Wall Street’s big banks, and particularly their analyst corps, are notoriously late to the party when it comes to upgrades.  #-ad_banner-#Yet being late doesn’t mean they’re wrong. In fact, their delayed arrival often gives the stock a bullish jolt. That’s precisely what happened this week when Goldman Sachs upgraded video-streaming company Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) from “neutral” to “buy.” Goldman also raised its price target significantly, to $590 from $380, an increase of more than 55%. In its note to clients, Goldman said that Netflix has the potential to more than double its global subscriber base over the next… Read More

Wall Street’s big banks, and particularly their analyst corps, are notoriously late to the party when it comes to upgrades.  #-ad_banner-#Yet being late doesn’t mean they’re wrong. In fact, their delayed arrival often gives the stock a bullish jolt. That’s precisely what happened this week when Goldman Sachs upgraded video-streaming company Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) from “neutral” to “buy.” Goldman also raised its price target significantly, to $590 from $380, an increase of more than 55%. In its note to clients, Goldman said that Netflix has the potential to more than double its global subscriber base over the next three years. The renewed optimism from Goldman comes as Netflix continues to expand its footprint internationally, which includes a big push into Europe. In late May, Netflix announced plans to launch its streaming video service in six European countries, including the two biggest European markets, France and Germany. So how late to the party were Goldman’s analysts? Well, shares were trading 16% above their previous $380 target before the upgrade hit the wire. NFLX has more than doubled in the past year, and over the past 24 months, it is up an incredible 583%. Of course, Goldman’s arrival livened up… Read More

Trading stocks is a fast business. One great earnings report, a big product announcement, or a high-profile analyst upgrade can send a stock soaring — and fast. The latter catalyst occurred this week for flash-sales e-tailer Zulily (NASDAQ: ZU). #-ad_banner-#Shares spiked 9% on Wednesday after Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) upgraded the stock to “buy” from “neutral.” The highly respected brokerage firm also raised its price target to $50 from $47, which is 24% higher than current prices. According to Goldman, the upgrade is based on what the brokerage firm calls the company’s “hyper growth” potential. So, what does Goldman consider… Read More

Trading stocks is a fast business. One great earnings report, a big product announcement, or a high-profile analyst upgrade can send a stock soaring — and fast. The latter catalyst occurred this week for flash-sales e-tailer Zulily (NASDAQ: ZU). #-ad_banner-#Shares spiked 9% on Wednesday after Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) upgraded the stock to “buy” from “neutral.” The highly respected brokerage firm also raised its price target to $50 from $47, which is 24% higher than current prices. According to Goldman, the upgrade is based on what the brokerage firm calls the company’s “hyper growth” potential. So, what does Goldman consider “hyper growth”? Goldman wrote that it expects the retailer, created to sell children’s apparel and accessories to moms who shop for deals online, will eclipse the $1 billion sales milestone this year. That feat would indeed be significant, especially considering the company has only been around for the past five years.  “If achieved, [Zulily] will join the company of Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Old Navy as the fastest retailers to reach this key milestone,” Goldman analysts wrote in their report. That’s high praise indeed, and extremely impressive for a retailer that does things much differently than either Amazon of Old… Read More

Things are getting out of control in Iraq, and it’s the latest sad chapter in what has arguably been one of America’s biggest foreign policy stumbles of the past few decades.  #-ad_banner-#Now, regardless of how you may feel about the Iraq war from a moral or strategic perspective, there is no denying the current disturbing facts on the ground right now. ISIS, an Al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic extremist group, has seized control of several major Iraqi cities, and the group is moving south quickly with plans to take control of Baghdad from the current government. This troubling trend is one… Read More

Things are getting out of control in Iraq, and it’s the latest sad chapter in what has arguably been one of America’s biggest foreign policy stumbles of the past few decades.  #-ad_banner-#Now, regardless of how you may feel about the Iraq war from a moral or strategic perspective, there is no denying the current disturbing facts on the ground right now. ISIS, an Al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic extremist group, has seized control of several major Iraqi cities, and the group is moving south quickly with plans to take control of Baghdad from the current government. This troubling trend is one that’s caused geopolitical upheaval, and that upheaval is being reflected today in the price of crude oil. In fact, the price of both West Texas Intermediate crude oil and Brent crude surged to new highs for the year as it became clear that the violence in one of Iraq’s major cities had escalated into what could be an overthrow of the U.S.-backed government.  Interestingly, from an actual oil production and shipment standpoint, the upheaval doesn’t really mean all that much in terms of real-world constricted supply, at least so far. However, Wall Street and the commodities markets are future pricing… Read More

When selecting companies to trade, I’m a big believer in having as many positive metrics in your favor as you can. Past price performance certainly is one of the biggest drivers of a stock, and that’s something we can assess using charts and technical analysis. There’s also the… Read More

When I started in the investing business some two decades ago, one of the first things I learned about how to properly select stock winners was to look at the price action. More specifically, I was taught directly by Investor’s Business Daily founder William O’Neil that what matters most is the price action of a stock relative to the rest of the market.  #-ad_banner-#I soon found out that measuring a stock’s relative price strength, or simply relative strength (RS), was a key filter used to identify the stocks the smart money was banking on for market-beating returns. RS… Read More

When I started in the investing business some two decades ago, one of the first things I learned about how to properly select stock winners was to look at the price action. More specifically, I was taught directly by Investor’s Business Daily founder William O’Neil that what matters most is the price action of a stock relative to the rest of the market.  #-ad_banner-#I soon found out that measuring a stock’s relative price strength, or simply relative strength (RS), was a key filter used to identify the stocks the smart money was banking on for market-beating returns. RS assigns a numerical score from zero to 100 to a stock based on its price performance relative to other stocks in the market over the past six months. It gives you a great sense of the strength of a stock’s past performance, and therefore, how it is likely to perform going forward. As someone who has used RS to identify many winning companies over the years, I’m a big believer in this metric. Of course, I’m not the only one.  According to professor Eugene Fama at the University of Chicago, relative strength was one of the three factors identified as… Read More

When it comes to trading, there are two strategies I like to use.  #-ad_banner-#The first is to buy a quality company after it has fallen from grace and then wait patiently while the rest of Wall Street comes to its senses and sees the ugly duckling for the beautiful swan it really is.  The other strategy I like to use is to buy a winning stock that keeps making new highs on strong fundamentals. The latter is my strategy when it comes to Ryder System (NYSE: R). I think traders will be able to ride shares of this… Read More

When it comes to trading, there are two strategies I like to use.  #-ad_banner-#The first is to buy a quality company after it has fallen from grace and then wait patiently while the rest of Wall Street comes to its senses and sees the ugly duckling for the beautiful swan it really is.  The other strategy I like to use is to buy a winning stock that keeps making new highs on strong fundamentals. The latter is my strategy when it comes to Ryder System (NYSE: R). I think traders will be able to ride shares of this transportation and supply chain management firm higher over the next several months. In February, my colleague Serge Berger analyzed the performance of Ryder shares over the past several years. He pointed out that the stock had “built a good layer of support and a solid base from which it can now potentially attack and overcome the 2008 highs.” Those highs were around $75, and by late February, R had eclipsed that mark. It ran all the way to $84.40 on April 23, and now is about 4% below that peak.  Part of the reason… Read More

Some stocks are considered good values, with attractive fundamental metrics such as a low price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio, a low price-to-book ratio, and so on. Some stocks are great technical plays, forming bullish double-bottom or cup-and-handle chart patterns.  Then there are some companies whose stocks that power higher because they have a genius CEO who brought a product to market at just the right time. Tesla Motors (Nasdaq: TSLA) is one of the latter — and the way I see it, you’d be crazy not to own the stock at current levels. The following price metrics should give you… Read More

Some stocks are considered good values, with attractive fundamental metrics such as a low price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio, a low price-to-book ratio, and so on. Some stocks are great technical plays, forming bullish double-bottom or cup-and-handle chart patterns.  Then there are some companies whose stocks that power higher because they have a genius CEO who brought a product to market at just the right time. Tesla Motors (Nasdaq: TSLA) is one of the latter — and the way I see it, you’d be crazy not to own the stock at current levels. The following price metrics should give you a sense of the power of this stunning all-electric car maker’s draw: — Up 12% in three months (through April 23 close) — Up 35% year to date — Up just shy of 300% in one year   — Up 756% since its June 29, 2010 IPO The numbers don’t lie. Investors have embraced Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the electric vehicle growth story and the enormous game-changing potential that this company brings to the automotive industry.  Tesla took another step forward this week, as it began selling its signature Model S sedans in the biggest auto market… Read More

You can’t keep the Old World down. That’s the conclusion I’ve come to after seeing the big surge over the past two months in European stocks, and particularly the blue-chip stocks of the Euro Stoxx 50 Index.  Since falling to its 2014 low Feb. 3, SPDR Euro Stoxx 50 ETF (NYSE: FEZ) powered nearly 12% higher on heavy buying volume before pulling back slightly. #-ad_banner-#This ETF holds the biggest, and arguably strongest, European companies, including Total (NYSE: TOT), Sanofi (NYSE: SNY), Bayer, Siemens (NYSE: SI) and Banco Santander (NYSE: SAN). FEZ has been a huge… Read More

You can’t keep the Old World down. That’s the conclusion I’ve come to after seeing the big surge over the past two months in European stocks, and particularly the blue-chip stocks of the Euro Stoxx 50 Index.  Since falling to its 2014 low Feb. 3, SPDR Euro Stoxx 50 ETF (NYSE: FEZ) powered nearly 12% higher on heavy buying volume before pulling back slightly. #-ad_banner-#This ETF holds the biggest, and arguably strongest, European companies, including Total (NYSE: TOT), Sanofi (NYSE: SNY), Bayer, Siemens (NYSE: SI) and Banco Santander (NYSE: SAN). FEZ has been a huge winner over the past 12 months, especially relative to stocks in the S&P 500 index, with a total return of nearly 30%. These gains are particularly impressive when you consider that just a few years back, European stocks were largely considered toxic. Who could forget all of those sovereign debt default worries, the social unrest and literal riots in the streets in protest over austerity, a sinking euro and the capital flight away from the region’s equity markets? Well, those things now appear a distant image in the Old World’s rear view mirror. And there looks to be more opportunity… Read More

The tech sector has been under fire of late. The large-cap Nasdaq 100 is down 5% over the past month, but it’s the smaller tech stocks that are really feeling the bears’ assault. Take newly public cyber-security software maker FireEye (Nasdaq: FEYE), for example. Shares have fallen nearly 50% since making an all-time high in early March. This decline comes on the heels of a wild surge following its September IPO. After going public at $20 on Sept. 20, FEYE vaulted some 80% in its first trading day to close at $36. From there, the stock traded sideways for the… Read More

The tech sector has been under fire of late. The large-cap Nasdaq 100 is down 5% over the past month, but it’s the smaller tech stocks that are really feeling the bears’ assault. Take newly public cyber-security software maker FireEye (Nasdaq: FEYE), for example. Shares have fallen nearly 50% since making an all-time high in early March. This decline comes on the heels of a wild surge following its September IPO. After going public at $20 on Sept. 20, FEYE vaulted some 80% in its first trading day to close at $36. From there, the stock traded sideways for the rest of 2013, before making an outstanding run higher in early 2014, peaking at $97.35 on March 5. FEYE then reversed course and came tumbling down below $50.  #-ad_banner-#However, on Tuesday, shares jumped as much as 7% on heavy volume. The catalyst for the buying was an upgrade from Wedbush Securities to “outperform” from “neutral.” The firm also lifted its price target on the shares to $72 from $62. According to Wedbush, the huge pullback in FEYE since the March 5 high took place due to a combination of a wider sell-off in the tech sector, a less-than-robust… Read More

The market just seems to want to go higher. In fact, we just hit yet another record high on the S&P 500, as buyers continue to default to broad market domestic equities as the place to get their returns. Yet, when things get too exuberant, I start to get a little worried — especially this time of year. #-ad_banner-#Given that it’s already April, we now have just a few weeks before a big group of investors dust off their “sell in May and go away” playbooks. This is one of those market adages that, when examined carefully, actually… Read More

The market just seems to want to go higher. In fact, we just hit yet another record high on the S&P 500, as buyers continue to default to broad market domestic equities as the place to get their returns. Yet, when things get too exuberant, I start to get a little worried — especially this time of year. #-ad_banner-#Given that it’s already April, we now have just a few weeks before a big group of investors dust off their “sell in May and go away” playbooks. This is one of those market adages that, when examined carefully, actually does have some statistical merit. The theory here relies on historical trends that show May tends to be a relative weak month for stocks, while June has historically been a down month for equities over the past five decades.  A few years ago, I did some research on the sell in May strategy using the “Stock Trader’s Almanac.” What I determined was that if you went long the market on Nov. 1, 1972, and then spent the next 37 years (through 2009) selling on April 30, and then rebuying on Nov. 1 and holding until April 30, your average annual… Read More