The oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico will alter the landscape for offshore drilling for decades to come. Uncertainty over new regulations, lawsuits and the near-term hit to business in the region have sent the share prices of many major players in the industry to multi-year lows. But at current valuations, shares of these major players are pricing in extremely negative outcomes and don’t take into consideration that Gulf drilling is a small and declining percentage of global activity. As a result, I’ve found one major industry player that… Read More

The oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico will alter the landscape for offshore drilling for decades to come. Uncertainty over new regulations, lawsuits and the near-term hit to business in the region have sent the share prices of many major players in the industry to multi-year lows. But at current valuations, shares of these major players are pricing in extremely negative outcomes and don’t take into consideration that Gulf drilling is a small and declining percentage of global activity. As a result, I’ve found one major industry player that qualifies as “The Bargain Stock of the Year.” After several months of high-level drama and extreme uncertainty, the oil spill in the Gulf appears to finally be under control. BP plc (NYSE: BP) is in the midst of completing its “static kill” cap that should stem the leak from the Macondo well permanently. In addition to the devastation the disaster has brought to the Gulf region, share prices of BP and its partners in the well, which include Anadarko Petroleum (NYSE: APC) and Mitsui, which owned about 25% and 10% of the well, respectively,… Read More

Warren Buffett and his geeky, bridge-playing sidekick Bill Gates have talked 40 billionaires, including some of the business world’s marquee names, into giving half their fortunes to charity.   It’s an interesting scenario: If the avuncular Buffett showed up at your house and asked you to donate half… Read More

The unemployment rate in the United States has only recently experienced some moderately good news, dipping back into the single digits to 9.5% — a slight downtick from 9.7% in May. A 9.5% unemployment rate is still… Read More

The largest players in the technology space garner the lion’s share of attention. Investors are obsessed with Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), as are consumers who have shifted from snapping up iPods to iPhones and the newest iPad device. Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) is the other big name that draws attention with its… Read More

As I noted earlier this week, the current market environment could prove to be a real opportunity for investors — if the economy sputters to life. And even as there’s ample reason to expect the economy and the stock market to eventually strengthen,… Read More

In the world of high-speed wireless technology, known as 4G, you can bet on two horses: WiMax, which is a long-distance version of Wi-Fi, or LTE, which stands for Long-Term Evolution. Sprint (NYSE: S) has staked its fortunes on WiMax, and has an early head start, while Verizon Wireless (NYSE: VZ) and AT&T (NYSE: T) are expected to roll out LTE later this year and into 2011. Sprint made that WiMax bet after becoming a major shareholder in Clearwire (Nasdaq: CLWR), a pure-play high-speed wireless provider in the process of rolling out service in major American cities. Read More

In the world of high-speed wireless technology, known as 4G, you can bet on two horses: WiMax, which is a long-distance version of Wi-Fi, or LTE, which stands for Long-Term Evolution. Sprint (NYSE: S) has staked its fortunes on WiMax, and has an early head start, while Verizon Wireless (NYSE: VZ) and AT&T (NYSE: T) are expected to roll out LTE later this year and into 2011. Sprint made that WiMax bet after becoming a major shareholder in Clearwire (Nasdaq: CLWR), a pure-play high-speed wireless provider in the process of rolling out service in major American cities. Trouble is, Clearwire just announced it is having second thoughts. Perhaps LTE is indeed a solid choice after all, mused company CEO Bill Morrow on a conference call with investors Wednesday night. He conceded what many industry watchers already knew: that LTE is capable of carrying much higher volumes of high-speed data than WiMax. That’s bit hard to swallow for investors, as Clearwire has already consumed massive amounts of capital with its WiMax bet. More customers = more losses Clearwire has been an impressive growth story — as long as you ignore the rest of the… Read More

For Japan, the hits keep on coming. Just last week, China knocked the country off its perch as the world’s second-largest economy, dealing a sharp blow to national pride. But this week’s news is even more sobering. The Japanese Yen is surging to a 15-year high of around 85 yen to the U.S. Dollar. Why the sharp recent move? Because the U.S. Federal Reserve has recently hinted that it may start to resume “quantitative easing,” whereby it prints money to inject funds into the financial system and spur banks to lend at greater… Read More

For Japan, the hits keep on coming. Just last week, China knocked the country off its perch as the world’s second-largest economy, dealing a sharp blow to national pride. But this week’s news is even more sobering. The Japanese Yen is surging to a 15-year high of around 85 yen to the U.S. Dollar. Why the sharp recent move? Because the U.S. Federal Reserve has recently hinted that it may start to resume “quantitative easing,” whereby it prints money to inject funds into the financial system and spur banks to lend at greater volumes. As that move potentially pushes up inflationary pressures down the road, the dollar weakens. For a country like Japan that perennially struggles to boost domestic consumption and instead relies on its major exporters, this could lead to real pain. First, its exports are quickly becoming less competitive. Second, any profits that are associated with exports will shrink at the rate that the currency is strengthening. This could not come at a worse time — Japan is wrestling with a rapidly aging workforce and surging government debt (which is far higher… Read More

One might think that just because the economy stinks and consumers have cut back on spending that any stock described as being “retail” would be in trouble. For the most part, that would be right. However, there is a relatively unknown… Read More

What do Boeing (NYSE: BA) and Alcoa (NYSE: AA) have in common? They are book-ends on the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s ranking of best and worst-performing stocks thus far in 2010. Boeing — up +30.4% — is seeing rising demand for airplanes, while Alcoa — off -27.0% — awaits a rebound in demand for aluminum. It’s been a mixed bag of results for this leading index, with 19 stocks rising and the other 11 losing ground since the start of the year. Company (Ticker)   Total Return… Read More

What do Boeing (NYSE: BA) and Alcoa (NYSE: AA) have in common? They are book-ends on the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s ranking of best and worst-performing stocks thus far in 2010. Boeing — up +30.4% — is seeing rising demand for airplanes, while Alcoa — off -27.0% — awaits a rebound in demand for aluminum. It’s been a mixed bag of results for this leading index, with 19 stocks rising and the other 11 losing ground since the start of the year. Company (Ticker)   Total Return YTD P/E Boeing (NYSE: BA) 30.4% 4.5 Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT) 27.2% 29.0 Du Pont (NYSE: DD) 26.5% 12.5 McDonalds (NYSE: MCD) 14.4% 16.0 American Express (NYSE: AXP) 12.5% 17.0 Kraft Foods (NYSE: KFT) 10.6% 14.5 General Electric (NYSE: GE) 9.8% 15.0 3M (NYSE: MMM) 7.1% 15.5 Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS) 6.9% 18.0 United Tech (NYSE: UTX) 5.8% 15.0 Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) 5.3% 11.5 Proctor & Gamble (NYSE: PG) 4.7% 16.5 Traveler’s Ins (NYSE: TRV) 3.4% 8.0 Chevron (NYSE: CVX) 2.9% 9.0 Home Depot (NYSE: HD) 2.1% 17.0 IBM (NYSE: IBM) 0.9% 12.5 Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO) 0.6% 17.0… Read More

Call it the winner’s curse. When companies grow at fast clip for a long time, investors come to assume they’ll never slow. Of course, all companies eventually grow too large to keep posting explosive growth. Some settle into a more moderate — but still respectable — plane of growth, while… Read More