With the maturity of the automotive industry in developed markets, the real growth potential lies primarily in emerging markets. Emerging markets account for close to 40% of the global market and were recently estimated to have produced 30 million vehicles. By most measures, China… Read More

Airlines are one of those industries that just don’t get any respect from investors. These long-suffering companies have a history of losses and usually carry a lot of debt. Billionaire investor Warren Buffett took notice of these qualities and summed it all up when he wrote, “The worst sort of… Read More

#-ad_banner-#A dozen years ago, Silicon Valley was responsible for one of the most prolific initial public offering (IPO) markets ever seen. Many fortunes were made, as a record 486 companies went public in 1999. The next year was the second-best ever, with 406 additional… Read More

Here’s something many investors probably don’t know about major drug makers like Pfizer (NYSE: PFE), Bristol-Meyers Squibb (NYSE: BMY), Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY) and others (collectively known as Big Pharma): They’re a lot like the major car companies. To save money back in the 1970s, the auto… Read More

Long-time readers of my articles will notice a predilection for the phrase “love ’em when they’re hated.” That phrase has surely applied to Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS) after its stock fell 80% in the past five years to less than $10 a share. Many had concluded that the nation’s… Read More

Just when it looked like the auto industry’s wounds from the recession were going to fully heal, disaster struck in Japan and cut off key auto parts supply lines for nearly every major manufacturer. It was out of the frying pan of weak… Read More

#-ad_banner-#If you can handle risk, I’ve found a potentially very lucrative investment idea for you — a stock that could triple your money, or better, in the next three to five years. The stock’s risky for a couple reasons. First, it’s a small cap. As you probably… Read More

There’s something more to insurance giant Aflac (NYSE: AFL) than just the funny (and wildly successful) duck mascot. Weighing in at a hefty $26.8 billion market cap, Aflac (originally the American Family Life Assurance Co.) writes supplemental health and life insurance in the United States and Japan. Read More

#-ad_banner-#Thanks to recent troubles, I knew shares of Axcelis Technologies (Nasdaq: ACLS) were cheap. But I had no idea how cheap. When Applied Materials (Nasdaq: AMAT) announced plans to buy a rival, an apples-to-apples comparison revealed a massive gap in how investors are assessing these firms. After a… Read More

It’s been a heck of a run for small-cap stocks. The Russell 2000 Index has risen roughly 80% in just two years and a number of individual stocks have doubled, tripled or even quadrupled. The move is understandable; Small stocks were so badly beaten-up… Read More