The Minnesota Real Estate Journal brought a striking fact to my attention: There are three times as many self-storage facilities in the United States as there are McDonald’s (NYSE: MCD).  It may seem like there is practically a Golden Arches on every street corner, with the fast food chain operating 14,350 restaurants in the country in 2014. But the number of storage facilities dwarfed that at 48,500. Currently, about 10% of Americans rent a storage facility. And about 50% have used one at some point in their lives. These numbers will grow as storage demand increases. According… Read More

The Minnesota Real Estate Journal brought a striking fact to my attention: There are three times as many self-storage facilities in the United States as there are McDonald’s (NYSE: MCD).  It may seem like there is practically a Golden Arches on every street corner, with the fast food chain operating 14,350 restaurants in the country in 2014. But the number of storage facilities dwarfed that at 48,500. Currently, about 10% of Americans rent a storage facility. And about 50% have used one at some point in their lives. These numbers will grow as storage demand increases. According to the Self Storage Association, over the past 40 years, this has been one of the fastest growing segments of the commercial real estate sector. #-ad_banner-#​Stephen Mutty, senior vice president of real estate service company Colliers International, said the industry is growing because people “simply can’t throw stuff away.” So, consumers pay to buy it, and then they pay to store it. The U.S. self-storage industry generates more than $24 billion in annual revenue, and market research firm IBISWorld estimates that figure will grow to $31 billion in 2019. The sector has been described by analysts as “recession… Read More

More than a year after it was first proposed, the $45 billion  merger between Comcast Corp. (Nasdaq: CMCSA) and Time Warner Cable, Inc. (NYSE: TWC) was canceled last month. The deal would have been the answer to an aging cable communications industry, creating a giant with sufficient scale to withstand the slow decline of cable and satellite subscriptions. It turns out, the giant may have been too large for regulators to allow, and Comcast pulled its bid before Washington could kill it. #-ad_banner-#But it won’t stop the wave of industry consolidation. That’s because of rising competition from firms like Netflix,… Read More

More than a year after it was first proposed, the $45 billion  merger between Comcast Corp. (Nasdaq: CMCSA) and Time Warner Cable, Inc. (NYSE: TWC) was canceled last month. The deal would have been the answer to an aging cable communications industry, creating a giant with sufficient scale to withstand the slow decline of cable and satellite subscriptions. It turns out, the giant may have been too large for regulators to allow, and Comcast pulled its bid before Washington could kill it. #-ad_banner-#But it won’t stop the wave of industry consolidation. That’s because of rising competition from firms like Netflix, Inc. (Nasdaq: NFLX) and others, which has led to a 13% drop in live television viewership over the past year, according to Nomura Research.   Broadband Is The Future Of The Industry Regulators made it no secret that control over the broadband market was a big factor in their expected disapproval of the proposed Comcast-TWC deal. Comcast served 21 million internet customers and TWC had 11.4 million customers at the end of the first quarter. The combined entity  would have controlled 55% of the domestic broadband market, along with 30% of the cable TV market. (Though analysts had been comparing… Read More

For an investor looking to bolster their portfolio, there’s no better time than the start of a new mega-trend. Imagine if you could go back and invest in computers or smartphones before their demand skyrocketed to unprecedented levels. #-ad_banner-#That’s the kind of opportunity we’re are sitting on today, but many investors haven’t even realized it yet. See, I’ve uncovered a burgeoning new industry that has returned more than double the S&P 500 in the past few years. And the numbers say this trend is only just getting started. Read More

For an investor looking to bolster their portfolio, there’s no better time than the start of a new mega-trend. Imagine if you could go back and invest in computers or smartphones before their demand skyrocketed to unprecedented levels. #-ad_banner-#That’s the kind of opportunity we’re are sitting on today, but many investors haven’t even realized it yet. See, I’ve uncovered a burgeoning new industry that has returned more than double the S&P 500 in the past few years. And the numbers say this trend is only just getting started. Let me explain. Since the end of 2010, the S&P 500 has earned investors an 81% return. On the other hand, companies in the cybersecurity industry have helped investors earn a whopping 163% — more than double the S&P’s return. Some might look at that chart and worry that they’ve missed the boat; that all of the biggest gains have already been made. But that just isn’t the case. Markets and Markets — a market research firm based… Read More

Something troubling just took place in China… Last month, Chinese officials were caught stockpiling potentially rotten grains into the country’s reserves.  The situation “holds serious implications for global commodity prices” reported The Financial Times. “If the stockpiles include large amounts of unusable grain, China could be forced to increase imports sharply…” You see, in China the government guarantees a minimum price on sales of grain. By fudging the paperwork to say they paid full price, officials were filling their warehouses with rotten, discounted grains and pocketing the change.  China holds nearly 40% of the world’s corn. And if the rumors… Read More

Something troubling just took place in China… Last month, Chinese officials were caught stockpiling potentially rotten grains into the country’s reserves.  The situation “holds serious implications for global commodity prices” reported The Financial Times. “If the stockpiles include large amounts of unusable grain, China could be forced to increase imports sharply…” You see, in China the government guarantees a minimum price on sales of grain. By fudging the paperwork to say they paid full price, officials were filling their warehouses with rotten, discounted grains and pocketing the change.  China holds nearly 40% of the world’s corn. And if the rumors are true Chinese demand for imported grain could skyrocket.  This could be a huge catalyst for one company in particular.  With more than 250 processing plants in over 75 countries, Archer Daniels Midland Co. (NYSE: ADM) is the largest publicly-traded company in a relatively unknown, but vital, portion of the $2 trillion U.S. agribusiness sector: grain trading.  Essentially, these companies buy, process, transport and sell agricultural commodities like corn, wheat, soybeans and cocoa. They then turn these into food products, vegetable oils, livestock feed, chemicals and biofuels, selling the finished products to the industries that require them.  Here’s where ADM… Read More

Forty thousand-plus people flocked to Omaha, Neb., the first weekend of May for Berkshire Hathaway’s (NYSE: BRK-B) 50th-anniversary shareholder meeting. Along with many of my peers, I always spend a good deal of time dissecting what Warren Buffett says at these annual meetings. And one of the things I gleaned from this year’s event is that the Oracle of Omaha values stocks based on dynamic variables. Buffett appeared on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” the Monday after the meeting. When asked about whether stocks are overvalued, he told co-anchor Becky Quick that stocks look cheap as long… Read More

Forty thousand-plus people flocked to Omaha, Neb., the first weekend of May for Berkshire Hathaway’s (NYSE: BRK-B) 50th-anniversary shareholder meeting. Along with many of my peers, I always spend a good deal of time dissecting what Warren Buffett says at these annual meetings. And one of the things I gleaned from this year’s event is that the Oracle of Omaha values stocks based on dynamic variables. Buffett appeared on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” the Monday after the meeting. When asked about whether stocks are overvalued, he told co-anchor Becky Quick that stocks look cheap as long as interest rates remain low. He added, “If interest rates normalize, we’ll look back and say stocks weren’t so cheap.” This indicates Buffett values stocks based partly on interest rates. It also signals he is willing to pay more for a company when rates are low, and that companies deserve lower valuations when rates rise. #-ad_banner-#​Like Buffett, I also use dynamic variables when I value stocks. And my favorite dynamic variable is the PEG ratio.  The PEG ratio compares the price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio to the growth rate of earnings per share (EPS). A stock is considered fairly valued… Read More

When Applied Materials, Inc. (Nasdaq: AMAT), the world’s largest semiconductor equipment manufacturer announced plans in 2011 to acquire Varian Semi for more than $4 billion, many industry participants cried foul. After all, AMAT, as the company is known, was already so dominant in the industry that it seemed unfair for it to grow yet larger. So when AMAT announced in 2014 that it planned to absorb rival Tokyo Electron, for more than $9 billion, competitors pleaded with regulators to nix the deal. Six months later, those regulators indeed expressed serious anti-trust concerns, and AMAT’s management has quietly canceled its proposed… Read More

When Applied Materials, Inc. (Nasdaq: AMAT), the world’s largest semiconductor equipment manufacturer announced plans in 2011 to acquire Varian Semi for more than $4 billion, many industry participants cried foul. After all, AMAT, as the company is known, was already so dominant in the industry that it seemed unfair for it to grow yet larger. So when AMAT announced in 2014 that it planned to absorb rival Tokyo Electron, for more than $9 billion, competitors pleaded with regulators to nix the deal. Six months later, those regulators indeed expressed serious anti-trust concerns, and AMAT’s management has quietly canceled its proposed merger. Simply put, with roughly $10 billion in annual revenues, this company is now too large to make any more deals. And that’s a good thing. Management has a new plan, which could fuel 40% upside for this slumping stock. In a moment, I’ll explain the perfect entry point for this stock. One hint: it’s coming very soon. Go-It-Alone Makes Sense While management likely wishes the Tokyo Electron deal could have been consummated, not all investors think it made complete sense. Tokyo Electron has seen recent market share losses, and AMAT’s core growth rate would likely have dimmed once… Read More

Healthcare has been the market’s best-performing sector during the past five years, with many stocks rising 200% or more. However, investors shouldn’t assume that the sector has been fully exploited. While many healthcare stocks have probably topped out for now, others still have room to run.  For outsized gain potential in the coming years, consider a relatively small, but innovative, medical device company called Natus Medical, Inc. (Nasdaq: BABY). Shares of Natus have been on fire, thanks to success in the firm’s two main markets, neurology and newborn care. Yet the promise of more growth, with the help of several… Read More

Healthcare has been the market’s best-performing sector during the past five years, with many stocks rising 200% or more. However, investors shouldn’t assume that the sector has been fully exploited. While many healthcare stocks have probably topped out for now, others still have room to run.  For outsized gain potential in the coming years, consider a relatively small, but innovative, medical device company called Natus Medical, Inc. (Nasdaq: BABY). Shares of Natus have been on fire, thanks to success in the firm’s two main markets, neurology and newborn care. Yet the promise of more growth, with the help of several encouraging new ventures, should propel Natus well beyond its current market value of $1.2 billion. Founded in 1989, Natus first made its mark in neurology by providing tests for the detection and  monitoring of epilepsy, Alzheimer’s disease and many other neurological disorders. The firm offers multiple varieties of (and adjuncts to) three such tests: electroencephalography (EEG), electromyography (EMG) and polysomnography (PSG). In a key competitive advantage, these devices typically run on proprietary software or algorithms, which confer unique features, such as a seizure detection program that enables faster, more accurate EEG interpretation. Accuracy is further boosted by a… Read More

A headline on Yahoo Finance one Friday morning caught my eye: “Could This Be the Beginning of the End of the Social Media Mania?” The article was penned by Scott Fearon, the founder and president of Crown Capital Management hedge fund, and it started like this: “I’m kicking myself for not following my instincts and shorting Yelp (NYSE: YELP) before it announced utterly rancid earnings on Thursday morning.” Shares of YELP plummeted 23% on April 30 after the company missed earnings estimates and showed a slowdown in user growth. For the first quarter, Yelp reported a loss of… Read More

A headline on Yahoo Finance one Friday morning caught my eye: “Could This Be the Beginning of the End of the Social Media Mania?” The article was penned by Scott Fearon, the founder and president of Crown Capital Management hedge fund, and it started like this: “I’m kicking myself for not following my instincts and shorting Yelp (NYSE: YELP) before it announced utterly rancid earnings on Thursday morning.” Shares of YELP plummeted 23% on April 30 after the company missed earnings estimates and showed a slowdown in user growth. For the first quarter, Yelp reported a loss of $0.02 per share, double what analysts had expected. Revenue also fell short. And while the number of monthly active users during the first quarter was up 8% year over year to 143 million, this paled in comparison to the 30% growth seen in the first quarter of 2014. The final nail in the coffin was a lower-than-anticipated revenue forecast for the current quarter. Investors quickly abandoned ship, and traders who did short the shares prior to the announcement made a nice sum for a day’s work. Despite Fearon’s concerns (to put it mildly) about Yelp and other social media companies’… Read More

Everyone makes money investing by following a trend.  Whether your time horizon is minutes or months, a financial instrument must move in your favor to be profitable. It is that simple.  So finding an indicator to measure trend is critical to your success. There’s a simple, quantitative indicator I use to determine the power of a trend that find stocks with the propensity for big moves. It’s called relative strength (RS). #-ad_banner-#​Relative strength investing is pretty straightforward. It involves buying the best-performing stocks relative to all other stocks and holding… Read More

Everyone makes money investing by following a trend.  Whether your time horizon is minutes or months, a financial instrument must move in your favor to be profitable. It is that simple.  So finding an indicator to measure trend is critical to your success. There’s a simple, quantitative indicator I use to determine the power of a trend that find stocks with the propensity for big moves. It’s called relative strength (RS). #-ad_banner-#​Relative strength investing is pretty straightforward. It involves buying the best-performing stocks relative to all other stocks and holding them until their momentum changes course. To most investors, especially those considered value investors, this strategy probably feels counterintuitive. After all, one of the first things you learn as an investor is to “buy low, sell high.” But what we feel and what we can prove are two very different things. And there are decades of research that prove the predictive power of this indicator. In the 1950s, George Chestnutt created one of the first newsletters using RS to rank stocks and industry groups. He also used RS to manage the successful American Investors Fund, which showed a… Read More