With companies sporting abnormally high levels of cash these days, they’re feeling greater pressure to give something back to shareholders. A dividend hike is the normal route, but an increasing number of companies are initiating massive stock buybacks.     I looked… Read More

You can still practically smell the wreckage. Stocks of the nation’s largest banks, most of which were overexposed to toxic subprime assets, crashed and burned during the financial crisis. The KBW Bank Index (an index of the largest American banks) fell from a high… Read More

Investing in large companies with diversified revenue streams is a strategy that can let you sleep soundly at night. Most firms in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, an index of 30 of the largest and most dominant firms in the world, use size to their advantage. Read More

Any shareholder of a company that has been bought out can tell you that takeovers are often lucrative propositions, often delivering quick double-digit gains. But overall, acquisitions have a reputation for destroying shareholder value at the acquiring company. Studies place the failure rate at between 60% and… Read More

Uncle Sam’s decision to unload its remaining block of 2.4 billion common shares of Citigroup (NYSE: C) — one quarter ahead of time — has caused many to take a fresh look at the banking titan. A quick survey of analysts’ opinions reveals a stock with +15% or +20%… Read More

The rules of a paired trade are quite simple. Find a good company and make a bullish investment while also finding a lousy company in the same industry and make a bearish short investment against it. That logic surely applies when two companies appear comparably valued. But… Read More

After an impressive two-year surge that has seen its stock rise more than +200%, shares of Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) appear to have stalled. The stock has been stuck in a tight range between $300 and $320 for the past six weeks, as bulls and bears have at it. Yet this stock is far too popular and far too controversial to stay stuck in a trading range for very long. The key question for investors now: Will Apple resume its upward climb toward the $400 mark? Or is the long-awaited pullback that brings… Read More

After an impressive two-year surge that has seen its stock rise more than +200%, shares of Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) appear to have stalled. The stock has been stuck in a tight range between $300 and $320 for the past six weeks, as bulls and bears have at it. Yet this stock is far too popular and far too controversial to stay stuck in a trading range for very long. The key question for investors now: Will Apple resume its upward climb toward the $400 mark? Or is the long-awaited pullback that brings shares down to somewhere near $250 close at hand? Here are six catalysts to monitor that could move shares this winter. [Read more about catalysts and how they shape the market’s biggest winners] The positives. There’s no shortage of reasons to like Apple. Just ask Wall Street analysts. They universally sing the company’s praises, and most expect shares to eventually climb to $375 or higher. That’s not a huge stretch, as $375 reflects a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of just 15 on… Read More

Since reaching a multi-decade low of $251.70 in August 1999, gold has been a top performing investment. Even during the 2008 financial crisis, it was only one of the few assets that increased in value (up +5.8%). While top-notch investors like John Paulson are still bullish, gold… Read More

Off the radar — but only for a little while longer. That’s the investment thesis I look for when searching for stock ideas. Good companies, doing all the right things, getting set to pop up on more investors’ radars in the coming year. These three companies look… Read More

With the S&P 500 touching another 52-week high on Monday, investors need to be increasingly careful. Any new stock buys could be coming in the later stages of a mini-rally that began around Labor Day weekend. So it pays to move down the risk curve by focusing on cheaper stocks… Read More