I have been chewing over our trading expert Mike Turner’s article this week, trying to get a handle on where the stock market can go from here. [Read Mike’s article here] Mike points out that September’s rally seemingly ignores the daunting economic hurdles we face. And his… 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

With reward comes risk. That’s the painful lesson learned by biotech investors last month. Investors in Arena Pharma (Nasdaq: ARNA), Idenix Pharma (Nasdaq: IDIX), AMAG Pharma (Nasdaq: AMAG) and Vical (Nasdaq: VICL) all saw their investments plunge by nearly a fourth– or more — thanks to bad news on the drug approval front. Of the top four losers in the Russell 2000 last month, all are in biotech — an industry for which you’ve got to have a strong stomach. Company (Ticker) Recent Price September Loss 52-Week High 52-Week Low Catalyst Arena Pharma (Nasdaq: ARNA) $1.54 -76% $8.00 $1.51 FDA… Read More

With reward comes risk. That’s the painful lesson learned by biotech investors last month. Investors in Arena Pharma (Nasdaq: ARNA), Idenix Pharma (Nasdaq: IDIX), AMAG Pharma (Nasdaq: AMAG) and Vical (Nasdaq: VICL) all saw their investments plunge by nearly a fourth– or more — thanks to bad news on the drug approval front. Of the top four losers in the Russell 2000 last month, all are in biotech — an industry for which you’ve got to have a strong stomach. Company (Ticker) Recent Price September Loss 52-Week High 52-Week Low Catalyst Arena Pharma (Nasdaq: ARNA) $1.54 -76% $8.00 $1.51 FDA spurns company’s anti-obesity drug Idenix Pharma (Nasdaq: IDIX) $3.14 -48% $6.11 $1.81 Setback in Hepatitis C trials AMAG Pharma (Nasdaq: AMAG) $17.85 -32% $52.49 $16.70 Disappointing results for anemia drug Vical (Nasdaq: VICL) $2.21 -29% $4.43 $2.20 Poor results from blood-vessel growth drug Flagstar Bancorp (NYSE: FBC) $1.86 -26% $7.85 $2.91 False start on a capital raise Genoptix (Nasdaq: GXDX) $14.39 -20% $39.00 $13.51 Pre-announced tepid Q3 results Virginia Commerce Bank (Nasdaq: VCBI) $4.81 -17% $7.69 $3.01 Being acquired by Discover Arena looks unlikely to rebound, as the FDA made it clear that Arena’s weight-loss drug offered too… Read More

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 mandated the need for disparate telecom networks to be able to communicate with each other. It also prescribed the need for number portability, which allowed consumers and businesses to keep their phone numbers even if they switched to another telecom provider or network. Read More

I recently came across an insightful article that boldly detailed how the Internet is changing the world. The piece offered a number of stats and detailed that 750 tweets are written from Twitter every second, 2.5 billion photos are uploaded to Facebook every month, and overall Internet traffic is growing… Read More

It’s been a nutty summer for the nation’s largest operator of book stores. Soon after Memorial Day, Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS) delivered the sobering news that sales and profit targets would not be met. By late July,… Read More

Legend has it that the term “blue chip” stems from poker, in that it represented the poker chip with the highest value in the game. These days, the term is ubiquitous in the stock market and refers to a large, stable company that is financially sound, has well-known brand and… Read More

In the debate between growth and value investors, it’s usually a contest between high growth and higher valuations and low growth and very low valuations. But what should investors do with a company that is seeing revenue and cash flow actually shrink? It’s been a longstanding question dogging the newspaper industry. In a worst-case scenario, cash flow turns outright negative and bankruptcy has been the only option. For the New York Times Co. (NYSE: NYT) and Gannett (NYSE: GCI), things have not been quite that… Read More

In the debate between growth and value investors, it’s usually a contest between high growth and higher valuations and low growth and very low valuations. But what should investors do with a company that is seeing revenue and cash flow actually shrink? It’s been a longstanding question dogging the newspaper industry. In a worst-case scenario, cash flow turns outright negative and bankruptcy has been the only option. For the New York Times Co. (NYSE: NYT) and Gannett (NYSE: GCI), things have not been quite that dire, and bankruptcy is quite unlikely. But is there any reason to search for value in these industry survivors? The short answer: a qualified yes. In this piece, I’ll focus squarely on the New York Times, although many of the conclusions may apply to Gannett as well. There’s no need to re-hash all of the twists and turns at the Times, but it’s helpful to pit the positives against the negatives. The positives: Rising national market share as regional rivals sharply re-trench and cede important national coverage… Read More

A common pitfall companies encounter has to do with challenging marketplace conditions, be it changing customer habits or competition from rivals that attempt to steal away its business. Others have a habit of self inflicting their wounds. Changing market conditions, foreign competition, fickle consumers — these are… Read More

In tough economic times, a high debt load can cripple a company. But when business is good, that debt can actually be a real benefit. That’s because equity comprises just a small part of the company’s total enterprise value (… Read More