Unfortunately for Lexicon Pharmaceuticals' (LXRX) shareholders, things aren't going to plan yet. The company's LX4211 remains the only compound I'm aware of that inhibits both SGLT1 and SGLT2 (other drugs just address SGLT2) and the data have been good so far. Yet, another SGLT2 partnership deal has gone off in the space without including Lexicon - forcing investors to wonder whether a good partnership deal actually is out there to be had and/or whether the company will have to contemplate going it alone into Phase III studies.

The Latest Deal Is Unusual

It's not all that uncommon

Every so often, an investor will set out to research a company expecting to find a certain type of company and find something completely different. That happens to be the case with me and Erickson Air-Crane (EAC). I originally began my research here thinking I was going to be looking at a small specialty aircraft manufacturer, but instead found myself looking at an increasingly diversified heavy-lift and helicopter service specialist.

Erickson certainly has some interesting points going for it. It is one of the largest providers of helicopter-based heavy lift services in the country, and management is focused on diversifying and maximizing the company's revenue opportunity. While I think consolidation and diversification can deliver interesting growth in the years to come, the debt-heavy balance sheet throws a few kinks into the valuation analysis.

Heavy Lifting, With A Focus On Firefighting

The core business of Erickson Air-Crane is the operation

With a majority of the major orthopedic and medical technology companies having reported now, it's pretty clear that key markets like orthopedics and surgery are still seeing pretty sluggish performance. Yet the stocks of companies like Stryker (SYK), Zimmer (ZMH), and Covidien (COV) have done pretty well over the last year, as investors look for performance to rebound and return to names that were beaten up a little too much. Though I still think there's money to be made in Stryker's stock, the gains are likely to be more gradual from here.

Confusing Numbers in the First Quarter

Stryker's first-quarter results were not the cleanest or most easily digestible we've seen from this company. In particular, both foreign currency and a change in the number of selling days interfered with easy comparisons.

Revenue was up about 1% as reported, with the company coming in just shy of

The strong revenue growth and lucrative margins of Illumina's (ILMN) core sequencing business has attracted ample competition over the years. It's testament to the quality of Illumina's technology (both acquired and internally-developed), though that a lot of these competitive attempts have only served to highlight the attributes and advantages of the company's approach.

I certainly have my questions and doubts about Illumina. I do think the company was caught a little flat-footed by the success of Life Technologies' (LIFE) Ion Torrent products, and my talks with several people in academic/research labs do lead me to believe they rushed their high-throughput products to market (leading to some unhappy customers). Last and not least, I think that Street expectations for sequencing-driven clinical diagnostics could be ambitious. All of that said, though, it's hard not to acknowledge and appreciate the business that Illumina is building here.

In Tough Times, A Strong Quarter Means

In the case of Alkermes (ALKS), it would seem that having an actual cash flow-generating business is almost a detriment to the stock. Given that I believe Alkermes combines a strong (and fairly stable) royalty-generating business with a high-risk/high-reward, but undervalued, pipeline, I believe this is a stock worth considering even at these relatively elevated prices for biotech stocks.

A Stable Of Strong Horses

While Alkermes does boast over 20 commercial products, the reality is that the company's business revolves around five primary compounds today, compounds based upon the company's technologies in controlled oral release and extended-release injectables. While getting so much of

Over the last decade or so, a host of software companies have tried to build successful businesses with models different than those used by industry giants including IBM (IBM), Oracle (ORCL), and Microsoft (MSFT). While Salesforce.com (CRM) and NetSuite (N) have gone the software-as-a-service (SaaS, or Cloud) route, others like Red Hat (RHT) have looked to maintenance and support instead of the software itself as the source of value.

That brings us to SolarWinds (SWI). There's nothing unusual per se about network management tools - companies like IBM and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) have been selling them for years. What's different about SolarWinds is both the sales model (a low-touch model that relies on 3rd parties like search engines) and the product positioning (lagging tech, but cheap and easy to use). So far, the results have been impressive as SolarWinds has posted exceptional revenue growth and operating margins. As is so often

When most med-tech companies trade at an EV-to-sales multiple of 2x to 4x, Medical Action Industries' (MDCI) 0.4x multiple is a pretty clear signal that something is very different about the company. In this case, we're talking about a small medical disposables company that has not only been seriously growth-challenged, but also had to absorb significant gross margin pressures. Although patient value-oriented investors may want to consider Medical Action Industries for its margin improvement potential, investors should keep in mind that the market seldom give full credit to companies with weak internal growth prospects.

Essential Doesn't Always Mean Valuable

It's nearly impossible to perform a medical procedure without using MDCI's products (or those of its competitors). Through a series of deals and internal product development, MDCI has developed a wide breadth of products for the surgical, medical procedure, and patient care markets. These products range from custom procedure trays (for

This recent melt-up in the market has left relatively few undervalued opportunities in the med-tech sector. While there are still some bargains to be had at the various market cap levels, it's not altogether unfair to say that anything that looks notably cheap today is cheap for a reason. With that in mind, it's not so surprising that CareFusion (CFN) shares don't offer huge upside from today's level. That said, I like the moves that management has made here and if the market (or med-tech sector) were to sell off significantly, this would be a name well worth considering.

A Strong Footprint In Capital Equipment, A Good News-Bad News Situation

One of the unusual things about CareFusion is that it enjoys pretty strong market share in multiple med-tech markets with high barriers to entry. While larger med-techs like Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Medtronic (MDT), or Stryker (SYK) generally have to

Since it seems to be accepted practice now to accuse anyone who doesn't think your stock is a screaming buy today with being "secretly short", let me be very clear from the get-go - I like Endologix (ELGX) quite a lot as a company, I think the company's technology is innovative, and I see the company as both a share-gainer in endovascular AAA treatment and one of the best growth stories today in med-tech. All of that said, I don't see it as a bargain unless/until a larger med-tech company decides that it must have it as its own.

Solid Technology Leads To Good Products And Good Growth

The history of Endologix is actually pretty convoluted and interesting in its own right, but what's really relevant today is that the company has developed a solid (and very interesting) platform of technologies to treat abdominal aortic aneurysms. Although it's a share

Famed investor Peter Lynch liked to advocate for investing in companies that do things that nobody really ever thinks about, or even better, does things that are unpleasant in some fashion. Koppers (KOP) arguably fits both of this criteria, as I don't think many investors spend much time contemplating the markets for carbon pitch or creosote, and distillation of coal tar (and its byproducts) are not what I'd call particularly pleasant.

That's not what I find interesting about Koppers. More relevant to me are the company's strong market shares across multiple markets and a management team that seems keenly focused on economic value creation. Although Koppers stock is just off its 52-week high and about 10% off its all-time high, these shares could still offer some upside from today's level.

A Focused Specialty Chemicals Company

I've been a fan of various specialty chemicals companies over the years, and names like

Banking regulators seem to be trying to achieve a delicate balance between a banking system that is too consolidated among a small group of giant institutions ("too big to fail") and a system that is too fragmented to run efficiently and provide high levels of service. While I believe that regulators will be loath to let the top 10 (or perhaps the top 20) banks get much larger, I also believe they'd like to see even more competition coming from the next tier. To that end, Sandy Spring Bancorp (SASR) could have an interesting future in the Mid-Atlantic region as either a growth-by-M&A story or as a target itself.

Small By Some Measures, But Bigger Than You Think

With about $4 billion in assets and just under 50 branches, it would be easy to think that Sandy Spring is just another small-cap bank operating on the fringes. After all, major

While Texas-based Prosperity Bancshares (PB) has gone along with the year-to-date mid-cap bank stock rally, the overall performance over the past year hasn't been all that special. A lot of that has to do with the valuation; investors have generally been happy to assign robust multiples to this bank due to its uncommon growth and quality, but those same multiples seem to have left these shares a relative also-ran in performance.

And so it is today - while Prosperity is a very well-run bank and has substantial long-term growth potential (not to mention ample dry powder on the balance sheet), the valuation today is not what I'd call "can't miss." With mid-cap banks in general looking a little pricey, Prosperity isn't a bad relative call today, but more nimble investors may want to focus their time and attention today on small-cap banks while waiting for a pullback in names like

Everybody complains about marketing, but most of us still respond to it anyway. With digital/interactive marketing picking up where print and media have left off, ExactTarget (ET) is looking to tap into what should be a multi-billion annual market for cross-channel interactive marketing spending. Like almost every small tech company, though, there are still ample doubts that ExactTarget can hit the market - doubts about the real market size/opportunity, doubts about the exclusivity of the company's approach, and doubts about likelihood that the company will deliver the strong growth that will be needed to keep the shares moving.

Another Fish In The SaaS Sea

It seems like every relatively new tech company/stock is trying to pin itself to trends like Big Data or cloud/SaaS, and ExactTarget is no exception. In this case, though, there's at least some logic to the model. ExactTarget originally set out to target the small/mid-sized business

That is relevant to Synovus (SNV) as these shares have enjoyed quite a run - up 35% over the past year, about 66% from the summer 2012 lows, and near a 52-week high on optimism about the prospects for improved performance, a TARP repayment, and a possible acquisition. That long-held expectation of a deal could actually be the biggest risk factor for these shares today. While the company could indeed hold value for an acquirer, it's much harder to find an attractive target price

A certain segment of the tech investor community may loathe buzzwords like "cloud," but the reality is that it's a fixture of the landscape for now and the core of many public company business models. One such company is Synchronoss Technologies (SNCR), which has created a hosted service to handle mobile phone activations and transactions, as well as a white label personal cloud offering for mobile customers.

While significant future growth in the company's activation business is going to hinge on signing up additional Tier 1 service providers, the growth potential in customer cloud services is hardly trivial. I think investors would do well to ask if white label cloud services are destined to become a commodity, but these shares could still hold upside from today's level.

A Tale Of Two Businesses

For the most part, Synchronoss operates two different business/service offerings for the same customer base. In both cases,

Wall Street doesn't typically have all that much patience with tech growth stories, so while Radware's (RDWR) historical growth is hardly embarrassing, it doesn't seem like analysts or investors expect big things from this company in the future. Maybe that's fair given the slowing ADC market and the rampant competition in security, but Radware's technology and rich cash balance could generate more growth than currently expected.

Just A Small Player In A Slowing Market?

It might be easy to dismiss Radware at first. After all, the application delivery controller (ADC) market is not all that large (roughly $1.6 billion/year) and most analysts expect it to see slowing growth in the coming years - from double digits into the high single digits. What's more, while Radware has been at it a while, they haven't made all that much of an impression - F5's (FFIV) share is in the high 40%s, while

In recent years, major energy sector equipment manufacturers like Cameron (CAM), National Oilwell Varco (NOV), and FMC Technologies (FTI) have had to make way for new competitors. Most investors are probably already familiar with General Electric's (GE) ambitious growth in the offshore/subsea equipment sector, but Forum Energy Technologies (FET) may not be as familiar to readers. While there are certainly ample risks attendant with a debt-fueled roll-up strategy in a very cyclical industry, investors may want to get up to speed on a company that looks to offer a rare "soup to nuts" array of equipment and exposures in the energy space.

Born In M&A, And Likely To Stick To It

Forum Energy Technologies is a relatively newcomer in the space, at least in its current configuration. The company was pieced together through a five-way merger in 2010 and has only been publicly-traded for about a year now. That said,

It doesn't feel like a stretch to say that Wall Street loves logistics. From FedEx (FDX) to Hub Group (HUBG), from Landstar (LSTR) to JB Hunt (JBHT), most of this sector is trading very close to 52-week highs, even though economic activity in the U.S. has been pretty "meh" recently. While CH Robinson (CHRW) and XPO Logistics (XPO) are a bit further removed from their highs, I think the latter could be a very interesting opportunity even at these levels.

The ambitions of the XPO management team are nothing short of extraordinary - they aim to take a company that sits around the #20 spot in the U.S. truck brokerage with $280 million in revenue and grow it into the #2 player by 2016, with revenue in the range of $4 billion to $6 billion. That's an incredible goal and frankly Wall Street isn't buying it - or at least

Brazil may be a popular topic in international investing, but it's actually not all that easy to invest in some of the best Brazilian growth stories. Such is the case with Natura Cosmeticos (NUACF.PK). Natura is a true Brazilian success story and a fantastic play on the Brazilian consumer, but the U.S. ADR has virtually no liquidity and Brazil is an "institutions only" market for foreign investors. That said, there are readers who can buy these shares and even if you cannot own Natura today, it's a stock well worth following if you want to know more about what's going on in Brazil beyond the government-reported statistics.

A Familiar Model With Uncommon Success

The Natura Costmeticos model is going to seem familiar to investors. Natura produces a wide range of cosmetics, fragrances, and personal care/toiletry products that it sells through a network of almost 1.6 million "consultants" or sales reps.

I go back a long way with Gordmans Stores (GMAN). When I was a little kid, the local Richman Gordman had a kids play area with these huge (to a 4-yr-old) fiberglass animals that you could climb on/through, slide down, and otherwise amuse yourself with. The play area was always pretty full, and I think Richman Gordman was locally popular if for no other reason than mothers could do some shopping (these were the days when you actually could leave kids unattended to play) while their shrieking hellions amused themselves without bothering other shoppers.

Fast forward all too many years, and it's worth asking if the U.S. retail scene really needs yet another shopping destination. In the case of Gordmans, I think there could be something here - the company is trying to combine discount store pricing with a specialty store "feel," and shoppers have proven over and over