As my High-Yield Investing premium subscribers know, I make it a point to keep readers abreast of potential dividend increases on the horizon in the coming weeks. Considering many stocks pop on a dividend hike, I prefer to give my readers actionable ideas before the announcement, not after. (Although if there is a noteworthy increase that has already just been confirmed, I sometimes share those as well.) February brings a fresh batch of prospects. When narrowing down the field, I look for several traits such as superior dividend growth and proven longevity. By those measures, we’ve got a good group… Read More

As my High-Yield Investing premium subscribers know, I make it a point to keep readers abreast of potential dividend increases on the horizon in the coming weeks. Considering many stocks pop on a dividend hike, I prefer to give my readers actionable ideas before the announcement, not after. (Although if there is a noteworthy increase that has already just been confirmed, I sometimes share those as well.) February brings a fresh batch of prospects. When narrowing down the field, I look for several traits such as superior dividend growth and proven longevity. By those measures, we’ve got a good group this month. 1. Coca Cola (NYSE: KO) — Some investors think of Coca-Cola as a one-trick pony, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Yes, the flagship product is still one of the world’s most popular and widely-distributed beverages, sold in 200 countries around the globe. But it’s just one of a growing portfolio of 21 billion-dollar brands, including Dasani water, Powerade sports drinks, Gold Peak sweet tea, and Simply Orange fruit juice. The company has also just made a leap into the hot beverage market with the $5 billion acquisition of Costa, the top coffee brand in the… Read More

Stock prices ended last week slightly above the important resistance levels I outlined last week. You can see this in the daily S&P 500 chart below.  ​ After two days of trading this week, prices still had not cleared that level.  As I noted last week, resistance is a level where a price advance is expected to stall. I identified three specific factors — the March lows, the 50-day moving average (MA) and the 50% retracement of the October-to-December decline. On Friday, the S&P 500 had closed above each of those levels… which would have been a strong signal… Read More

Stock prices ended last week slightly above the important resistance levels I outlined last week. You can see this in the daily S&P 500 chart below.  ​ After two days of trading this week, prices still had not cleared that level.  As I noted last week, resistance is a level where a price advance is expected to stall. I identified three specific factors — the March lows, the 50-day moving average (MA) and the 50% retracement of the October-to-December decline. On Friday, the S&P 500 had closed above each of those levels… which would have been a strong signal that the bear market was ending.  But when the market opened Tuesday morning, things got off to a rough start. Over the course of the day, the S&P 500 gave back some of the prior week’s gains and closed below 50-day MA and 50% retracement level.  So, does this mean we’re in for another round of gains… or does it signal further losses to come?  —Recommended Link— 3 Shots At Making 1,000% Or More. Jim Fink’s new stock picking system just hit on three companies that could put up to $330,000 in your pocket. And… Read More

As the stock market enters earnings season, I’m feeling concerned… and it seems like I’m not the only one.  My bet is that we can expect volatility in the coming weeks. Our trading strategy over at Profit Amplifier focuses on avoiding risk, and one way we can do that is by adding exposure to utility stocks — a defensive sector that traders turn to when they are looking for low-risk trades.  Time To Get Defensive While looking through my screens, I found a very attractive call option trade in Southern (NYSE: SO), a gas and… Read More

As the stock market enters earnings season, I’m feeling concerned… and it seems like I’m not the only one.  My bet is that we can expect volatility in the coming weeks. Our trading strategy over at Profit Amplifier focuses on avoiding risk, and one way we can do that is by adding exposure to utility stocks — a defensive sector that traders turn to when they are looking for low-risk trades.  Time To Get Defensive While looking through my screens, I found a very attractive call option trade in Southern (NYSE: SO), a gas and electric company (and the second-largest utility stock in the United States, in terms of customer base).  #-ad_banner-#Southern’s fundamentals are solid, with cash flow from operations growing steadily. The company is headquartered in Atlanta and serves a part of the country that enjoys relatively stable weather at this time of year, which reduces the risk of a natural disaster disrupting operations. Analysts expect the company to announce earnings around February 21, so picking a call option that expires before then further decreases risk.  The chart confirms my bullish outlook. After recently breaking above its 200-day moving average (MA) — the solid… Read More

Nearly everyone is anxious… There’s talk of a global recession, much of the U.S. government remains closed for business, China’s economy is looking wobbly, and then there’s the ongoing trade war with that country. Not to mention slowing sales growth from notable companies like Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) and American Airlines (Nasdaq: AAL). And disappointing holiday sales that have crushed the share prices of many retailers, notably Macy’s (NYSE: M), which is down about 24% since January 9. The latest wall of worry for the market and the economy is that this earnings season is expected to be slower than previous… Read More

Nearly everyone is anxious… There’s talk of a global recession, much of the U.S. government remains closed for business, China’s economy is looking wobbly, and then there’s the ongoing trade war with that country. Not to mention slowing sales growth from notable companies like Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) and American Airlines (Nasdaq: AAL). And disappointing holiday sales that have crushed the share prices of many retailers, notably Macy’s (NYSE: M), which is down about 24% since January 9. The latest wall of worry for the market and the economy is that this earnings season is expected to be slower than previous quarters. Now, keep in mind that the last three quarters have seen earnings growth of more than 24%. That’s a high standard to beat. To give you an idea of what sort of bar has been set, just look at last quarter’s performance. In the third quarter of 2018, corporate earnings grew by a massive 25.9% over the year-earlier quarter, the strongest such growth in eight years. But expectations for fourth-quarter earnings are much less lofty, as analysts steadily drop their estimates. As recently as September, analysts expected earnings to grow by 17%, but that number has been knocked down… Read More

One of my favorite colloquialisms is “50% of something is better than 100% of nothing.” It’s best when said with a grizzled Southern accent with a big dip of Copenhagen wedged in the speaker’s lip. —Recommended Link— Ex-Military Intelligence Officer Finally Reveals He Secret To Her 90.9% Success Rate Today only save 62% on the system that is helping smart investors like you make massive gains…hurry, wall street insiders hope to shut this down soon… Click here before it’s too late. Kidding aside, this phrase is one of the many mantras… Read More

One of my favorite colloquialisms is “50% of something is better than 100% of nothing.” It’s best when said with a grizzled Southern accent with a big dip of Copenhagen wedged in the speaker’s lip. —Recommended Link— Ex-Military Intelligence Officer Finally Reveals He Secret To Her 90.9% Success Rate Today only save 62% on the system that is helping smart investors like you make massive gains…hurry, wall street insiders hope to shut this down soon… Click here before it’s too late. Kidding aside, this phrase is one of the many mantras grown-up investors will use from time to time. Markets and stocks will and do go down at some point. It’s one of the few guarantees that come with the territory. We all want to do well on the upside. But with an unavoidable downside, the key is to do less worse than the market. It’s doable. #-ad_banner-#The fancy term money managers throw around is “downside capture.” As ridiculous as it sounds, it’s a thing. And it works. There’s an actual portfolio called the downside capture ratio. However, rather than getting too far into those weeds, the ultimate goal of downside… Read More

When Thomas Edison died, or Einstein, or Dr. Feynman, for that matter… we knew what we had lost. The scientific community grieved. But when a scientist whose discovery might prove to be in any one or even all of their leagues died on Feb. 18 of last year, it felt as though the news went almost unnoticed. Gunter Blobel was a molecular biologist. In 1999, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine. He had determined that proteins in any living cell have a sort of ZIP code system that guides them to where they need to go to take… Read More

When Thomas Edison died, or Einstein, or Dr. Feynman, for that matter… we knew what we had lost. The scientific community grieved. But when a scientist whose discovery might prove to be in any one or even all of their leagues died on Feb. 18 of last year, it felt as though the news went almost unnoticed. Gunter Blobel was a molecular biologist. In 1999, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine. He had determined that proteins in any living cell have a sort of ZIP code system that guides them to where they need to go to take care of tissue, organs, and biochemistry. Blobel’s mentor at Rockefeller University, Dr. George Palade, was a wizard with electron microscopes — his work earned him the Nobel in 1974. Blobel figured out that there are about a quadrillion cells in the human body, each containing about a billion protein molecules that are spun out of little cavities known as endoplasmic reticula. These proteins are all guarded by special membranes. He and a colleague hypothesized that each of these proteins also contains proteins that act as airport luggage tags, as his obituary in the Times put it. It turns out this… Read More

Recent market volatility has forced investors to seek safer investments for their portfolios. For many, stocks with a solid dividend-paying history with a low beta (β) offer a safer alternative to other stocks. —Recommended Link— Save 75% On Fast-Track Millionaire Today Tired of just barely beating the market? See how we’re crushing the market hand over fist inside Fast-Track Millionaire. Details here. For those unfamiliar with beta, β measures the volatility of a stock against a broad market index, such as the S&P 500. Because the market is given a beta of 1, anything with less volatility than the… Read More

Recent market volatility has forced investors to seek safer investments for their portfolios. For many, stocks with a solid dividend-paying history with a low beta (β) offer a safer alternative to other stocks. —Recommended Link— Save 75% On Fast-Track Millionaire Today Tired of just barely beating the market? See how we’re crushing the market hand over fist inside Fast-Track Millionaire. Details here. For those unfamiliar with beta, β measures the volatility of a stock against a broad market index, such as the S&P 500. Because the market is given a beta of 1, anything with less volatility than the market will have a beta below 1. Conversely, if a stock has greater volatility than the market as a whole, that stock will have a beta greater than 1. Given the wild ride investors have experienced since October, finding solid dividend stocks with low betas is imperative. Should the market volatility continue unabated, huge drawdowns are possible with high beta stocks. Fortunately, finding such stocks isn’t too difficult. One such stock is ExxonMobil (NASDAQ: XOM). As you can see from the chart below, the stock suffered in 2018 — losing 18.6%. While the stock is off its recent… Read More

For biotech investors, the year has started with a bang. First, it was Bristol-Myers Squibb’s (NYSE: BMY) enormous $74 billion bid for Celgene (Nasdaq: CELG), one of the largest biotech companies in the world. Right on its heels came a smaller but still significant move — the announcement on Jan. 7 of Eli Lilly’s (NYSE: LLY) intended $8 billion acquisition of Loxo Oncology (Nasdaq: LOXO). —Recommended Link— Market Rally Forecast For The Next 3 Days Did you know the stock market rallied during every government shutdown over the past 25 years? In fact, this time,… Read More

For biotech investors, the year has started with a bang. First, it was Bristol-Myers Squibb’s (NYSE: BMY) enormous $74 billion bid for Celgene (Nasdaq: CELG), one of the largest biotech companies in the world. Right on its heels came a smaller but still significant move — the announcement on Jan. 7 of Eli Lilly’s (NYSE: LLY) intended $8 billion acquisition of Loxo Oncology (Nasdaq: LOXO). —Recommended Link— Market Rally Forecast For The Next 3 Days Did you know the stock market rallied during every government shutdown over the past 25 years? In fact, this time, it’s already up 10%… and still going. There’s a trade that exploits this situation exceptionally well, and you can take advantage of it over the next 3 days. You can find the full details here. I think we can expect even more deals as the year progresses. And that, of course, is potentially great news for investors… There are several industry-specific factors making it imperative that the flow of deals continues. For several years now, large pharma has been facing a crisis of sorts. The business model of drug companies has long been based on having… Read More