably. The current Apple TV hasn't been meaningfully updated in over two years -- and if the reports prove true, the next version of Apple TV could be a drastic update, including voice and motion control, integration with paid-TV services and the ability to play iOS games.

AndroidTV to replace GoogleTV
Google's attempt could be more operating system than device -- Android TV, the company's forthcoming set-top box platform, was detailed in a report obtained by The Verge.

Android TV looks and appears to act like Amazon's FireTV, with a focus on streaming video, universal search and access to Android games. Last year, reports indicated that Google was working on its own Nexus set-top box, but would presumably give its hardware partners free reign to build devices around Android TV, much like it did with its previous, largely abandoned, GoogleTV project.

Ultimately, AndroidTV could power a dozen different set-top boxes or more. Although GoogleTV struggled, AndroidTV looks like a much simpler, much more compelling product. As with the next-generation Apple TV, a hypothetical device can't be compared with one that's currently available, but Google's challenge to the FireTV could soon be much more significant than just the Chromecast.

The importance of set-top boxes
But how important is the set-top box market? They've definitely grown in popularity in recent months, but the market is far from saturated. Last year, Apple said it had sold 13 million Apple TVs. Even if that number has increased five fold, it would still pale in comparison to the more than 700 million iOS devices currently in existence. Google hasn't released exact Chromecast sales figures, but claims to have sold "millions" -- again, a tiny fraction of the literally billions of Android devices that have been shipped.

At $35, there isn't much room for Google to profit on the Chromecast -- assuming it isn't sold at a loss. Apple TV, meanwhile, is sold at a loss, at least according to Roku's CEO. With stronger internals, the margins on Amazon's FireTV are probably even worse.

That could change with a new generation of hardware, but for now, these devices appear to serve as a way to better bind existing customers to the companies' respective ecosystems. If you own Amazon's FireTV, you'll probably keep your Prime subscription active, while if you own an Apple TV you might be more willing to buy TV shows, movies and music from iTunes. Perhaps owing to the growing popularity of the Apple TV, iTunes video revenue is estimated to have grown nearly 20% last year.

These set-top boxes matter, but only so far as they encourage customer loyalty. Still, it's a market that's still in its early stages, with much room for improvement. Right now, Amazon has the lead, but Apple and Google should bounce back in the coming months.

Sometimes a long-term growth investment can seem almost too easy. For me, investing in The Walt Disney Company is as close to a sure thing as an investor can find in today's market. The company is currently the best-positioned media company in the business and is set to unleash a massive wave of new content, the scale of which has likely never been seen before.

Even compared to well-positioned industry stalwarts like Time Warner , Disney remains my top pick in media and one of my best long-term growth ideas in general.

Source: Disney. 

Unrivaled content
The most obvious success Disney is having now is with its Marvel entertainment property. The recently released Captain America: The Winter Soldier opened to an impressive $96.2 million, which set a new record for the month of April, beating Fast Five's 2011 opening of $86.2 million. The sequel has already raked in more money internationally than the original movie did in total. 

Perhaps most impressive is that the Captain America sequel is Marvel's best-performing sequel yet, which means strength in Marvel properties is only increasing. The movie's solid opening represents a 48% improvement upon the original Captain America movie in 2011, which beats Iron Man 3's 36% increase and Thor: The Dark World's 30% increase. 

Marvel is also set to release several new characters to the big screen in 2014 and 2015. Marvel is releasing Guardians of the Galaxy in August of this year. The movie will focus on a group of characters embarking on a journey through the far reaches of space and looks to be unlike anything Marvel has put out so far.

Then in 2015, Paul Rudd will play Ant Man. Of course, the big event will probably end up being 2015's Avengers: Age of Ultron. The first Avengers movie generated a staggering $1.5 billion and remains the most successful movie opening of all time. With Disney continuing to build up the Marvel universe, the sequel will likely end up being an even larger success.

However, also making news for Disney is Star Wars, which recently began shooting. Episode 7, which is a sequel to 1983's Episode 6 set 30 years in the future, will mark the first entry in an entirely new trilogy for the science-fiction series.

Considering the massive box office draws that all of the prior Star Wars movies have been, and the series' noted ability to attract young kids, the franchise could end up being even bigger for Disney than Marvel currently is. The last Star Wars live-action feature release Revenge of the Sith ended up generating approximately $848.7 million worldwide. The only Marvel movies to beat that total so far were The Avengers and Iron Man 3. This indicates the massive power the science-fiction series still has.

Also worth considering is that Lucasfilm has been busy attracting young viewers to the Star Wars universe over the years through the popular animated television show Clone Wars. Although the show is in the process of winding down, with season six having aired in February, the show no doubt added young fans to the Star Wars universe.

The solid positioning is being reflected in the company's growth estimates. On average, analysts expect Disney to grow revenue 6.7% and EPS 19.2% in the fiscal year ending September 2014.

Competition
The most likely competition to Disney going forward is Time Warner, which continues to try to strengthen its own superhero division, DC Entertainment. While the company's Batman property has enjoyed great success under Christopher Nolan's direction, the company is now set to combine its signature Batman and Superman properties for a showdown in 2016.

The Batman vs. Superman movie will go head to head with the third Captain America movie on May 6, 2016. Although early results from popular gaming site IGN indicate that viewers will gravitate toward Time Warner's superhero movie first, the recent success of Captain America: The Winter Soldier may cast some doubt on that.

On average, analysts expect Time Warner to experience a 7.8% decline in revenue and only a 4% increase in EPS for the fiscal year ending December 2014.

Source: Disney.

Bottom line
All signs point to continued success for Disney with regard to all things superhero-related. Captain America: The Winter Soldier is just the latest example of Marvel's box office dominance. Additionally, Disney is busy preparing the Star Wars franchise for a late 2015 release, and the megahit franchise could prove to be even more successful than the mighty Marvel.

Going forward, investors in Disney have a lot to be excited about and little reason to consider looking beyond this media company right now.

Wearable technology has been the talk of the tech industry for years, but it has yet to become more than a bit player so far. Products like Fitbit (pre-recall) and Nike Fuel Band are gaining some traction, but Samsung Gear, Google  , and Qualcomm's Toq smartwatch have had a mix of success and disappointment. 

The question now is: What will consumers want in wearable devices, and who will succeed? 

Fool contributor Travis Hoium thinks there are three keys to success in wearables and highlights why chipmakers like Intel and Qualcomm may be the best way to play this market, because they're not tied to the success of one product. Find out more in the following video. 

A Chromebook running office-style productivity tools. Image source: Google.

Here we go. Microsoft won't walk away from the end of the Windows XP era unscathed -- at least not if Google has a say in it. And Google has enlisted longtime Microsoft partners Citrix Systems and VMware to help with the heavy lifting.

Yesterday was the last day of official XP support, with the final round of security updates for the 13-year-old platform. It was also the start of a big discount program on Google Chromebook computers, aimed specifically at the enterprise market.

Say goodbye to Windows XP.

The promotion makes sense because Windows XP is not exclusively tied to Luddites and tech-averse grandmas who just don't need anything fancier for their basic email and Web browsing needs. Many enterprise environments are handcuffed to XP, sometimes even locked down to the long-since unsupported Internet Explorer 6 browser that shipped with the original Windows XP. Business applications have been built to depend on quirks and bugs unique to the platform, and many others simply never got tested and qualified to run on anything else.

But now, it's high time to update those graybeard applications, qualify their functionality on modern platforms, and leave XP behind.

This is what Microsoft would like you to install instead.

Microsoft would love for IT managers to simply adopt a newer Windows version, and ideally Windows 8.1, which got a mandatory set of security and feature updates yesterday. I'm told that the new version moves away from the hard-nosed touchscreen focus a little bit, making it more familiar and usable for people with many years of XP-style experience. This could be a huge upgrade moment in the history of Windows.

But, like I said, Google won't let Microsoft have all the fun.

"It's time for a real change, rather than more of the same," Google says, complete with a link to Microsoft's Windows 8 upgrade program. Big G now offers $100 off each Chromebook system that's bought through the company's sales channels for business-class customers.

Google didn't forget about the need to run legacy Windows applications, which you cannot do on a plain Chromebook and its Linux-based innards. The discount jumps to $200 for Chromebooks with VMware's Horizon Desktop as a Service (also known as DaaS) pre-installed. Or, you can get a 25% discount on Citrix Systems' XenApp DaaS solution, which works out to roughly $50 per system.

...but Google has another option in mind. Image source: Google.

VMware and Citrix are happy to support this sale, because a significant non-Windows business platform would be good for their Windows-based desktop and app-sharing solutions. Doesn't really matter if it's Google's systems that break through, or some other desktop and laptop player with a big appetite. It could even be a neutered, low-cost Windows platform for all Citrix and VMware care. The key is to have low-powered systems in the hands of large business-class populations, with a need to deliver Windows-based apps to them. And Chromebooks fit that bill.

Now, it wouldn't make sense for consumers to buy Chromebooks via Google's enterprise program. There's a $150 fee for each computer to cover a centralized management system, which gives IT managers a way to manage lots and lots of Chromebooks in one simple interface. But it costs $50 more than the $100 discount, and really doesn't do much for one or two computers in private use.

So this promotion is strictly for business buyers. If there's a consumer-level discount program up Google's sleeve, the company hasn't cracked its poker face yet. Stay tuned.

If it's time to update your systems anyway, then why not jump to a totally different platform standard? It remains to be seen whether Google Chromebooks can carve out a significant space in the business sector. But you can't win the lottery without buying a ticket. On that note, this opportunistic promotion might give Google a foot in the door to Microsoft's most cherished market -- the business world.

On Wednesday, stocks pressed sharply higher, with morning gains getting an additional boost when the Federal Reserve's latest meeting minutes were released during the afternoon. After last month's meeting, investors were afraid that interest rate increases would come quickly and furiously, but the minutes showed every intention of trying to reassure the markets that increases would be measured and deliberate. That sent most major stock market benchmarks up 1% to 2% and buoyed the shares of Facebook , Yelp , and Caesars Entertainment .

Facebook gained 7%, hitting its best level since late January after the social-media stalwart climbed in the general move toward higher-growth stocks. Moreover, Facebook also benefited when COO Sheryl Sandberg said in an interview that she did not plan to go into politics, reassuring investors who consider her partnership with CEO Mark Zuckerberg to be an essential part of Facebook's success strategy. With Facebook also having said that it would make a shift to display larger ads on its desktop version, investors believe that the social-media company is poised to make even more money from its growing membership.

Yelp rose 6% after receiving an upgrade from an analyst firm this morning. With its announcement last night that it's launching Yelp Japan and extending its reach into the lucrative Asian market, Yelp hopes that it will be able to build a worldwide network of reviews and travel information for consumers across the globe. The company has been somewhat slow to target Asia for growth, with only a presence in Singapore before last night's announcement. But with the company having solved the challenge of offering a non-Roman-character language, Yelp might well look to expand more broadly into other regional leaders like China and Korea.

Caesars Entertainment rose more than 9% even after the casino operator got a credit-rating downgrade. With one rating agency noting that Caesars is running through its available cash at an alarming rate, investors are realizing that Caesars will have to come up with a capital restructuring at some point. Apparently, though, the hope among shareholders is that they'll be able to negotiate a favorable deal against bond investors in other stakeholders in Caesars, or else today's surge wouldn't make sense. One other possibility is that bond investors are hedging bearish distressed-debt positions by buying stock, effectively giving themselves a call option on the company's success in case their bearish positions turn out to be wrong.

It was tough to lose money in the stock market today. If you threw a dart at the stock universe today and invested in whatever company the dart landed on, you'd pick a winner seven in 10 times -- unless you missed the dartboard entirely and lodged your dart in an obscure bond, commodity, or innocent bystander, of course. I don't recommend this as an investment strategy, and if you're endangering passerby every time you play darts, you should probably stop doing that as well -- but I digress. Intuitive Surgical , Diamond Offshore Drilling , and Transocean Ltd. ended as some of the worst stocks in the S&P 500 Index today, despite the overall bullishness. The S&P added 20 points, or 1.1%, to end at 1,872 on Wednesday.

Intuitive Surgical lost 6.7% today after it gave investors a courtesy heads-up that first quarter revenue was going to be severely disappointing. The robotic medical devices company doesn't officially report first quarter results until April 22, but often when companies figure out their fiscal quarters will disappoint Wall Street, they let investors know beforehand. Sales of Intuitive Surgical's da Vinci robot plummeted in the first quarter, falling from $256 million a year ago to an estimated $106 million in the most recent period. Although shareholders took heavy losses today, the company's newest da Vinci model, the da Vinci Xi, was just approved by the FDA, which is great news and should offer a solid new revenue stream.

Diamond Offshore's "Rigamarole" magazine. Source: company website.

Shares of Diamond Offshore Drilling also ended toward the bottom of the index, shedding 4.2% Wednesday. Diamond Offshore was joined in the lowest depths of the S&P by fellow rig operator Transocean, which saw shares slump 2.7% today. Both stocks were downgraded just yesterday by investment bank Barclays, as the bank complained that "rate momentum" was trending lower. Simply put, both Diamond Offshore and Transocean are contract drillers, renting out their platforms to energy companies who want to excavate that precious black gold from the floor of the ocean.

My colleague Tyler Crowe beat Barclays to the punch when he expressed his concern about Diamond Offshore and Transocean specifically, worrying that their lack of investment in capital expenditures was depleting the utility of their fleets, losing each company market share, and driving down the value of their contracts.

It's not easy finding stocks that are on the cutting edge of their industry, publicly traded, and poised for more growth. Sierra Wireless is a quiet tech company that's leading the machine-to-machine communication market, also called the Internet of Things, and it's upside can't be overlooked.

Although Sierra has been on Wall Street since 2000, its business has shifted since then, with some of its technology now powering innovations in Tesla's Model S. And as the company's focus has shifted over the years, so has its potential.

So, Sierra does what exactly?
Let's keep this simple. If the Internet of Things, or IoT, is the connection of everyday objects to the Internet, then Sierra Wireless is the company that makes that connection possible. IoT will allow cars to communicate with each other, vending machines to tell companies when they need to be refilled, and energy systems to manage power usage on their own. Sierra's wireless modules and cloud management services both allow formerly non-connected devices to connect to the Internet and be easily controlled.

Tesla's Model S is a perfect example of a connected car, in which Sierra provides the 3G-connection module that allows the car's infotainment system to tap into AT&T's wireless network. Tesla can then access data about the car's systems and make upgrades and adjustments based on feedback from the vehicle. Tesla is clearly a leader in automobile connectivity, but it's not the only company moving in this direction. Other car companies such as Ford, Toyota, BMW and others use Sierra's technology as well.

But cars aren't the only thing Sierra puts its modules into. Nespresso's coffee makers also have Sierra's connected devices, as do energy systems, wireless payment devices, and much more.

The company's goal is to take away all the technical aspects of the connecting devices to the Internet of Things, so that companies can focus on making their products. And Sierra Wireless is in a great position to do it.

The advantages
Right now, Sierra Wireless holds about 34% of the embedded cellular M2M module business worldwide.

Although it has worldwide IoT reach, the company is still nimble with a market cap under $700 million, $180 million in cash, and virtually no debt. In its fiscal fourth quarter 2013, ending in February, Sierra posted revenue of $118.6 million, up 8.4% year over year. Revenue for the full fiscal 2013 year hit a record high of $441.9 million, up 11.2%. 

The upside for Sierra is that it recently sold its AirCard business, which was dragging down its focus on the Internet of Things. Sierra's CEO, Jason Cohenour, said in an earnings statement that:

We achieved record revenue in the fourth quarter, closing out a year in which we delivered solid operational results, sold our AirCard business, and began putting the proceeds to work on acquisitions that extend our leadership position in M2M.

Just a few weeks ago, the company completed its purchased a company called In Motion for $21 million. The company made rugged in-vehicle mobile routers and a secure platform to manage connected devices. Because of the acquisition, Sierra said it now has "the products, channels, and technology needed to offer the most comprehensive suite of solutions to our customers and expand our market share in high growth, high value markets such as public safety and commercial fleets." In 2013, In Motion generated $15 million in revenue, and its gross margin was 50% of revenue.

In addition to its M2M leadership position, the company just launched a new open source platform named Legato. The new platform allows companies to develop applications for machine-to-machine devices and manage them from Sierra Wireless' cloud.

Both Legato and the In Motion acquisition are aimed at adding to the company's machine-to-machine offerings, while shoring up its leadership position in the segment. And with the company selling its AirCard business, it's better positioned to focus on Internet of Things.

A few things to consider
As the Internet of Things grows, costs for connected devices will fall and hurt Sierra's margins. In fiscal 2013, gross margin was at 30.1%. Investors should continue to keep tabs on how Sierra is staying ahead of other M2M businesses, and how that impacts the cost of wireless modules. Another thing to consider is that Sierra isn't profitable right now, although that should change in fiscal 2014. If Sierra can't expand into new areas and generate more revenue, the company's prospects could turn.

And back up we go! After U.S. stocks posted three consecutive losing days (ending Monday), this elicited some handwringing from analysts and financial journalists; however, with two days of gains now under our belt, the benchmark S&P 500 is back within 1% of its all-time high -- which it achieved only a week ago. Today, stocks got a little help from the 2 p.m. ET release of the Federal Reserve's minutes of last month's monetary policy meeting (see the following graph), with the S&P 500 and the narrower Dow Jones Industrial Average both gaining 1.1%. The Nasdaq Composite Index, which has been struggling a bit lately, rose 1.7%, which puts it back into positive territory for the year.

^GSPC data by YCharts

Speaking of handwringing, the Fed minutes showed some policymakers were concerned in March that investors would misinterpret their new interest rate projections (they did), which were released at the conclusion of the Federal Open Market Committee's policy meeting of March 18-19. In the Fed's language:

A number of participants noted the overall upward shift since December in participants' projections of the federal funds rate included in the March (projections), with some expressing concern that this component of the (projections) could be misconstrued as indicating a move by the Committee to a less accommodative reaction function.

In plain English, some participants were concerned that the market would mistakenly equate a rise in the Fed's interest rate projections with a shift to a more hawkish monetary policy. The final policy statement emphasized that this was not the case, and Fed Chief Janet Yellen tried to minimize the importance of the "dot plot" illustrating the interest rate forecasts during the press conference. Alas, those efforts were for naught, particularly once Yellen made an off-the-cuff remark that suggested that the Fed could raise its main policy rate as early as April 2015.

The Fed and Yellen have since managed to reassure investors with regard to their dovish stance, but this was yet another example of the awkward mating dance between the Fed and financial markets. Investors ought to expect more instances of Fed-related volatility over the next couple of years, as policymakers unwind a monetary stimulus program that is unprecedented in its size and scope.

Seperately, the Fed, the FDIC, and the Comptroller of the Currency finalized bank leverage rules on Tuesday for the largest institutions, requiring them to have at least a 5% leverage ratio (a higher ratio of equity to total assets indicates lower leverage) at the holding company level and 6% at the bank subsidiary level. This will force the eight banks affected -- Bank of America, Bank of New York Mellon, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs , JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley , State Street, and Wells Fargo -- to hold $68 billion in additional capital.

The focus on the leverage ratio -- which does not use risk weights for different asset classes -- is meant to preclude the possibility of banks gaming the system through the use of internal risk models. Furthermore, Dan Tarullo, the Fed governor who is responsible for regulation warned that the Fed could impose an additional risk-based capital surcharge that would penalize banks that use significant amounts of short-term financing. By virtue of their business model, standalone investment banks Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are thus squarely in his crosshairs. This will surely have lit a fire under these banks (and their lobbyists), as any capital surcharge is a potential drag on profitability.

The stock market soared on Wednesday, as initially strong sentiment from investors got an extra push higher after the minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee's March meeting showed greater willingness among policymakers to keep interest rates relatively low for a longer period of time. Yet even though the Dow, S&P, and Nasdaq all posted gains of 1% to 2%, Intuitive Surgical , Walter Energy , and WD-40 were among the worst performers of the day, all falling by 5% or more.

Source: Intuitive Surgical.

Intuitive Surgical's 7% drop came after the robotic-surgery specialist warned on its first-quarter earnings last night. Intuitive Surgical expects that revenue will drop by almost a quarter from year-ago levels, missing what investors had expected by about 13%. Systems sales will be the biggest contributing factor, with a drop of almost 60%. The big question going forward will be whether Intuitive Surgical will get a boost in sales from its new da Vinci Xi system upgrade, which the FDA cleared after Intuitive Surgical's quarter ended. If that view from the FDA turns sentiment about the da Vinci around, then today's drop could be a huge buying opportunity for Intuitive Surgical.

Walter Energy fell 6%, with its coal-mining peers also suffering substantial gains after one analyst team downgraded a host of coal stocks this morning. The problem that analysts see as being particularly acute at Walter Energy is the poor environment for metallurgical coal. Although some other experts believe that thermal coal might finally be bottoming out, steel production hasn't yet picked up sufficiently to make a similar call for met coal. Given Walter's emphasis on metallurgical coal, it will have the hardest time getting through an extended period of weak pricing in the space.

WD-40 declined 6.5% after the industrial and household lubricant-maker released its fiscal second-quarter earnings report last night. Sales for the maker of the company's namesake product jumped 9% from the year-ago quarter, which was somewhat stronger than investors had expected, but earnings fell 1%. Strength in its Americas and Europe-Middle East-Africa-India segment led to double-digit sales increases in those areas, but a huge plunge of 21% in Asia-Pacific sales weighed on overall revenue growth. WD-40 cited high backlogs, poor currency impacts, and Chinese economic uncertainty for the region's woes. Yet investors apparently weren't satisfied with those results or its guidance for the remainder of the fiscal year, on which it repeated prior expectations for net sales and income.

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

What: Shares of Ruby Tuesday,  were shining today, climbing as much as 16% and finishing up 12%, after beating estimates in its third-quarter report. 

So what: The restaurant chain posted a per-share loss of $0.07 against estimates of an $0.08-loss, while revenue dipped 3.8%, to $295.6 million; but that easily beat expectations of $284.2 million. Same-store sales fell 1.9% at company-owned restaurants as Ruby Tuesday is in the midst of executing its turnaround strategy, closing down underperforming locations, and attempting to revamp the brand. CEO JJ Buettgen noted sequential improvement in same-store sales in the quarter, and said the company made "solid progress" on its brand transformation.

Now what: The results show a company still struggling, but Ruby Tuesday's forecast of flat same-store sales seems encouraging after recent declines in that category. Management also said it expects to close six to nine more locations in the fourth quarter, bringing its total for the second half of the year to 30 to 33. If same-store sales begin heading in the right direction and the company can move past its store closings, I'd expect shares to move even higher.

Isn't going on vacation difficult? You go out in one nice dress and suddenly the poor company that makes the thing sells out of them. Wait, you don't have that issue? Well, you must not be Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, aka Kate Middleton. According to the Daily Mail, Catherine wore a Tory Burch dress while visiting New Zealand, causing the dress to almost immediately sell out.

Source: Tory Burch website.

It seems like Tory Burch has been on the cusp of going public for months now. The designer is a direct competitor to companies Michael Kors and Kate Spade , but has yet to get the financial backing to get the same exposure as those brands. Burch's fortune looks like it's made now, with investors waiting in the wings.

The Tory Burch brand
Tory Burch makes high-end clothing and accessories of the sort that royalty would wear. A cocktail dress can set you back around $500 and a handbag runs about the same. It's cheaper than Kors, but pretty close to in line with Kate Spade. It's pricing that's worked well for Spade, with comparable-store sales rising 30% in the company's fourth quarter.

Style.com has described Tory Burch's look as "Upper East Side preppy goes to Palm Beach, with a sixties cocktail-party twist." The fact that Burch is cheaper than Kors isn't going to make Kors feel any better when Burch gets the capital to expand. What matters is what's at the top of the style lists, and Tory Burch is vying for a top spot.

Right now, Kors and Kate Spade have the clear distribution advantage. Michael Kors has almost 400 locations, Kate Spade has over 200, and Tory Burch has just over 100 locations. One of the obvious things holding Tory Burch back is the lack of easy cash. The company is currently backed by private capital, much of it cycled in after Ms. Burch and her husband divorced in 2012.

The future of Tory Burch
Ever since the couple finalized their split, rumors of an IPO have been floating around the street. As steam picks up for a potential J. Crew IPO, it fuels more talk surrounding Tory Burch. The company has generated solid revenue growth, surpassing $1 billion in 2013, according to reports.

That still pales in comparison to Kors and Spade, with Kors generating $1 billion in sales in its last quarter alone. Given her tumultuous back-and-forth with Mr. Burch -- he owned 28.3% of the company when the couple split -- it's no wonder that Ms. Burch is slow to open wide the doors of company ownership.

In an interview with Fortune last year, Burch highlighted the trials and tribulations she had been through in finding investors, and cautioned entrepreneurs against jumping in too quickly. Even with that caution, an IPO from Tory Burch seems inevitable.

That's going to spell trouble for Michael Kors and Kate Spade. Not "end of the world" trouble, but the increase in competition from a hot brand isn't going to make things easier for the established brands. For Kate Spade the pressure will be especially difficult, as the company is currently pushing to expand its Kate Spade Saturday line, which competes for entry-level fashionistas. Tory Burch has a bright future ahead of it and when it finally does IPO, Kors and Kate Spade are going to have to shield their eyes.

It was an ugly day on Wall Street for bulls, with the broad-based S&P 500 shedding more than 2% despite market-topping economic data.

On the data front, weekly initial jobless claims fell 32,000 to a seasonally adjusted 300,000, which was also their lowest level in seven years. This is great news for the jobs market as it could signify that fewer people are having trouble finding work, which may lead to ongoing improvement in the U.S. economy.

Also in the positive column was the narrower $36.9 billion Treasury deficit in March compared to the $106.5 billion deficit reported in February. The Obama administration and Congress are trying to work together to reduce the federal budget, and months like we had in March show that the deficit is starting to be addressed.

This data, however, was no match for profit takers and short-sellers, who pummeled the high-flying biotechnology and technology sectors once again, and piled onto a select group of companies reporting earnings that didn't meet expectations.

By day's end, the S&P 500 had tumbled 39.10 points (-2.09%) to close at 1,833.08. This marks the lowest close for the S&P 500 in nearly two months. Despite the tumble, three companies still managed to buck the trend in a big way.

Leading the charge was Information-technology and IT-outsourcing solutions provider iGATE , which soared 16.4% after the company announced impressive growth in the first quarter. Per its press release this morning, iGATE delivered a 10% increase in revenue, to $302.2 million, as adjusted EBITDA increased 15% due to the addition of nine new customers. Net income of $31.6 million, however, was down from the $34.8 million reported in the year-ago quarter. Still, its EPS of $0.45 topped Wall Street's expectations by $0.04, while revenue beat by $1.3 million. With a revenue growth rate in the high single digits and a forward P/E of 15, it's conceivable that shares could still have room to run higher.

Payday-loan and check-cashing provider Cash America International gained 12.3% on the day after updating its first-quarter earnings guidance and announcing that it was reviewing strategic alternatives for its online business, Enova International, which could involve a tax-free spin-off of the company. Anytime you say the word "spin-off," investors get excited these days, as spin-offs have a way of unlocking shareholder value by making a company's revenue and profit potential appear more transparent. In addition, Cash America upped its EPS forecast to $1.50-$1.55 in the first quarter as compared to the $1.25 it had initially projected. The company attributed smaller loan losses and improved operating efficiencies as the reason for the beat. Given its numerous catalysts and single-digit P/E, I could potentially see this stock heading even higher.

Lastly, drugstore chain Rite Aid tacked on 8.4% after reporting results from the fourth quarter. In total, Rite Aid earned $0.06 per share for the quarter on revenue of $6.6 billion, topping Wall Street EPS estimates by $0.02, and surpassing sales expectations by $90 million. As has been the case in recent quarters, competition in front-end sales has been heating up between it and its rivals causing front-end same-store sales to slump 0.7% in the first quarter. What's notable, though, is that pharmacy same-store sales vaulted higher by 3.5% despite a 1.8% decrease in prescriptions being filled (mostly due to reduced flu shots administered). Looking ahead, Rite Aid anticipates full-year EPS of $0.31-$0.42 on $26 billion-$26.5 billion in revenue, which is in-line to slightly ahead of the $0.36 in EPS on $25.8 billion in sales the Street was expecting. I have to admit that I've been wrong about the comeback in Rite Aid thus far, but I'm still not convinced that it offers better upside potential than any of its competitors.

Yesterday's release of the minutes from last month's Federal Open Market Committee meeting were all the spark the Dow Jones Industrial Average needed to fire up and motor higher. This has been the modus operandi of the Dow over the past couple years: cruise past all major worries and keep moving up.

Source: OpenClips, Pixabay.

A number of factors continue to drive the Dow higher, including improved U.S. GDP growth of 4.1% and 2.6% for the third and fourth quarters, respectively; a near-multiyear low in the unemployment level of 6.7%; a strong rebound in retail sales, including the best year for autos since 2007; and the continuation of near-record-low lending rates, which are allowing consumers to refinance at attractive rates and encouraging businesses to hire and expand using debt financing.

But not everyone agrees that the market, or the Dow, could head higher. Skeptics, such as myself, would be quick to point out that the drawdown of quantitative easing could expose bond prices to downward pressure since the Fed isn't buying as many long-term Treasuries. Because bond prices and bond yields have an inverse relationship, we could be staring down higher interest rates within the next couple of quarters, which has the potential to bring housing growth and job expansion to a grinding halt.

In addition, a number of companies have stepped up their cost-cutting and share buybacks in an effort to mask weak top-line growth. While certainly serving their purpose of boosting shareholder value, these tools aren't sustainable long-term solutions to keep the rally going.

Despite this group of dissenters, there exists a select group of "most loved" Dow components that short-sellers wouldn't dare bet against. That's why today, as we do every month, I suggest we take a deeper dive into these three loved Dow stocks. Why, you wonder? Because these companies offer insight as to what to look for in a steady business so we can apply that knowledge to future stock research and hopefully locate similar businesses.

Here are the Dow's three most loved stocks:

Source: S&P Capital IQ.

United Technologies
Why are short-sellers avoiding United Technologies?

• It certainly wouldn't have been my initial guess, but aerospace and industrial juggernaut United Technologies is the Dow's least short-sold stock. The reasoning behind that optimism is threefold. First, United Technologies has been able to grow both its top and bottom line despite fears of a reduction in government spending. With this "worst is behind us" attitude, optimists have been bidding United Technologies' shares even higher. Second, the company's multiple business segments keep it highly diversified. In other words, if one segment struggles there's an opportunity for another to shine and hedge its downside. Finally, United Technologies last month reaffirmed its 2014 earnings-per-share and revenue forecast of $6.55-$6.85 on $64 billion in sales, crushing short-sellers' expectations that its growth was slowing.

Do investors have a reason to worry?

• United Technologies has strong cash flow and a well-diversified business model, so the only factor that investors really need to concern themselves with is government spending. As I noted above, it appears that many of the steep budget-cut rumors were overstated; however, it's still worth noting that while revenue grew 9% last year, it rose by just 2% in the fourth quarter. It'll pay for investors to monitor in the upcoming quarter whether this revenue swoon is a sign that government spending is still questionable or if this was a one-time blip.

General Electric
Why are short-sellers avoiding General Electric?

• As with UTC, there are a number of easily identifiable reasons why short-sellers stay away from General Electric. Perhaps the largest is General Electric's business diversity. Because GE has its fingers in everything from building turbines for the energy sector to diagnostic machines in the health care industry, there's a good chance that even if the economy weakened, at least a few of GE's segments would outperform. Second, GE's recovery remains on track, with its most recent quarterly report showing a backlog increase to $244 billion, global sales up 13% in growth markets and 8% in the U.S., and overall orders up 8% in total. So long as General Electric's top and bottom lines are headed in the right direction, pessimists are being kept at bay. Lastly, GE's dividend has bumped up to 3.4%, and short-sellers tend to avoid high-yielding companies, as that payment will come out of their own wallet.

Do investors have a reason to worry?

• I don't believe investors have much to worry about with GE. The company made all of the right and necessary moves to shore up its financial arm since the recession, leading to a loan portfolio of much improved quality, and has been quick to raise its dividend when possible to demonstrate that it's focused on returning profits to shareholders. With so many avenues of growth in the energy and health care sectors, I don't see why anyone would go out of their way to bet against General Electric.

Source: Walmart, Flickr.

Wal-Mart
Why are short-sellers avoiding Wal-Mart?

• Finally, we have the king of all retailers: Wal-Mart. There are two key reasons why short-sellers tend to keep their distance from Wal-Mart. First, Wal-Mart is so massive and has such impressive cash flow that it can literally walk all over local mom-and-pop stores. This comparative advantage based on price and product diversity provides a good reason to never bet against the company. Also, short-sellers tend to be very short-term-oriented, and Wal-Mart's beta of 0.4 means it's not very volatile. Its sluggish movement provides enough of an impetus to keep pessimists away.

Do investors have a reason to worry?

• While I don't think I'd ever have the gall to bet against Wal-Mart -- nor would it make a lot of sense, given its strong cash flow -- its business isn't exactly booming, either. In its last fiscal year, Wal-Mart's combined same-store sales (including Sam's Club) fell 0.4%, hurt by the IRS furloughs that delayed federal refunds to a number of taxpayers. With higher taxes expected this year, the amount of refunds doled out by the IRS may drop even further, which could be bad news for Wal-Mart. Put another way, although I wouldn't bet against Wal-Mart, I also consider its upside to be limited at the moment.

Sears Holdings (NASDAQ: SHLD) has done it again. In an effort to "focus on core operations," Sears has spun off yet another subsidiary with the spinoff of Lands' End (NASDAQ: LE) at the beginning of the week. This is not the first (or likely last) Sears spinoff; Sears Canada and Sears Hometown and Outlet Stores (NASDAQ: SHOS) have both been spun off from the struggling retailer. Now that Lands' End is a stand-alone company, is it a good investment? Looking at Sears' track record of spinoffs and taking a dive into the valuation of Lands' End provides several interesting insights.

Sears spinoffs have a shaky history
While many spin-offs are intended to unlock value for shareholders, Sears' track record has been to the contrary. Since the spinoff of Sears Hometown and Outlet Stores in 2012, both companies have declined in value and trailed the market significantly:

SHLD data by YCharts

The performance of Sears and Sears Canada over the past five years has underperformed the market by an even wider margin:

SHLD data by YCharts

Shares of Sears Canada are roughly flat over the more than ten years that the company has been independent from Sears; meanwhile, the S&P 500 has more than doubled in value. With this questionable history of spinoffs, it is important to take a careful look at Lands' End before assuming the stand-alone company will unlock value.

A look at the valuation of Lands' End
Following Tuesday's closing price of $27.34, Lands' End has a market capitalization of $874 million. This puts the company at a very reasonable valuation based on several metrics:

Sources: Lands' End metrics calculated using data from Form 10-K filed with the SEC, Gap metrics per Yahoo! Finance

Compared to a peer in the apparel industry like The Gap (NYSE: GPS), Lands' End appears to be trading at quite a cheap valuation based on each of the metrics above. However, it is important to note several factors that may change this opinion. First, Lands' End has reported declining revenue and slowly shrinking store counts over the past couple of years. In contrast, most successful retailers like Gap have managed at least modest revenue and location growth over the same period.  

Additionally, Lands' End continues to be reliant on Sears. In the information statement filed with the SEC in conjunction with the spinoff, Lands' End acknowledged the following:

"The success of our Retail segment depends on the performance of our "store within a store" business model; if Sears Roebuck sells or disposes of its retail stores or if its retail business does not attract customers or does not adequately promote the Lands' End Shops at Sears, our business and results of operations could be adversely affected."

With 273 "store within a store" locations in Sears at the end of 2013, the success of Lands' End is still partially correlated to the success of Sears' ongoing turnaround efforts.

In addition to the ongoing reliance on revenue from Sears, Lands' End will also be feeling the effects of its relationship with Sears well into the future thanks to $515 million in debt issued to pay a dividend to Sears prior to the spinoff. While the company's strong free cash flow can support this debt level, it is important to note that over a third of Lands' End enterprise value will be in the form of long-term debt for the foreseeable future. This debt will limit flexibility for future acquisitions and investment in growth opportunities.

Evaluating Lands' End as an investment
While trailing valuation metrics appear quite reasonable, Lands' End does not show any obvious catalysts for growth. In the most recent year, Lands' End revenue declined thanks to a net decline in locations and a 7% decline in same store sales. These results are just the most recent installment in a story that began with Sears' purchase of Lands' End for $1.9 billion in 2002 and ends with a decline in Lands' Ends' market capitalization over the past 12 years to just $874 million today. 

A declining sales trend with no clear turnaround strategy and the burden of $515 million in new debt are hard to overlook for potential investors.  This limited upside potential is at the center of the market punishing shares of Lands' End by over 20% since the spinoff. Quite simply, the market isn't interested in placing any premium on a solid cash generating business unless there is confidence that the business has the opportunity to grow in the future. Without a clear path to growth, it is easy to foresee a scenario where Lands' End follows in the footsteps of previous Sears spinoffs with a future of mediocre returns.

The media is abuzz with talk about a widespread security vulnerability dubbed "Heartbleed" that by some estimates has impacted up to 66% of Internet sites.  We here at The Motley Fool wanted to let you know what we have already done to secure our site, the additional measures we're taking, and how you can protect yourself out there on the wider Internet.

The Fool's sites are no longer vulnerable to Heartbleed. Major Internet players like Amazon Web Services and Incapsula, both services that we use to deliver Fool websites, were vulnerable. Both of these services, as well as the other services we use, have updated their software and are no longer vulnerable. This was done within hours of the public announcement of the Heartbleed vulnerability. We have taken the additional precaution of re-issuing our private keys as a proactive measure in order to better ensure the safety of Fool data.

While we have no reason to believe that any of our data has been compromised, part of the nature of Heartbleed is that it is largely undetectable. To better protect yourself, we strongly encourage all users of Fool.com to reset their password now. Our members who access more secure parts of our site will be required to change their password before logging in again. We also highly recommend that you change your password on any site with which you share your personal information. Before you do, you'll want to make sure that those sites have been updated and are now secure.

More information on Heartbleed

Heartbleed is a security vulnerability in encryption software that powers a large portion of the Internet. It can be used to retrieve a website's private key, a major component in encrypting secure Internet traffic.

In the wrong hands, this could be exploited to get usernames or passwords. Thankfully, utilizing this vulnerability to get secure information would have been difficult due to the random nature of the exploit. While vulnerable to Heartbleed, someone would need to continually request an SSL heartbeat over a period of time to collect random segments of secured data. The attacker would then hope that the collected random segments would contain usernames and passwords.

You can read more about Heartbleed here. 

The fight between Carl Icahn and eBay over whether or not it would spin off its PayPal business is officially over. PayPal will remain a part of eBay, but the company has named the former CEO of AT&T, David Dorman, to its board of directors, a move which satisfied Icahn.

In this segment from Thursday's Investor Beat, host Chris Hill and Motley Fool analyst David Hanson talk eBay, PayPal, and Carl Icahn. David notes how unusual it is for Icahn to back down from a position like this, and thinks eBay and its shareholders should be happy with the fact that this feud will now be out of the headlines.

3D Systems Corp. and the other pure-play 3-D printing stocks have had a tough go in 2014, but that's not stopping Belgium-based Materialise from throwing its hat into the publicly traded ring. The company filed for an initial public offering on April 2 to raise $125 million; it will be listed on the Nasdaq, though it didn't provide a proposed ticker symbol. The proposed date is "as soon as practicable" after the effective date of the registration.

Could Materialise be an attractive investment? And where does the company fit into the industry landscape, and how might it alter it?

Pricing terms weren't disclosed, so we can't get a feel for valuation. We can, however, look at its business and financials; notably, the company is profitable.

Its business
Materialise is a leading provider of 3-D printing software and printing services to customers in the medical, automotive, aerospace, consumer products, and design industries, among others. The company doesn't sell 3-D printers, so it's not competing with 3D Systems or the other pure-play 3-D printing companies on that end. Its business is nicely diversified by region, with Europe, the Americas, and Asia accounting for 55%, 36%, and 9% of revenue, respectively, in 2013. 

The company was founded in 1990 by Wilfried Vancraen, its CEO. Vancraen has racked up prestigious honors in recent years, including being selected as the most influential person in 3-D printing by industry professionals and TCT Magazine, and named as one of the five leading players in the sector by the Financial Times.

The company's revenue was 68.7 million euros, or $94.6 million, in 2013. Revenue by segment was:

• Medical: 28.0 million euros (41% of total).
• Industrial production: 27.2 million euros (40%).
• Software: 13.4 million euros (20%).

Its medical segment sells 3-D printing medical software and produces customized medical implants and surgical guides. Over the past year, the company's medical engineering services have been assisting medical device companies with their designs of orthopedic and cardiovascular devices. 

The company has collaborative agreements with leading global medical device manufacturers, including Johnson & Johnson and Zimmer. It prints joint replacement and cranio-maxillo facial guides that these partners distribute under their own brands in the U.S., Europe, Japan, and Australia. Additionally, for select specialty applications -- such as customized hip revision, CMF implants in a patented porous matrix configuration, and osteotomy guides -- the company provides its own CE-labeled implants and guides directly to the European market. (CE is the European equivalent of the FDA.)

The medical 3-D printing space is attractive because profit margins are typically higher than in other markets. So it's not surprising that action in this space has been heating up. Just last week, 3D Systems announced it was acquiring Medical Modeling, which uses 3-D imaging and printing to produce models for surgical planning and manufactures medical devices. Notably, this deal means that 3D Systems will possess the largest combined 3-D printing personalized surgery and medical device services and production operation. This move further enhances 3D Systems' health care portfolio, which accounted for 20% of the company's product revenue in 2013.

Materialise's proprietary software enables and enhances the functionality of commercial and industrial 3-D printers and 3-D printing operations. Its Magics software interfaces between almost all types of 3-D printers, and various software applications and capturing technologies, including computer-aided design packages and 3-D scanners. Streamics centralizes its customers' project data, which makes it easier for project members to communicate with each other and with customers. 

This niche appears to offer the company a competitive advantage. Notably, the offerings of the major companies that sell CAD systems don't seem to fully overlap with its products. While there is competition from several other ends, it's rather fragmented.

The company has an installed base of more than 8,000 licenses. It sells its software to original equipment manufacturers, such as 3D Systems and the other major 3-D printer manufacturers, which bundle the software with some of their printers, and end users, including blue chip names such as Ford and Boeing.

Materialise's industrial production segment produces both prototypes and production parts. The company has service centers in Belgium (it believes its Leuven location is the world's largest single-site 3-D printing service center) and the Czech Republic. It offers a full range of 3-D printing technologies, including stereolithography, fused deposition modeling, PolyJet, powder binding, and laser sintering. Additionally, the company has 13 Mammoth systems; Mammoth is its proprietary stereolithography technology that it developed to print very large parts. Customers include many of the top companies in Europe.

The company has two newer operations that it groups in its industrial segment: RapidFit and i.materialise. RapidFit uses 3-D printing to provide the automotive market with customized, highly precise, and, in some cases, patented measurement and fixturing tools. The company recently opened a U.S. location near Detroit. i.materialise is an online 3-D printing service geared toward designers and consumers.

Financials
Materialise's revenue rose 16.3% to 68.7 million euros, or $94.6 million, in 2013. (Its growth from 2012 to 2013 was negatively affected by 2.1% because of unfavorable exchange rates, primarily with respect to the Japanese yen.) Gross, operating, and net margins were 60.4%, 6.4%, and 4.9%, respectively.

The software segment is the profitability driver, as it generated earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization of 38.3%, compared with the medical segment's 17.8% and the industrial segment's 3.8%. Average EBITDA for the segments was 16.2%, while corporate-wide EBITDA was 11.1%. Growing the software and medical segments faster than the industrial segment will be the key to the company's ability to increase profitability.

The Foolish takeaway
Materialise appears to be a potentially attractive investment. Demand for its highly profitable software systems should continue to grow as global sales of 3-D printers continue to grow. Likewise, its medical niche is attractive from a profitability standpoint, though competition is heating up in this space, especially with 3D Systems expanding its health care portfolio.

Of course, pricing matters, so investors should wait until pricing information is released before deciding on a potential move. Stay tuned to the Fool; we'll keep you up to date on this IPO as more details "materialize."

A Cadillac SRX poses in front of Shanghai's skyline. The SRX has recently been one of GM's star performers in China. Sales were up 54% in March. Source: General Motors Co.

The last few weeks haven't exactly been great ones for General Motors . But GM did get some good news this week -- or at least, some not-bad news.

GM said this week that its sales in China -- now the world's, and GM's, largest auto market -- were up about 8% in March, a little behind the overall market's 9% gain.

That's not exactly spectacular, but it's not bad. As Fool contributor John Rosevear explains in this video, GM has a few things going for it in China right now -- starting with the Buick and Cadillac brands.

A transcript of the video is below.

John Rosevear: Hey Fools, it's John Rosevear, senior auto analyst for Fool.com. General Motors hasn't exactly had a lot to celebrate recently, but the company released its first-quarter sales numbers for China this past week, and they're not bad.

GM said that its sales in China rose 7.8% in March, and 12.6% for the first quarter. GM and its joint venture partners sold just over 900,000 vehicles in China in the first quarter, which is a record for GM.

A lot of that growth came from Buick and Cadillac. Buick is a very well-established brand in China with a long long history, the last Chinese emperor drove a Buick, and it has always done well. Buick offers a big range of cars in China, but its mainstay is a model called the Excelle, which comes in three flavors.

The original one is an older model based on an old Daewoo design, it's sold as an affordable premium compact, and then there's the Excelle XT hatchback and the Excelle GT sedan, which aren't mechanically related to the original Excelle, but are closely related to the Buick Verano sold here in the U.S., although they sell way more of the Excelles in China than they do Veranos here in the U.S.; it's about a 7 to 1 difference. Anyway, all of the Excelle versions are big sellers for GM in China, and they're still growing -- sales of the Excelle GT and XT were up 38% in March.

GM is also doing well in China with the Regal, which sold over 8,600 units in March. That's over three times as many as GM sold here in the U.S. If you're getting the impression that Buick is a big deal in China, you're right, and overall Buick sales were up about 14% in the first quarter.

Chevy also does well, but until recently, Cadillac didn't have much of a presence. GM has put some effort into changing that over the last couple of years, and it's paying off. Cadillac sales in China were up 44% in March and up over 100% for the quarter, with the strong sellers being the big XTS sedan, which was introduced in China early last year, and the SRX crossover.

Luxury crossovers and SUVs are white-hot in China right now. GM is still a minor player in that corner of the market, but they're working on changing that -- SRX sales were up 54% in March, so something's going right.

We don't know yet if GM out-sold Volkswagen Group  in China in the first quarter, VW has released quarterly sales totals for some of its brands, but as of right now, they haven't released a combined number for the whole group for China, but if I had to guess, I'd guess that GM will come in a little behind VW for the quarter. GM of course led the China market in total sales for years until VW squeaked past them last year, but GM continues to put up solid sales numbers, and both GM and VW remain far ahead of everybody else. Thanks for watching.

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

What: Shares of Imperva Inc fell nearly 44% Thursday after the company announced preliminary first-quarter results.

So what: Imperva isn't set to report full financial results until May 1, but based on preliminary information, the company expects quarterly revenue in the range of $31 million to $31.5 million, or well below previous guidance of sales in the range of $36 million to $37 million. This should translate to an adjusted net loss per share between $0.44 and $0.40, compared to Imperva's previous guidance for a net loss per share between $0.37 and $0.33.

Analysts, on average, were modeling a first quarter loss of $0.35 per share on sales of $36.69 million.

Now what: Management blamed extended sales cycles on deals of more than $100,000 for the revenue shortfall, the result of "intensifying competition for large orders" that led to "additional review and approval cycles as well as sales execution challenges in the U.S."

Of course, the prevailing worry among investors is that these sales might not just be delayed, but ultimately lost to that competition. As a result, and despite today's enormous plunge, I think investors would be wise to avoid opening new positions until we receive more clarity on Imperva's forward guidance on May 1.

Thursday looked early on as if it would be a strong day for gold and other precious metals. But as the stock market went through a broad-based major sell-off during the afternoon, gold started giving up some of its gains. At the close, the SPDR Gold Shares finished up about half a percent on the day, but Market Vectors Gold Miners fell almost 2%, and gold mining stocks Goldcorp and Yamana Gold fell 4% and 2%, respectively, as their drama over Osisko Gold continued.

How metals moved today
June gold futures settled up $14.60 per ounce, to $1,320.50, outpacing the gain in SPDR Gold Shares, which reflected a pullback after futures settled for the day. May silver futures regained their lost ground from yesterday, closing up $0.32 per ounce, to $20.09.

Source: Kitco. As of 4:30 p.m. EDT.

On a day on which the Dow dropped 267 points, the relatively tepid behavior in the gold market shows how investors no longer treat gold as a rock-solid safe haven in times of trouble. Indeed, gold's decline as the market's plunge got worse suggests that investors are torn between treating gold as a higher-risk investment or as a flight-to-safety asset.

Image sources: Wikimedia Commons; Creative Commons/Armin Kubelbeck.

Still, several favorable factors are supporting gold prices. Ukraine remains a possible powder keg, as reports of further demonstrations among ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine open the possibility that Russia could make additional incursion into Ukrainian territory. In addition, the dollar fell against the euro and the Japanese yen today, making gold cheaper for investors in those respective areas. And finally, international economic data continues to point to possible struggles ahead, with Chinese foreign trade data showing drops in both imports and exports.

The battle for Osisko continues
The gains in bullion didn't translate into the mining arena, though, as the risk of holding stocks outweighed minimal price gains for gold. Market Vectors Gold Miners was fairly representative of the gold miners on the whole, although Goldcorp fell more than most of its fellow majors.

The big news on the mergers and acquisitions front was that Goldcorp boosted its hostile bid for Osisko, offering cash and shares valued at C$7.65 to make a possible deal worth about $3.3 billion. The move comes after Osisko's CEO had predicted that Goldcorp would not raise its bid, instead surrendering to Yamana Gold's agreement to buy 50% of Osisko's assets earlier this month.

It's clear that Osisko would prefer the Yamana deal, as it would allow Osisko to pay out cash to shareholders while still maintaining control of its Canadian Malartic mine. Goldcorp's bid puts a slightly higher value on Osisko than Yamana's offer implies, but the real issue depends on whether Osisko shareholders want to transfer control to Goldcorp, or keep the company's assets in Osisko's management's hands. The burden now falls on Yamana Gold to come up with a potentially higher bid, or to rely on shareholders to choose its proposal on its own terms.

For gold-mining stocks, M&A activity like this is a net positive for smaller companies. But it also reveals the challenges big companies like Goldcorp and Yamana Gold face in finding promising assets. No matter what happens with gold prices, keep your eyes on the mining industry to see if other companies start making acquisition bids of their own.