On a recent trip to Boulder, CO, I stood outside a Tesla Motors (Nasdaq: TSLA) showroom ogling its sports cars with lust in my heart. A few weeks later, when a Tesla roadster whooshed silently past me on a New York City street, my heart skipped a beat. Tesla makes the kinds of cars that auto enthusiasts lust after. Then again, I have a short attention span. Minutes later, a Porsche 911 zoomed past me with its inimitable throaty growl, and my lust was re-directed. My fickle tastes highlight a real problem for Tesla. The company is… Read More

On a recent trip to Boulder, CO, I stood outside a Tesla Motors (Nasdaq: TSLA) showroom ogling its sports cars with lust in my heart. A few weeks later, when a Tesla roadster whooshed silently past me on a New York City street, my heart skipped a beat. Tesla makes the kinds of cars that auto enthusiasts lust after. Then again, I have a short attention span. Minutes later, a Porsche 911 zoomed past me with its inimitable throaty growl, and my lust was re-directed. My fickle tastes highlight a real problem for Tesla. The company is aiming to crack two auto market niches, though success looks like a long shot in each. The car faces heady competition in a crowded sports car field, and the electric car market is also about to get crowded. Investor message boards are filled with Tesla’s vitriolic detractors and even more rabid supporters. So I won’t weigh in as to whether Tesla builds the world’s coolest cars or simply overpriced go-karts. The truth lies somewhere in between. Others suggest that Tesla isn’t a car company, so much as a technology development company. Hogwash. This is… Read More

If you are a close watcher of retail stocks, you have every right to throw up your hands in exasperation. With all of the distress taking place among consumers, who would have guessed that the back-to-school season would be so good? Some retailers, such as Abercrombie & Fitch (NYSE: ANF) and Limited Brands (NYSE: LTD), posted surprise double-digit gains in same store sales, while many others posted comps in the mid single-digits. Almost all of them were ahead of analysts’ forecasts.   Does this mean that we should take all of the gloom and… Read More

If you are a close watcher of retail stocks, you have every right to throw up your hands in exasperation. With all of the distress taking place among consumers, who would have guessed that the back-to-school season would be so good? Some retailers, such as Abercrombie & Fitch (NYSE: ANF) and Limited Brands (NYSE: LTD), posted surprise double-digit gains in same store sales, while many others posted comps in the mid single-digits. Almost all of them were ahead of analysts’ forecasts.   Does this mean that we should take all of the gloom and doom about consumers with a grain of salt? Yes. Does this mean that retail stocks have become a compelling buy? Yes. But not for the reasons you think, and only in the long-term context.  It may look as if we’re off to a strong rebound in retail spending. But one month’s data does not a trend make. October sales could just as easily be lackluster. Instead, the real reason to like retail stocks is the tremendous amount of earnings leverage they can garner from… Read More

An extremely valuable investment strategy is to keep tabs on what the major players on Wall Street are doing with their money. Warren Buffett, George Soros, Bill Gross, Mario Gabelli and Jeremy Grantham quickly come to mind — especially considering they are more than willing to put their own money… Read More

Interest rates near zero and record-low U.S. Treasury yields make finding good income investments a bit harder these days. Don’t get me wrong — it’s still possible to find attractive yields, but you need… Read More

Even as the high-profile spat between the United States and China over the too-cheap Chinese currency gets much press coverage, currency wars are brewing all over the place. And how these battles shake out will determine whether the global… Read More

Brazil is emerging as one of the great stories of the 21st century. Sound economic policies and abundant natural resources have led to sustained economic growth. And investors are racing to get in to this Samba party — the iShares Brazil (NYSE: EWZ) exchange-traded… Read More

I’d be surprised if you’ve heard of Larry Meyer, but in the past few days, he’s created quite a buzz. Larry Meyer is a former Federal Reserve Governor. He holds a B.A. from Yale; a Ph.D. from MIT. His pedigree is top-notch. So are his connections. Meyer is still buddies with the folks on the Federal Open Market Committee, the policy-making body of the U.S. Federal Reserve. And his friends tell him what goes on at their meetings weeks before the general public gets to read about it. You would… Read More

I’d be surprised if you’ve heard of Larry Meyer, but in the past few days, he’s created quite a buzz. Larry Meyer is a former Federal Reserve Governor. He holds a B.A. from Yale; a Ph.D. from MIT. His pedigree is top-notch. So are his connections. Meyer is still buddies with the folks on the Federal Open Market Committee, the policy-making body of the U.S. Federal Reserve. And his friends tell him what goes on at their meetings weeks before the general public gets to read about it. You would think sharing that information with anyone outside the current Fed members would be illegal. You would also think the fact that Meyer charges well-heeled clients $75,000 each for access to what he has heard — well ahead of the investing public — would be unlawful. Amazingly, neither action is illegal, according to a Reuters investigation. One of the Federal Reserve’s main tools is setting target interest rates, and profits can be made or lost based on what the Fed says at its meetings. It makes me mad… Read More

It is the job of every Wall Street analyst (known as a “sell-sider”) to convince clients to buy stocks on their buy list. Those clients — hedge funds and mutual funds also known as “buy-siders” — give the ideas a listen, but often… Read More

The world is changing fast. Economic dominance is undergoing an epic shift. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the gross domestic product (GDP) of the world’s emerging… Read More

As we’ve been discussing throughout the past six months, a range-bound market means you’re likely better off moving in and out of certain stocks and sectors as they prove timely. Buy-and-hold appears dead for now, although few have the ability to profit from very short-term trades either. Costco (Nasdaq: COST) highlights the value of a “mid-term trade.” In just six weeks, investors have made about +25% from this investment. Yet Wednesday’s quarterly report from this retailer tells us it’s time to “sell on the news.” Whenever you see… Read More

As we’ve been discussing throughout the past six months, a range-bound market means you’re likely better off moving in and out of certain stocks and sectors as they prove timely. Buy-and-hold appears dead for now, although few have the ability to profit from very short-term trades either. Costco (Nasdaq: COST) highlights the value of a “mid-term trade.” In just six weeks, investors have made about +25% from this investment. Yet Wednesday’s quarterly report from this retailer tells us it’s time to “sell on the news.” Whenever you see a stock make a solid move as Costco has, it leads you to wonder if business is trending well ahead of expectations. That’s why it makes sense to hang on and see how quarterly results fare. I’ve noticed solid upward moves in four other retail pays I track; Best Buy (NYSE: BBY), Leapfrog Enterprises (NYSE: LF), Office Depot (NYSE: ODP) and Casual Male (Nasdaq: CMRG). Is business improving for these firms, or is the recent spike in Costco and these other companies’ shares simply due to a re-rotation back into retail?… Read More