Best Financial Stocks To Own For 2017

President-elect Donald Trump has given no indication that he will sell any of his vast business holdings before he takes office.

But if he really wants to eliminate conflicts of interest unlike anything an American president has ever presented, he has some options.

They would be both messy and financially painful. But Trump himself once said that his company would be "peanuts" compared with his responsibility as president.

The most sweeping proposition for Trump: Liquidate his holdings.

He could take his company public or sell the assets, then hand the leftover cash to an independent trustee to manage.

This would be a true blind trust, far from the solution Trump has presented �� letting his three adult children run the family business.

Richard Painter, a former ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush, has advocated that solution.

"I just think he's got to cash out," said Painter, a University of Minnesota law professor. "He may give up some of the value of his name by taking the name off the building and off the organization, but that was his decision when he decided to run for president."

Best Financial Stocks To Own For 2017: International Business Machines Corporation(IBM)

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By WWW.KIPLINGER.COM]

  International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) is another classic tech name trying to get with the times.

  Happily for shareholders, last quarter��s report showed good progress with its turnaround plan.

• [By Arie Goren]

  After reporting much better than expected results for its third quarter fiscal 2017 ended October 30,�NVIDIA (NSDQ:NVDA)�has continued to build new markets signing new collaborations with the tech giants�Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT)�and International Business Machines (NYSE:IBM). In my view, these new developments will enable NVIDIA to maintain its impressive growth and to drive its shares even higher.

• [By Beth Piskora]

  They are listed below:

  Altera (ALTR)��yielding 1.7%
  
  Apple (AAPL)��yielding 2.5%
  
  Applied Materials (AMAT)��yielding 2.6%
  
  Cisco (CSCO)��yielding 2.9%
  
  EMC Corp. (EMC)��yielding 1.5%
  
  International Business Machines (IBM)��yielding 2.0%
  
  KLA-Tencor (KLAC)��yielding 3.2%
  
  Microchip Technology (MCHP)��yielding 3.6%
  
  Oracle (ORCL)��yielding 1.5%
  
  Qualcomm (QCOM)��yielding 2.1%
  
  Texas Instruments (TXN)��yielding 2.9%
  
  Xilinx (XLNX)��yielding 2.3%
  
  

  Subscribe to S&P's The Outlook here��

• [By Tim Green]

  It's easy to be pessimistic when it comes to International Business Machines. The company has suffered from 14 consecutive quarterly revenue declines, earnings are expected to slump in 2015, and the stock has declined by more than 10% in each of the past two years.

  
  

  But a combination of factors makes IBM one of my top stocks going into the 2016.

  
  

  The stock is cheap, trading at less than 10 times the low end of the company's earnings guidance for 2015. This would be meaningless if IBM's earnings continue to fall, but one of the biggest issues for the company in 2015 was a strengthening U.S. dollar. IBM is a global company, and its revenue and profits have slumped as foreign currency translated into fewer U.S dollars over the course of the year. On an adjusted basis, IBM's revenue was flattish in 2015, not exactly the disaster that the headline numbers suggest.

• [By Jon C. Ogg]

  Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) is about to become the most important DJIA stock of them all, as it is battling International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) as the highest stock price in the index. You just need to recall that the DJIA is price weighted, based on a stock’s nominal share price rather than on its market capitalization or economic contribution.

Best Financial Stocks To Own For 2017: Progenics Pharmaceuticals Inc.(PGNX)

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Lisa Levin]

  Progenics Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: PGNX) shares shot up 29 percent to $6.37 after announcing the FDA approval of RELISTOR tablets for the treatment of opioid-induced constipation in adults with chronic non-cancer pain.

• [By Ben Levisohn]

  After meeting with the senior management team of Progenics (PGNX) , Valeant’s partner for oral Relistor, we continue to think that this drug would be a good addition to Valeant’s GI (gastrointestinal) franchise. The PDUFA date for oral Relistor is 7/19/16. Although�Valeant is leading interactions with the FDA, Progenics is highly confident regarding an approval in July based on its discussions with Valeant. Progenics believes that oral Relistor could be a $1B+ opportunity for Valeant, even with the recent decrease in opioid usage. For context, we estimate ’16 sales of $9.9B for Valeant. An approval for oral Relistor would also help remind the Street that Valeant’s brand drug pipeline is underappreciated, in our view. We think pipeline advancements for brand drugs could drive multiple expansion for�Valeant shares (on P/E).

Best Financial Stocks To Own For 2017: Beazer Homes USA, Inc.(BZH)

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Federico Zaldua]

  Beazer Homes USA (BZH), the diversified home-builder which is held by Mario Gabelli from GAMCO Investors, is my top play among single-family and multi-family home builders. While I believe higher interest rates should slow the pace of margin expansion for Beazer, I also believe higher top line growth will more than compensate interest rate effects on net earnings. As a matter of fact, I think gross margins are going to go north of 17.5% by the end of 2014 while top-line should keep on growing at a rate of 25%.