The stock market has seen plenty of ups and downs in the past 25 years. Through it all, hedge fund Baupost Group’s Seth Klarman has managed to stay on the right side of the ledger, racking up an average annual gain of about 20%. Read More

In the past 40 years, not once has the United States’ stock market been the best performer in the world in any given year. At best, American stocks have been finding their way into the middle of the pack, and given enough time, the U.S. stock market’s results are often… Read More

Working for StreetAuthority, I do a lot of different things. In the course of a day, I may be writing an article… discussing potential picks with our staff… researching the next investing hotspot… even going over Stock of the Month article ideas with my colleagues. Read More

I’m a big fan of low-priced stocks — especially those that are under $5 a share. At that level, most mutual fund managers are restricted from owning them. But if growth plans pan out and shares move above that threshold, those same fund managers then have the green… Read More

A profitable investment strategy is to buy into a stock with a major catalyst that can potentially take hold and send a stock price higher. That’s obviously easier said than done, but many savvy investors who identify a catalyst early on can often… Read More

How many ways are there to value a stock? Too many, which is why the market’s participants rarely agree on which stock truly is “the most undervalued” name. That one-dimensional approach, though — where a measure like a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio or earnings growth is used as the yardstick — is the very reason the hunt for value doesn’t always find a winner. A truly undervalued stock looks good by all the relevant measures. Such an approach certainly whittles down the number of truly… Read More

How many ways are there to value a stock? Too many, which is why the market’s participants rarely agree on which stock truly is “the most undervalued” name. That one-dimensional approach, though — where a measure like a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio or earnings growth is used as the yardstick — is the very reason the hunt for value doesn’t always find a winner. A truly undervalued stock looks good by all the relevant measures. Such an approach certainly whittles down the number of truly great candidates, but that’s the whole point. And which stock in the S&P 500 is the most undervalued right now? It’s (drum roll please…) railroad company Union Pacific (NYSE: UNP). To be clear, Union Pacific isn’t more attractive than any other S&P 500 constituent based on any one single criterion. It is, however, near the top of the leader board for the greatest number of criteria, making the sum of those numbers the compelling aspect that makes it worth considering for your portfolio. Take its P/E ratio for instance. Union Pacific’s trailing-twelve-month P/E is… Read More

The stock market always looks ahead. That old axiom has never been more true as investors seek out companies that are slumping now but poised for better days ahead. Just look at the stock charts of Office Depot (NYSE: ODP), H&R Block (NYSE: HRB) and Sandridge Energy… Read More

For nearly a decade, I have gone to Las Vegas to meet up with a group of friends who share my interest in poker. Every year, we have our picture taken at Binion’s Horseshoe Casino, the birthplace of the World Series of Poker. Looking back over past pictures, I can see how much my friends and I have changed. (By the way, we aren’t old, we’re “seasoned.”) But if we have changed over the years, so has Las Vegas. Las Vegas transformed itself from a cheap gambling destination to a celebrity hangout. In the… Read More

For nearly a decade, I have gone to Las Vegas to meet up with a group of friends who share my interest in poker. Every year, we have our picture taken at Binion’s Horseshoe Casino, the birthplace of the World Series of Poker. Looking back over past pictures, I can see how much my friends and I have changed. (By the way, we aren’t old, we’re “seasoned.”) But if we have changed over the years, so has Las Vegas. Las Vegas transformed itself from a cheap gambling destination to a celebrity hangout. In the mid-2000s, casinos tried to outdo each other for the title of most luxurious. Rooms on the Strip were hard to find less than $200 a night — and $10,000-a-night suites were there for the asking. To some extent, the economic downturn has Las Vegas returning to its roots. Bargain shoppers are finding plenty of rooms in luxury hotels for less than $40 a night. And casinos are bending over backward to cater to their new price-sensitive clientele. During my last visit, I saw off-peak breakfast specials for $1.99. Happy hours and “ladies drink free”… Read More

Stock prices have rallied more than 20% in the past 12 months, but it is still possible for investors to find bargains — if they are willing to do a little research. Investing in underpriced stocks often requires patience, since the expectation is generally for a gradual rise in value. But sometimes these stocks attract the attention of corporate raiders and shoot up overnight. This recently happened with Clorox Corp. (NYSE:CLX). An investor group led by Carl Icahn determined Clorox was undervalued and purchased 9% of the outstanding stock, which resulted in surge of about 9% in… Read More

Stock prices have rallied more than 20% in the past 12 months, but it is still possible for investors to find bargains — if they are willing to do a little research. Investing in underpriced stocks often requires patience, since the expectation is generally for a gradual rise in value. But sometimes these stocks attract the attention of corporate raiders and shoot up overnight. This recently happened with Clorox Corp. (NYSE:CLX). An investor group led by Carl Icahn determined Clorox was undervalued and purchased 9% of the outstanding stock, which resulted in surge of about 9% in Clorox’s share price within two trading days. Before Icahn’s investment, Clorox shares had been trading for 16 times trailing earnings and yielded more than 3%. [To find out what else Icahn has been buying, go here.] #-ad_banner-# I set out to find undervalued wallflowers that missed the market rally by running a screen for mid-cap and large cap stocks that trade at price-to-earnings (P/E) multiples well below the S&P 500. My screen looked at both trailing 12-month P/E and forward P/E multiples. Read More