With a deal in place to acquire Burger King (NYSE: BKC) for a tidy $24 a share, investors are handed the opportunity to quickly assess how its rivals are valued. Any rivals selling at a sharp discount to Burger King’s price are likely to see renewed investor interest as the M&A action heats up in the sector. [Read: How Investors Should Handle the M&A Frenzy] Private equity (PE) firms like to buy underperforming companies. In recent years, Burger King has seen McDonald’s (NYSE: MCD) and Yum Brands (NYSE: YUM) pull away in terms of… Read More

With a deal in place to acquire Burger King (NYSE: BKC) for a tidy $24 a share, investors are handed the opportunity to quickly assess how its rivals are valued. Any rivals selling at a sharp discount to Burger King’s price are likely to see renewed investor interest as the M&A action heats up in the sector. [Read: How Investors Should Handle the M&A Frenzy] Private equity (PE) firms like to buy underperforming companies. In recent years, Burger King has seen McDonald’s (NYSE: MCD) and Yum Brands (NYSE: YUM) pull away in terms of same-store sales growth and sharply rising cash flow. Those companies are likely too large and too healthy to be of real interest to these turnaround specialists. For that matter, Chipotle Mexican Grill (NYSE: CMG) is far too healthy — and richly valued — to hold any appeal. [More on Chipotle — and why you should short it] So I decided to take a look at three major chains that are underperforming and have major room for improvement. A fair deal… Read More

With Wednesday’s sharp rally, investors that like to short stocks were tripping over each other to get to the exit. And to unwind a short holding, they had to buy back shares of the companies in which they’ve made a negative bet, known as… Read More

Investing in clean energy takes a very strong stomach. Share prices in this sector continually soar and plunge depending on whether investors are feeling optimistic or pessimistic. Although the industry may never live up to the grandest hopes that some had expected, it is clearly emerging as a viable business… Read More

If you were a shareholder in 3PAR (NYSE: PAR), McAfee (NYSE: MFE) or Cogent (Nasdaq: COGT) this summer, you’re likely quite pleased with the news that each of those companies will be acquired a nice premium. [Read: Why Today’s Intel Deal Makes Tech Even More Appealing] But the good news comes with a catch: should you take profits? Or should you hold on in hopes of further gains? The short answer: it depends. To figure out how to play the buyout game, we first need to separate… Read More

If you were a shareholder in 3PAR (NYSE: PAR), McAfee (NYSE: MFE) or Cogent (Nasdaq: COGT) this summer, you’re likely quite pleased with the news that each of those companies will be acquired a nice premium. [Read: Why Today’s Intel Deal Makes Tech Even More Appealing] But the good news comes with a catch: should you take profits? Or should you hold on in hopes of further gains? The short answer: it depends. To figure out how to play the buyout game, we first need to separate any buyout-related price spike into two camps. The first camp involves stocks trading below the price a buyer has offered. This indicates that the deal may not go through due to regulatory anti-trust reasons, or simply because the buyout target has made it clear that it has no intention of selling the company in the near-term. If the stock is at a discount because of anti-trust concerns, then try to assess how real those concerns are. The government would likely never allow a merger between two companies that control most of… Read More

Heading into the trading week, we expected to see a flurry of economic releases that would have an outsized impact on the stock market this week. [See: 4 Can’t-Miss Items for Investors to Watch Next Week] Those data points are now rolling in, but… Read More

It’s important to maintain a watch list of stock ideas. Many of your investment ideas can be intriguing, but not quite tempting enough to merit your hard-earned dollars just yet. I like to check in on all of these investment ideas almost daily, waiting to see if the stock falls down to a level that I can’t resist, or if the company has announced new initiatives or quarterly results that make the stock a true bargain. But a stock’s downward move may be the result of bad news that has dimmed the investment picture. The question is… Read More

It’s important to maintain a watch list of stock ideas. Many of your investment ideas can be intriguing, but not quite tempting enough to merit your hard-earned dollars just yet. I like to check in on all of these investment ideas almost daily, waiting to see if the stock falls down to a level that I can’t resist, or if the company has announced new initiatives or quarterly results that make the stock a true bargain. But a stock’s downward move may be the result of bad news that has dimmed the investment picture. The question is whether the downward move is justified, or if it has sharply overshot the mark, well below where shares should trade. That scenario is playing out with DG FastChannel (Nasdaq: DGIT), which has run into some short-term growing pains after a long stretch of solid growth. Growth stalls out for now Following the dot-com boom, DG FastChannel was a perennially frustrating story. The company’s advanced media placement services, tailor made for the digital era, never saw the demand that investors had expected. In hindsight, the company arrived… Read More

After Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) and Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) started their bidding for data storage firm 3PAR (NYSE: PAR), investors quickly went in search of possible other deals, bidding up names of several rivals that may soon be bought out themselves. [Read: This Company’s 10-Day, +169% Run is Heating up an Entire Sector] So as Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) announces plans to acquire the wireless chip division of Germany-based Infineon Technologies, it makes sense to see what other firms might be in play. (We made a similar review when Intel announced plans to buy McAfee (NYSE: MFE).) [See:… Read More

After Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) and Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) started their bidding for data storage firm 3PAR (NYSE: PAR), investors quickly went in search of possible other deals, bidding up names of several rivals that may soon be bought out themselves. [Read: This Company’s 10-Day, +169% Run is Heating up an Entire Sector] So as Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) announces plans to acquire the wireless chip division of Germany-based Infineon Technologies, it makes sense to see what other firms might be in play. (We made a similar review when Intel announced plans to buy McAfee (NYSE: MFE).) [See: Why Today’s Intel Deal Makes Tech Even More Appealing] The untethered revolution Intel’s decision to wade further into wireless technology is completely understandable. Smart phones and tablet computers are paving the way for a tech revolution that untethers us from cable modems and other desk-bound Internet connections. Industry watchers expect to see desktop-PC sales shrink and tablet sales rise in coming years. Inifineon can boast of customers such as Nokia (NYSE: NOK), Research in Motion (Nasdaq: RIMM) and LG, but has barely made any profits on these chips that transmit wireless signals. Intel… Read More

The BRICs are out-of-style. Brazil, Russia, India and China are already yesterday’s investing theme. And as it becomes increasingly apparent that the United States and Europe will be growth-constrained in the near future, investors are now checking out a new bloc of emerging economies called the CIVETS (Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and South Africa). Growth in these countries has started to catch the attention of globally-focused money managers and, conveniently, there is an exchange-traded fund (ETF) focusing on each country that allows individual investors to own a piece. The… Read More

The BRICs are out-of-style. Brazil, Russia, India and China are already yesterday’s investing theme. And as it becomes increasingly apparent that the United States and Europe will be growth-constrained in the near future, investors are now checking out a new bloc of emerging economies called the CIVETS (Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and South Africa). Growth in these countries has started to catch the attention of globally-focused money managers and, conveniently, there is an exchange-traded fund (ETF) focusing on each country that allows individual investors to own a piece. The question is, are these countries suitable for your portfolio? #-ad_banner-#Looking under the hood Over the years, I have had the good fortune to travel extensively and have brought back a few investing perspectives from my trips to Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt and Turkey (I’ve never been to South Africa). And after consulting with Nathan Slaughter, our resident ETF expert at StreetAuthority, here are my cursory thoughts: Vietnam — I was extremely impressed by this country during my visit in 2007. It is blessed with a low-cost but… Read More

For years, market strategists have tried to explain that investor bullishness is bad for future stock returns, and when investors are very bearish, it’s a great time to buy. They’re right. I’ve gone over 25 years of data compiled by the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII), and found this investing maxim to be remarkably accurate. And guess what? The AAII’s weekly survey has just revealed another low in investor sentiment. First, let’s take a look at what happened in the late 1980s when investors had just come out of a sharp market crash (the infamous… Read More

For years, market strategists have tried to explain that investor bullishness is bad for future stock returns, and when investors are very bearish, it’s a great time to buy. They’re right. I’ve gone over 25 years of data compiled by the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII), and found this investing maxim to be remarkably accurate. And guess what? The AAII’s weekly survey has just revealed another low in investor sentiment. First, let’s take a look at what happened in the late 1980s when investors had just come out of a sharp market crash (the infamous Black Friday of October, 1987) and sentiment was fairly bearish. This table shows the annual low point for investor sentiment from 1987 through 1993 and how the market subsequently fared. Throughout this period, investors were very bearish, and less than one in five investors considered themselves to be bullish. Those lonely bulls sure made some money, though. Reported Date Bullish Neutral Bearish 1-Mo. Return 6-Mo. Return 1-Year Return 2-Year Return 3-Year Return 12/11/87 23.0% 45.0% 32.0% +3% +9% +18% +48% +40% 07/22/88 16.0% 58.0% 26.0% -1% +9% +30% +34% +45% 03/10/89 13.0%… Read More

In this tough market environment, many stocks have seen their value fall by -30% or even -40%. But I came across a foursome of stocks that have fallen a whopping -70% since the end of February. But don’t blame the bad economy: these stocks are stumbling for company-specific reasons. For… Read More