In his excellent book “One Up on Wall Street,” Peter Lynch, the best mutual fund manager ever, revealed a powerful charting tool that helped him achieve an annual gain of 29.2% in his portfolios for 13 years. In this chart, Peter Lynch drew a company’s stock price and earnings per share together and aligned the value of $1 in earnings per share to $15 in stock price. He wrote… Read More

In his excellent book “One Up on Wall Street,” Peter Lynch, the best mutual fund manager ever, revealed a powerful charting tool that helped him achieve an annual gain of 29.2% in his portfolios for 13 years. In this chart, Peter Lynch drew a company’s stock price and earnings per share together and aligned the value of $1 in earnings per share to $15 in stock price. He wrote in pages 164-165 of the book: “A quick way to tell if a stock is overpriced is to compare the price line to the earnings line. If you bought familiar growth companies — such as Shoney’s, The Limited, or Marriott — when the stock price fell well below the earnings line, and sold them when the stock price rose dramatically above it, the chances are you’d do pretty well.” To see how this Peter Lynch Chart works, we applied it to the top holdings of Warren Buffett,… Read More

T. Boone Pickens has been around a long time. Born in 1928, the 85-year-old billionaire has amassed a fortune by investing in the industry he knows best: oil and gas. He came from an oil and gas pedigree. His father worked as a landman leasing oil and mineral rights in Oklahoma. Pickens’ first job out of college was with Phillips Petroleum. He later worked as a wildcatter. In 1956, he founded the company that would become Mesa Petroleum and helped it grow into one of the largest… Read More

T. Boone Pickens has been around a long time. Born in 1928, the 85-year-old billionaire has amassed a fortune by investing in the industry he knows best: oil and gas. He came from an oil and gas pedigree. His father worked as a landman leasing oil and mineral rights in Oklahoma. Pickens’ first job out of college was with Phillips Petroleum. He later worked as a wildcatter. In 1956, he founded the company that would become Mesa Petroleum and helped it grow into one of the largest independent oil companies in the world. During the 1980s, he became famous for his acquisition of other oil and gas companies, including Pioneer Petroleum and Gulf Oil. His newfound notoriety landed him on the cover of Time Magazine and prompted him to consider a presidential bid during the 1988 elections. When it comes to investing in the U.S. oil and gas sector, one would be hard pressed to find a more knowledgeable or experienced person anywhere on the planet. According to 13F filings, Pickens opened five new… Read More

Take a moment to try to imagine the perfect business. It wouldn’t have any of the worries or costs associated with inventory. The business would be able to profit from any product or service in the… Read More

Some stocks are good for a quick pop, but you have to time it just right. Case in point: Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) investors have seen several double-digit surges over the last year. They’ve also seen the stock plummet by as much as a third on more than a few occasions. High-risk and high-reward stocks are great for kick-starting a portfolio, and they certainly make investing interesting, but many investors have been… Read More

Some stocks are good for a quick pop, but you have to time it just right. Case in point: Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) investors have seen several double-digit surges over the last year. They’ve also seen the stock plummet by as much as a third on more than a few occasions. High-risk and high-reward stocks are great for kick-starting a portfolio, and they certainly make investing interesting, but many investors have been broken by high-flying has-beens. For instance, wireless giant BlackBerry (Nasdaq: BBRY) made a lot of people wealthy as its stock price rocketed 17-fold between 2003 and 2007. Investors who bought in at BBRY’s height, on the other hand, are looking at a 90% loss. A chance at overnight success is great, but the single best way to make money in stocks is to buy those you can buy and hold “forever.”… Read More

Sometimes, the best advertising a company can hope for is nothing it could ever actually create for itself. Rather, the most potent marketing tool in the world is inspiring consumers to use that company’s name as a verb — one that is synonymous with what that company does.  For example, Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) knew it had made it when people started to say “Google it” as a succinct way of referring to a Web search. But every now and then, your company’s name becoming shorthand for a routine function can turn against you. Case in point: Xerox (NYSE: XRX). Read More

Sometimes, the best advertising a company can hope for is nothing it could ever actually create for itself. Rather, the most potent marketing tool in the world is inspiring consumers to use that company’s name as a verb — one that is synonymous with what that company does.  For example, Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) knew it had made it when people started to say “Google it” as a succinct way of referring to a Web search. But every now and then, your company’s name becoming shorthand for a routine function can turn against you. Case in point: Xerox (NYSE: XRX). Back in the 1980s, before computers were common (or crucial) in corporate offices, photocopiers were the centerpiece of recording and sharing company information. That’s when the phrase “Xerox it” surfaced, slang for the act of photocopying. The advents of PCs and cloud storage have significantly quelled the need for high-end photocopiers, and Xerox has fallen from relevancy. Investors have also noticed the demise of Xerox’s stature, dismissing the company as yesteryear’s investment. That’s a mistake. Xerox has done a poor job of telling its story, but the company is far more relevant —… Read More

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke managed to spook the markets yet again last week. Like many investors, I watched his press conference and then witnessed the market‘s reaction as stocks slid south, trailing red. Investors and analysts are concerned that rising interest rates threaten to curtail the housing boom that’s helped drive the economic rebound. This $5 trillion segment of the U.S. Read More

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke managed to spook the markets yet again last week. Like many investors, I watched his press conference and then witnessed the market‘s reaction as stocks slid south, trailing red. Investors and analysts are concerned that rising interest rates threaten to curtail the housing boom that’s helped drive the economic rebound. This $5 trillion segment of the U.S. economy is often considered a bellwether for the economy as a whole. In the following chart tracking the S&P 500 Homebuilding Sub-Industry Index, you can see the market’s reaction after Bernanke’s statements on June 19:   But while homebuilders have seen big drops in share price over the past few days, some home-improvement businesses have remained relatively unscathed. In fact, the home-improvement company I’m going to tell you about has… Read More

Some stocks are good for a quick pop, but you have to time it just right. Case in point: Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) investors have seen several double-digit surges over the last year. They’ve also seen the stock plummet by as much as a third on more than a few occasions. High-risk and high-reward stocks are great for kick-starting a portfolio, and they certainly make investing interesting, but many investors have been… Read More

Some stocks are good for a quick pop, but you have to time it just right. Case in point: Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) investors have seen several double-digit surges over the last year. They’ve also seen the stock plummet by as much as a third on more than a few occasions. High-risk and high-reward stocks are great for kick-starting a portfolio, and they certainly make investing interesting, but many investors have been broken by high-flying has-beens. For instance, wireless giant BlackBerry (Nasdaq: BBRY) made a lot of people wealthy as its stock price rocketed 17-fold between 2003 and 2007. Investors who bought in at BBRY’s height, on the other hand, are looking at a 90% loss. A chance at overnight success is great, but the single best way to make money in stocks is to buy those you can buy and hold “forever.”… Read More

What if you could receive regular income without getting a second job or selling some of your assets?#-ad_banner-# Regular passive income is among the aspirations of many long-term investors. The good news is that it’s possible for you to build up a regular income when you approach investing with a specific strategy in mind. When you put together a long-term investing plan centered on cultivating income, you are more likely to succeed over time. Read More

What if you could receive regular income without getting a second job or selling some of your assets?#-ad_banner-# Regular passive income is among the aspirations of many long-term investors. The good news is that it’s possible for you to build up a regular income when you approach investing with a specific strategy in mind. When you put together a long-term investing plan centered on cultivating income, you are more likely to succeed over time. And that long-term income strategy should include dividend stocks. Perhaps the biggest difficulty with dividend stocks is figuring out how to buy enough shares of an investment so that your payouts actually provide you with an amount you can live on — or that can at least supplement your lifestyle. With that in mind, here are four golden rules for building income. 1. Be Realistic Few of us have tens of thousands of… Read More

Sometimes, the best advertising a company can hope for is nothing it could ever actually create for itself. Rather, the most potent marketing tool in the world is inspiring consumers to use that company’s name as a verb — one that is synonymous with what that company does.  For example, Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) knew it had made it when people started to say “Google it” as a succinct way of referring to a Web search. But every now and then, your company’s name becoming shorthand for a routine function can turn against you. Case in point: Xerox (NYSE: XRX). Read More

Sometimes, the best advertising a company can hope for is nothing it could ever actually create for itself. Rather, the most potent marketing tool in the world is inspiring consumers to use that company’s name as a verb — one that is synonymous with what that company does.  For example, Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) knew it had made it when people started to say “Google it” as a succinct way of referring to a Web search. But every now and then, your company’s name becoming shorthand for a routine function can turn against you. Case in point: Xerox (NYSE: XRX). Back in the 1980s, before computers were common (or crucial) in corporate offices, photocopiers were the centerpiece of recording and sharing company information. That’s when the phrase “Xerox it” surfaced, slang for the act of photocopying. The advents of PCs and cloud storage have significantly quelled the need for high-end photocopiers, and Xerox has fallen from relevancy. Investors have also noticed the demise of Xerox’s stature, dismissing the company as yesteryear’s investment. That’s a mistake. Xerox has done a poor job of telling its story, but the company is far more relevant —… Read More

Having grown accustomed to the Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) near my hometown, I was amazed at the brightness, quality, price and choices available at a competing new-to-me retailer during my visit while on vacation.#-ad_banner-# A closer look at the merchandise revealed high-end designer fashions such as Missoni, Oscar de la Renta,… Read More