Top 10 Building Product Companies For 2014

It takes money to make money. Most investors know that, but with business media so focused on the "how much," very few investors bother to ask, "How fast?"

When judging a company's prospects, how quickly it turns cash outflows into cash inflows can be just as important as how much profit it's booking in the accounting fantasy world we call "earnings." This is one of the first metrics I check when I'm hunting for the market's best stocks. Today, we'll see how it applies to Quanex Building Products (NYSE: NX  ) .

Let's break this down
In this series, we measure how swiftly a company turns cash into goods or services and back into cash. We'll use a quick, relatively foolproof tool known as the cash conversion cycle, or CCC for short.

Why does the CCC matter? The less time it takes a firm to convert outgoing cash into incoming cash, the more powerful and flexible its profit engine is. The less money tied up in inventory and accounts receivable, the more available to grow the company, pay investors, or both.

Top 5 Heal Care Stocks To Buy Right Now: Nustar Energy L.P.(NS)

NuStar Energy L.P. engages in the terminalling, storage, and transportation of petroleum products primarily in the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, St. Eustatius in the Caribbean, the United Kingdom, and Mexico. The company operates in three segments: Storage, Transportation, and Asphalt and Fuels Marketing. The Storage segment operates terminal and storage facilities for petroleum products, specialty chemicals, crude oil, and other liquids; and crude oil storage tanks. Its terminals also offer pilotage, tug assistance, line handling, launch, emergency response, and other ship services. The Transportation segment transports refined petroleum products, crude oil, and anhydrous ammonia. This segment operates refined product pipelines in Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, New Mexico, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Minnesota; and owns anhydrous ammonia pipelines located in Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, and Nebraska. The Asphalt and Fuels Marketing segment refines crude oil to produce asphalt and other refined products. This segment also purchases gasoline and other refined petroleum products for resale. As of December 31, 2010, the company had 65 terminal and storage facilities providing approximately 80.4 million barrels of storage capacity; 5,605 miles of refined product pipelines with 21 associated terminals that offer storage capacity of 4.6 million barrels, as well as 2 tank farms providing storage capacity of 1.2 million barrels; 2,000 miles of anhydrous ammonia pipelines; 812 miles of crude oil pipelines with 16 associated storage tanks comprising storage capacity of 1.9 million barrels; and 2 asphalt refineries with a combined capacity of 104,000 barrels per day, as well as 2 associated terminal facilities with a combined storage capacity of 5.0 million barrels. Riverwalk Logistics, L.P. serves as the general partner of the company. NuStar Energy L.P. was founded in 1999 and is based in Sa n Antonio, Texas.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Laura Brodbeck]

  Tuesday

  Earnings Expected From: Five Star Quality Care, Inc. (NYSE: FVE), Maximus, Inc. (NYSE: MMS), Nustar Energy (NYSE: NS), D.R. Horton, Inc. (NYSE: DHI), DISH Network Corporation (NASDAQ: DISH) Economic Releases Expected: German CPI, British CPI, British PPI, US Redbook, Indian manufacturing output, Indian industrial production

  Wednesday

• [By Rich Smith]

  Only five privately held firms will participate in this two-year contract (extendable up to five years). No publicly traded firms at all were chosen to participate -- but publicly traded firms did still win a few of the day's smaller contracts, among them:

  A $76.1 million contract modification awarded to the Bell-Boeing Joint Project Office, a joint venture between Textron� (NYSE: TXT  ) and Boeing (NYSE: BA  ) , which instructs the JPO to delivery one single additional CV-22 tiltrotor aircraft to the U.S. Air Force by December 2016. A $39.4 million fixed-price with economic-price-adjustment contract for Sysco (NYSE: SYY  ) to provide "prime vendor food and beverage support" to the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, and Job Corps in Florida through April 16, 2019. A $32.3 million option exercise for NuStar Energy L.P. (NYSE: NS  ) subsidiary Shore Terminals LLC to provide "petroleum storage services" to the U.S. Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps through Nov. 30, 2016. A $7.7 million undefinitized contract modification compensating Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT  ) for "non-recurring sustainment activities" performed on behalf of the government of the United Kingdom, related to the latter's purchase of F-35 Lightning II stealth fighter jets. This contract has a completion date of June 201
• [By Robert Rapier]

  NuStar Energy��(NYSE: NS) is one of the smaller midstream partnerships with a market capitalization of $5.1 billion. �The partnership has operations in the US, Canada, Mexico, the Netherlands, the Caribbean, the UK and Turkey. After selling off a 50% interest in an asphalt venture earlier in the year, Nustar operates in three segments: Storage, Transportation, and Fuels Marketing.

Top 10 Building Product Companies For 2014: MVC Capital (MVC)

MVC Capital, Inc. (MVC) is a Business Development Company specializing in acquisition financing, management buyouts, leveraged buildups, corporate partnerships, PIPE transactions, going private transactions, private company recapitalizations, operational turnarounds, and growth and expansion capital transaction financing. It seeks to invest in mature, small, and middle-market companies. The firm seeks to invest in companies in the consumer products, industrial manufacturing and services, food and food service, financial services, value-added distribution, specialty chemicals, and security sectors. It prefers to invest in companies based in the United States. The firm typically invests between $3 million and $25 million for control and non-control stakes in companies with revenues between $10 million and $200 million and EBITDA between $3 million and $25 million. It prefers to be the lead investor in transactions and also co-invests in companies with other private equity sp onsors. The firm invests in the form of preferred and common equity, and warrants or rights to acquire equity interests; bridge loans; term loans; debt; cash flow loans; senior and subordinated loans; convertible securities; venture capital; mezzanine; and private equity investments. MVC Capital, Inc. was founded in 1999 and is based in Purchase, New York with an additional office at Chicago, Illinois.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Holly LaFon]

  Sorting by market cap, the largest, MVC Capital Inc. (MVC), has exhibited relatively little stock price movement in the past three years. Its current price of $12.10 a share is only 2.7% off of its three-year high of $12.44. Three insiders bought this stock, according to the screener, in the past month.

Top 10 Building Product Companies For 2014: Resolute Forest Products Inc (RFP)

Resolute Forest Products Inc., AbitibiBowater Inc., is a global forest products company. The Company�� products include newsprint, commercial printing papers, market pulp and wood products. The Company owns or operates pulp and paper mills and wood products facilities in the United States, Canada and South Korea. On November 7, 2011, it began doing business as Resolute Forest Products. As of December 31, 2011, it owned or operated 18 pulp and paper mills and 23 wood products facilities in the United States, Canada and South Korea. The Company�� segments include newsprint, coated papers, specialty papers, market pulp and wood products. On January 14, 2011, it acquired the noncontrolling interest in Augusta Newsprint Company (ANC). In April 2012, the Company held approximately 48.8% of the outstanding shares of Fibrek Inc. In December 2012, the Company purchased Bowater Mersey Paper Company Limited. oklyn Power Corporation. Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Seth Jayson]

  Calling all cash flows
  When you are trying to buy the market's best stocks, it's worth checking up on your companies' free cash flow once a quarter or so, to see whether it bears any relationship to the net income in the headlines. That's what we do with this series. Today, we're checking in on Resolute Forest Products (NYSE: RFP  ) , whose recent revenue and earnings are plotted below.

• [By Saibus Research]

  Consolidation has been incremental in the paper and forest products industry. In May 2012, Resolute Forest Products (RFP) (formerly AbitibiBowater) announced that it had acquired 50.1% of Fibrek and acquired the remaining 49.9% in August. 2011 saw International Paper (IP) announce a hostile takeover of Temple-Inland and after offering $32/share in cash as well as the assumption of $600M of TIN's debt, IP was able to close the deal in February 2012. 2011 also saw Rock-Tenn (RKT) acquire Smurfit-Stone to create the number two player in the linerboard segment with 20% market share, trailing only International Paper's 40%. We see these moves as a prudent step to consolidation in the industry as certain types of paper such as newsprint and uncoated free sheet (office paper) are seeing falling demand due to increased use of digital resources.

Top 10 Building Product Companies For 2014: Cellular Dynamics International Inc (ICEL)

Cellular Dynamics International, Inc., incorporated on November 16, 2007, develops and manufactures fully functioning human cells in industrial quantities to precise specifications. The Company�� iCell Operating System (iCell O/S) includes true human cells in multiple cell types (iCell products), human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and custom iPSCs and iCell products (MyCell products). Customers use its iCell O/S products, among other purposes, for drug discovery and screening; to test the safety and efficacy of their small molecule and biologic drug candidates; for stem cell banking; and in researching cellular therapeutics. The Company�� iCell product line includes four different cell types: cardiomyocytes, neurons, hepatocytes and endothelial cells. The Company is actively developing an additional seven different cell types. iCell products are a consumable designed to be used once and then reordered.

The Company manufactures its iCell products from its iPSCs. An iPSC is a cell that has the ability both to replicate indefinitely and to be transformed into any cell type in the human body. The Company�� iCell O/S consists of six products, which include iCell Cardiomyocytes, iCell Neurons, iCell Endothelial Cells, iCell Hepatocytes and MyCell.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By John Udovich]

  Stem cells may not be in the news much�as the sector has moved beyond the use of embryotic�ones, but small cap stem cell stocks Cellular Dynamics International Inc (NASDAQ: ICEL), International Stem Cell Corp (OTCMKTS: ISCO) and BioRestorative Therapies (OTCBB: BRTX) have been fairly active over the past several trading days as ICEL went public, ISCO raised additional funding and BRTX grabbed more attention:

Top 10 Building Product Companies For 2014: Lexmark International Inc.(LXK)

Lexmark International, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, engages in the development, manufacture, and supply of printing, imaging, document workflow, and content management solutions for offices in North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, the Pacific Rim, and the Caribbean. It offers monochrome and color laser printers, laser multifunction products, inkjet all-in-one devices, dot matrix printers, and cartridges and other supplies; and services and solutions, including maintenance, consulting, and systems integration, as well as managed print services, such as asset lifecycle management, implementation and decommissioning services, consumables management, optimization services, and utilization management. The company also provides enterprise content management (ECM) software products, including ImageNow document management, document imaging, and workflow suite that allows users to capture, process, and collaborate on important documents and inform ation, protect data integrity throughout its lifecycle, and access precise content; and industry specific workflow solutions for the healthcare, higher education, government, and financial services industries, as well as for back office functions, including accounting, human resources, contracts, and records. Its software modules include Retention Policy Manager to manage the complete lifecycle of content from creation to destruction or disposition; Business Insight, which integrates IBM Cognos to provide industry and business process dashboards, operational and ad-hoc reporting, and report design tools; workflow software that automates processing steps, simplifies work tasks, and provides real-time monitoring; and eForms module, which enables the online entry and collection of raw data in electronic forms that are accessible from Web sites and portals. The company was founded in 1990 and is headquartered in Lexington, Kentucky.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Evan Niu, CFA]

  What: Shares of Lexmark (NYSE: LXK  ) have popped today by greater than 17% following the company's first-quarter earnings release.

  So what: Revenue in the quarter came in at the high end of guidance at $884 million, topping the consensus estimate of $873.6 million. The same is true for Lexmark's non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.88, which was more than the $0.87 per share adjusted profit that investors were expecting. CEO Paul Rooke said Lexmark continues to transition from a hardware-centric model to a solutions-centric approach, which is underscored by the recent acquisitions of two software companies and the sale of the inkjet business.

Top 10 Building Product Companies For 2014: Fleetcor Technologies Inc (FLT)

FleetCor Technologies, Inc. (FleetCor) is an independent global provider of specialized payment products and services to businesses, commercial fleets, oil companies, petroleum marketers and government entities in countries throughout North America, Latin America and Europe. During the year ended December 31, 2011, the Company processed more than 215 million transactions on its networks and third-party networks. The Company operates in two segments: North American and International segments. The Company provides its payment products and services in a variety of combinations to create payment solutions for its customers and partners. In August 2011, the Company acquired Mexican prepaid fuel card and food voucher business based in Mexico City, Mexico. On December 13, 2011, the Company acquired Allstar Business Solutions Limited, a fleet card company based in the United Kingdom. In July 2012, the Company acquired a Russian fuel card company. In July 2012, the Company acquired CTF Technologies, Inc.

The Company uses third-party networks to deliver its payment programs and services. In order to deliver its payment programs and services and process transactions, it owns and operates closed-loop networks through which it electronically connects to merchants and captures, analyzes and reports information. The Company also provides a range of services, such as issuing and processing. The Company markets its payment products directly to a range of commercial fleet customers, including vehicle fleets of all sizes and government fleets. Among these customers, it provides its products and services to small and medium commercial fleets. The Company also manages commercial fleet card programs for oil companies, such as British Petroleum (BP) (including its subsidiary Arco), Chevron and Citgo, and over 800 petroleum marketers.

The Company sells a range of fleet and lodging payment programs directly and indirectly through partners, such as oil companies and petroleum marketers. It provides it! s customers with various card products that function like a charge card to purchase fuel, lodging and related products and services at participating locations. The Company supports these cards with issuing, processing and information services that enable it to manage card accounts, facilitate the routing, authorization, clearing and settlement of transactions. The Company provides these services in a variety of outsourced solutions ranging from an end-to-end solution (consisting issuing, processing and network services) to limited back office processing services.

In addition, the Company offers a telematics solution in Europe that combines global positioning, satellite tracking and other wireless technology to allow fleet operators to monitor the capacity utilization and movement of their vehicles and drivers. The Company offers prepaid fuel and food vouchers and cards in Mexico that may be used as a form of payment in restaurants, grocery stores and gas stations. Approximately 10.4% of its revenue during the year ended December 31, 2011 came from its lodging and telematics products.

During 2011, the Company owns and operates eight closed-loop networks in North America and internationally. Fuelman network is the Company�� primary fleet card network in the United States. Corporate Lodging Consultants network (CLC) is the Company�� lodging network in the United States and Canada. The CLC Lodging network covers more than 17,700 hotels across the United States and Canada. Commercial Fueling Network (CFN) is the Company�� members only unattended fueling location network in the United States and Canada. Keyfuels network is the Company�� primary fleet card network in the United Kingdom.

CCS network is the Company�� primary fleet card network in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Petrol Plus Region (PPR) network is the Company�� primary fleet card network in Russia, Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia. Mexican network is the Company�� fuel! and food! card and voucher network in Mexico. Allstar network is the Company�� fleet card network in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the Company issues corporate cards that utilize the MasterCard payment network, which includes 176,000 fuel sites and 398,000 maintenance locations across the country. The networks of locations owned by the Company�� oil and petroleum marketer partners in both North America and internationally are utilized to support the card programs of these partners.

UNION TANK Eckstein GmbH & Co. KG (UTA) operates a network of over 46,000 fleet card-accepting locations across 38 countries throughout Europe, including more than 31,000 fueling sites. DKV operates a network of over 45,000 fleet card-accepting locations across 36 countries throughout Europe, including more than 30,500 fueling sites. In Mexico, the Company issues fuel cards and food cards that utilize the Carnet payment network, which includes approximately 8,700 fueling sites and 78,890 food locations across the country.

The Company competes with Wright Express Corporation, Comdata Corporation, U.S. Bank Voyager Fleet Systems Inc., Edenred and Sodexo, Inc.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By MONEYMORNING.COM]

  One of the best companies in this business is FleetCor Technologies Inc. (NYSE: FLT) - and it just got substantially better thanks to a very strategic acquisition. Investors loved the deal, and FLT stock skyrocketed 9.2% in one day on news of the acquisition - and has revved up another 5% since then.

• [By Rich Smith]

  Moving quickly to establish synergies on its Australian purchase of Fleet Card from General Electric (NYSE: GE  ) last month, Norcross, Ga.-based FleetCor (NYSE: FLT  ) is buying another fuel card-issuing and payment-processing business right next door.

• [By Louis Navellier]

  Editor�� note: This column is part of our Best Stocks for 2014 contest. Louis Navellier’s pick for the contest is FleetCor Technologies (FLT).

Top 10 Building Product Companies For 2014: World Fuel Services Corporation (INT)

World Fuel Services Corporation, a fuel logistics company, engages in marketing, selling, and distributing aviation, marine, and land fuel products and related services worldwide. The company operates in three segments: Aviation, Marine, and Land. The Aviation segment offers fuel and related services to commercial airlines, second and third-tier airlines, cargo carriers, regional and low cost carriers, airports, fixed based operators, corporate fleets, fractional operators, private aircraft, military fleets, and to the U.S. and foreign governments. Its aviation related services include fuel management, price risk management, arranging ground handling, and dispatch services; and arranging and providing international trip planning, including flight plans, weather reports, and overflight permits. The Marine segment offers fuel and related services to international container and tanker fleets, commercial cruise lines, yachts, and time-charter operators, as well as to the U.S. and foreign governments. Its marine fuel related services comprise management services for the procurement of fuel, cost control, quality control, and claims management. This segment also provides various services, which consist of fueling of vessels in port and sea, and transportation and delivery of fuel and fuel products. The Land segment offers fuel and related services to petroleum distributors operating in the land transportation market; retail petroleum operators; and industrial, commercial, and government customers, as well as engages in crude oil marketing activities. Its land related services include management services for the procurement of fuel and price risk management. In addition, the company offers transaction management services, which consists of card payment solutions and merchant processing services to customers in the aviation, marine, and land transportation industries. World Fuel Services Corporation was founded in 1984 and is headquartered in Miami, Florida.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Eric Volkman]

  World Fuel Services (NYSE: INT  ) is about to pump out its latest distribution to stockholders. The company has declared a quarterly dividend of $0.0375 per share of its stock, to be paid on July 5 to shareholders of record as of June 21.

• [By Brian Pacampara]

  Based on the aggregated intelligence of 180,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, fuel logistics company World Fuel Services (NYSE: INT  ) has earned a coveted five-star ranking.