Hot Asian Companies To Own In Right Now

No markets are hotter in today's lackluster global economy than emerging markets. As advanced economies around the world slog through recession and slow recoveries, developing nations from Indonesia to China boast swelling middle classes and rising GDPs that have investors salivating at the prospects for their stocks.

China's the biggest story out of the world's top emerging markets, but how is the globe's second-largest economy paying off for big pharma's biggest names -- and who's set to dominate this market in the future? Let's take a look at the companies and stocks set to ride China's growth into a lucrative future.

A market on the move
The potential of China's pharmaceutical market is hardly a surprise. A report �from China's Social Science Academic Press last year estimated that total Chinese pharmaceutical sales will exceed $350 billion by the year 2020. Already, China's the third largest market behind the U.S. and Japan and is expected to surpass its Asian neighbor for the No. 2 spot by 2015.

Top 10 Stocks To Watch Right Now: Whole Foods Market Inc.(WFM)

Whole Foods Market, Inc. engages in the ownership and operation of natural and organic food supermarkets. The company offers produce, seafood, grocery, meat and poultry, bakery, prepared foods and catering, coffee and tea, nutritional supplements, and vitamins. It also provides specialty products, such as beer, wine, and cheese; body care and educational products, such as books; and floral, pet, and household products. As of February 9, 2011, the company operated 302 stores in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Whole Foods Market, Inc. was founded in 1978 and is headquartered in Austin, Texas.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Isaac Pino, CPA]

  Whole Foods (NASDAQ: WFM  ) can't do it; probably John Mackey told you that. Chipotle (NYSE: CMG  ) can't do it. Those sustainable companies that are in our space, there's just not enough supply, so we've got to hope that, over time, that this is going to change.

• [By Daniel Sparks]

  Growth investing relies on a simple premise: Find great companies that will outperform over the long haul, outgrowing their premium valuations over time. This, of course, is easier said than done. In the video below, Fool contributor Daniel Sparks discusses a great way to tell the gold from the fool's gold. To illustrate, he takes a look at Whole Foods Market (NASDAQ: WFM  ) and Panera Bread (NASDAQ: PNRA  ) .

Hot Asian Companies To Own In Right Now: Energy Partners Ltd. (EPL)

EPL Oil & Gas, Inc. operates as an independent oil and natural gas exploration and production company. The company�s operations primarily focuses on the U.S. Gulf of Mexico shelf on state and federal waters offshore Louisiana. As of December 31, 2012, it had estimated proved reserves of 77.4 million barrels of oil equivalent, as well as interests in 37 producing fields located in the Gulf of Mexico shelf region. The company was formerly known as Energy Partners, Ltd. and changed its name to EPL Oil & Gas, Inc. in September 2012. EPL Oil & Gas, Inc. was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By CRWE]

  EPL Oil & Gas, Inc. (NYSE:EPL) will present at the New Frontiers in Energy Conference 2012 hosted by Westlake Securities on September 25, 2012 at 8:45 a.m. Central time in Austin, Texas. Gary C. Hanna, EPL’s President and Chief Executive Officer, will provide a financial and operational overview on the Company during the presentation.

• [By John Udovich]

  Yesterday, small cap Energy XXI (Bermuda) Limited (NASDAQ: EXXI)�announced a deal to acquire�EPL Oil & Gas Inc (NYSE: EPL) to create the largest publicly held independent oil producer on the Gulf of Mexico shelf, meaning it might be a good idea to look at other small cap Gulf oil stocks like W&T Offshore, Inc (NYSE: WTI), Stone Energy Corporation (NYSE: SGY) and Contango Oil & Gas Company (NYSEMKT: MCF). Energy XXI�� CEO John Schiller has talked about the details of the acquisition�with Jim Cramer on CNBC's "Mad Money" and he noted that��EPL Oil & Gas offers areas of expertise that EXXI currently lacks. However, investors who missed out on�yesterday�� 29% surge for EPL Oil & Gas�may want to check out these other small cap Gulf Oil stocks:

• [By Monica Gerson]

  Breaking news

  Energy XXI (NASDAQ: EXXI) and EPL Oil & Gas (NYSE: EPL) today announced the signing of a definitive merger agreement pursuant to which Energy XXI will acquire all of EPL's outstanding shares for total consideration of $2.3 billion, including the assumption of debt. To read the full news, click here. Achaogen (NASDAQ: AKAO) announced today the pricing of its initial public offering of 6,000,000 shares of its common stock at a price to the public of $12.00 per share. To read the full news, click here. Geron (NASDAQ: GERN) announced today that the company has received verbal notice from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that its Investigational New Drug (IND) application for imetelstat has been placed on full clinical hold, affecting all ongoing company-sponsored clinical trials. To read the full news, click here. VeriFone (NYSE: PAY) jumped 9.5% in pre-market trading after the company reported its first quarter results. The firm reported a Q1 EPS of $0.31 versus the Street estimate of $0.27. To read the full news, click here.

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Hot Asian Companies To Own In Right Now: American Capital Ltd.(ACAS)

American Capital, Ltd. is a private equity and venture capital firm specializing in management and employee buyouts, mezzanine, acquisition, recapitalization, middle market, and growth capital investments. The firm seeks to invest in senior debt mezzanine and equity financing for buyouts of private equity firms and direct in private and public companies. It also invests in special situations and in government. In special situations, the firm invests in troubled situations and in distressed situations. In this area, it invests in acquisitions of true turnarounds, 363 auctions, portfolio add-ons, operationally challenged companies; financings in exit, ABL loans, second lien refinance, and direct lending to distressed companies. The firm invests in manufacturing, services, and distribution companies with a special focus on energy sector. In energy production sector, the firm invests in lower risk oil and gas exploration, production and development; natural gas liquids; coal m ining and coal-fired generation; uranium mining and nuclear-fired generation; wind-powered generation; and solar-powered generation. In energy transmission sector, the firm invests in oil and gas pipelines; LNG tankers and regasification facilities; and power transmission. In energy distribution sector, it targets propane distribution; gas distribution; electricity distribution. In energy services sector, the firm invests in oil and gas services and utility services. The firm also targets investments in companies that provide services or products to federal, state or local governments. It seeks to invest in information technology, human resources/benefit administration, outsourcing, transaction processing, engineering and construction, logistics, original equipment manufacturers ? homeland security and component, after market parts and supplies, and technology. It invests as lead or participative investor. The firm and its affiliates invest from $5 million to $300 million pe r company in North America and ?5 million ($6.92520 millio! n) to ?25 million ($34.6260 million) per company in Europe. American Capital, Ltd. was founded in 1986 and is based in Bethesda, Maryland with additional offices in United States, Europe, and Asia.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By James Brumley]

  The market’s starting to realize the selloff was an errant one, as DHI shares are perking up again. There’s still a ways to go before the stock’s back to where it started, though.

  American Capital Ltd (ACAS)

  12/2 Price: $15.29

Hot Asian Companies To Own In Right Now: Westmoreland Coal Company(WLB)

Westmoreland Coal Company operates as an energy company in the United States. The company, through its subsidiaries, engages in the production and sale of sub-bituminous coal and lignite to electricity generating plants; and the ownership of power plants in North Carolina. It owns 5 surface coal mines in Montana, North Dakota, and Texas; and 2 coal-fired power generating units with a capacity of approximately 230 megawatts in Weldon, North Carolina. As of December 31, 2010, Westmoreland Coal Company had estimated proven and probable coal reserves of 389.9 million tons. The company was founded in 1854 and is headquartered in Englewood, Colorado.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By John Udovich]

  Obama�� war on coal has claimed another victim as James River Coal Company (NASDAQ: JRCC) files for Chapter 11, but coal stocks Westmoreland Coal Company (NASDAQ: WLB), Alliance Resource Partners, L.P. (NASDAQ: ARLP) and Hallador Energy Co (NASDAQ: HNRG) have still managed to put in a decent performance for investors���despite the industry headwinds coming from the White House. Just consider this: By 2025, 300 of America�� coal plants will close due to EPA policies for a total of 44,000 megawatts of generating capacity in 33 states to be taken off line. Moreover, Democrats have been putting up roadblocks to stop coal exports���one potential industry bright spot as the US�has the largest coal repository in the world.

• [By Jake L'Ecuyer]

  Leading and Lagging Sectors
  In trading on Tuesday, energy shares were relative leaders, up on the day by about 1.41 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Stone Energy (NYSE: SGY), up 9 percent, and Westmoreland Coal Co (NYSE: WLB), up 7.8 percent. Industrials services shares gained by just 0.02 percent in Tuesday's trading.

Hot Asian Companies To Own In Right Now: Elray Resources Inc (ELRA)

Elray Resources, Inc., incorporated on December 13, 2006, is an exploration stage company. The Company was engaged in the acquisition and exploration of mineral properties with a view to exploiting any mineral deposits discovered.

Elray owned a 100% interest in Porphyry Creek, a 90 square kilometer gold and copper claim located in Cambodia. During the year ended December 31, 2011, the Company has not generated any revenues.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By CRWE]

  Today, ELRA remains (0.00%) +0.000 at $.160 thus far (ref. google finance Delayed:� 1:13PM EDT July 2, 2013).

  Elray Resources, Inc. through its online gaming and turnkey solution subsidiary Elray Gaming, previously reported the launch and operations of the Golden Galaxy online casino.

  Golden Galaxy is a licensed online casino, and whilst it complies fully with the UIGEA (The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006) and does not accept US players it is targeted towards other regulated and rapidly growing markets. Golden Galaxy’s software is provided and maintained by Playtech Limited, the world’s largest online gaming software supplier traded on the London Stock Exchange�� Main Market, offering cutting-edge, value added solutions to the industry’s leading operators. Since Playtech’s inception in 1999 the world�� leading online gaming software company, and bears the official approval of the Technical System Testing of North America Inc. (TST), which has periodically verified that the games are true and fair.

Hot Asian Companies To Own In Right Now: PMC - Sierra Inc.(PMCS)

PMC-Sierra, Inc. engages in the design, development, marketing, and support of semiconductor solutions for the enterprise infrastructure and communications infrastructure markets. Its products include controllers based on Fibre Channel, Serial Attached SCSI, and Serial ATA that enable the development of external and server-attached storage systems; framers and mappers, which convert the data into a format for transmission in the network before the data is sent to the next destination; line interface units that transmit and receive signals over a physical medium, such as wire, cable, or fiber; and microprocessor-based system-on-chips, which perform the high-speed computations that help in identifying and controlling the flow of signals and data in various network equipment used in the communications, storage, and enterprise markets. The company also offers packet and cell processors that examine the contents of cells or packets, and perform various management and reporting functions; radio frequency transceivers, which transmit and receive broadband signals over the air; and serializers/deserializers that convert and multiplex traffic between slower speed parallel streams and higher speed serial streams. PMC-Sierra sells its products to end customers directly, as well as through distributors and independent manufacturers? representatives primarily in China, Asia, Japan, Taiwan, Europe, the United States, and the Middle East. The company was founded in 1983 and is based in Santa Clara, California.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By CRWE]

  PMC (Nasdaq:PMCS), the semiconductor innovator transforming networks that connect, move and store big data, reported that the Company will present at the Citi 2012 Technology Conference on September 5, 2012, in New York, NY.