In the land of consumer technology, it’s hard to stay as the king of the hill. Two decades ago, Sony (NYSE: SNE) ruled the roost, with its hot-selling Walkmans and Trinitron TVs. About a decade ago, Nokia (NYSE: NOK) looked poised to dominate the global cell phone market, and more recently, Motorola’s (NYSE: MOT) RAZR set that company up for a long-term run as a consumer favorite. All those companies can now be seen in Apple’s (Nasdaq: AAPL) rear-view mirror. With each passing year, Apple’s brand only seems to get stronger. Forget about this month’s iPhone antenna… Read More

In the land of consumer technology, it’s hard to stay as the king of the hill. Two decades ago, Sony (NYSE: SNE) ruled the roost, with its hot-selling Walkmans and Trinitron TVs. About a decade ago, Nokia (NYSE: NOK) looked poised to dominate the global cell phone market, and more recently, Motorola’s (NYSE: MOT) RAZR set that company up for a long-term run as a consumer favorite. All those companies can now be seen in Apple’s (Nasdaq: AAPL) rear-view mirror. With each passing year, Apple’s brand only seems to get stronger. Forget about this month’s iPhone antenna glitch, which has pushed shares down from their peak. Those kinds of issues are just noise, and will soon be forgotten. But on a much broader level, there’s real reason for concern. Just as Apple is celebrating a successful rollout of the iPad and the latest version of the iPhone, a key competitor is set to steal Apple’s thunder. The competitor in question: well, it’s a $155 billion (in market value) company that made a name for itself in the field of Internet search. Read More

Anybody who’s ever divvied up a pizza understands that the more people at the table, the thinner the slices need to be to accommodate everyone. You don’t have to love pizza like I do to understand this principle. It’s the same with stocks. The more… Read More

Long before the days of growth stocks, investors used to search for value in stocks that were trading for less than the net assets on their balance sheets. It was a tried-and-true formula for protecting your downside while searching for upside. The stock market’s original gurus –… Read More

For as long as anyone can remember, the Federal Reserve has been tasked with keeping a close eye on inflation. But these days, Ben Bernanke and his peers are not worried about prices rising so much as they fear falling prices. Read More

Low-hanging fruit. That’s what most retailers have already picked in their quest to cut costs and boost margins. The economic downturn in 2008 was hugely beneficial for this group as they right-sized costs to offset dismal sales. Once sales ticked up just a bit from the bottom,… Read More

It’s getting tough out there. On any given day, the market seems to drop right out of the gate, or instead start off strong only to slump later in the day. The net result: when the closing bell rings, stock of all stripes steadily… Read More

Another week, another dip in the market. Disappointing news about China’s economy, U.S. jobs, the BP (NYSE: BP) oil spill and the ongoing European debt crisis have sent major indices to new lows and have investors wishing for better days. Read More

Hey, second quarter, good riddance to ya. The sharp drops in the market were no fun, but with earnings season around the corner, perhaps investors will again find reasons to buy. Right now, it seems that most investors can find many more reasons to be bearish than bullish. And that’s actually good for stocks. You have a chance to make money when stocks are loathed.  As investors have been digesting the ramifications of a possibly slowing economy, they may have overlooked some important news… Read More

Hey, second quarter, good riddance to ya. The sharp drops in the market were no fun, but with earnings season around the corner, perhaps investors will again find reasons to buy. Right now, it seems that most investors can find many more reasons to be bearish than bullish. And that’s actually good for stocks. You have a chance to make money when stocks are loathed.  As investors have been digesting the ramifications of a possibly slowing economy, they may have overlooked some important news coming out of specific stocks. So it helps to take a look back and point the spotlight once more on some of the most compelling stocks from this week’s StreetAuthority winners and losers. PolyMet Mining (AMEX: PLM) As we noted on Monday morning, PolyMet Mining stood to benefit from a decision by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to let the company move forward with its application to mine copper and nickel at a large Minnesota mine. Shares initially surged higher, but ended the week even lower than… Read More

Back in May, I wrote about an unfortunate trend . America is getting fatter. The other unfortunate trend is that people generally fail when it comes to dieting. Although I can’t say dieting is an addiction like smoking, I can say that dieters, like smokers, just can’t… Read More

During the past few years, airlines staged a remarkable comeback. The major legacy carriers such as Continental (NYSE: CAL), Delta (NYSE: DAL), AMR’s (NYSE: AMR) American Airlines and UAL’s (Nasdaq: UAUA) United took a lot of planes out of service, cut major cost-saving labor agreements, and benefited from… Read More