2017 will go down in history as a very unusual year for the stock market. Traditional rules appear to have been discarded, with the major indexes pushing higher in the face of macro-bearish pressure. The search for reliable investments that can carry a portfolio through the rest of 2017 has many investors scratching their heads. Time-tested market wisdom has been tossed out the window as the world changes at breakneck speed.  Finding the best stocks to buy and hold for the rest of 2017 requires identifying the major themes of the year. Then, you’ll need to locate stocks that are… Read More

2017 will go down in history as a very unusual year for the stock market. Traditional rules appear to have been discarded, with the major indexes pushing higher in the face of macro-bearish pressure. The search for reliable investments that can carry a portfolio through the rest of 2017 has many investors scratching their heads. Time-tested market wisdom has been tossed out the window as the world changes at breakneck speed.  Finding the best stocks to buy and hold for the rest of 2017 requires identifying the major themes of the year. Then, you’ll need to locate stocks that are most likely to benefit from these themes. Obviously, there will be multiple stocks that will profit from each theme, helping you to  diversify your portfolio while still hitching your boat to these all-important market movers. The 3 Leading Themes Of 2017 1. Donald Trump There is very little middle ground when it comes to our new president. People seem to either love him or hate him, and it is this dichotomy that’s signaling significant changes in our country.  So far, Trump’s largest contribution to the economy is his focus on deregulation. In his first 100 days in office, he… Read More

If you only read the headlines on Friday, June 9, you might have thought that financial Armageddon was upon us. Major tech companies like Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) and Google parent Alphabet (Nasdaq: GOOGL) fell as much as 6% in intraday trading. Meanwhile, the technology sector fell 1.53% and dragged the Nasdaq Composite Index down 113 points, or about 1.8% for the day. The selloff in tech stocks continued into Monday. Headlines screamed that this could be the start of the next major selloff and warned that this major bull market could be nearing its end.  I hope you… Read More

If you only read the headlines on Friday, June 9, you might have thought that financial Armageddon was upon us. Major tech companies like Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) and Google parent Alphabet (Nasdaq: GOOGL) fell as much as 6% in intraday trading. Meanwhile, the technology sector fell 1.53% and dragged the Nasdaq Composite Index down 113 points, or about 1.8% for the day. The selloff in tech stocks continued into Monday. Headlines screamed that this could be the start of the next major selloff and warned that this major bull market could be nearing its end.  I hope you didn’t listen. Since June 8 — the day before the selloff — the Nasdaq Composite Index is down only 2.5%. Meanwhile, its counterparts the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average have fared much better, with the S&P 500 up 0.52% and the Dow Jones up 1.57%.  But what’s perhaps more interesting is the fact that just a handful of stocks caused Nasdaq to slide. The companies I mentioned above — Apple, Microsoft and Alphabet — plus Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) and Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) account for nearly 75% of the index’s weighting.  Just consider, the Nasdaq Composite Index is comprised… Read More

Even if you believe economic growth and corporate earnings will pick up, it’s difficult to make the case that shares of U.S. companies are fairly-valued. Companies in the S&P 500 are expected to book earnings growth of 9.9% through 2017 according to analysts surveyed by FactSet Research.  That brings the index’s valuation to 17.7 times forward earnings, a premium of 26% on the S&P’s average of 14.0 over the last decade. Against this pricey environment, evidence has started to build that could disrupt the market.  We’ve already seen the eight-year bull market waver, with the S&P… Read More

Even if you believe economic growth and corporate earnings will pick up, it’s difficult to make the case that shares of U.S. companies are fairly-valued. Companies in the S&P 500 are expected to book earnings growth of 9.9% through 2017 according to analysts surveyed by FactSet Research.  That brings the index’s valuation to 17.7 times forward earnings, a premium of 26% on the S&P’s average of 14.0 over the last decade. Against this pricey environment, evidence has started to build that could disrupt the market.  We’ve already seen the eight-year bull market waver, with the S&P 500 struggling to move higher through March and April. A few tech stocks managed to drag the market higher in May but investors seem to be getting skittish. When the music stops on the second-longest bull market in history, the only investors left with chairs may be the ones that looked for growth outside U.S. markets. How Long Can The U.S. Bull Market Last? Just last week we got disappointing retail sales growth, and job growth has slowed this year compared to last. The Federal Reserve held to its outlook last week, withdrawing monetary support by raising rates and… Read More

It was as much a surprise to StreetAuthority’s co-founder as it was to us. As an experiment, he tried to build a personal portfolio of dividend paying stocks to see if he could get 30 dividend checks in a month. But he achieved far more than the joy of receiving dividends every day. And all he did was simply enroll his securities in an automatic reinvestment program through an online brokerage account.  And before long, our little experiment was beating the market. Of course we were familiar with the power of the compounding growth of dividend reinvestment. As you can… Read More

It was as much a surprise to StreetAuthority’s co-founder as it was to us. As an experiment, he tried to build a personal portfolio of dividend paying stocks to see if he could get 30 dividend checks in a month. But he achieved far more than the joy of receiving dividends every day. And all he did was simply enroll his securities in an automatic reinvestment program through an online brokerage account.  And before long, our little experiment was beating the market. Of course we were familiar with the power of the compounding growth of dividend reinvestment. As you can see from the chart below, if you invested $20,000 in securities paying a 7% yield, after 10 years your portfolio would be worth $39,343 with reinvested dividends. And if your holdings happened to boost their dividends by just 5% annually — something even giant blue chip AT&T (NYSE: T) has been able to beat — your portfolio would be sitting at $46,475. That’s an increase of 132.4%. And that’s assuming zero capital gains. That isn’t bad, especially when you consider the S&P 500 Index lost 26.5% in the ten-year period ended in 2009. But the income part of… Read More

The Trump trade has been delivering blackjacks to bullish players since the election. But if you’ve played the game, you know all too well that hitting blackjack after blackjack means the face cards and aces are disappearing with each hand, leaving players with continually lower chances for success. As I write this, the market has now risen for 22 weeks without a pullback, which is akin to players getting 22 blackjacks at a six-deck table with no shuffle. With only two more aces in the shoe, the chances of striking another big win decrease. After a massive string… Read More

The Trump trade has been delivering blackjacks to bullish players since the election. But if you’ve played the game, you know all too well that hitting blackjack after blackjack means the face cards and aces are disappearing with each hand, leaving players with continually lower chances for success. As I write this, the market has now risen for 22 weeks without a pullback, which is akin to players getting 22 blackjacks at a six-deck table with no shuffle. With only two more aces in the shoe, the chances of striking another big win decrease. After a massive string of wins, it’s sometimes a good idea to pull your bets off the table and await a reshuffle, especially if the dealer is holding an ace.  The market is the house in this metaphor, and its ace is a combination of overstretched valuations, economic inconsistencies, presidential risks and a technical warning signal in small caps. If these factors continue, it could mean a nasty loss for you and the other players. —Sponsored Link— U.S. Mint Reports Gold Coin Sales Collapsing In a strange twist, money is flooding out of physical gold into a different corner… Read More

His portfolio is built on the largest companies in America. Giants like Apple, Deere, and Walmart dominate his holdings. Thanks to his long-term oriented, value-seeking investment method, Warren Buffett’s wealth has catapulted from a mere $6,000 when he was 15 years old to an astounding $73 billion-plus today.  While Buffett’s concentration is on the largest of the large-caps, he has a love for the potential of small-caps, defined as companies with market capitalizations between$300 million to $2 billion.  A little while ago he told Fortune Magazine, “It’s one thing to own stock in a Coca-Cola or… Read More

His portfolio is built on the largest companies in America. Giants like Apple, Deere, and Walmart dominate his holdings. Thanks to his long-term oriented, value-seeking investment method, Warren Buffett’s wealth has catapulted from a mere $6,000 when he was 15 years old to an astounding $73 billion-plus today.  While Buffett’s concentration is on the largest of the large-caps, he has a love for the potential of small-caps, defined as companies with market capitalizations between$300 million to $2 billion.  A little while ago he told Fortune Magazine, “It’s one thing to own stock in a Coca-Cola or something, but when you are actually in the business of making determinations about opening stores and pricing decisions, you learn from it. We have made a lot more money out of See’s than shows from the earnings of See’s, just by the fact that it has educated me.”  How Buffett Picks His Winners It’s safe to say Warren’s consultation fee is among the most expensive of all time. People routinely spend a million plus dollars just to have an informal lunch with the guru. Astoundingly, the latest bid posted at $2.7 million for an hour… Read More

I’ve made a career in spotting trillion-dollar themes in the market, first as an equity analyst and more recently as a pre-IPO investor. Any analyst can create a cash flow model — it’s as simple as working through a company’s financial statements to scrutinize the true cash-generating power of the investment. Every broker, research firm and fund manager has a team of analysts with their noses buried in 10-Ks and other documents. But being ahead of the herd requires finding those market forces that will influence the direction of whole sectors, or even the entire market. It’s finding themes with… Read More

I’ve made a career in spotting trillion-dollar themes in the market, first as an equity analyst and more recently as a pre-IPO investor. Any analyst can create a cash flow model — it’s as simple as working through a company’s financial statements to scrutinize the true cash-generating power of the investment. Every broker, research firm and fund manager has a team of analysts with their noses buried in 10-Ks and other documents. But being ahead of the herd requires finding those market forces that will influence the direction of whole sectors, or even the entire market. It’s finding themes with the force of trillions behind them that create triple-digit return strategies. I’ve used what is likely the most pervasive theme driving today’s markets to find stocks with huge support. I then looked for upside price catalysts on these stocks to identify three names that could be the biggest outperformers of the year. Are ETFs Taking Over The Market? Hedge Fund investors and Mutual Fund clients are dropping expensive portfolio managers in favor of passively-managed exchange-traded funds (or ETFs). Global ETF inflows reached a record of $375 billion in 2016, an increase of 7.8% over the previous year. U.S.-listed ETF… Read More

Small-cap stocks have been a reliable way for investors to outperform the S&P 500 for a long time. In the last 17 years the iShares Core S&P Small Cap (NYSE: IJR) has gained 335%. That’s more than a 300% premium to the 74% return of the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSE: SPY) over the same period. This huge discrepancy is shown below. However, over the last three years this performance gap has evaporated. With investors fearful of another big stock market crash and huge waves of retirees piling into dividend stocks in search of yield, small-caps have temporarily… Read More

Small-cap stocks have been a reliable way for investors to outperform the S&P 500 for a long time. In the last 17 years the iShares Core S&P Small Cap (NYSE: IJR) has gained 335%. That’s more than a 300% premium to the 74% return of the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSE: SPY) over the same period. This huge discrepancy is shown below. However, over the last three years this performance gap has evaporated. With investors fearful of another big stock market crash and huge waves of retirees piling into dividend stocks in search of yield, small-caps have temporarily fallen out of favor. As you can see in the chart below, small caps have only fared slightly better than the S&P 500 over the last three years. Take a look below. In the short run, this has been frustrating for small cap investors. They took the risk of higher volatility without the reward of outsized returns. However, it has also created a rare value opportunity. Right now there are an abnormal number of small cap stocks that are trading with historically low valuations while still offering huge growth potential. I put together a screen of… Read More