In the healthcare industry, when it comes to pharmaceutical drugs, the focus is usually on the major pharmaceutical companies (like Merck (NYSE: MRK) and Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ)) that produce the drugs, and the retailers (like CVS (NYSE: CVS) and Walgreen (NYSE: WAG)) that sell them on store shelves… Read More

My colleague David Sterman recently wrote a piece about the challenges investors face when they spot a company they would love to own, but the stock is just too darn expensive. [Read Dave’s article here] The basic takeaway is to keep a close eye on the stock in hopes that an opportunity arises to pick it up at a more appealing valuation. About a decade ago, a specialty apparel retailer had a stock that qualified as a small cap and flew under the radar screen of most investors. Read More

My colleague David Sterman recently wrote a piece about the challenges investors face when they spot a company they would love to own, but the stock is just too darn expensive. [Read Dave’s article here] The basic takeaway is to keep a close eye on the stock in hopes that an opportunity arises to pick it up at a more appealing valuation. About a decade ago, a specialty apparel retailer had a stock that qualified as a small cap and flew under the radar screen of most investors. But between about 2003 and 2006, the market began to take note of its stellar growth prospects, and sent the shares up more than ten-fold. Like Dave describes in his article, I thought I missed the boat, as the stock has risen only slightly and the valuation has remained rich, which means there have been only a few brief opportunities to pick up the shares on the cheap. One of those opportunity exists now, because the stock is bumping along its lows of the past year, which I atribte simply to… Read More

I spend the vast majority of my time hunting down securities I believe are significantly undervalued and investigating those in great detail I believe have considerable upside potential. However, it’s also a valuable exercise to spend some time on the opposite end of the spectrum and analyze what I find… Read More

After a relatively quiet period when the largest banks in the United States stayed out of the press and were allowed to refocus on running their operations, new allegations arose to suggest that many in the industry were negligent in handling the process for foreclosing on residential houses. Read More

Recent healthcare reforms will add an estimated 30 million new patients into the system within the next few years. That means more office visits, medical procedures — and lab tests. Lab tests impact a very high proportion of healthcare decisions and will also become increasingly important as… Read More

It may not seem remotely conceivable that the burning of garbage would be a viable or even appealing option for creating energy, but it is. There is an entire industry devoted to it, known as waste-to-energy, or WtE for short. The process involves the incineration of waste to create either electricity or heat energy — and it could be big business. Incinerating waste is not a new industry, but recent technological advancements mean new facilities can literally be state-of-the art. Given the increased efficiencies,… Read More

It may not seem remotely conceivable that the burning of garbage would be a viable or even appealing option for creating energy, but it is. There is an entire industry devoted to it, known as waste-to-energy, or WtE for short. The process involves the incineration of waste to create either electricity or heat energy — and it could be big business. Incinerating waste is not a new industry, but recent technological advancements mean new facilities can literally be state-of-the art. Given the increased efficiencies, WtE has become a viable alternative energy option that is arguably as “green” as other sources of energy that are considered truly green, such as wind or solar energy. For starters, WtE reduces the need for landfills that pollute the environment and are not a long-term solution for disposing of waste. Technologically, WtE facilities already meet strict emission standards, and firms in the space are constantly working to make them safer to the environment. Finally, as with any alternative energy, WtE reduces the dependency on foreign oil and dirtier options to create energy, such as coal. Read More

After an extended period in the wilderness courtesy of one of the most severe economic downturns in decades, retail stocks are slowly making a comeback. Just a couple of years ago, consumers shunned clothing and many other goods for more basic necessities. Consumers traded down where they could and even… Read More

It’s little secret that China is one of the fastest-growing countries in the world. It already boasts the world’s largest population of nearly 1.4 billion citizens, and through the first half of this year, its economy grew by +11.1%, which comes despite a global… Read More

An extremely valuable investment strategy is to keep tabs on what the major players on Wall Street are doing with their money. Warren Buffett, George Soros, Bill Gross, Mario Gabelli and Jeremy Grantham quickly come to mind — especially considering they are more than willing to put their own money… Read More

The S&P 500 Index is the most commonly tracked investment benchmark in the United States. When you hear about a portfolio manager “beating the market,” chances are it is in reference to outperforming the S&P 500. Read More