It would be great if investing was more science than art, but unfortunately the reverse is probably true. #-ad_banner-#In reality, stock price behavior often has more to do with to publicity, psychology, and hype than facts and figures. So sometimes investors are pretty much left to guess about what a stock, industry, or the market in general might do next. The guesswork is most nerve-racking when a stock or group of stocks is hyped so much their prices rapidly begin soaring to unexpected heights and seem like they’ll never stop rising. At that point, investors have a tough decision —… Read More

It would be great if investing was more science than art, but unfortunately the reverse is probably true. #-ad_banner-#In reality, stock price behavior often has more to do with to publicity, psychology, and hype than facts and figures. So sometimes investors are pretty much left to guess about what a stock, industry, or the market in general might do next. The guesswork is most nerve-racking when a stock or group of stocks is hyped so much their prices rapidly begin soaring to unexpected heights and seem like they’ll never stop rising. At that point, investors have a tough decision — sell and lock in their gains, or hold out for more profits. It’s a hard call to make. No investor wants to cash out only to find later they did so too soon and missed out some of the best growth their investment had to offer. But it’s the anticipation of this sort of remorse that keeps so many investors in the game too long, setting them up for massive losses when the hype fades and the market realizes the investment is ridiculously overpriced. I’m not just talking about the dot-com bust a decade and a half ago. Investors have… Read More

The recent price wars initiated by T-Mobile (NYSE: TMUS) are causing all kinds of headaches for the wireless service providers. These firms had enjoyed a stable and profitable pricing environment in recent years, but are now being forced to slash their own prices to keep customers from defecting. AT&T (NYSE: T) is among the casualties, as I recently noted, and its shares have lagged the S&P 500 by more than 30% over the past year. #-ad_banner-#This is not how things were supposed to turn out. AT&T and its peers spent tens of billions of dollars constructing national networks with an… Read More

The recent price wars initiated by T-Mobile (NYSE: TMUS) are causing all kinds of headaches for the wireless service providers. These firms had enjoyed a stable and profitable pricing environment in recent years, but are now being forced to slash their own prices to keep customers from defecting. AT&T (NYSE: T) is among the casualties, as I recently noted, and its shares have lagged the S&P 500 by more than 30% over the past year. #-ad_banner-#This is not how things were supposed to turn out. AT&T and its peers spent tens of billions of dollars constructing national networks with an eye toward charging monthly service fees that would always rise a bit every year. The nation’s cable companies have deployed a similar business model, making heavy investments in broadband access, and at the moment, are reaping a huge windfall as they charge $30 to $50 for various levels of Internet access. Yet like the wireless carriers, these cable/broadband firms may also soon get a rude wake-up call. And it’s coming from the skies. Over the past decade, satellite TV providers such as DirecTV (NYSE: DTV) had hoped to undercut their terrestrial rivals by offering broadband service from orbiting satellites. Though… Read More

Few hedge fund managers can lay claim to keeping their doors open for over 20 years. Even fewer have grown to manage billions or more, putting billions in their own pockets in the process. Perhaps most impressive, only a tiny percentage of them have done this all before the ripe old age of 50.   #-ad_banner-#At 45 years old, Ken Griffen has proved himself many times over in an industry where money talks. Griffin founded Citadel, one of the most recognized and successful funds in the world, in 1990. With an estimated net worth of $5.2 billion, Griffen has been… Read More

Few hedge fund managers can lay claim to keeping their doors open for over 20 years. Even fewer have grown to manage billions or more, putting billions in their own pockets in the process. Perhaps most impressive, only a tiny percentage of them have done this all before the ripe old age of 50.   #-ad_banner-#At 45 years old, Ken Griffen has proved himself many times over in an industry where money talks. Griffin founded Citadel, one of the most recognized and successful funds in the world, in 1990. With an estimated net worth of $5.2 billion, Griffen has been besting his fellow competitors and providing excellent returns to his clients for decades.   Citadel has been shaking up its portfolio recently with the addition of a number of real estate stocks, many of them homebuilders. Mortgage rates have continued to remain low, with existing home inventory and building supply lagging since the recession. Add in new highs for home prices in burgeoning markets such as Texas, and you have the perfect cocktail for a rise in residential construction stocks.    These bullish positions have been disclosed in the past month through multiple 13D and 13G filings. These forms outline… Read More

Nobody likes getting old. Yet it is one of life’s few inevitables. However, there are a handful of companies that allow people to age more gracefully with anti-aging products. #-ad_banner-#Nu Skin Enterprises (NYSE: NUS) is one of these companies. However, its stock is already up 75% over the past 12 months. There’s still one company that looks to be a value in the fight against aging, and that’s Estee Lauder (NYSE: EL). The recent pullback in Estee Lauder’s shares appears to be a buying opportunity. The company is down nearly 7% with year, compared with an S&P 500 that’s flat. Read More

Nobody likes getting old. Yet it is one of life’s few inevitables. However, there are a handful of companies that allow people to age more gracefully with anti-aging products. #-ad_banner-#Nu Skin Enterprises (NYSE: NUS) is one of these companies. However, its stock is already up 75% over the past 12 months. There’s still one company that looks to be a value in the fight against aging, and that’s Estee Lauder (NYSE: EL). The recent pullback in Estee Lauder’s shares appears to be a buying opportunity. The company is down nearly 7% with year, compared with an S&P 500 that’s flat. There are only a few global cosmetic companies, and Estee Lauder is one of them. Its various skin care and fragrance products are sold in department stores, company-owned retail stores and travel-related outlets such as airport shops. North America makes up less than 40% of Estee’s sales, meaning the company is very much a global operator. It’s already the market leader in China when it comes to skin care and makeup. China is Estee’s third-largest market by revenues, behind the U.S. and the U.K., and the company only has about half of its brands in China, meaning there’s an opportunity… Read More

Bull market critics have long said stocks are soaring mainly because of the Federal Reserve’s stimulus program known as quantitative easing (QE). According to QE bashers, stocks have been falsely propped up by money printing and are in a huge bubble, which will inevitably pop and make the previous financial crisis look like a Sunday picnic. #-ad_banner-#Though overly sensationalized, this argument does have some validity. By precipitating ultra-low interest rates, QE probably has many more investors than usual looking to stocks, since these now often have much better yields than bonds. But when interest rates finally become attractive again, income… Read More

Bull market critics have long said stocks are soaring mainly because of the Federal Reserve’s stimulus program known as quantitative easing (QE). According to QE bashers, stocks have been falsely propped up by money printing and are in a huge bubble, which will inevitably pop and make the previous financial crisis look like a Sunday picnic. #-ad_banner-#Though overly sensationalized, this argument does have some validity. By precipitating ultra-low interest rates, QE probably has many more investors than usual looking to stocks, since these now often have much better yields than bonds. But when interest rates finally become attractive again, income investors may flee stocks in droves, and a very nasty correction may result. Still, I think the bull market critics aren’t giving the U.S. economy the credit it deserves, and I suspect their concerns about a QE-triggered financial crisis are far overblown. Consider, for instance, that earnings per share (EPS) for the large-company-dominated S&P 500 expanded solidly — nearly 9% — in 2013. And of the 482 S&P 500 firms that had reported fourth-quarter earnings as of Feb. 28, 65% beat analyst expectations. Typically, 63% beat expectations. Also consider the S&P’s price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 16. While markedly higher than… Read More

You have to have some sympathy for the executives at San Jose, Calif.-based Echelon Corp. (Nasdaq: ELON). They’ve been trying to explain the appeal of adding wireless communications and intelligence to a range of “dumb” machines and devices for more than two decades, yet industries and consumers never quite grasped the company’s vision. Indeed, Echelon’s market value recently fell to an all-time low of just $100 million as investors grew tired of open-ended losses. #-ad_banner-#So you can imagine the company’s shock when Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) announced plans in January to acquire Nest Labs for $3.2 billion. Nest has made quick… Read More

You have to have some sympathy for the executives at San Jose, Calif.-based Echelon Corp. (Nasdaq: ELON). They’ve been trying to explain the appeal of adding wireless communications and intelligence to a range of “dumb” machines and devices for more than two decades, yet industries and consumers never quite grasped the company’s vision. Indeed, Echelon’s market value recently fell to an all-time low of just $100 million as investors grew tired of open-ended losses. #-ad_banner-#So you can imagine the company’s shock when Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) announced plans in January to acquire Nest Labs for $3.2 billion. Nest has made quick inroads in the consumer market by adding wireless intelligence to thermostats and other “dumb” devices. Echelon’s executives can at least take solace in the fact that investors have pushed its stock up 50% in hopes of a Google-style buyout. Why would Google pay so much money for a company that reportedly had just a $300 million revenue run rate? Because Nest, along with many other firms, are in the forefront of an emerging industry niche that could be worth $44 billion a year by 2017, according to research group GSMA. That firm solely estimates how much money will be spent… Read More

The cloud computing market is expected to grow 23.5% a year over the next four years, five times faster than the entire rest of the IT market — all the way to $107 billion, according to industry research firm International Data Corp. (IDC). #-ad_banner-#IDC also expects that by 2017, 17% of all IT expenditures will be invested in the public cloud and 59% will go to cloud services in general. And our Canadian friends to the north are in a position to potentially steal billions of dollars in business away from cloud providers in the good ol’ U.S. of A. Read More

The cloud computing market is expected to grow 23.5% a year over the next four years, five times faster than the entire rest of the IT market — all the way to $107 billion, according to industry research firm International Data Corp. (IDC). #-ad_banner-#IDC also expects that by 2017, 17% of all IT expenditures will be invested in the public cloud and 59% will go to cloud services in general. And our Canadian friends to the north are in a position to potentially steal billions of dollars in business away from cloud providers in the good ol’ U.S. of A. In fact, snooping by the National Security Agency is already costing the U.S. cloud industry a whole lot of business. Soon after the initial leaks, 10% of foreign companies said they had already canceled a project with a U.S. cloud provider, and 56% said they’d be less likely to use one. A study by the Information and Technology Innovation Foundation (ITIF) showed that if American providers lose between 10% and 20% of foreign business over three years, the damage could amount to as much as $35 billion. You’ll recall, last June, whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that the government agency collected… Read More

It’s an idea that the richest and most powerful people in the business world almost never say out loud. But takeover king Wilbur Ross knows it. So does Herb Allen, the most exclusive banker in the world. And you can bet your boots that billionaire Warren Buffett knows what I’m about to tell you. In fact, he’s often said these are the types of deals he wants to pursue… Here’s Wall Street’s dirty little secret: The best investments in the world — those with the biggest returns and some of the highest yields — are not listed on any stock… Read More

It’s an idea that the richest and most powerful people in the business world almost never say out loud. But takeover king Wilbur Ross knows it. So does Herb Allen, the most exclusive banker in the world. And you can bet your boots that billionaire Warren Buffett knows what I’m about to tell you. In fact, he’s often said these are the types of deals he wants to pursue… Here’s Wall Street’s dirty little secret: The best investments in the world — those with the biggest returns and some of the highest yields — are not listed on any stock market. They’re privately held… #-ad_banner-#According to an investing trade group report, as of March 2013, the private market outperformed the S&P 500 (including dividends) by 2.6 percentage points, 2.2 percentage points and 6.1 percentage points for three-, five- and 10-year periods, respectively. And it’s not limited to just recent performance. A study by professors at Duke and Ohio State covering a period from 1984 through 2010 found that private market investors earned 18% more than the S&P 500. It’s proof that when it comes to investing, the rich really are different — they invest in better companies. But exactly how… Read More

In a bull market that has propped up a wide range of sectors and industries, few have benefited as much as biotech stocks. The bigger biotechs, such as Gilead Sciences (Nasdaq: GILD) and Amgen (Nasdaq: AMGN), have helped the Nasdaq Biotech Index post a two-year return of 120% — triple that of the S&P 500. A few dozen smaller biotechs have even done far better than that. #-ad_banner-#Positive FDA clinical data has boosted once-obscure biotechs such as Puma Biotech (Nasdaq: PBYI), Clovis Oncology (Nasdaq; CLVS) or Acadia Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: ACAD), 250%, 300% and 1,500%, respectively, over the past two years. Intercept… Read More

In a bull market that has propped up a wide range of sectors and industries, few have benefited as much as biotech stocks. The bigger biotechs, such as Gilead Sciences (Nasdaq: GILD) and Amgen (Nasdaq: AMGN), have helped the Nasdaq Biotech Index post a two-year return of 120% — triple that of the S&P 500. A few dozen smaller biotechs have even done far better than that. #-ad_banner-#Positive FDA clinical data has boosted once-obscure biotechs such as Puma Biotech (Nasdaq: PBYI), Clovis Oncology (Nasdaq; CLVS) or Acadia Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: ACAD), 250%, 300% and 1,500%, respectively, over the past two years. Intercept Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: ICTP), which I discussed a few months ago, shot up 400% in just one week. The two-year timeframe is essential if you hope to score those kinds of gains. Any biotech stock that is just a few quarters away from delivering meaningful late stage clinical trial data has already caught investors’ interest, so some of the gains have already been tallied. With a two- or even three-year time horizon, you can try to identify earlier-stage biotechs that are just starting to garner Wall Street chatter. To be sure, this is an industry where it pays to hear what… Read More

Toiling in the shadows of Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) and many other tech stars in California’s Silicon Valley, a team of 1,500 technologists are hard at work on behalf of an unlikely employer: Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT). #-ad_banner-#The retail giant has belatedly understood that simply having website for e-commerce won’t cut it in the era of social media and mobile surfing. In response, the company is now committing serious resources to its digital efforts. Will those 1,500 Wal-Mart staffers help turn the company into a leading-edge tech firm? Probably not. But they can identify hundreds of small ways to… Read More

Toiling in the shadows of Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) and many other tech stars in California’s Silicon Valley, a team of 1,500 technologists are hard at work on behalf of an unlikely employer: Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT). #-ad_banner-#The retail giant has belatedly understood that simply having website for e-commerce won’t cut it in the era of social media and mobile surfing. In response, the company is now committing serious resources to its digital efforts. Will those 1,500 Wal-Mart staffers help turn the company into a leading-edge tech firm? Probably not. But they can identify hundreds of small ways to improve the online shopping experience. After all, consumers now carry the Internet in their pocket, thanks to the proliferation of smartphones. As Gibu Thomas, Wal-Mart’s senior vice president of mobile and digital, recently told The Atlantic magazine, “IBM published some data about what retail traffic comes from mobile devices, as a kind of benchmark, and Wal-Mart’s numbers are a lot higher than the industry norm.” He adding that with the use of technology, “we can combine the breadth of online and the immediacy of offline to create an experience that means we can be a one-stop… Read More