Best Stocks to Buy Now: A Topical Version of Botox, Cash In on High Rent, and More

Best stocks to buy for the week ending May 2, 2014: Last week, we highlighted some of the most fascinating plays so far this year.

Two stocks that take advantage of rising rents and inflation will let investors profit like a real estate mogul – without actually buying property. A Botox competitor, whose drug can be applied topically instead of injected, is completing advanced clinical trials and looks very promising. Three clean energy exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that are up more than 40% over the last 12 months stand to gain even more based on the latest numbers from the Energy Information Administration (EIA). And our list of 30 dividend stocks that just hiked payouts includes a healthcare giant that's boosted its quarterly dividend for 52 consecutive years.

Get these plus more of our latest, best ways to capture profits.

Money Morning's Best Stocks to Buy Now

• Storage has long been one of energy's biggest "Holy Grails." It holds the key to every significant move into smart grids. The reason is simple: If energy cannot be stored, it is lost. Even transferring it from one type of energy to another is of little consequence unless you can reverse the erosion in the entire system. So the basic question becomes how to "save" all of this energy from being lost. And that's what's at the center of a breakthrough project Money Morning Global Energy Strategist Dr. Kent Moors came across last week from this Canadian-traded small-cap venture company…

• The Great Recession created millions of new renters, and they're feeling the pinch. In January, rent for a mid-sized apartment was up 3% nationwide on a year-over-year basis – almost double the 1.7% U.S. inflation rate. Whenever a problem like this arises, the most innovative companies seek to solve it – while making a hefty profit. Said Money Morning Defense & TechSpecialist Michael A. Robinson, "As an investor, if you can find those companies, you get de facto 'protection' from the problem itself, because you're profiting from the solution." Robinson and Money Morning Executive Editor Bill Patalon found two – one offers an effective real-estate search engine, and the other an efficient tool for screening potential renters…



• Voice-recognition technology is a revolutionary new market. In 2011 Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) debuted the Siri "voice bot" on the iPhone 4S. Now Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) has introduced "Cortana" as a part of the Windows Phone 8.1, a decision Robinson believes means this technology has now passed the "tipping point." No longer is voice recognition just a cool feature – it's becoming an integral part of personal computing. Robinson found a small-cap leader that plays a key role in just about every aspect of voice-recognition technology, landing it squarely on our "stocks to buy" list…