It’s rare that I’ll go long any stock right after it’s made a series of new highs, but Southwest Airlines’ (NYSE: LUV) steady bullish breakout run seems likely to continue into the end of the year. I’m fortunate enough to live just five minutes from Southwest’s corporate headquarters at Dallas Love Field. Not only can I easily catch last-minute flights, but I’ve also befriended numerous Southwest employees and gained an insider’s perspective on the company. Between their input and my observations and research, I see clear blue skies and tailwinds for Southwest this quarter. #-ad_banner-#There’s been a long-standing… Read More

It’s rare that I’ll go long any stock right after it’s made a series of new highs, but Southwest Airlines’ (NYSE: LUV) steady bullish breakout run seems likely to continue into the end of the year. I’m fortunate enough to live just five minutes from Southwest’s corporate headquarters at Dallas Love Field. Not only can I easily catch last-minute flights, but I’ve also befriended numerous Southwest employees and gained an insider’s perspective on the company. Between their input and my observations and research, I see clear blue skies and tailwinds for Southwest this quarter. #-ad_banner-#There’s been a long-standing law in Texas called the Wright Amendment that’s limited Southwest’s routes and profits over the past 35 years. The law restricts nonstop service from Love Field to airports in Texas and eight other states. The Wright Amendment is being repealed in mid-October, and traffic at the Dallas airport is expected to increase nearly 50%. Southwest will be in a prime position to capitalize on this, but that’s only part of the reason I think the stock is a buy here. Coinciding with the Wright Amendment’s full repeal, Southwest has been acquiring new planes and training its… Read More

Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) has been one of Wall Street’s darlings for some time. From its 2008 lows to its early 2014 highs, the company has seen a meteoric 1,000% rise in its stock price and has expanded its product lineup and reach to become the largest online retailer in the world. This is certainly impressive and may not seem like a company you should be bearish on, but that 1,000% gain wasn’t a straight uphill shot. It was fraught with corrections of 10%, 20%, even 30% and more, and I believe we are on the precipice of another. Read More

Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) has been one of Wall Street’s darlings for some time. From its 2008 lows to its early 2014 highs, the company has seen a meteoric 1,000% rise in its stock price and has expanded its product lineup and reach to become the largest online retailer in the world. This is certainly impressive and may not seem like a company you should be bearish on, but that 1,000% gain wasn’t a straight uphill shot. It was fraught with corrections of 10%, 20%, even 30% and more, and I believe we are on the precipice of another. Amazon fired off a slew of new products this year, including tablets, a set-top box and its first smartphone, with mediocre success. And on Thursday, I had the pleasure of briefly discussing Amazon’s drones on Fox Business. While drones delivering goods to your doorstep within 30 minutes of purchase is a nifty idea, and Amazon has hired NASA engineers and researchers to further the project, it adds little near-term value to the company. And it’s certainly no reason to pay almost 500 times earnings for AMZN. #-ad_banner-#Let me say… Read More

Options trading offers leveraged strategies that ratchet up percentage gains and lower upfront costs. Today, I’m going to show you how you could make triple-digit returns in just three months and risk as little as $200. Stamps.com (Nasdaq: STMP) looks like it could be on the verge of a breakout. As one of only three vendors licensed by the United States Postal Service (USPS) to sell stamps, the company is part of an oligopoly that includes FedEx (NYSE: FDX) and UPS (NYSE: UPS). While the latter names are strong companies, they’re more aligned with… Read More

Options trading offers leveraged strategies that ratchet up percentage gains and lower upfront costs. Today, I’m going to show you how you could make triple-digit returns in just three months and risk as little as $200. Stamps.com (Nasdaq: STMP) looks like it could be on the verge of a breakout. As one of only three vendors licensed by the United States Postal Service (USPS) to sell stamps, the company is part of an oligopoly that includes FedEx (NYSE: FDX) and UPS (NYSE: UPS). While the latter names are strong companies, they’re more aligned with the transportation industry, while STMP is a pure play on online postage services. The company is a virtual cash cow. The secret is its monthly subscription model, in which customers pay a fee in order to use its services in addition to postage costs. This business model works well for a company with little overhead like Stamps.com, giving it wide profit margins — over 35% in this case. #-ad_banner-#​Due to the company’s online business structure, it carries no short-term or long-term debt, giving it the ability to easily make acquisitions like the $50… Read More

Trina Solar (NYSE: TSL) is staging an impressive turnaround. In 2013, the company posted a loss of $1.09 per share, its third consecutive year of losses as it struggled with excess capacity and plummeting prices for solar modules. While lower prices have been a tremendous boon for consumers and helped drive the adoption of solar power, they have made life difficult for solar manufacturers with heavy overhead expenses. Trina’s stock price suffered alongside the company’s challenging fundamental prospects, dropping from a high above $36 in 2007 to a low below $3 in just over a year. The stock has been… Read More

Trina Solar (NYSE: TSL) is staging an impressive turnaround. In 2013, the company posted a loss of $1.09 per share, its third consecutive year of losses as it struggled with excess capacity and plummeting prices for solar modules. While lower prices have been a tremendous boon for consumers and helped drive the adoption of solar power, they have made life difficult for solar manufacturers with heavy overhead expenses. Trina’s stock price suffered alongside the company’s challenging fundamental prospects, dropping from a high above $36 in 2007 to a low below $3 in just over a year. The stock has been extremely volatile since then as well, rallying back above $30 in early 2010, before once again falling into the low single digits in 2012. To be sure, the solar business is not for the faint of heart! On Monday, TSL broke out of a near-term consolidation following news that the company landed a new supply agreement in China’s Jiangsu Province. While pricing terms for the deal weren’t disclosed, the news is certainly bullish. As TSL brings its costs in line while growing its sales channels, analysts are now forecasting a profitable year… Read More

Sometimes the most profitable investments are made by going against the grain — selling when everyone else is buying and buying when everyone else seems to be selling.  Take PR nightmare Lululemon Athletica (NASDAQ: LULU) for example. The stock is off more than 50% from last summer’s highs above $80 on declining sales, competition worries, product recalls, and of course, a big-mouthed CEO (recently former CEO) whose excuse for product defects was “some women’s bodies just don’t work” for its yoga pants. #-ad_banner-#​Yet LULU is still the… Read More

Sometimes the most profitable investments are made by going against the grain — selling when everyone else is buying and buying when everyone else seems to be selling.  Take PR nightmare Lululemon Athletica (NASDAQ: LULU) for example. The stock is off more than 50% from last summer’s highs above $80 on declining sales, competition worries, product recalls, and of course, a big-mouthed CEO (recently former CEO) whose excuse for product defects was “some women’s bodies just don’t work” for its yoga pants. #-ad_banner-#​Yet LULU is still the top-selling manufacturer of fashionable activewear, according to retail analyst Jeff Green. And on the chart, we saw a bullish divergence, with a new 52-week low made on June 13 without new highs in volatility. This can be a technical sign that a bottom has been put in place in a formerly freefalling stock.   At this point, I’d say the risk/reward favors the bulls. While five-year midpoint support at $40 has been violated, LULU has traded in a range from $35 to $45 for the past three and a half months. An upside breakout of… Read More

Shares of Micron Technology (NASDAQ: MU) have been under pressure during the past few weeks, which puts the stock in an excellent position for us to set up an income trade using our put selling strategy. For the past 18 months, MU climbed steadily — in line with its peers. Since the beginning of 2013, the PHLX Semiconductor Index (SOX) gained more than 55%.   The group’s advance has been fueled by a steady improvement in the technology against a backdrop of an economic recovery and growth… Read More

Shares of Micron Technology (NASDAQ: MU) have been under pressure during the past few weeks, which puts the stock in an excellent position for us to set up an income trade using our put selling strategy. For the past 18 months, MU climbed steadily — in line with its peers. Since the beginning of 2013, the PHLX Semiconductor Index (SOX) gained more than 55%.   The group’s advance has been fueled by a steady improvement in the technology against a backdrop of an economic recovery and growth for the global economy. In particular, the creation of new DDR4 memory modules has caused a stir as these drives are reportedly twice as fast as their DDR3 predecessors and use 30% less power. This breakthrough is part of what analysts are looking at to help fuel future growth for Micron. #-ad_banner-#​Unfortunately for shareholders (but fortunately for us), MU sold off in July. The pullback was largely due to competitive issues with Samsung, which made a surprise announcement that one of its new manufacturing lines would be used to produce DRAM chips, raising supply concerns. Read More

Many refuse to believe in the economic recovery that has been taking place in the United States for the past four years, because it is the result of the Federal Reserve “artificially stimulating” the economy. But the reality is we have entered a new age where recoveries and commerce are heavily influenced by central bank intervention. And from this perspective, the United States is currently the best of the worst. Sure the Fed continues to print money and buy billions of dollars’ worth of Treasury and mortgage-backed securities each month. But with growth in developed nations generally anemic… Read More

Many refuse to believe in the economic recovery that has been taking place in the United States for the past four years, because it is the result of the Federal Reserve “artificially stimulating” the economy. But the reality is we have entered a new age where recoveries and commerce are heavily influenced by central bank intervention. And from this perspective, the United States is currently the best of the worst. Sure the Fed continues to print money and buy billions of dollars’ worth of Treasury and mortgage-backed securities each month. But with growth in developed nations generally anemic and several countries teetering on the brink of recession, central banks around the world are taking extreme measures to stimulate their economies. #-ad_banner-#The European Central Bank has reduced its key lending rate to 0.15% and set a negative rate on bank deposits parked overnight for the first time. Japan approved a massive stimulus package. China and Korea are printing money and pumping it into their respective economies. Sweden’s central bank announced an unexpected 50-basis-point rate cut. The list goes on and on. When a government or economy struggles, its currency follows suit. Unlike gold, silver and other commodities,… Read More

If you’ve seen the H&R Block commercial on television recently, you know that it starts with a concession worker putting $500 on every seat in every stadium across every professional sport… that represents $1 billion dollars that went unclaimed by taxpayers last year. Now imagine that instead of $500 on every seat, its $2 million on every single seat in every single stadium across all professional sports… That adds up to $790 trillion dollars. To put that amount into perspective, that’s more than 21 times… Read More

If you’ve seen the H&R Block commercial on television recently, you know that it starts with a concession worker putting $500 on every seat in every stadium across every professional sport… that represents $1 billion dollars that went unclaimed by taxpayers last year. Now imagine that instead of $500 on every seat, its $2 million on every single seat in every single stadium across all professional sports… That adds up to $790 trillion dollars. To put that amount into perspective, that’s more than 21 times larger than the total value of all the stocks in the world. That’s what many investors are leaving on the table by not venturing into the world of options. If you’ve read my previous essay about how investors can earn a 24% annualized yield from Verizon (NYSE: VZ), then you know I’m talking specifically about put options. Simply stated, put options are one of the safest ways investors can use options to generate income. We do this by targeting safe, reliable stocks — many of… Read More

Last week, we told you about one of the key investing tools Amber uses in her conservative options strategy to earn average returns of 7.4% in just 56 days. Since her premium newsletter, Income Trader, launched 17 months ago, Amber and her readers have closed 63 straight winners, generating an average annualized return of 48.2%. (For proof, you can see her first 52 profitable trades by following this link.) In other words, we’re not simply telling you about these… Read More

Last week, we told you about one of the key investing tools Amber uses in her conservative options strategy to earn average returns of 7.4% in just 56 days. Since her premium newsletter, Income Trader, launched 17 months ago, Amber and her readers have closed 63 straight winners, generating an average annualized return of 48.2%. (For proof, you can see her first 52 profitable trades by following this link.) In other words, we’re not simply telling you about these investing tools because we say they work… We’re telling you about them because they are working. #-ad_banner-#In case you missed last Wednesday’s issue of StreetAuthority Daily, we talked about the first tool Amber uses to fuel her perfect track record — volatility. Amber looks for stocks with the right amount of volatility, which helps her maximize income and limit risk. Amber’s second key investment tool takes risk management one step further. It’s a safeguard that helps ensure that every trade she makes has a chance to be… Read More

You always remember your best trades, and if you’re smart (and a little lucky) you might be able to go back to them for more profits later on. Lucky for us, one of my best trades is poised for another big leg up. Back in late 2011, I was looking for the next game-changing stock. At the time, markets were looking weak and everyone was looking for an Apple alternative or at least a derivative play on the iPhone or mobile service providers. My sights were set much higher, and the subsequent investment I offered… Read More

You always remember your best trades, and if you’re smart (and a little lucky) you might be able to go back to them for more profits later on. Lucky for us, one of my best trades is poised for another big leg up. Back in late 2011, I was looking for the next game-changing stock. At the time, markets were looking weak and everyone was looking for an Apple alternative or at least a derivative play on the iPhone or mobile service providers. My sights were set much higher, and the subsequent investment I offered to options clients brought a 300% return from December 2011 to March 2012. That summer, I remember gazing up at a worn array of sagging phone wires strung across two utility poles, then glancing down at my shiny wireless iPhone. It was an almost poetic moment, and one of great inspiration. #-ad_banner-#​The next industrial revolution is surely underway, albeit mostly hidden. The immense, inefficient web of suspended and buried copper wire is being replaced by underground labyrinths of fiber optics fueling massive wireless networks. Change has already begun, but it still has… Read More