Ever since I was a kid, I loved discount stores. I remember the old TG&Y five and dime store in my neighborhood. I’d trade in enough Coke (NYSE: KO) bottles at the A&P next door to cobble together twenty five cents to buy a bag of green plastic army men… Read More

Today’s investors are barraged with technology-driven investment tools. Everything from a standard online trading platform to completely automated, decision-making robo-advisors is at our fingertips. #-ad_banner-#Known collectively as Fintech, these revolutionary changes have deeply altered our relationship with the financial markets. The stock market had grown tremendously since the days when investors had to phone in orders to brokers who in turn called the stock exchange to execute orders. Things are continuing to change and change fast for individual investors. And whenever there is change there are many opportunities for profit. And this is especially true of the fintech revolution, one… Read More

Today’s investors are barraged with technology-driven investment tools. Everything from a standard online trading platform to completely automated, decision-making robo-advisors is at our fingertips. #-ad_banner-#Known collectively as Fintech, these revolutionary changes have deeply altered our relationship with the financial markets. The stock market had grown tremendously since the days when investors had to phone in orders to brokers who in turn called the stock exchange to execute orders. Things are continuing to change and change fast for individual investors. And whenever there is change there are many opportunities for profit. And this is especially true of the fintech revolution, one of many smart stocks to invest in now. Early Fintech Advances Fintech can be traced back to the early 1960s with the advent of the Quotron system on brokers’ desks. Quotron was the first electronic system for distributing stock quotes in real time. In 1966, the global telex network was launched with the goal of creating the backbone for future international financial technology. Later on, the Clearing House Interbank Payments System was founded to allow large global banks the ability to convey and settle payments in greenbacks. While it feels like forever, it has only been since 1983 that… Read More

While headlines of the new presidential administration’s various actions have dominated the news since the start of the year, the stock market has quietly been on a tear. According to Bespoke Investment Group, 36 stocks in the S&P 500 reached all-time highs last Monday. Another 24 new highs followed on Tuesday. Wednesday saw 40. Here is a full list of S&P 500 companies that have set new all-time highs as of last week, courtesy of Bespoke: Hopefully, you’ve personally benefitted from this. The question is: How long can this last? —Sponsored Link— Turn $500… Read More

While headlines of the new presidential administration’s various actions have dominated the news since the start of the year, the stock market has quietly been on a tear. According to Bespoke Investment Group, 36 stocks in the S&P 500 reached all-time highs last Monday. Another 24 new highs followed on Tuesday. Wednesday saw 40. Here is a full list of S&P 500 companies that have set new all-time highs as of last week, courtesy of Bespoke: Hopefully, you’ve personally benefitted from this. The question is: How long can this last? —Sponsored Link— Turn $500 Into $650,000 Without Risking A Single Dollar In The Market The Wall Street Journal reports that this innovation “blows open the doors to investing.” Forbes says that “this changes everything.” And if you click here now, we’ll share the details behind this investing breakthrough. If this article from the Wall Street Journal is to be believed, one disconcerting sign about the economy could come from the National Federation of Independent Business. Last month, its survey of small business optimism reached its highest level in 12 years. At a reading of 105.9,… Read More

I stumbled across a prediction last week that would impress even Mad Money’s Jim Cramer. According to a recent report from Oxfam, an international charitable organization, Bill Gates has a shot at becoming the world’s first trillionaire. Oxfam speculates that if the returns on the tech mogul’s $75 billion fortune in the next 25 years are similar to those in the last 25 years, Gates has a shot at jumping the $1 trillion mark. That got me thinking, if one man has a shot at becoming a trillionaire, certainly one of the S&P 500’s biggest companies has a shot at… Read More

I stumbled across a prediction last week that would impress even Mad Money’s Jim Cramer. According to a recent report from Oxfam, an international charitable organization, Bill Gates has a shot at becoming the world’s first trillionaire. Oxfam speculates that if the returns on the tech mogul’s $75 billion fortune in the next 25 years are similar to those in the last 25 years, Gates has a shot at jumping the $1 trillion mark. That got me thinking, if one man has a shot at becoming a trillionaire, certainly one of the S&P 500’s biggest companies has a shot at becoming the world’s first $1 trillion company? Turns out, a few do.  I see five S&P 500 companies with a shot at breaking the $1 trillion mark in the next five years. — Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) is the smallest company on the list with a market cap of $386 billion. Facebook’s share price would need to hit $345, up 159%. –Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) has a market cap of $400 billion. Shares would need to hit $1,980, up 125%. –Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) has a market cap of $498 billion. Shares would need to hit $130, up 100%. –Alphabet (Nasdaq: GOOG) is… Read More

With stock markets setting new records in 2017, it might be prudent to recall the much weaker start to 2016. In January 2016, the S&P 500 declined 5%, followed by another 5% decline in early February. About a year ago, on February 12, 2016, a rebound started, and the market… Read More

If you want a reason to be optimistic about the S&P 500 look no further than fourth-quarter earnings. After falling for five consecutive quarters, S&P 500 earnings growth is back in the green. It started last quarter. Third-quarter earnings grew 2.1% from the same period last year, a marginal victory on the chart but a big win for morale, breaking a five-quarter losing streak. #-ad_banner-#Fourth-quarter earnings show an improvement from there. As of February 10, 71% of S&P 500 companies had reported fourth-quarter results, according to FactSet Research. From that group, earnings were up 5.0% from… Read More

If you want a reason to be optimistic about the S&P 500 look no further than fourth-quarter earnings. After falling for five consecutive quarters, S&P 500 earnings growth is back in the green. It started last quarter. Third-quarter earnings grew 2.1% from the same period last year, a marginal victory on the chart but a big win for morale, breaking a five-quarter losing streak. #-ad_banner-#Fourth-quarter earnings show an improvement from there. As of February 10, 71% of S&P 500 companies had reported fourth-quarter results, according to FactSet Research. From that group, earnings were up 5.0% from last year. This marks a strong reversal out of the earnings recession that began in 2015. Looking forward, earnings are expected to accelerate throughout 2017. Take a look at the earnings growth projections below. This return to earnings growth is a powerful macro force that I expect to be supportive of the S&P 500 this year. History also tells me that companies delivering the best earnings surprises will do even better and benefit from one of Wall Street’s best-kept secrets. The Post Earnings Announcement Drift (PEAD) is the tendency for a stock’s cumulative abnormal… Read More

Snap Inc. (NYSE: SNAP) the parent company of popular messaging app Snapchat, recently officially filed for its initial public offering (IPO). Calling itself a “camera company,” Snapchat, which boasts a private market valuation of $17.8 billion, has ambitious plans to raise some $3 billion from the offering — a figure which some analysts call merely a placeholder number for a far greater goal. Don’t Make Snap Decisions Estimates suggest this offering to value the company between $20 billion and $22 billion, according to MarketWatch. But should retail investors, who the company says will have no… Read More

Snap Inc. (NYSE: SNAP) the parent company of popular messaging app Snapchat, recently officially filed for its initial public offering (IPO). Calling itself a “camera company,” Snapchat, which boasts a private market valuation of $17.8 billion, has ambitious plans to raise some $3 billion from the offering — a figure which some analysts call merely a placeholder number for a far greater goal. Don’t Make Snap Decisions Estimates suggest this offering to value the company between $20 billion and $22 billion, according to MarketWatch. But should retail investors, who the company says will have no voting rights, buy into the IPO? Just as important, given the recent IPO lemons we’ve seen from the likes of GoPro (Nasdaq: GPRO) — another camera company — Snapchat investors must consider the bigger picture. #-ad_banner-#According to its recent filing, Snapchat has made considerable progress in terms of monetizing its core ephemeral photo- and video-sharing app, which had 158 million daily active users at the end of 2016 for an average of 2.5 billion “snaps” created per day. Aside from the ads posted on its photo-sharing platform, the company makes money from content created by third-party channels such as news… Read More

“You can bet your bottom dollar, residential real estate will never go down in value!” The real estate seminar speaker exclaimed. He backed up this proclamation with slides of long-term charts and graphs to the excited wannabe-investor audience hanging on his every word. As a natural contrarian and experienced investor, this overconfidence in the housing market struck me as a possible signal that a crash of untold devastation was in the cards. #-ad_banner-#That was in 2005, and we all know what happened during the 2008-2009 financial crisis. Easy money sparked an unsustainable bubble in the residential housing market. Feeling secure… Read More

“You can bet your bottom dollar, residential real estate will never go down in value!” The real estate seminar speaker exclaimed. He backed up this proclamation with slides of long-term charts and graphs to the excited wannabe-investor audience hanging on his every word. As a natural contrarian and experienced investor, this overconfidence in the housing market struck me as a possible signal that a crash of untold devastation was in the cards. #-ad_banner-#That was in 2005, and we all know what happened during the 2008-2009 financial crisis. Easy money sparked an unsustainable bubble in the residential housing market. Feeling secure that price appreciation would never end, banks were heavily pushing NINJA (no income, no job, no assets)-type loans. There were stories of low paid retail workers purchasing $500,000-plus McMansions and other tales of incredible financial debauchery. Economists estimate that second mortgages during the bubble years fueled $1.25 trillion in consumer spending from 2002 to 2006. When the bubble burst, consumption collapsed, triggering the Great Recession. Huge numbers of homeowners lost their homes as the housing market was rocked by overleverage and plunging real estate prices. No longer able to sustain the payments by refinancing, many homeowners and investors just walked… Read More

The other day, a headline in a financial publication caught my attention. “Small Is No Longer Beautiful,” it read. I was intrigued. I knew all about the strength in small-cap stocks this past year and how their strong post-election rally started to fizzle in December. But would I go so far as to predict that these stocks have totally lost their appeal compared with their large and mega-cap peers? I don’t think so. Yes, it’s true that the Russell 2000, represented on the chart by the iShares Russell 2000 ETF (NYSE: IWM), strongly outperformed the S&P… Read More

The other day, a headline in a financial publication caught my attention. “Small Is No Longer Beautiful,” it read. I was intrigued. I knew all about the strength in small-cap stocks this past year and how their strong post-election rally started to fizzle in December. But would I go so far as to predict that these stocks have totally lost their appeal compared with their large and mega-cap peers? I don’t think so. Yes, it’s true that the Russell 2000, represented on the chart by the iShares Russell 2000 ETF (NYSE: IWM), strongly outperformed the S&P 500 (NYSE: SPY) index of U.S. large-cap stocks over the past year. And it might also be true that the index was getting a little ahead of itself, as suggested by its December pause. —Sponsored Link— The 8% Income Strategy: Never Run Out Of Money In Retirement If you’re living off income from your investments, or are nearing retirement and worry how long your savings will last, the “No Withdrawal” approach could change everything. Inside, you’ll discover the simple portfolio strategy to locking in 8%-plus dividends, along with six top high-yielders set to gain 20%… Read More

President Trump has made a border tax adjustment a key part of his trade policy, promising to raise taxes on imports into the United States to make domestic production relatively inexpensive. The idea has also been used to keep companies from moving production abroad. The President has explicitly threatened automakers… Read More