It’s become one of my favorite stocks. I like to call it my “Cadillac” investment for 2012. I’ve even selected it as one of my “Top 5 Stocks for 2012.” The company is buying back billions of its stock. It’s expanding… Read More

What happens when you build too much manufacturing capacity but not enough customers to keep your factory floor busy? You lose money. The overhead costs quickly eat up any gross profits you make.   That has been the long-standing problem for carbon fiber… Read More

If you’re being kept awake by a neighbor’s party, you may as well get dressed and join the fun. That was the possible reaction to Wall Street strategists, who issued fairly dour “year-ahead” reports back in December, predicting the… Read More

After all of the gyrations of the market in 2011, it turns out that utilities were the best-performing sector of the S&P 500 last year, posting 15% returns. So far this year, however, utilities have missed out on the broad market rally. These stocks… Read More

Growth investing is still the name of the game if you want to score big gains. Investors in high-flying stocks like Chipotle Mexican Grill (NYSE: CMG), Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) and Priceline.com (Nasdaq: PCLN) have scored major gains in the last few years. Yet such high-flying stocks also bring real risk. Read More

It’s a country that rarely gets any mention by the mainstream investing press.  Sure, you hear about India, China, Russia, and Brazil. And for good reason — those countries are growing at incredible rates, which has made many investors rich already… and… Read More

Back in the fall of 2010, I touted technology giant International Business Machines (NYSE: IBM) in the belief that its stock was poised to have a strong run. A key part of this bullishness was a bold prediction by its management team that it would double… Read More

A couple of weeks ago, several of the nation’s banks underwent a so-called “stress test” to determine whether they were healthy enough to survive a major economic contraction without requiring new capital. Some failed, but most passed. Yet, even before the dust has settled from the good… Read More

(Editor’s note: the stop-loss for this trade has been revised.) The global energy picture is changing so fast that it’s getting hard to keep up. In just the last five years, we’ve seen: • Crude oil briefly spike above $140 a barrel in… Read More

Whenever financial markets start to sell off, I can’t help but remember the scene from “Trading Places” (perhaps the greatest investment business movie of all time) when Eddie Murphy discusses pork-belly trading strategy with stodgy commodities brokers Ralph Belamy and Don Ameche. Murphy’s streetwise character — Billy Ray Valentine —… Read More