Leadership transitions in nonprofit organizations can be both a challenging and a promising time for an organization. New leaders come in with innovative projects, but often face internal barriers and a lack of resources.
Last week, the Open Society Foundations, founded by George Soros (left) in 1979, announced an initiative to provide key financial support for a new generation of leaders around the world to enable them to implement their initiatives.
The New Executives Fund is designed to give new leaders the discretionary support to implement the ideas that got them hired in the first place. It is the only available support of its kind for nonprofit leaders at the outset of their tenure, according to Open Society.
“New leaders share a common experience of deferring their visions because they are bound by constraints,” Chris Stone, Open Society’s president, said in a statement.
Top Solar Stocks To Watch Right Now: Nuveen Equity Premium Opportunity Fund (JSN)
Nuveen Equity Premium Opportunity Fund (the Fund) is a diversified, closed-end management investment company. The Fund primarily invests in a diversified equity portfolio that seeks to substantially replicate price movements of either the Standard & Poor's 500 Stock Index or a weighted average of the Standard & Poor's 500 Stock Index and the NASDAQ-100 Index and is designed to support the Funds' index option strategies. Nuveen Asset Management is the adviser of the Fund. The Adviser has engaged Gateway Investment Advisers, L.P. (Gateway/Sub-Adviser) as Sub-Adviser to provide discretionary investment advisory services.
The initial target weighting of the Fund's equity portfolio in seeking to replicate the weighted average price movements of the market indexes will be 75% of the Standard & Poor's 500 Stock Index and 25% of the NASDAQ-100 Index. Over time, these percentage weightings may vary as the result of relative changes in each index. The Fund intends to pursue its investment objectives by utilizing an index option strategy of selling index call options and buying index put options, each on the Standard & Poor's 500 Stock Index and the NASDAQ-100 Index.
The Fund's comparative benchmark performance is a blended return consisting of 75% of the return of the S&P 500 Index, and 25% of the return of the NASDAQ-100 Index, which includes 100 of the largest domestic and international non-financial companies listed on The NASDAQ Stock Market based on market capitalization. The NASDAQ-100 Index reflects companies across major industry groups, including computer hardware and software, telecommunications, retail/wholesale trade and biotechnology.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Robert Hsu]
Here are four to consider:
PowerShares S&P 500 BuyWrite ETF (PBP), yielding 4.09%
Madison/Claymore Covered Call & Equity Strategy (MCN), yielding 8.94%
Nuveen Equity Premium Opportunity Fund (JSN), yielding 9.19%
BlackRock Enhanced Dividend Achievers (BDJ), yielding 7.39%
The yield on these funds is very attractive. Even more attractive is the fact that many buy-write funds actually are selling at a discount to their net asset value.
- [By Robert Hsu]
Name Type of Security� Recommendation� Kinder Morgan Energy Partners L.P. (NYSE: KMP) � MLP August 15, 2013� TeeKay LNG Partners L.P.� (NYSE: TGP) � MLP September 16, 2013� PowerShares S&P 500 BuyWrite Portfol ETF� (NYSE Arca: PBP)� Buy-Write ETF September 30, 2013� Madison Covered Call Equity Strtgy Fd (NYSE: MCN)� Buy-Write ETF September 30, 2013� Nuveen Equity Premium Opportunity Fund (NYSE: JSN)� Buy-Write ETF September 30, 2013� BlackRockEnhanced Dividend Achievers Tr (NYSE: BDJ)� Buy-Write ETF September 30, 2013� Vornado Realty Trust � (NYSE: VNO)� Real Estate
Investment
Trust September 26, 2013�Robert Hsu is the editor of Permanent Wealth Investor and a former hedge fund portfolio manager at Wall Street powerhouse Goldman Sachs. He retired from Goldman at age 31. He since has come out of retirement to establish and preside over his money management firm, Absolute Return Capital Advisors. His retirement experience has given him his current mission: helping investors like you achieve their goal of comfortable retirement through profitable income strategies.
Top 5 Promising Stocks To Buy For 2015: James River Coal Company(JRCC)
James River Coal Company, through its subsidiaries, engages in mining, processing, and selling thermal and metallurgical coal in eastern Kentucky, southern West Virginia, and southern Indiana. It conducts its mining operations in Bell County, Bledsoe, Blue Diamond- Buckeye, Blue Diamond-Leatherwood, Hampden, McCoy Elkhorn, Laurel Mountain, and Triad mining complexes. As of December 31, 2011, the company had 8 mining complexes, including 25 underground mines, 12 surface mines, and 14 preparation plants, as well as controlled approximately 362.8 million tons of proven and probable coal reserves in Central Appalachia and Midwest regions. It sells its coal to utility, steel, and industrial markets. The company was founded in 1988 and is headquartered in Richmond, Virginia.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Lauren Pollock]
James River Coal Co.(JRCC) said it has tapped advisers to help the troubled Appalachian coal mining company explore a potential sale and other strategic alternatives.
Top 5 Promising Stocks To Buy For 2015: Opko Health Inc(OPK)
OPKO Health, Inc., a pharmaceutical and diagnostics company, engages in the discovery, development, and commercialization of novel and proprietary technologies primarily in the United States, Chile, and Mexico. It provides a range of solutions, including molecular diagnostics tests, proprietary pharmaceuticals, and vaccines to diagnose, treat, and prevent neurological disorders, infectious diseases, oncology, and ophthalmologic diseases. The company offers molecular diagnostic platform technology for the rapid identification of molecules or immunobiomarkers; Alzheimer?s test for Alzheimer?s diagnostic; and protein-based influenza vaccines to provide multi-season and multi-strain protection against various influenza virus strains, such as seasonal influenza strains, as well as global influenza pandemic strains which include swine flu, and avian flu. It also offers Oligonucleotide Therapeutics for the treatment of various illnesses, including cancer, heart disease, metabolic disorders, and genetic anomalies; and oligosaccharide for asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases. In addition, the company provides Rolapitant, a potent and antagonist; neurokinin-1, which has completed Phase II clinical trials for prevention of chemotherapy induced nausea and vomiting, and post-operative induced nausea and vomiting; and SCH 900978 that has completed Phase II clinical trials for chronic cough. Further, it offers bevasiranib, a drug candidate for the treatment of Wet AMD; and develops Aquashunt, a shunt to be used in the treatment of glaucoma. Additionally, the company involves in the development, commercialization, and sale of ophthalmic diagnostic and imaging systems, and instrumentation products. OPKO Health, Inc. was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in Miami, Florida.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By James E. Brumley]
Look out Roche Holding Ltd. (OTCMKTS:RHHBY), and Opko Health Inc. (NYSE:OPK) - you're on notice too. There's a new player in the human growth hormone arena, and it may have built the proverbial better mousetrap. Versartis Inc. (NASDAQ:VSAR) only went public in late March, but with the dust from that IPO settling, it's already becoming clear that VSAR - admittedly a one-trick pony - could pose a real threat to OPK and RHHBY... at least on the human growth hormone front.
Top 5 Promising Stocks To Buy For 2015: KiOR Inc (KIOR)
KiOR, Inc. (KiOR), incorporated on July 23, 2007, is development- stage company. KiOR is a renewable fuels company engaged in producing cellulosic gasoline and diesel from abundant non-food biomass. Cellulosic fuel is derived from lignocellulose found in wood, grasses and the non-edible portions of plants. The Company generates hydrocarbons from renewable sources . Its end products are fungible hydrocarbon-based gasolines and diesels that can be used as components in formulating finished gasoline and diesel fuels, rather than alcohols or fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) such as ethanol or biodiesel. During the year ended December 31, 2011, the Company commenced construction of its initial-scale commercial production facility in Columbus, Mississippi, designed to process 500 bone dry ton per day (BDT) of feedstock per day, As of December 31, 2011, the Company had not generated any revenues.
The Company has developed a process that converts non-food lignocellulose into gasoline and diesel that can be transported using the existing fuels distribution system for use in vehicles on the road. Its biomass-to-cellulosic fuel technology platform combines catalyst systems with fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) processes that have been used in crude oil refineries to produce gasoline. The biomass fluid catalytic cracking (BFCC) process operates at moderate temperatures and pressures to convert biomass in a matter of seconds into the renewable crude oil that can be processed using standard refining equipment into its cellulosic gasoline and diesel. In its demonstration unit the Company varies its volume output of gasoline from 37% to 61%, diesel from 31% to 55% and fuel oil from 8% to 9% from its renewable crude oil. The Company focuses on its commercialization efforts with respect to its gasoline and diesel. As of December 31, 2011, the Company had 76 pending original patent application families containing over 2,300 pending claims.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Nickey Friedman]
It has not been a good year for biofuel producer KiOR (NASDAQ: KIOR ) . Aside from the stock being down over 75%, the company has badly missed its guidance targets virtually every time, and its CFO quit without any explanation. Then, to top off the 12 months of disappointment, KiOR ended the year with another resignation and more production shortfalls.
- [By Robert Rapier]
Commercialization all the way to gasoline and diesel remains elusive however. One company that has attempted to commercialize a variant of the fast pyrolysis/upgrading pathway is KiOR (Nasdaq: KIOR), a biofuel company that famed venture capitalist Vinod Khosla took public in 2011.
- [By Robert Rapier]
In 2011, Khosla took public Amyris (Nasdaq: AMRS), Gevo (Nasdaq: GEVO), and KiOR (Nasdaq: KIOR). Each of these stocks started out trading up from the IPO price, with Amyris gaining more than 90 percent at one point. But the challenges of producing fuels from biomass began to mount, and investors realized that this business is capital-intensive. Enthusiasm for these companies dissipated as they fell short of production expectations. Since their respective IPOs Amyris, Gevo, and KiOR are down 70 percent, 92 percent, and 88 percent.
- [By Maxx Chatsko]
KiOR (NASDAQ: KIOR ) Here's a company that often gets associated with industrial biotech companies, but there are very few comparisons. Rather than encouraging microbes to pump out useful chemicals and fuels in biochemical processes, KiOR uses standard thermocatalytic reactions to turn wood chips and waste into drop-in fuels. The company does not produce cellulosic ethanol or biodiesel. The company produces chemically identical cellulosic gasoline and diesel, although current operations churn out fuel blendstocks. KiOR's first facility has an annual capacity of between 11-13 million gallons of fuels, while a larger facility will be three times that size. A modular platform and catalytic improvements will help boost economics and scale for future production.
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