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

The president is surrounded by a host of unsavory characters, and concerns begin to brew that businesses are using the office for personal profits. Talk of impeachment begins, largely along party lines, with the opposition growing increasingly vocal. Large public protests are mostly peaceful, but the occasional act of violence generates publicity. This is the news out of South Korea. That’s right — the United States isn’t the only country with sharp political divisions. In fact, that’s the situation in many countries around the world right now. South Korea may just be further along the path of turmoil and could… Read More

The president is surrounded by a host of unsavory characters, and concerns begin to brew that businesses are using the office for personal profits. Talk of impeachment begins, largely along party lines, with the opposition growing increasingly vocal. Large public protests are mostly peaceful, but the occasional act of violence generates publicity. This is the news out of South Korea. That’s right — the United States isn’t the only country with sharp political divisions. In fact, that’s the situation in many countries around the world right now. South Korea may just be further along the path of turmoil and could offer some lessons for investors in countries that are just starting the journey toward regular chaos. —Recommended Link— This President’s Day, Get An Entire Year Of Maximum Profit — 60% Off In honor of President’s Day, we’re offering our most popular (AND most profitable) investment research service to date. It’s so precise at picking winners we call it Maximum Profit. Save 60% on a one-year subscription by using it risk-free for 90 days. But you must hurry… this offer closes for good on Thursday  at 11:59 pm. The political saga is highlighted in the chart below. The iShares MSCI… 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

“This could be one of our best shots at a triple-digit return in 2017.” This was what I said at the start of this month. And it remains true. Despite a recent hiccup in the stock price, I still believe a rebound in uranium prices will propel my pick in… 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

James Carville, the colorful political strategist also known as the “Ragin’ Cajun,” once quipped about reincarnation, “I’d like to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.” That used to be the case. However, with half a decade of abnormally low bond yields, investors no longer seem to fear the bond market. That’s about to change. The equity markets shifted to wide-open rally mode with the ascendancy of Donald Trump to the Oval Office. Warren Buffett has often referred to the stock market as a voting machine. If that’s case, Trump won the popular vote in a landslide,… Read More

James Carville, the colorful political strategist also known as the “Ragin’ Cajun,” once quipped about reincarnation, “I’d like to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.” That used to be the case. However, with half a decade of abnormally low bond yields, investors no longer seem to fear the bond market. That’s about to change. The equity markets shifted to wide-open rally mode with the ascendancy of Donald Trump to the Oval Office. Warren Buffett has often referred to the stock market as a voting machine. If that’s case, Trump won the popular vote in a landslide, with the Dow advancing 12% since election night. But while a 12% move in stocks always gets my attention, this stopped me dead in my tracks. It seems that Trump’s Twitter app isn’t the only thing he’s pounding. Now, to be fair, as much as it may disappoint the President, he alone isn’t causing the 44% rise in 10-year Treasury yields. The most likely culprit is a combination of expected fiscally expansive government policy combined with a rapidly improving economy spurred by wide sweeping deregulation. An accelerating business cycle is long term bullish for stocks. However,… Read More