Given enough time, the small caps from any industry are apt to outperform their large caps siblings. The problem is, investors tend to gravitate toward the larger and more familiar names, while the worthy, off-the-radar small caps tend to be overlooked. The idea applies within the banking… Read More

He may be an American-investing icon, but Warren Buffett still owns a few foreign stocks. Why? The funny thing about a disciplined value-investing approach is that it works all over the world — not just in the United States. The bullish kicker for Buffett is how these stocks not only… Read More

Almost everyone knows Harvard University is one of the premier names in the world of college academia. What most of the world may not realize, however, is that the geniuses managing its $27.6 billion endowment have become the envy of other Wall Street… Read More

Since 1993, the globe has seen the stock markets of 11 different countries lead the yearly performance race, yet not once during that time has the United States ended up in the winner’s circle. In fact, more often than not, the U.S. market ends up in the bottom half of… Read More

For more than a century now, small-cap stocks have outperformed large caps quite reliably. Sure, some years are better than others and some years are downright bad. But throughout the past 80 years, small caps have averaged an annual gain of 11.0%, while large caps have averaged an annual gain… 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

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

Want a great stock tip? You might want to take one from Carl Icahn, since he seems to know what he’s doing. The 75-year-old investing legend earned his fortune the old-fashioned way: through leveraged buyouts and private equity deals. Since 1978, Icahn has been taking on majority stakes in companies,… Read More

While it’s unlikely that anything will unseat Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) as the king of retail in our lifetime, that doesn’t mean there aren’t major opportunities to meaningfully penetrate the discount-store space. Take Target (NYSE: TGT), for instance. Despite Wal-Mart’s annoying domination, Target has capitalized on the inherent… Read More

Are you an income investor or a growth investor? It’s pretty much been accepted as common knowledge that a stock either offers great dividends, or great potential for price appreciation, but not both. If you look hard enough though — and far enough down the market cap scale… Read More