With a slew of bad news recently hitting the streets, it appears fear is on the rise.  Unemployment rates remain high at 8.8%, housing sales are still slugglish and, despite an already weak U.S. dollar, the Federal Reserve is expected to keep interest rates near zero —… Read More

My oldest son was born in 1999. America was still experiencing what many believed was an endless nirvana of economic prosperity, so it’s no surprise that I sometimes jokingly referred to him as my “bull market baby.” With a generous gift from friends of the family… Read More

Shares of Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) remain within a few percentage points of their all-time high. The video-rental firm has had quite a run, with its shares up more than 150% in the past 12 months and nearly 1,000% in the past three years. Even lackluster forward guidance issued on the evening of Monday, April 25, only put a modest dent in this highflying stock. But behind the scenes, a major problem looms. And that problem’s name is Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL). Any day now, Apple is expected to announce the… Read More

Shares of Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) remain within a few percentage points of their all-time high. The video-rental firm has had quite a run, with its shares up more than 150% in the past 12 months and nearly 1,000% in the past three years. Even lackluster forward guidance issued on the evening of Monday, April 25, only put a modest dent in this highflying stock. But behind the scenes, a major problem looms. And that problem’s name is Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL). Any day now, Apple is expected to announce the formal  opening of a massive new data center in Maiden, N.C. This center has been ready to go for several months, with its opening possibly delayed by plans to start building an identical data center right next door. Why should investors care? Once these buildings are open for business, the entire Apple business model will see a complete overhaul. And Netflix may be in the company’s sights. For that matter,  a raft of other technology firms could see a completely altered competitive landscape as well. Before looking into Netflix, a few words about Apple. I had… Read More

The era of cost-cutting is over. This means it’s going to get harder for companies to show radical profit gains. Indeed, the pace of upside surprises in the first quarter of 2011 has modestly lagged previous quarters, according to Zacks.com. Yet some companies continue… Read More

Companies rightly see research and development (R&D) spending as a key measure of whether a product line is fresh and capable of capturing impressive pricing and margins. When that figure is low, it’s a sure sign a company is relying on older, possibly antiquated products to carry the day. And… Read More

If you follow the foreign exchange markets, you are probably aware of the Canadian dollar’s rise against its U.S. counterpart. Canada’s currency has now eclipsed the value of the U.S. dollar — it now takes roughly $1.05 U.S. dollar to buy one Canadian “loonie.” The rising… Read More

#-ad_banner-#Coffee chains like Starbucks (Nasdaq: SBUX) get the lion’s share of press when it comes to the $7 billion fresh coffee market. And up until now, the company has focused primarily on the chain’s retail side of the coffee business. What investors haven’t realized is that 86% of coffee drinkers… Read More

Big Oil is accustomed to a high return on investment (ROI). It makes some sense. After all, it costs millions to drill a conventional oil well and hundreds of millions to drill offshore, with no guarantees. With that in mind, it would be foolish… Read More

For many decades, it was pretty easy to analyze bank stocks. You simply needed look at their balance sheets and where we stood in the economic cycle. In tougher economic times, banks stocks typically traded right down to tangible book value, as that was… Read More

In a rising market, bad news for a company can be shrugged off as investors focus on the positives. But in recent weeks, investors have been less forgiving, meting out punishment to any company that delivers bad news. Let’s take a look at all of the companies that have lost… Read More