A sharp plunge on Monday, Aug.8, a stunning rebound on Tuesday, another pullback on Wednesday. When will it all end? It’s increasingly clear that very low price-to-earnings (P/E) ratios aren’t grounds enough to bring out value investors. Read More

Even with the real-estate market mired in a slump, investors still clamored for shares of Zillow (NYSE: Z). On July 20, the real estate-focused website went public at an initial offering price of $20, opened in the low $30s and briefly spiked to $60 that same day, as more… Read More

Amid the drumbeat of weak U.S. economic data and continuing European debt worries, global stock markets sold off in the week of Aug.1. Then came the U.S. credit downgrade from Standard & Poor’s. The U.S. stock market dropped between 4-5% on… Read More

In stressful times like these, it’s important to distinguish between investors’ appetite for stocks in general and the actual outlook of each company. The market plunge is related to top-down concerns about the U.S. economy, but a bottom-up approach is still warranted. This is because — despite the weak… Read More

If investing were always a walk in the park, we would all be Warren Buffett. Truth is, there are always tough times. And after more than two years of one of the strongest bull markets we’ve ever seen, the market is… Read More

Here we go again. This week is starting off where last week ended — on a dismal note. Since hitting an intra-day peak of 1,346 back on July 22, the S&P 500 Index is on track (as of Aug. 8) to mark its 10th losing session in the last… Read More

We watched the market implode last week. Some were scared, some were exhilarated. Some could only watch. When the market closed flat Friday after a tough Thursday, in which more than a trillion dollars of investor wealth was wiped away, I think pretty much everyone was pretty… Read More

After watching the recent market news, many wonder if we’ll ever see the market come back to pre-recession levels again. For many investors with less experience in the market, or investors who came of age during the boom years of the 1990s, this kind of recent market turbulence seems very… Read More

With the global economy on shaky footing again, a more conservative investing approach is warranted. Many investors direct their focus on traditional safe havens such as gold, government bonds certificates of deposit — even cold, hard cash. Food is… Read More

As the calendar flipped from 2010 to 2011, stock strategists routinely included both Ford (NYSE: F) and GM (NYSE: GM) among their top picks for the coming year. After all, both car makers had staged a remarkably recovery and looked poised to boost sales and profits at a continued robust pace. Seven months later, the wheels have fallen off, and each stock trades near a 52-week low. Judging by the stock price movements for both of these companies, you would think consumers are about to stop buying cars and trucks, as was the case in 2008. Will… Read More

As the calendar flipped from 2010 to 2011, stock strategists routinely included both Ford (NYSE: F) and GM (NYSE: GM) among their top picks for the coming year. After all, both car makers had staged a remarkably recovery and looked poised to boost sales and profits at a continued robust pace. Seven months later, the wheels have fallen off, and each stock trades near a 52-week low. Judging by the stock price movements for both of these companies, you would think consumers are about to stop buying cars and trucks, as was the case in 2008. Will this really be the case? After all, the economy was imploding in 2008. Now, it’s merely flat. Another question: if investors are being overly bearish about these automakers, then which one has the better looking stock right now? First, let’s take a quick look at how business is faring so far this year. Thee figures in the table below compare the first six months of 2011 with the first six months of 2010. One item quickly jumps out. Even though Ford and GM have both posted similar sales gains in the first… Read More