Editor’s Note: You probably can’t tell from the recent market activity, but we’re in the midst of a short-term bull market. While most regular investors don’t even realize it’s going on, the pros know how to take advantage of it. You don’t have to be a Wall Street insider to make money from it though. In fact, anybody who’s prepared could make a small fortune. One ex-Wall Street insider is targeting several companies setting up for big moves, and he wants to share them with you. To find out… Read More

Editor’s Note: You probably can’t tell from the recent market activity, but we’re in the midst of a short-term bull market. While most regular investors don’t even realize it’s going on, the pros know how to take advantage of it. You don’t have to be a Wall Street insider to make money from it though. In fact, anybody who’s prepared could make a small fortune. One ex-Wall Street insider is targeting several companies setting up for big moves, and he wants to share them with you. To find out how to make double-digit gains in as little as four days, follow this link. But you need to act quickly. This information will be taken off the web on Friday, May 13, at 11:59 p.m. The major U.S. stock indices posted another negative weekly close last week, led lower by the small-cap Russell 2000, which lost 1.4% and is now down 1.9% for 2016. The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100, another perennial market leader, fell 0.3% and is down 5.7% for the year.  #-ad_banner-#The market is at an important near-term… Read More

Today, I’d like to pass along a little update I wrote from members of my premium investing newsletter, Game-Changing Stocks. While I typically focus on lesser-known companies with triple-digit gain potential that are poised to disrupt the way companies do business and consumers live their lives, I simply think this opportunity is too good to pass up. Late last year, health officials traced an outbreak of E. coli to Chipotle Mexican Grill (NYSE: CMG). A few dozen people wound up getting sick, and shares of the popular burrito joint — known for fresh, high-quality food — dropped… Read More

Today, I’d like to pass along a little update I wrote from members of my premium investing newsletter, Game-Changing Stocks. While I typically focus on lesser-known companies with triple-digit gain potential that are poised to disrupt the way companies do business and consumers live their lives, I simply think this opportunity is too good to pass up. Late last year, health officials traced an outbreak of E. coli to Chipotle Mexican Grill (NYSE: CMG). A few dozen people wound up getting sick, and shares of the popular burrito joint — known for fresh, high-quality food — dropped precipitously. The shares are down nearly 10% for the year to date against a slight 0.3% gain in the benchmark S&P 500 index. #-ad_banner-#Chipotle’s fall from grace has erased any alpha from the past 12 months and even pushed its five-year performance below that of the S&P. Only extremely long-term investors have any real right to be pleased with how things have turned out: They’re up more than 600% versus a nearly 60% gain in the market during the past 10 years. Chipotle having a problem with food quality is like Volvo… Read More

Imagine you open a savings account and deposit $10,000. The interest rate is 2.5%, which isn’t tremendous — but you’ll take it in this low-interest-rate environment. Now imagine that every year, the interest rate rises by 0.25 percentage points: 2.75% in year two, 3% in year three, and so on. Pretty good, right? After 10 years, your account would pay you 4.75%. After 20, the interest rate is 7.25%. Lots of folks would sign up for that. #-ad_banner-#Now imagine an even better deal: instead of rising by 0.25 percentage points a year, rate goes up 10% each year — that… Read More

Imagine you open a savings account and deposit $10,000. The interest rate is 2.5%, which isn’t tremendous — but you’ll take it in this low-interest-rate environment. Now imagine that every year, the interest rate rises by 0.25 percentage points: 2.75% in year two, 3% in year three, and so on. Pretty good, right? After 10 years, your account would pay you 4.75%. After 20, the interest rate is 7.25%. Lots of folks would sign up for that. #-ad_banner-#Now imagine an even better deal: instead of rising by 0.25 percentage points a year, rate goes up 10% each year — that is, 0.25 percentage points in year one, 0.275 percentage points in year two, then0 .3025 in year three, and so on. After 10 years of this type of increase, your account would pay you 6.48%. After 20 years, you’d earn 16.8% on your deposit! This exercise is worth thinking about whenever you contemplate the value of dividend-growth stocks to a long-term portfolio. Because the latter deal — regular increases of the payout over time — is pretty much what you can expect from a high-quality company that increases its dividend year in and year out. Of course, in a savings… Read More

I’m always inspired by the story of legendary investor Shelby Cullom Davis who borrowed some money from his father-in-law to buy deeply, deeply undervalued stocks of insurance companies, eventually growing his fortune to $800 million. His thesis was that the market was unwittingly discounting the stocks by completely disregarding the huge piles of cash the companies were sitting on (which all insurance companies have…mainly by mandate). Warren Buffett did the same thing with a little insurance company called GEICO. I’ve always liked to poke around stocks of life insurance companies. There are two reasons. First, they typically have and grow… Read More

I’m always inspired by the story of legendary investor Shelby Cullom Davis who borrowed some money from his father-in-law to buy deeply, deeply undervalued stocks of insurance companies, eventually growing his fortune to $800 million. His thesis was that the market was unwittingly discounting the stocks by completely disregarding the huge piles of cash the companies were sitting on (which all insurance companies have…mainly by mandate). Warren Buffett did the same thing with a little insurance company called GEICO. I’ve always liked to poke around stocks of life insurance companies. There are two reasons. First, they typically have and grow huge piles of money. Second, betting on the insurance company is the equivalent to betting on the house at a casino. It’s hard to beat the actuarial tables. Like John Maynard Keynes said: “In the end, we’re all dead.” #-ad_banner-#But lately, I’m rethinking that for two reasons. One, lower risk interest rates are horribly low, so the huge piles of cash the life insurers are sitting on aren’t earning very much. Two, there is a ticking demographic time bomb called “Baby Boomers” looming in the near future. I selected three large life insurers whose stocks seem to be trading and… Read More

It’s been a tough year for investors. The S&P 500 tanked more than 11% by the middle of February on crashing oil prices, concerns over China and Europe’s health, and a “hawkish” Federal Reserve that planned to hike short-term interest rates. Then the market pivoted faster than basketball superstar LeBron James inside the key. The rebound rally that followed was one of the fastest in history, but the S&P 500 is still up just 1% year to date. #-ad_banner-#However, in the midst of all this volatility, there have been some clear outperformers. Read More

It’s been a tough year for investors. The S&P 500 tanked more than 11% by the middle of February on crashing oil prices, concerns over China and Europe’s health, and a “hawkish” Federal Reserve that planned to hike short-term interest rates. Then the market pivoted faster than basketball superstar LeBron James inside the key. The rebound rally that followed was one of the fastest in history, but the S&P 500 is still up just 1% year to date. #-ad_banner-#However, in the midst of all this volatility, there have been some clear outperformers. Nine of the 12 open positions in the Alpha Trader portfolios are up double digits year to date. That’s more than 10 times better than the S&P 500. For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, Alpha Trader is an exclusive research service that uses a proprietary indicator known as the Alpha Score, delivering the highest-ranked stocks across 10 different types of investments that range from small caps to blue chips. While I don’t want to give out all the names of this year’s top performers, here are three… Read More

Part of investing is taking advantage of temporary opportunities while they last. For the past several years, corporations have been able to issue debt at super-low rates to fund share buybacks, which in turn, boosts earnings per share.  Along with dividends, buybacks have contributed to a huge amount of cash being returned to shareholders, helping make up for a sluggish global economy and anemic sales growth. With low interest rates likely to persist, we still have a chance to play this theme.  However, buybacks and dividends aren’t enough to keep investors… Read More

Part of investing is taking advantage of temporary opportunities while they last. For the past several years, corporations have been able to issue debt at super-low rates to fund share buybacks, which in turn, boosts earnings per share.  Along with dividends, buybacks have contributed to a huge amount of cash being returned to shareholders, helping make up for a sluggish global economy and anemic sales growth. With low interest rates likely to persist, we still have a chance to play this theme.  However, buybacks and dividends aren’t enough to keep investors from losing money in the long run if a company offers nothing more than financial parlor tricks. That’s why I look for companies with strong brand leadership and attractive valuations, which should help me capture capital gains in addition to consistent income. #-ad_banner-# And I’ve found just such an opportunity in the recent retail sales meltdown. Williams-Sonoma (NYSE: WSM) is a leader in the $100 billion home furnishings market with more than 600 retail locations and a solid online… Read More

Shares of Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) have been slammed lately after weak user growth and an inability to monetize its platform led investors to question the future.  The big move in shares of the 140-character social giant is nothing new. Shares have moved higher or lower by 20% or more in one week three times in the past year. The concern is that Twitter has yet to effectively monetize its massive user base and that growth in monthly active users (MAUs) may be slowing.  #-ad_banner-#The concern over social media monetization is also a familiar story. It was the same issue that… Read More

Shares of Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) have been slammed lately after weak user growth and an inability to monetize its platform led investors to question the future.  The big move in shares of the 140-character social giant is nothing new. Shares have moved higher or lower by 20% or more in one week three times in the past year. The concern is that Twitter has yet to effectively monetize its massive user base and that growth in monthly active users (MAUs) may be slowing.  #-ad_banner-#The concern over social media monetization is also a familiar story. It was the same issue that led a 53% nightmare in shares of Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) during its post-IPO 2012 plunge, but has turned into 550% return since August of that year. Can Twitter do the same or should investors be worried? Turns out, higher revenue might not be far away, and the company may be hiding a secret user base that dwarfs reported users. Shares could be set to jump as early as this fall with the potential to double.  Twitter’s Secret Users And Real Power Of The Platform Even as the company reported a 36% increase in quarterly revenue and adjusted EBITDA growth… Read More

On April 13, 2015, the S&P 500 closed at 2,081. On April 13, 2016, it closed at 2,082. Of course, there have been innumerable up and down gyrations since then. But in the end, the benchmark index is right back where it started. In essence, we’ve gone nowhere over the past year. #-ad_banner-#There are more than a few pros, including top strategists at Goldman Sachs, who think the most likely trend for future stock prices isn’t up or down, but sideways. Given the macroeconomic cross-currents, you can understand why the market has no clear… Read More

On April 13, 2015, the S&P 500 closed at 2,081. On April 13, 2016, it closed at 2,082. Of course, there have been innumerable up and down gyrations since then. But in the end, the benchmark index is right back where it started. In essence, we’ve gone nowhere over the past year. #-ad_banner-#There are more than a few pros, including top strategists at Goldman Sachs, who think the most likely trend for future stock prices isn’t up or down, but sideways. Given the macroeconomic cross-currents, you can understand why the market has no clear direction. There are several compelling reasons to sell stocks… crumbling commodity prices, ongoing terrorist threats, rising interest rates, excessive valuations, stalling global economic growth. Yet, there are just as many strong arguments in favor of buying… robust job creation, strong consumer spending, cheap and available capital, heated M&A activity. You can see why the bulls and bears are in a tug-of-war right now. It’s quite possible that neither will gain the upper hand, leaving the broader market drifting. There will certainly be volatile day-to-day price swings, but the larger trend could… Read More

Trading countertrend moves can be profitable but risky, so it pays to line up as many factors as possible in our favor before putting money to work.  When a stock sports a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio that even a technical analyst such as me thinks is low, it’s worth a look. When it is oversold at support, I’ll get interested. And when the price of its main input commodity starts to fall, I’ll consider a quick snapback trade. This is the case with American Airlines (Nasdaq: AAL). Read More

Trading countertrend moves can be profitable but risky, so it pays to line up as many factors as possible in our favor before putting money to work.  When a stock sports a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio that even a technical analyst such as me thinks is low, it’s worth a look. When it is oversold at support, I’ll get interested. And when the price of its main input commodity starts to fall, I’ll consider a quick snapback trade. This is the case with American Airlines (Nasdaq: AAL). #-ad_banner-# I will admit that as a chartist, looking at fundamentals gives me the willies, but AAL has a trailing P/E ratio of just 3.1. That’s not only insanely low compared to the S&P 500, which has a P/E ratio of 19.1, but it’s less than half of the industry average of 6.3. Even based on next year’s earnings, AAL trades at just 5.7 times estimates. The stock has fallen more than 20% in the past month and a half, but the recent drop in oil prices following a multimonth rally could result in a… Read More