Soft-drink leader Coca-Cola has done fairly well for investors during 2013, treating shareholders to a 13% total return so far this year. But given the 23% jump in the Dow Jones Industrials , Coke's performance looks fairly weak. Even worse, rival PepsiCo has climbed even more substantially, with gains of 26% in 2013. That has investors wondering why Coca-Cola has lagged behind, and what the company can do to boost its performance in 2014 and beyond.

During 2013, Coca-Cola has had to deal with several threats. Sustaining revenue has been a challenge for a long time, but particularly troubling has been slower growth in the company's Latin American segment, which many see as a major potential growth driver for Coca-Cola. At the same time, health concerns have mounted, going beyond obesity-related issues to bring diet soft drinks under scrutiny, as well. With PepsiCo having its snack division to fall back on, Coca-Cola bears the full brunt of the attacks on its carbonated beverage lines, forcing it to emphasize other drinks in order to pick up the slack. Let's take a closer look at what moved shares of Coca-Cola in 2013.

Stats on Coca-Cola

Source: S&P Capital IQ.

Coca-Cola Total Return Price data by YCharts.

What kept Coca-Cola stock from rising faster in 2013?
As you can see above, Coca-Cola kept pace with the gains in the Dow Jones Industrials throughout the first half of the year, but it has largely missed out on the market's gains since July. PepsiCo has done an even better job by outperforming the Dow, and taking even greater advantage of the favorable bull-market conditions.

With Coca-Cola, it's important to go beyond the news of the day and focus on the company's long-term strategic goals. Many of the company's woes lately stem from its failure to deliver on the promises of its 2020 Vision long-range plan, which included accelerating sales growth for its core namesake soft drink while also coming up with new premium brands to supplement Coke's long-term success. Lately, the Coke brand has been under attack on various regulatory fronts, and negative perceptions of sugary soft drinks have presented obstacles to the growth that Coca-Cola anticipated reaping from them. That has shown up in poor results from Latin America, where Coca-Cola has had to deal with the Mexican government's attempts to impose a tax on soft-drink and junk-food consumption.

Yet, even sugar substitutes have caused problems for Coca-Cola. Coke executive Steve Cahillane, who leads Coca-Cola's business in the Americas, acknowledged that recent concerns about aspartame have put the Diet Coke brand "under a bit of pressure." While Coca-Cola has defended the use of aspartame, however, it's also looking at fellow sugar-substitute stevia as a possible alternative.

In light of these challenges, Coca-Cola has done its best to jump on the opportunity in non-carbonated drinks. Since the 2020 Vision plan took effect, Coca-Cola has managed to develop five new brands, bringing in $1 billion or more of annual revenue, most of which are non-carbonated. By focusing on tea, water, juice, and other nontraditional beverages in its acquisition efforts, Coca-Cola is trying to make up for the potential long-term underperformance of its carbonated-drink divisions. But given how large the company's soft-drink business is, it'll take a long time before still-drink growth can offset any weakness in the rest of Coca-Cola's product line.

Overall, the underperformance in Coca-Cola stock seems consistent with the challenges that it, and its soft-drink peers, have faced. Until the company comes up with a resolution to the health-related charges that have come up against its core carbonated beverage business, Coca-Cola could have difficulty regaining the growth trajectory it has enjoyed for so long, and could, therefore, lag behind PepsiCo and the Dow Jones Industrials into the future, as well.

Click here to add Coca-Cola to My Watchlist, which can find all of our Foolish analysis on it and all your other stocks.

Intel boldly proclaimed that it would be selling "at least" 40 million tablet chips throughout calendar year 2014. While getting there will require the company to forgo any real revenue or profit on the chips (thanks to some hefty subsidies), this can be viewed as a relationship-building exercise with the major OEMs. The expectation, of course, is that when the products have the "right" cost structure come 2015, Intel can unlock substantial profitability here. With that in mind, the big question is whether Intel can do the same thing with smartphones.

It's not quite as straightforward
Intel has proven that it can hang with the best of the ARM crowd when it comes to tablet performance and power consumption. Further, since tablets don't usually ship with cellular technology, Intel's lack of an integrated cellular baseband in its products isn't much of a barrier to winning designs in this space (particularly since Intel is shipping discrete data LTE products today). However, the smartphone space is quite a different animal.

In this space, of course, the applications processor is important. Qualcomm , the leader in this market, clearly puts a great deal into research and development, but the modem is arguably more important. During 2014, Intel will have a lineup of fairly competitive applications processors with "Merrifield" and its quad-core cousin, "Moorefield." Its XMM 7260 discrete modem looks good, but how will it hold up to what market-leader Qualcomm will have?

It is likely that, thanks to the low-power 22-nanometer process and exceptional Silvermont CPU design, Intel's apps processors for phones will be lower power than what Qualcomm is able to do with its 28-nanometer Snapdragon parts (the highest end of which have already garnered a reputation for throttling back performance in phones due to heat). However, next year, Qualcomm will still have an advantage on integration (Qualcomm's high-end Snapdragons integrate Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and cellular baseband). While this isn't likely to be a deal breaker for Intel, it's going to make it tough to convince OEMs to switch to Intel.

Could Intel pull the same trick twice?
The big question is whether Intel is going to try to pull the same trick with smartphones as it is doing with tablets. While Intel's smartphone platforms will be designed for smartphones, the bill of materials issue that plagued Bay Trail's assault into the low end won't be here for Merrifield/Moorefield. However, converting designs that are currently in the clutches of Qualcomm will be difficult, unless Intel is willing to price incredibly aggressively.

Further, the bigger concern is the modem technology. Intel's modem products do not include CDMA support, so many of the phone vendors that are used to Qualcomm's parts across their entire lineups would have to do two potential SKUs: one with an Intel apps processor and Intel modem, and one with either an Intel apps processor and Qualcomm modem or a Qualcomm integrated apps processor and modem. It is likely that OEMs would choose the integrated Qualcomm solution.

Finally, Qualcomm is aggressively taking content share in phones by pushing its own connectivity combo chip solutions as well as its own power management ICs and audio CODECs. In short, Qualcomm can offer "the complete platform" to handset OEMs, while Intel still isn't quite there yet. Indeed, Intel has yet to ship its own low-power connectivity combo chips (although word on the street is that they'll be coming at some point next year).

Foolish bottom line
While the tablet market is very much like the PC market in that integration isn't as important and providing the "complete" solution isn't absolutely critical, the smartphone market is an entirely different beast. With that in mind, it is likely that 2014 will be a year in which Intel wins a few "important" smartphone designs from the likes of Google/Motorola, LG, and HTC. But, the company will still have a tough time displacing Qualcomm in the flagship designs until 2015. 

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 drone maker AeroVironment, jumped as much as 13.5% today after the company reported earnings.

So what: Revenue was down 19% in the fiscal second quarter, to $64.9 million, and net income dropped 80%, to $1.7 million, or $0.07 per share. Results were in-line with expectations, and the outlook for revenue of $230 million to $250 million and earnings of $0.35 to $0.50 per share were unchanged. 

Now what: Investors are taking Aerovironment's increased backlog as the reason to buy the stock today. Funded orders are up to $133.8 million from $59.4 million at the beginning of the fiscal year. The order intake in Q2 was positive, but still isn't enough to get me to jump into shares. We've seen the ups and downs of orders for unmanned aircraft before, and one good quarter doesn't spell a trend, especially the direction net income went this quarter.

Long-term, I'm optimistic about Aerovironment, but I'd like to see more revenue and profit hit the income statement, and continued solid orders before jumping in.

Peter Lynch is famous for the idea of investing in what you know, a tenet we espouse at The Motley Fool -- especially around the holidays. In this segment from the Motley Fool's Investor Beat, analyst Jason Moser shares his holiday shopping list and offers advice on how to separate the solid long-term investments from the trendy companies (and possibly bad buys) under your tree.

This Saturday marks the third annual "Small Business Saturday," sponsored by the folks at American Express . Since 2010, the company has been promoting the importance of small businesses in every community and the need to continue patronage of those establishments. Here's a quick rundown of what the program involves, how it started, and how you can participate.

A brief history
Though the Shop Small tradition has only been around for the past three years, American Express really grabbed on to a growing trend of consumers looking to buy locally. Perhaps as a statement to counter the growing masses entering big-box retailers each Black Friday, the date is set each year on the Saturday following Thanksgiving. Within the first year of its plan, American Express's SBS received over 1.2 million "likes" on Facebook .

The following year, Congress recognized the importance of the project by passing a bill to support the efforts to drive new awareness toward small businesses. At the time, small businesses employed half of the people working in the nation's private sector and accounted for half of the private, non-farm product in the Gross Domestic Product.

A helping hand
This year, American Express has listed over 350 separate organizations as partners in the program, including trade organizations, local municipalities, and chambers of commerce. It's handful of "premiere" partners include Twitter , FedEx , Foursquare, and the United States Postal Service. Each company is providing support to small businesses for advertising through either credits (Twitter and Foursquare) or free signage, etc. (FedEx and USPS). The USPS is also providing free shipping for small business orders on the ShopSmall.com website.

Joining in
Local consumers are encouraged to join the team with both social media and other promotional events. You can use the hashtag #Shopsmall in your Twitter feeds or on Facebook to share where you'll be shopping. There's also a helpful search function on the shopsmall.com website that lets you see participating stores in your neighborhood.

Not just for the little guy
Of course, the benefit to American Express goes beyond helping local shop owners. The entire event promotes the use of its credit cards, with members getting $10 statement credit for registering their cards before they go out and shop. But American Express isn't about to forget its big partners -- the company recently teamed up with Walmart to offer the Bluebird loadable card for consumers looking for an alternative to credit and debit cards.

Though the principle of Small Business Saturday is a good one, consumers shouldn't forget that every day could be a "shop small" day, and that American Express will be getting plenty of business on Black Friday as well.

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.

Holy economic data, Batman! With the Thanksgiving holiday closing the markets tomorrow and setting us up for only a half-day of trading on Friday, the bulls were unleashed with a Thanksgiving Day-sized helping of economic data, which helped to push the broad-based S&P 500 to another all-time record close.

As per the norm, weekly initial jobless claims stole the show, with a drop of 10,000 from the prior week to a seasonally adjusted 316,000. Any figure in the low 300,000 range would be indicative of a slowly improving jobs market and should point to a lessening unemployment rate. Although I'd much prefer to see more full-time job creation, any job creation is good news for the U.S. economy.

The Chicago Purchasing Managers Index, despite falling from a reading of 65.9, which was its quickest month-over-month expansion in three-decades, still came in with a reading of 63, signaling ongoing manufacturing expansion. Investors and economists may be underestimating the growth potential of the manufacturing sector, which could easily set the U.S. up for stronger growth than most people are anticipating.

By day's end, the S&P 500 moved decisively higher by 4.48 points (0.25%) to close at 1,807.23, another all-time high.

Leading all gainers to the upside today was home infusion and home health-care provider BioScrip , which advanced 17.3% as it rode the coattails of a partner's announced deal higher. Earlier today, drugstore CVS announced that it will purchase privately held Apria Healthcare's Coram division (a home infusion service provider) for $2.1 billion. This purchase raised quite a bit of chatter on Wall Street that BioScrip could also be purchased at a hefty premium, although no particular analyst stated that he or she sees this happening any time soon, necessarily. Although I see quite the potential revenue stream being created from baby boomers' need for care, the interim, which is plagued by weakening Medicare reimbursements and a slew of recent earnings misses, doesn't look nearly as promising for BioScrip.

Small-cap oil tanker operator Frontline certainly gave BioScrip a run for its money with a 16.2% scamper higher after reporting modestly better-than-expected third-quarter results. For the quarter, Frontline delivered a 12% increase in operating revenue to $126.5 million, as it managed to slash its operating costs by 20%. On an adjusted basis, which excludes voyage expenses and commissions, it produced $51.3 million in revenue on an adjusted loss of $0.46 per share. By comparison, Wall Street anticipated just $49.8 million in revenue and a $0.47 loss per share. Before you get too excited, please keep in mind that overcapacity in oil product transport isn't going to be corrected overnight, so we can probably expect these losses to continue for the time being. However, this is the first time in recent memory that Frontline's management seems positive on its outlook, with the assumption that the retirement of older tankers will soon balance out demand.

Finally, clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company Prosensa which seeks to treat genetic disorders with RNA-modulating therapies, added 15.5% despite no company-specific news today, at least. On Monday, however, Prosensa and its partner, Newcastle University in the U.K., announced the awarding of a 6 million euro FP7 research grant, which will allow the two to research imaging biomarkers that could be used to help treat Duchenne muscular dystrophy patients. If you recall, Prosensa shares were obliterated earlier this year, when drisapersen, which was developed with GlaxoSmithKline, failed to show any clinical benefit in a late-stage trial for DMD. Today's move looks like a continuation of Monday's bullish news, but I'd probably suggest keeping your expectations in check until Prosensa has something considerably deeper in its pipeline.

With 2013 now down to its final weeks, investors are starting to plan for the year ahead, looking for stocks to add to their portfolios.

Of all the Dow Jones Industrial Average components, Procter & Gamble might stand out as being one of the most boring -- the maker of consumer staples largely trades in line with the broader market. But 2014 could be a big year for the company, as new management aims to return it to earnings growth.

Looking for the next CEO
Procter & Gamble's now-former CEO Bob McDonald retired in May, replaced by his predecessor AG Lafley, who came out of retirement to take the position. Lafley, however, doesn't plan to stay for long -- shortly after taking over, he elevated a number of high-ranking executives to run different business groups; one of these will likely be his replacement.

While Lafley is unlikely to be P&G's CEO over the long-term, he could stay for a few years, meaning a transition is unlikely to occur in 2014. Nevertheless, investors should look for more clarity in regards to the company's succession plans.

Bill Ackman's bull case
Hedge-fund manager Bill Ackman led the drive to get McDonald out, pushing the board to consider alternatives in the wake of P&G's disappointing growth, which has lagged competitors like Unilever . Ackman got his wish, and with new management at the helm, he's waiting for results. Ackman's fund, Pershing Square, actually sold much of its P&G position, but replaced it with call options, making his bet on P&G even more aggressive than before.

At the Ira Sohn conference in May, Ackman gave a presentation on Procter & Gamble and his expectations for the company going forward. If P&G's new management can execute, Ackman believes the company should be earning $6 per share in 2016. Those earnings, combined with P&G's attractive dividend, incline Ackman to believe that the company is worth $120 per share -- more than a 40% upside.

Ackman's 2016 price target is still a few years away, but if investors are expecting it to play out, they should look for organic revenue growth and gross margin improvement. In the past, P&G had promised gross margin improvement, but failed to deliver, while organic revenue growth had lagged Unilever's.

A top dividend payer
Perhaps the best reason to own P&G is its dividend. With its focus on consumer staples and regular cash payments, P&G appears to be a great stock for an income-focused portfolio.

PG Dividend Yield (TTM) data by YCharts.

Right now, P&G is yielding about 2.85%, less than Unilever's 3.48%. Procter & Gamble, however, has a 57-year history of increasing its dividend, announcing a 7% increase back in April. Will 2014 be the 58th consecutive year? It's highly likely, and if P&G can execute on its cost-savings plans, it could raise its dividend more than investors expect.

Overall, 2014 is setting up to a major transition year for the company, as Lafley aims to reinvigorate P&G, while searching for his long-term successor.

Many pasta focused Italian restaurant chains are having a tough time. Olive Garden of Darden Restaurants , Macaroni Grill of Ignite Restaurant Group , and others are seeing pullbacks in sales. Despite this tough environment, newcomer to the public scene Noodles & Company seems to have the secret sauce that is bringing guests in the doors in increasing numbers.

Results
Noodles reported its third-quarter results on Nov. 6. Revenue jumped 15.4% to $88.9 million. Systemwide same-store sales climbed 2.1%. Adjusted net income shot up 44.6% to $3.3 million or $0.11 per share.

CEO Kevin Reddy stated that the excellent results were despite "a tepid consumer environment." He stated the company's success was due to investments in its brand. He pointed out their "long track record of strong, consistent growth."

Noodles is seeing an increase in both the number of guests who visit each restaurant and the average amount each guest spends. Reddy revealed that the fourth quarter is already showing strong early performance. The company guided for fourth quarter same-store sales growth of 3.75%-4.25% or roughly twice the pace of the third quarter.

Conference call
In the call, Noodles offered more color. It was the 16th quarter in a row of same-store sales growth. Noodles achieved this without any new marketing initiatives, discounts, or "limited time only" promotions that are common with other chains. This suggests that the brand is indeed the main driver of its success instead of gimmicks.

All of this gives management confidence that it can raise prices without sacrificing guest traffic or sales. The company began the quarter with 1.5%-2% in price increases, and it expects the total price increase for the fourth quarter to be 2.5%.

Competitors
Darden Restaurants owns and operates several restaurant concepts. It had its most recent quarterly report on Sept. 20. Revenue was up 6.1% and same-store sales were up 0.5%. However, the Olive Garden concept was much weaker than the rest of Darden Restaurants. Olive Garden saw overall sales dip by 0.4% and same-store sales dived 4%.

In the Darden Restaurants conference call, the company blamed a failed promotion in July for the weak performance as well as "weaker overall industry conditions ." CEO Clarence Otis also said it was a "surprisingly weak summer."

Ignite Restaurant Group owns three restaurant concepts: Joe's Crab Shack, Brick House Tavern+ Tap, and Macaroni Grill. Joe's saw a 3.3% increase in same-store sales, while Brick House Tavern saw a 4% increase. Both of these are considered excellent in the restaurant industry these days. However, Ignite Restaurant Group's Macaroni Grill saw a 2.7% decline.

Though this was an improvement from the 7.4% decline the quarter just prior, management revealed in the conference call that October was weaker on same-store sales. When pressed in the Q&A session, President Michael Dixon described the October same-store sales as "slightly high negative single digits." That sounds like back to the 7.4% range again. CEO Ray Blanchette warns, "Macaroni Grill remains viable but it's going to take some time to bear fruit."

Foolish final thoughts
Given the struggles other pasta joints are having, Noodles seems to have figured out the perfect recipe to success. It has achieved 16 quarters in a row of same-store sales growth despite the ups and downs of the economy. Look for this company to continue to outperform. As for the stock? Perhaps it needs to cool off a bit first. Noodles may be successful at raising prices, but with a forward P/E of 70, investors may want to be a bit stingy and wait before jumping in.

Hyundai, Toyota , and Honda all showed hydrogen fuel cell vehicles last week, and all said they will have production models for sale soon. Hyundai's will arrive next spring, and the lease includes free hydrogen fuel. Is this the next big thing in green cars? The Motor Money team of Rex Moore and John Rosevear take a closer look at the new models and when we can expect to see them on the road.

One of this year's biggest success stories has been Best Buy's  turnaround, which has sent the stock on a meteoric rise and made it one of the best performing stocks of the S&P. Perhaps this is why the company's latest earnings report came as something of a surprise to the market. The company's revenue miss had retail investors worried, as increased competition from the likes of Wal-Mart Stores and Target especially forced Best Buy into increasing its promotions.

Revenue flat, comps uninspiring
On the face of things, Best Buy's third-quarter report wasn't too bad. Earnings per share of $0.18 easily beat the $0.12 consensus estimate, and were up substantially from the $0.04 earned a year ago. On the other hand, the comparison is an easy one as last year's earnings were fairly dismal. It wasn't so much the earnings that bothered investors, but rather the company's flat revenue growth and soft fourth- quarter guidance.

Total revenue dipped 0.2% to around $9.36 billion. Analysts were looking for revenue of around $9.37 billion. Comp sales were up only 0.3%, although this was considerably better than last year's 5.1% drop. While these numbers aren't too bad, weak holiday season guidance sent the stock plunging.

Best Buy shareholders shouldn't complain too much though with the stock up around 226% year-to-date. Despite this impressive performance, the stock still trades at only 13.9 times forward earnings.

While management seemed quite pleased with its third-quarter top-line results, the company warned about its Q4 gross margin. As a result of pressure from competitors, Best Buy will have to maintain and perhaps even step up its promotional efforts, which is now seen impacting the margin slightly more than previously expected. The negative gross margin impact is now seen at 60 to 70 basis points versus a previous 40-70 basis points. Investors were clearly not amused.

Best Buy is still committed to its price-matching policy, with the company "highly aware" of the pricing pressure competitors will be coming up with for the holiday season. Nevertheless, analysts seem confident in the company's ability to control costs and grow the top line. As such, Q4 results may turn out to be not as bad as some fear.

Pricing pressure mounting
Ahead of the holiday season, which according to many will be a tough one for retailers, companies are aggressively lowering prices. Wal-Mart is somewhat jumping the gun this year, starting price cuts a full week before the Black Friday insanity. Also, like Best Buy, it will be opening at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving night. The company itself is optimistic going into the holiday season, expecting its low-price policy to pay off.

Target is another company expected to suffer from Wal-Mart's pricing power. The retailer will be opening its store at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving night, and like the competition, is working on a range of savings and deals. Throughout the company's Cyberweek sales, around 100,000 items will be marked down.

Shopper's using Target's REDcard get an additional 5% discount on most products during the week. Basically, most retailers will be feeling the pinch from promotional spending, with Wal-Mart's enormous pricing power a threat to other big names.

The bottom line
Investors weren't too pleased with Best Buy's Q3 report, as flat revenue and uninspiring Q4 guidance weighed on the company's stock price. Pricing initiatives from Wal-Mart especially will keep Best Buy spending money on promotions, a factor which will also affect competitor Target. On the other hand, the stock is still trading at a very reasonable multiple despite an incredible rise in stock price this year, and the company may have some surprises in store for its holiday earnings report.

Adding an array of asset classes to your stock allocation can sometimes provide ballast for your portfolio, similar to how a keel keeps a sailboat afloat. Diversification can also reduce the overall volatility of the stock portfolio.

Central to this concept is the correlation among asset classes -- i.e., the measure of how different securities tend to move in relation to each other. In theory, by mixing low-correlated asset classes with your stock allocation, you can reduce portfolio volatility.

To have the greatest asset-allocation benefit from a mix of two asset classes, the asset classes would have a correlation of -1, meaning they tend to move in the exact opposite direction of each other. A positive correlation of 1 between two asset classes would therefore provide no reduction in portfolio volatility, as they would generally move in tandem.

To understand the realities of asset class correlations, let's look at long-term and short-term correlations during the 2008 financial-market meltdown using four exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, for the stock, bond, gold, and commodity asset classes.

Since April 2007, the average 12-month correlations of the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index ETF with the Vanguard Total Bond Market Index ETF , the SPDR Gold Shares ETF , and the iShares S&P GSCI Commodity-Indexed Trust were as follows:

• Stocks and bonds: -0.34. Therefore if stocks fell 10% over the period, then bonds would increase 3.4%.
• Stocks and gold: 0.13. If stocks fell 10%, then gold would fall 1.3%.
• Stocks and commodities: 0.72. If stocks fell 10%, then commodities would fall 7.2%.

Mixing stocks with bonds therefore appears to provide you the greatest asset-allocation benefit of reducing volatility over long-term periods.

However, the real-world asset-allocation dynamics during the 2008 financial markets meltdown were much more variable. Between September and October of 2008, correlations spiked, asset classes moved down in sync, diversification failed, and strategic asset-allocation portfolios dropped more than expected.

Here are the correlations between stocks and other asset classes during the meltdown:

The following table details the corresponding returns during this critical period.

Month-to-month correlations between stocks and other asset classes can vary widely and increase significantly during a financial crisis. The only panacea to protect your assets during a financial-market meltdown in which stocks, bonds, gold, and commodities are falling together is an allocation to the cash asset class.

GameStop isn't just surviving as the video game industry marches toward a digital sales model -- it's thriving. In the video below, Fool contributor Demitrios Kalogeropoulos explains how. With game publishers like Activision Blizzard and Electronic Arts reporting record digital revenue, GameStop just managed its best sales results in years. Sure, the retailer had some help from Take-Two Interactive  and its blockbuster Grand Theft Auto V release.

But GameStop also logged steady growth in its mobile and digital initiatives as well. And, most importantly, the company is making full use of trade-in business to give it a critical pricing advantage over competitors. That points to continued outperformance for the retailer through the holiday season, Demitrios argues.

At the beginning of 2013, Lone Pine Capital was the seventh-largest hedge fund in America. Led by portfolio manager Stephen Mandel, the fund recently had a portfolio value of more than $22 billion. According to Insider Monkey, Mandel has also been able to outperform the S&P 500 by 20 percentage points per year over the last 11 years.

With performance like that, it's worth checking out what Mandel is buying and selling. Though his firm made more than 60 different buy and sell trades during the third quarter, I want to focus on two big buys and one notable sell that Mandel made.

Baidu

 
It's not too hard to see why Baidu was such a juicy target for Mandel. Before July 1, Baidu -- the largest search engine in China -- was trading for just 25 times earnings. That might sound pricey, but over the past five years, Baidu has grown revenue by 72% and earnings by 85% -- per year!

The dual concerns of increased competition from Qihoo 360 and slowing profits during the company's transition to mobile advertising had investors worried. But Baidu had a much larger war chest of cash to spend on expansion than Qihoo, and it flexed those muscles in mid-July when it acquired 91Wireless -- China's third-largest mobile-apps player.

Couple that with earnings releases that show solid revenue gains in mobile, and the stock is up 72% since then. Mandel's stake in Baidu was worth nearly $820 million by the end of September.

21st Century Fox

  
Having changed its name from News Corporation, Fox has TV, cable, and broadcast entities spread throughout the world, including FOX, Fox Sports, and Fox News. It should be noted that although the report suggests that Mandel initiated a position in Fox worth approximately $627 million, much of the "new" position came simply from holding on to shares whose ticker symbol changed.

What's interesting about the move is that it appears Mandel sold off any shares of the new News Corporation that Lone Pine received after getting spun off from the newly renamed Fox. By doing so, Mandel showed a lack of confidence in the newspaper and publishing entities that were placed into the spun-off News Corp. Unlike those dying industries, Fox contains rights to a host of popular characters, as well as a popular platform for sports viewing that is second only to Disney's ESPN.

Intuitive Surgical

Source: Intuitive Surgical.   

Meanwhile, Mandel had no interest in holding on to shares of Intuitive Surgical, maker of the daVinci Robotic Surgical System. Though it's impossible to tell when the sale was made during the third quarter, Lone Pine's exit was likely in the ballpark of a $430 million sale.

Trouble started brewing for Intuitive investors earlier in the year when an article appearing in the Journal of the American Medical Association called into question the prudence of using daVinci for a large portion of hysterectomies. The procedure is the most common for which the daVinci is used.

But the straw that broke the camel's back was likely the surprisingly slow sales of daVinci units in the United States. After years of growth, hospital spending on new machines was much lower than expected. Many believe that was due to cash flow uncertainty in the face of new regulations from the Affordable Care Act -- otherwise known as Obamacare.

With hospitals unwilling to pay for new machines until the fiscal picture clears up, Mandel decided not to stay around to see what happens, and focused Lone Pine's capital in other areas.

Even as conferees meeting at the Royal Society in London were hearing about how e-cigarettes could save millions of lives annually, European Community regulators in Brussels are drafting rules that would virtually ban their existence.

With Philip Morris International finally planning the introduction of its own e-cig brand into the market next year, the timing of the news could not have been worse. Cigarette volumes are falling globally, and while Altria and Lorillard are raising prices to offset the decline, tobacco companies have been turning to e-cigs as a means of bolstering their bottom line. A move by the EU to ban them could turn up the pressure on their performance going forward.

Source: Totally Wicked E Liquid (USA).

E-cig manufacturer Totally Wicked got hold of the proposed regulations that, if implemented, would ban all refill liquids, refillable atomizers, and almost all flavors, while imposing arbitrary restrictions on nicotine levels. The company's CEO didn't mince words in condemning the proposal, as well as the actions by the pharmaceutical industry and the tobacco companies themselves:

What is absolutely clear is that these few individuals are attempting to destroy the utility of a truly remarkable product in the interests of perpetuating a sinister duopoly that is contrary to the interests of European public health and basic morality.

Despite the relative health benefits of e-cigarettes compared to their tobacco cousins, regulators can't seem to allow themselves to get out of the way of their proliferation. The tobacco-less product has 450 times lower levels of toxicants in its vapors than can be found in cigarette smoke, but the U.K. recently chose to regulate e-cigs as a medicine, a far stricter label even though cigarettes themselves are exempt from the rules. 

That's likely because manufacturers of other smoking-cessation products lobbied hard against the e-cigs. London-based GlaxoSmithKline  sells Nicorette nicotine chewing gum in the U.S., while McNeil, the the manufacturer of Nicorette gum, patches, inhalers, and sprays, is owned by Johnson & Johnson .

Nicorette has a 37% share of the U.K.'s smoking cessation market, and the growing popularity of e-cigs threatens that position because e-cigs are more for those who want to continue enjoying the pleasure associated with smoking while the competing products are for those who want to quit. There seems to be a preponderance of those favoring the former.

The EU actually voted last month in favor of regulating e-cigs under the less restrictive tobacco products rules rather than as a medicine, but as the documents uncovered by Totally Wicked show, the forces arrayed against the industry are still at work behind the scenes trying to undermine its growth.

And growing it is. As the Royal Society conference heard, there are an estimated 7 million e-cig users across Europe, double the number present just four years ago, and whereas Philip Morris estimates the global market for the product is currently around $2 billion -- half of it in the U.S. alone -- it's just a tiny fraction of the $800 billion worldwide tobacco industry. Their growing popularity and perceived health benefits could tilt the playing field in further favor of the e-cig and against other products.

The international tobacco giant also sees industry cigarette volumes falling an additional 2% to 3% next year, including 7% to 8% in the EU, and 9% to 11% in Russia. Compare that with the 25% annual growth rate the e-cig market experienced in just the past two years, and the better than 30% compounded growth rate analysts expect over the next five years, and the huge opportunity for the tobacco companies to offset cigarette losses is readily apparent.

That is, if the special interests represented by Glaxo and J&J don't persuade EU regulators to stub out their potential before they've even had a chance to really gain traction.

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

Rising for a fifth straight day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average set another all-time closing record Wednesday -- just in time for investors to give thanks for a raging bull market. Wall Street applauded steady improvement in the labor market, as initial jobless claims dipped slightly last week, falling from 326,000 to 316,000. German politicians also progressed toward a deal aimed at jump-starting the economy, which bodes well for Europe's tenuous recovery. By day's end the Dow was up 24 points, or 0.2%, to end at 16,097, a new record close.

Though food is surely a dominant theme in American households on the eve of Thanksgiving, fast food isn't quite so relevant. McDonald's stock, in fact, ended as the Dow's weakest performer, slumping 1.2% today. It's tough to remain the hottest item on the menu for long in the fast food industry, and although McDonald's remains the biggest in the business, its competition boasts juicier growth potential. The Battle of the Burger is increasingly being waged overseas, where Burger King Worldwide and Yum! Brands wield growing influence. You wouldn't think a company called Burger King would audaciously enter the largely Hindu country of India -- given the Hindu belief in bovine sacredness -- but Burger King is doing just that. The gloves are off, Ronald.

Barnes & Noble , which knows a thing or two about fierce competition, saw shares rebound sharply from yesterday's 6% slump. The stock added 8% Wednesday as Barnes & Noble stepped up its Black Friday discounts to attract customers and undercut rivals. The bookseller will offer its Nook Simple Touch e-reader for just $39, as the company scrambles to make sure it doesn't go down the path of its defunct former colleague, Borders. While my own colleague Michael Lewis cheers the company's ability to stay afloat and even turn a profit in its most recent quarter, the long-term viability of the business remains uncertain.

Finally, TiVo stock shed 4.4% today, despite beating earnings estimates and forecasting sales growth between 26% and 29% in its current quarter. TiVo shareholders, reasoning from a long-term perspective, weren't crazy about the company's growing reliance on cable partners in the recent report. The way people consume entertainment is beyond a tipping point, and TiVo must figure out a way to remain relevant in an age of online programming, either that or risk running reruns of horror shows for its investors. 

With holiday shopping season in full swing, millions of Americans will get offers to open new credit card accounts. Yet as attractive as those credit card offers might be, with 0% financing offers and other tempting incentives, there's a catch that can cost you hundreds of dollars in finance charges if you're not careful.

In the following video, Dan Caplinger, The Motley Fool's director of investment planning, looks at these popular 0% credit card offers. He notes that the offers give you a certain amount of time to pay off the balance interest-free, making them useful for those who have the financial wherewithal to pay down their debt at will. But as Dan also points out, many cards charge deferred interest retroactively if you fail to make a payment or don't pay off your full balance as the initial offer's fine print specifies. With a study from CardHub naming Amazon.com , Apple , Lowe's , and Wal-Mart among the retailers offering cards with potential deferred interest, shoppers have to be careful to know what they're getting into when they accept a card offer.

A truncated holiday-shopping season is prompting more stores to open on Thanksgiving Day, sparking public outcry. A "Say No to Shopping on Thanksgiving" page on Facebook has accumulated more than 50,000 likes, and Change.org currently has 60 "Save Thanksgiving" petitions active on its site, which together have netted more than 200,000 signatures. Companies being asked to reconsider their open-door policies include Target, Best Buy, and Walmart.

Despite the outrage, surveys show that many consumers are planning to enter the Thanksgiving Day shopping fray. A poll taken early this month by the International Council of Shopping Centers showed that 13% said they would venture out on Thanksgiving, with 46% saying they would wait until Black Friday. A more recent survey by the National Retail Federation noted that almost 25% of respondents indicated that they would shop on Turkey Day.

Who will be the biggest winners?
Whether retailers reap financial rewards or public condemnation following this experiment remains to be seen. Regardless of the post-Thanksgiving Day shopping fallout, credit-card companies promise to be the real winners, particularly if recent research by Visa is any indication.

In some good news for competitors MasterCard and American Express as well, the Visa study notes that e-commerce has increased by 17% in 2013 compared to last year, and 87% of consumers plan to do part of their holiday shopping online. In general, respondents said that they plan to use plastic for holiday purchases, with 56% saying they plan to pay with credit cards, and 30% indicating that the debit card is their preferred payment method.

Another plus for credit card companies is the news that gift cards are at the top of shoppers' buying lists for this holiday season. A study by Accenture shows 56% of those polled said they plan to buy gift cards this year, while the NRF puts its estimate much higher, saying that at least 80% of shoppers plan to do so. While many of these cards will likely be brand-specific, more shoppers are turning back to general-use cards issued by Visa, MasterCard, and American Express now that new regulations make hidden maintenance fees less of a problem.

A recent poll by the Georgetown Institute for Consumer Research shows that shoppers are planning to spend up a storm over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, and expect to spend more than half of their gift-buying budgets during that time frame. For the big three credit-card purveyors, the abbreviated holiday-shopping season is shaping up to be a merry one.

The Dow Jones Industrials are closed for the Thanksgiving holiday. But with most international markets open, it's a good time to take a look at how foreign currencies have an impact on the Dow. Today, let's take a look at how much business the three newest Dow components, Visa , Nike , and Goldman Sachs , do overseas, and therefore how much exposure they have to potential moves in the value of the U.S. dollar.

Why currencies matter
With third-quarter earnings reports all in, one trend that hit several Dow companies this quarter was the negative impact of U.S. dollar strength on their overall results. To the extent that a company gets revenue abroad, the rate at which it can translate the foreign currency it receives into U.S. dollars has a big impact on its reported revenue and earnings. A weak dollar makes those foreign currency profits more valuable in dollar terms, while a strong dollar means getting fewer dollars for that currency.

For Visa, international expansion has become increasingly important to the credit card network giant's business. Overall, Visa gets 44% of its revenue from its international segment, and the amount of revenue it gets abroad has doubled over the past five years. Nevertheless, some investors remain concerned that rival MasterCard has done an even better job of tapping the potential of overseas markets. Indeed, MasterCard gets more than 60% of its revenue outside the U.S., and it has seen especially quick growth over the past couple of years.

Nike's worldwide brand has had international appeal for decades, and its global customer base has been instrumental to the athletic apparel-maker's overall growth. Even though Nike has done an especially good job of keeping its domestic sales up recently, the company gets only 40% of its revenue from its U.S. division. The challenge the company faces is making its international business more profitable, as more than three-quarters of Nike's operating profit comes from its domestic operations.

As an icon of American capitalism, Goldman has extended its reach around the world, and its financial results reveal the extent of its success. The investment bank still gets about 60% of its revenue from the U.S., and tougher conditions in overseas capital markets have hurt its sales in Europe and Asia far more than they have closer to home. Nevertheless, the company sees plenty of growth opportunities outside the U.S., and investors have to hope that it can take maximum advantage of them, especially if domestic regulation keeps getting tighter.

The newest Dow members continue the trend towards substantial international presence. As a result, they all could see effects from the dollar's moves in the months and years to come.

Source: Marcus Quigmire, via Wikimedia Commons.

As we gather with family and friends for a traditional Thanksgiving meal this year, it's worth considering where all of that spectacular food comes from. Of course, it's probably something worth considering year round, but if we must pick just one day for such questions, Thanksgiving is a good one.

So in an attempt to lift the veil on what's behind our annual feast, here are three things you probably didn't know about your Thanksgiving meal.

1. A "natural" turkey isn't quite what you think
There are lots of buzzwords attached to food these days, and it can be difficult to decipher what they mean. When you read "natural," you could be forgiven for thinking that your turkey was raised in a way that mimics how turkeys naturally grow in the wild.

But it doesn't quite work that way. Instead, "natural" means that your turkey has no artificial ingredients. The label doesn't, however, speak to how the turkey was raised. It could have been given antibiotics regularly, fed an unnatural diet of animal by-products, and kept in cramped quarters. 

If you're really after a bird that was raised "naturally," your best bet is to buy a USDA-certified organic one. In addition to being 100% turkey, the label guarantees that that your meal came from a bird free of antibiotics, allowed to range freely in an open pasture, and given a vegetarian diet devoid of herbicides, pesticides, and genetically modified organisms (GMOs). 

2. Speaking of GMOs, there's probably a lot of them in your meal
Genetically modified organisms were made available for public consumption just 20 years ago. Since then, they have become the dominant form of farming cash crops.

GMOs have come under intense scrutiny lately from opponents who claim the long-term health consequences have yet to be determined and that the practice causes untold damage to the environment.

As it stands now, the following plants are predominantly forms of GMOs.

Source: Non-GMO Project. 

Unless they are marked as USDA-certified organic, your Thanksgiving turkey and ham likely fed on corn and soy GM feed while it was fattening up. The butter in your mashed potatoes and casserole dishes probably came from cows fed GMOs. Even things cooked in vegetable or canola oil were likely exposed to GMOs. And though cranberries, pumpkins, and sweet potatoes are most assuredly not GMOs, if any non-cane-sugar sweeteners were added (via high fructose corn syrup or sugar beets), GMOs are probably there.

No scientific studies have been able to conclusively determine that GMOs are nutritionally different than conventionally grown foods, but should this be something you want to avoid, read all of your labels extra carefully.

3. Lower standards are what's keeping the cost of your Thanksgiving meal low
Without a doubt, we'd all like to see the price for putting a great Thanksgiving meal on the table to remain reasonable. But one of the ways major corporations are able to offer such great deals is by raising turkeys in conditions that are less than desirable -- with constant use of antibiotics, cramped quarters, and lots of animal excrement.

Turkeys at a North Carolina farm owned by Butterball. Source: Mercy for Animals, via Wikimedia Commons.

But that practice may now be backfiring. Butterball, America's largest producer of Thanksgiving turkeys, reported that this year there would only be half as many turkeys available above 16 pounds. The reason is that the birds have been mysteriously unable to gain as much weight as they have in the past. 

The company hasn't released many details concerning the development. But that hasn't stopped some who oppose the industry from drawing knee-jerk conclusions -- like the fact that antibiotic-resistant forms of bacteria are now making their way into turkey farms.

Don't let it ruin your day
Though much of this information might sound grim, don't let it stop you from enjoying your Thanksgiving Day with friends and family. In the end, you have a lot of choice in how you celebrate the holiday.

And should you choose to spend the extra cash to help make the meal meet your standards, industry experts have one foolproof way of keeping costs (and waste) down: Celebrate with more people. Food safety concerns or not, it's hard to argue with a suggestion like that.