Search

The last two market-driving events of 2022 arrive this week with the latest CPI data (Tuesday) and the Fed’s latest interest rate hike (Wednesday). How those numbers look versus expectations will largely determine how this week, and the rest of December, goes. To have all our bases covered, we continue to add a blend of investment types and sectors. And this week we add something we don’t currently have in the Stock of the Week portfolio: a biotech, recommended by our resident growth investing expert, Mike Cintolo.

Decades ago, we came up with a phrase to describe a growth stock’s long-term growth cycle, describing the three phases a stock will go through during its life: Romance, Transition and Reality. The Romance phase is when the stock makes its biggest gains; it’s when investors fall in love with the story and potential, as well as the initial rapid growth. Then comes the Transition phase, when the stock often stagnates or declines for many months or even years, as investors start to see the warts of the story and the stock’s nosebleed valuations come back into line. Then, finally, you get the Reality phase, when the company is more mature and the stock is judged based on cold, hard facts. If the firm is successful, the stock will head up (though at a more measured pace than in the Romance phase), and if it’s not, it will remain in the doghouse.

my advice for anyone looking to get started is to read through the best investment books you can find before you start putting your money on the line.

For long-term investors, now is a great time to look for high-quality investments that have been dragged down—ideally over a period of several months, so most of the sellers have already bailed—and are now starting to turn around. I recently ran a simple screen for dividend-paying stocks that match my selection criteria. Here are three of them.

Options are derivatives of stock and their prices are very strongly related to the amount of volatility in their underlying stocks.

After the January market rally, new leading stocks are popping up everywhere. Here are three very different types of new leaders to consider.

KPMG LLP analyzed the technology sector deals and forecasts that mobile, data and analytics, security, and “the cloud” will be the primary focus of M&A deals this year. Upon review of the stocks we’ve recently been recommending in the Digests, I heartily agree with this assessment. And one area that has whetted the appetite of both private equity and public company acquirers is fintech.

Fund investing has come a long way. Buying mutual funds for the security and convenience of having your money invested by a fund manager is still a popular investment practice--in large part thanks to inertia--but it’s no longer the only fund game in town. Exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, have revolutionized the...

Last week, I was on vacation in Amsterdam. The weather was bad--cold and rainy--but it was still a great trip. One of the highlights was our visit to the Van Gogh Museum, which owns the world’s largest collection of works by Vincent van Gogh, as well as many pieces by...

This week only four companies reported earnings. As your chief analyst is traveling this week, there is no podcast.

This month, StreetAuthority’s Nathan Slaughter tells you how to collect high, safe yields from business development corporations. “Investing in the right initial public offering (IPO) can be highly lucrative. We all know that. How many times have we...

From The Energy Strategist: “A trend has emerged in a recent wave of deals among energy-focused master limited partnerships. … I’ve explained the relationship between general partners (GP) and limited partners (LP) in previous issues of The Energy Strategist, but this concept is crucial to understanding the recent wave of...

One interesting stock in the technology area is Red Hat (RHT).

The market continues to recover from last week’s short but intense decline. In our portfolio there’s been a dearth of news flow. That’s fine with me. I think we could all use a little less stimulation and step back from our computers and mobile devices a bit more. This has been a crazy spring.

We have four earnings reports from last night to get to today (ARNA, APPF, RPAY, SPT). Right now, I’m getting the first two out and will follow up with the other two shortly.

Four of our portfolio stocks report earnings.

Roger Conrad’s Utility Forecaster is one of only nine newsletters on the Hulbert Financial Digest’s 2011 Honor Roll, which recognizes newsletters that outperform in both up and down markets. Below, he analyzes some of the best income...

“One company I’ve been watching as of late is Boeing Co. (BA – yield 2.60%). For investors with a long-term time frame, this aerospace giant offers the safety of rock-solid growth with very little downside— especially as it bounces off support at the 200-week moving average. Not only is...