There’s a little-known indicator that’s making a small group of investors a lot of money. I call this indicator the “Alpha Score,” because it consistently beats the market and often with less risk than buy-and-hold investing. It can flag exactly which stocks are about to jump double and triple digits in the coming days… weeks… and months. #-ad_banner-# I’ll tell you more about the Alpha Score in a second, but just know that the indicator can range from 0 to 200. The higher… Read More

There’s a little-known indicator that’s making a small group of investors a lot of money. I call this indicator the “Alpha Score,” because it consistently beats the market and often with less risk than buy-and-hold investing. It can flag exactly which stocks are about to jump double and triple digits in the coming days… weeks… and months. #-ad_banner-# I’ll tell you more about the Alpha Score in a second, but just know that the indicator can range from 0 to 200. The higher the number, the more potential the stock has. For example, you’ve probably never heard of Westmoreland Coal (NASDAQ: WLB). It operates six surface coal mines and two power-generating units in the western United States. The company looked promising when we recommended it on Dec. 18, 2013. Westmoreland had sold 95% of its future production under long-term contracts, and the market for coal looked stable. But that’s not what attracted us to the stock. What most investors didn’t know about WLB is that it had an Alpha Score of 158. Less than 1% of stocks have a score that high at… Read More

All major U.S. indices finished lower last week, reversing the previous week’s advance (minus the Dow), as the market continues the unusual one week up, one week down pattern that has dominated most of 2015. As a result, the broader market S&P 500 is only up 2.4% almost halfway through the year despite a lot of day-to-day volatility that has frightened investors. #-ad_banner-# All sectors of the S&P 500 gave up some ground last week, led lower by energy, down 2.3%, and industrials, which lost 1.9%. My own ETF asset flow-based… Read More

All major U.S. indices finished lower last week, reversing the previous week’s advance (minus the Dow), as the market continues the unusual one week up, one week down pattern that has dominated most of 2015. As a result, the broader market S&P 500 is only up 2.4% almost halfway through the year despite a lot of day-to-day volatility that has frightened investors. #-ad_banner-# All sectors of the S&P 500 gave up some ground last week, led lower by energy, down 2.3%, and industrials, which lost 1.9%. My own ETF asset flow-based metric shows that the biggest outflow of investor assets over the past one-week and one-month periods came from energy. This reversed the strong inflows I pointed out earlier this year, which fueled the sector’s strength and relative outperformance in March and April. Recent outflows warn of more weakness in energy, at least over the near term. Bigger picture, however, my metric also shows that the energy sector currently comprises just 14% of all ETF-related sector bets, compared to 20% historically. This indicates that, despite recent weakness, energy is still historically very under-invested amid favorable conditions for more relative… Read More

Mirror, mirror on the wall, which freight company is the fastest growing of them all? While you might guess it’s FedEx (NYSE: FDX) or United Parcel Service (NYSE: UPS), since they are both household names, the answer is the relatively unknown XPO Logistics (NYSE: XPO).  When it comes to revenue growth, it’s no contest. Last year, while FedEx grew sales at a 2.9% year-over-year pace and UPS’ revenues were up 5%, XPO’s sales soared 236%.  True, XPO’s revenues totaled $2.4 billion in 2014, while FexEx had more than $45 billion and UPS more than $58 billion. But if you’re looking… Read More

Mirror, mirror on the wall, which freight company is the fastest growing of them all? While you might guess it’s FedEx (NYSE: FDX) or United Parcel Service (NYSE: UPS), since they are both household names, the answer is the relatively unknown XPO Logistics (NYSE: XPO).  When it comes to revenue growth, it’s no contest. Last year, while FedEx grew sales at a 2.9% year-over-year pace and UPS’ revenues were up 5%, XPO’s sales soared 236%.  True, XPO’s revenues totaled $2.4 billion in 2014, while FexEx had more than $45 billion and UPS more than $58 billion. But if you’re looking for growth, XPO is the place to be. #-ad_banner-# Traders have taken notice, and the stock has more than doubled in the past year and is up more than 300% in less than three years. While organic growth has been solid, a large reason for increased revenues is XPO’s furious pace of acquisition. It bought three key companies in 2014: Pacer International, New Breed Logistics and Atlantic Central Logistics. In fact, XPO has been on a buying spree, acquiring 16 different firms between… Read More

Despite its blue-chip status, it’s been a long time since International Business Machines (NYSE: IBM) was an elite stock. Since peaking in March 2013, long-term investors saw their holdings shrink 30% into the December 2014 low, highlighted by a massive price collapse in October.  Big Blue was more black and blue. However, the good news is that after months of sideways trading, the stock started to heal. Indeed, the trend has been to the upside all year. Stocks that suffer the damage seen here are rarely instant… Read More

Despite its blue-chip status, it’s been a long time since International Business Machines (NYSE: IBM) was an elite stock. Since peaking in March 2013, long-term investors saw their holdings shrink 30% into the December 2014 low, highlighted by a massive price collapse in October.  Big Blue was more black and blue. However, the good news is that after months of sideways trading, the stock started to heal. Indeed, the trend has been to the upside all year. Stocks that suffer the damage seen here are rarely instant buys. In the stock market, low price does not necessarily mean “on sale.” Indeed, IBM rested for a few weeks before tumbling one more time into its final low. It was so damaged on the charts that traders seemed to stop caring. Never mind that it carried a hefty dividend yield at that point. Even today, it yields 3%, making it of great interest to long-term holders and income seekers. #-ad_banner-# But how will we know whether… Read More

At the end of February, I made the case for a looming market correction based on slowing economic data, downward revisions in corporate earnings growth and the S&P 500’s high price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio.  Over the following two weeks, the S&P 500 dropped more than 3% before trading back up and hitting new all-time highs. But I don’t think we’re in the clear yet. Here’s why I foresee a market correction in the coming weeks and a potential way to profit. During the first quarter, the companies of the S&P 500 delivered another lackluster performance, with net earnings rising a paltry… Read More

At the end of February, I made the case for a looming market correction based on slowing economic data, downward revisions in corporate earnings growth and the S&P 500’s high price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio.  Over the following two weeks, the S&P 500 dropped more than 3% before trading back up and hitting new all-time highs. But I don’t think we’re in the clear yet. Here’s why I foresee a market correction in the coming weeks and a potential way to profit. During the first quarter, the companies of the S&P 500 delivered another lackluster performance, with net earnings rising a paltry 2.4% year over year while revenue contracted 3.7%. Take out financial stocks and total earnings growth would have actually contracted 1.2% year over year. And it doesn’t look like things are getting better. #-ad_banner-#Second-quarter earnings growth expectations have fallen over the past four months from 1.1% to a loss of 6.4%, according to Zacks estimates. What concerns me even more is that markets have moved higher while earnings growth is basically flat and future earnings estimates are dropping. This has caused the S&P 500’s forward P/E to increase from 17.62 in February to 18.02 today. That’s the highest reading in… Read More

Did it really work? It’s a question many investors are pondering seven months after the conclusion of the Federal Reserve’s massive quantitative easing (QE) program, in which trillions of dollars were pumped into the banking system from 2008 to 2014. The aim was to shock the ailing economy into recovery by providing a flood of cash for banks to lend at ultra-cheap rates. It was an unprecedented move that possibly forestalled a more severe economic downturn, perhaps even a depression. However, the program continued long after the U.S. economy was out of crisis, mainly because of the belief that QE… Read More

Did it really work? It’s a question many investors are pondering seven months after the conclusion of the Federal Reserve’s massive quantitative easing (QE) program, in which trillions of dollars were pumped into the banking system from 2008 to 2014. The aim was to shock the ailing economy into recovery by providing a flood of cash for banks to lend at ultra-cheap rates. It was an unprecedented move that possibly forestalled a more severe economic downturn, perhaps even a depression. However, the program continued long after the U.S. economy was out of crisis, mainly because of the belief that QE could generate robust, sustainable long-term growth by facilitating lending, business investment and hiring. The economy is so complex that such a hypothesis may take years to confirm or disprove. But in the meantime, there are plenty of compelling signs that QE is nothing near the growth driver that policymakers had hoped. Vulnerable Economy Perhaps the most obvious sign of QE’s limits is how quickly the economy lost steam when the program ended. After surging by a 5% annual rate in the third quarter of 2014, gross domestic product (GDP) rose just 2.2% in the fourth quarter. The slump in growth… Read More

Average Gains of 144% — Is it Possible? One of the top trading experts in the world has created a unique, two-part options strategy with average annualized gains that seem too good to be true: 89% in 2012… 144% in 2013… 211% in 2014. I can’t guarantee you’ll have the same kind of success. But if history is any guide, it could help you make annualized gains of 220%… 508%… even 2,201% — which is what it has delivered over the past few weeks. We’ve put together a… Read More

Average Gains of 144% — Is it Possible? One of the top trading experts in the world has created a unique, two-part options strategy with average annualized gains that seem too good to be true: 89% in 2012… 144% in 2013… 211% in 2014. I can’t guarantee you’ll have the same kind of success. But if history is any guide, it could help you make annualized gains of 220%… 508%… even 2,201% — which is what it has delivered over the past few weeks. We’ve put together a free webpage revealing the details behind this strategy. Click here to go there now. Sincerely, Frank Bermea Publisher, Profitable Trading P.S. This expert just revealed his latest trade. He expects it to deliver 106% — but only if you take advantage immediately. Click here to get all the details. All major U.S. indices except for the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average closed higher last week, led by the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 and small-cap Russell 2000,… Read More

One of my favorite things to see in a long candidate is a pattern of beating Wall Street’s earnings estimates. After all, if a stock beats the Street consistently, it is doing many things right.   An earnings beat will often cause a stock’s price to pop, and when that stock also sports a superb long-term chart, I know I have found a winner. The Bank of New York Mellon (NYSE: BK) fits this description to a T. In the company’s past 18 quarterly earnings reports, going back to the end of 2010, it has only missed Zacks’ consensus estimate… Read More

One of my favorite things to see in a long candidate is a pattern of beating Wall Street’s earnings estimates. After all, if a stock beats the Street consistently, it is doing many things right.   An earnings beat will often cause a stock’s price to pop, and when that stock also sports a superb long-term chart, I know I have found a winner. The Bank of New York Mellon (NYSE: BK) fits this description to a T. In the company’s past 18 quarterly earnings reports, going back to the end of 2010, it has only missed Zacks’ consensus estimate three times. And it has beaten estimates more than 72% of the time. In the most recently reported quarter, announced in April, Bank of New York Mellon exceeded estimates by nearly 14%. #-ad_banner-# The financial institution has a storied history. The Bank of New York was founded in 1784 by the future first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, whose portrait adorns the $10 bill. It grew steadily over the centuries and merged with Mellon Financial in 2007.   The Bank of… Read More

Last week, I was surprised when my system designed to spot stocks on the verge of a breakout gave a buy signal for a stock in one of the most hated sectors of the market. It’s been a very long time since this dormant sector produced a buy candidate, but its boom-and-bust nature can produce huge winners. Subscribers to my premium Alpha Trader service rode one stock in this group to a 135% gain last year, making it our second largest winner. We are seeing green… Read More

Last week, I was surprised when my system designed to spot stocks on the verge of a breakout gave a buy signal for a stock in one of the most hated sectors of the market. It’s been a very long time since this dormant sector produced a buy candidate, but its boom-and-bust nature can produce huge winners. Subscribers to my premium Alpha Trader service rode one stock in this group to a 135% gain last year, making it our second largest winner. We are seeing green shoots sprout in the commodity-driven natural resource sector, and this could be the start of a long and persistent run in some very beaten-down stocks. Commodities are reflecting the nascent but aggressive pickup in inflation. The chained consumer price index (CPI) for all urban consumers showed a 1.2% rate of inflation from its January low, which annualizes to a 7.2% rate. This metric is considered to be a good representation of the general public because it accounts for nearly 90% of the population. Read More

Stock splits are typically seen as bullish events, even though they don’t change the value of your investment. They simply increase the number of shares outstanding and reduce the price per share on a proportional basis. What’s important is the reason for a split. Companies usually do it when the stock price has risen so high that management thinks a price cut is necessary to keep shares looking attractive for investors, many of whom equate lower-priced shares with better values. Investors tend to see a stock split as a sign of financial strength, since splits are often announced at the… Read More

Stock splits are typically seen as bullish events, even though they don’t change the value of your investment. They simply increase the number of shares outstanding and reduce the price per share on a proportional basis. What’s important is the reason for a split. Companies usually do it when the stock price has risen so high that management thinks a price cut is necessary to keep shares looking attractive for investors, many of whom equate lower-priced shares with better values. Investors tend to see a stock split as a sign of financial strength, since splits are often announced at the same time as dividend hikes. Plus, studies have found a strong positive correlation between stock splits and future earnings growth. Clearly, splits have positive implications for portfolio performance, and a good real-world example of this comes from a unique exchange-traded fund called the USCF Stock Split ETF (NYSE: TOFR). The fund, which provides an easy way to gain regular exposure to stock splitters, has risen roughly 10% in value since last September, while the S&P 500 has risen around 7%.  The fund is still only about eight months old, and only has about $5 million in net assets thus… Read More