You can’t blame Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke for trying. Faced with a struggling economy last summer, he devised a massive $600-billion plan to revive the economy, known as QE2 (or the second major round of quantitative easing). Investors are surely pleased,… Read More

Friday’s employment report has created an even hazier backdrop for stocks. Recent economic data showed an economy starting to cool, but with 244,000 jobs created in April — the best showing in 11 months — this expansion still may have legs after all. The key distinction: the economy‘s areas of support are not what you would have expected a few months ago. In recent weeks and months, investors have been trying to assess stocks in the context of a sharp spike in commodities — from oil to silver to… Read More

Friday’s employment report has created an even hazier backdrop for stocks. Recent economic data showed an economy starting to cool, but with 244,000 jobs created in April — the best showing in 11 months — this expansion still may have legs after all. The key distinction: the economy‘s areas of support are not what you would have expected a few months ago. In recent weeks and months, investors have been trying to assess stocks in the context of a sharp spike in commodities — from oil to silver to wheat. Only recently, we’ve seen how the massive flooding in the Midwest is leading to forecasts of sharply falling farm output and eventually, higher food prices. Consumers didn’t need to hear that while gasoline prices were eating a hole in their pocketbooks. #-ad_banner-#Despite that, stocks were able to rally through much of April, thanks to a declining dollar that was boosting prospects for U.S. blue chips. In effect, the domestic economic picture looked troubling, while the rest of the world promised to provide at least a decent tailwind. That scenario now looks backward, as… Read More

The most active traders, which usually man Wall Street’s trading desks, can alter market sentiment by either their presence or absence. As the weather warms, these traders take ever longer lunch breaks, which morphs into “Friday-free weekends,” culminating in their absence for decent chunk of the month of August. When these traders leave their desks, it’s a sign for the rest of us to cool off as well, in case thin trading volume causes one of our holdings to suddenly spike or plunge. Hence, the old-adage: “Sell in May and then go away.” (Until… Read More

The most active traders, which usually man Wall Street’s trading desks, can alter market sentiment by either their presence or absence. As the weather warms, these traders take ever longer lunch breaks, which morphs into “Friday-free weekends,” culminating in their absence for decent chunk of the month of August. When these traders leave their desks, it’s a sign for the rest of us to cool off as well, in case thin trading volume causes one of our holdings to suddenly spike or plunge. Hence, the old-adage: “Sell in May and then go away.” (Until the fall…) Is it a wise move? Let’s look. Well, we know April surely gives the impressions of a solid market rally. The S&P 500 rose, 4%, 4% and 10% respectively in each of the past three years and is up another 2.2% this month. That rally has recently extended into May, as the S&P 500 has rallied an average of 3% in the past three years. But by the end of May, the party seems to end.   The market has fallen in six of the past 10 Junes of the past decade,… Read More

As the past couple years have shown, U.S. equities are once again a prime source of attractive returns. But they’re not the only — or necessarily the best — source. Like many market watchers, I believe the highest long-term returns are to be had in developing countries… Read More

I know what income investors like. If I put a double-digit yield in the headline of an article, it will see thousands more reads than an article without a big headline yield. I can put “safety”… Read More

The Federal Reserve is normally between a rock and a hard place. That’s the nature of its job. On one hand, it has to keep inflation in check and prevent the economy from overheating. On… Read More

In the investment business, we’re very good at talking about when to buy. We can wax poetic about the single-digit piece-to-earnings (P/E) ratio and the deep-discount to book value or the return on equity. It’s the selling part we all need to work on… The reasons investors hang on to a stock are so vast and complex, it would take a team of psychiatrists at least a decade to begin analyzing them. Typically, the two major reasons are greed and emotional attachment. Greed is… Read More

In the investment business, we’re very good at talking about when to buy. We can wax poetic about the single-digit piece-to-earnings (P/E) ratio and the deep-discount to book value or the return on equity. It’s the selling part we all need to work on… The reasons investors hang on to a stock are so vast and complex, it would take a team of psychiatrists at least a decade to begin analyzing them. Typically, the two major reasons are greed and emotional attachment. Greed is simple: we like making money and we want to make more. The emotional attachment is the weird part. I’ve always been a big fan of the Warren Buffett philosophy on how to deal with the emotions involved in holding stocks: that stock doesn’t know that you own it. The hundred shares of Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) doesn’t tell you it loves you when you come home from work. If it does, we’ve got bigger problems. It’s OK to sell stuff. Look at it like you would a party. Eventually you have to… Read More

Business school professors often speak of the “efficient-market hypothesis,” which posits that stock prices reflect all available public information and therefore are never overvalued or undervalued; they’re, instead, are perfectly valued. These professors are wrong. In many instances, the market gets it wrong, and a stock can remain mispriced, even after an important piece of news is digested by buyers and sellers. I was reminded of this after looking at the stock action of Assured Guaranty (NYSE: AGO) on Friday, April 15. The company’s stock rose 24% in just one day, but as you more… Read More

Business school professors often speak of the “efficient-market hypothesis,” which posits that stock prices reflect all available public information and therefore are never overvalued or undervalued; they’re, instead, are perfectly valued. These professors are wrong. In many instances, the market gets it wrong, and a stock can remain mispriced, even after an important piece of news is digested by buyers and sellers. I was reminded of this after looking at the stock action of Assured Guaranty (NYSE: AGO) on Friday, April 15. The company’s stock rose 24% in just one day, but as you more deeply analyze the news that affected the stock, it’s easy to conclude that shares should have risen by a good deal more than that. The process may take several weeks or months, but when complete, this $17 stock could shoot up into the low to mid-$20s. Bank of America’s mea culpa Assured Guaranty provides insurance to bond buyers. If those bonds default, then the buyers can make a claim. It’s been a very lucrative business for many years, controlled by Assured Guaranty, MBIA (NYSE: MBI) and Ambac Financial (Nasdaq:… Read More

“Beat and Raise.” The pattern of beating estimates and raising forward guidance has been the key theme in each earnings season of the past two years. This time will be different. The “beat” part will likely hold as companies and the analysts that follow them continue to play the game of low expectations that then get exceeded. The “raise” part? That just got much trickier. Companies raise guidance when they have a lot of certainty about what the coming months will bring. Right now, few can say with certainty about how… Read More

“Beat and Raise.” The pattern of beating estimates and raising forward guidance has been the key theme in each earnings season of the past two years. This time will be different. The “beat” part will likely hold as companies and the analysts that follow them continue to play the game of low expectations that then get exceeded. The “raise” part? That just got much trickier. Companies raise guidance when they have a lot of certainty about what the coming months will bring. Right now, few can say with certainty about how the wide range of domestic and global events will play out. Here’s a checklist of the issues these companies face. Later on, I’ll look at the potential impact on specific sectors.   Oil prices bring caution. Expect a number of companies, especially those that are focused on consumers or have high transportation costs, to express real concern about surging oil. Stressed consumers are in no mood to help shoulder the burden. For example, airlines had successfully pushed through six fare hikes since the start of the year. On the seventh try, consumers appear to have balked and airlines had… Read More

New income investors sometimes make the mistake of looking no further than a stock’s current dividend yield. After all, a stock such as biotech firm PDL BioPharma (NASDAQ: PDL) looks mighty enticing, based on its 10% yield. But looks can be misleading. A closer look at PDL reveals a dividend that may be in trouble. The company’s net income fell by more than 50% last year, and PDL paid out more in dividends than it earned as income. The company earned $92 million, but paid $130 million in… Read More

New income investors sometimes make the mistake of looking no further than a stock’s current dividend yield. After all, a stock such as biotech firm PDL BioPharma (NASDAQ: PDL) looks mighty enticing, based on its 10% yield. But looks can be misleading. A closer look at PDL reveals a dividend that may be in trouble. The company’s net income fell by more than 50% last year, and PDL paid out more in dividends than it earned as income. The company earned $92 million, but paid $130 million in dividends. When earnings decline sharply, even blue-chip companies can sometimes find their dividends in danger. A good example is General Electric (NYSE: GE), which was forced to trim its dividend by two-thirds during the economic downturn. Quarterly payments dropped from $0.31 to just $0.10. [See: “Forget GE, Buy These Stocks Instead”] Another high-profile casualty of the downturn was oil refiner Valero Energy (NYSE: VLO). Valero cut its quarterly dividend from $0.15 to $0.05, which is where the dividend remains today. So how do you protect yourself… Read More