The stock market is dominated by traders and investors. Traders simply focus on today’s market action. Investors hold a much broader view, finding winning stocks that will ride future trends. In recent sessions, traders have found plenty to dislike about employment search firm Monster Worldwide (NYSE: MWW). Shares were… Read More

Want a peek at this summer’s headlines? Then just watch the action in the oil market. The price of oil has been rising steadily for nearly two years, and it’s coming close to the point of inflicting real pain on many businesses. If current trends continue, we may be talking about $4 for a gallon of gasoline by spring, and surging home heating oil costs later in the year. In many respects, the United States can tolerate $70 oil, or even $90 oil. But at $100 or even $110, so many companies will start speaking of profit-margin… Read More

Want a peek at this summer’s headlines? Then just watch the action in the oil market. The price of oil has been rising steadily for nearly two years, and it’s coming close to the point of inflicting real pain on many businesses. If current trends continue, we may be talking about $4 for a gallon of gasoline by spring, and surging home heating oil costs later in the year. In many respects, the United States can tolerate $70 oil, or even $90 oil. But at $100 or even $110, so many companies will start speaking of profit-margin pressures. And profit margins are the key factor behind many strategists’ forecasts for continued stock market gains in 2011. This is why you should be worried, even if you don’t own oil stocks in your portfolio. Up until now, stocks have been rallying in tandem with oil prices. That’s quite unusual. We’ve been in a rare period where rising economic activity has been good for both assets. Yet if history is any guide, further oil price spikes will tend to deflate stock prices. Here are three stocks in particular that simply cannot… Read More

For years, physical gold and gold miners traded in tandem. You’d expect the companies that make a living mining gold would move along with the price of the metal. And that’s what happened for a long time… until the market tanked in 2008. Since then, gold and gold miners have had a strange relationship. Investors love gold right now. They see a safe-haven; a tangible commodity you can hold, covet, even hoard. But people were scared away from equities during the crash, sending shares of gold miners… Read More

For years, physical gold and gold miners traded in tandem. You’d expect the companies that make a living mining gold would move along with the price of the metal. And that’s what happened for a long time… until the market tanked in 2008. Since then, gold and gold miners have had a strange relationship. Investors love gold right now. They see a safe-haven; a tangible commodity you can hold, covet, even hoard. But people were scared away from equities during the crash, sending shares of gold miners down much further than gold prices. And while many miners have rebounded nicely (even outperforming physical gold recently), it looks like investors have yet to completely warm back up to the companies that actually pull gold out of the ground. It’s one of the reasons you can actually buy the gold reserves held by miners for pennies on the dollar. [See: “How to Buy Gold for Only $159 an Ounce”] The chart below shows the performance of the SPDR Gold Shares ETF (NYSE: GLD) compared to the Market Vectors… Read More

I want to show you a chart. It’s nothing complex or hard to understand. In fact, I take pride in how simple it is to read. You’ll be surprised to learn that the money I made (shown in the chart below) is the result of just a… Read More

A healthy cushion of cash is always valued by large, stable companies. Many companies make good use of that cash by buying back their own stock. Just a few weeks into earnings season, we’ve already seen a hefty slate of new stock buyback announcements. Read More

There aren’t many companies that can say they’ve paid dividends every year for the past four decades. Fewer still are those that have raised their dividends in every single one of those years. Of that elite group, I know of only one company that has hiked its… Read More

If you want to invest in the top hedge funds — such as from George Soros, Carl Icahn, Bill Ackman or John Paulson — you will need to write a big check. A minimum investment can easily be $10 million — that is, even if you are allowed… Read More

Not long ago, I took my Game-Changing Stocks readers on a journey to the non-descript offices of an obscure Department of Defense agency that funds research into areas most people never imagine.   Occasionally, this cadre of uber-geniuses comes up with a real winner. Take the Internet, for… Read More

Food has a reputation as a product that is not only recession-resistant, but certifiably recession-proof. No matter the state of the economy or point we are in the business cycle, people have to eat. Of the traditional grocery chains, Kroger (NYSE: KR) is the largest player,… Read More

#-ad_banner-#It’s one of the first rules of investing: find stocks with strong earnings growth and reasonable valuations. We’re even taught a simple formula: look for stocks that have a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio that is lower than the earnings growth rate, or, a PEG ratio (P/E divided by the earnings growth rate) lower than 1.0. Yet the converse is also true. Stocks with a PEG ratio over 1.0 can be overvalued. It happens without many investors even noticing. A stock rises and rises… Read More

#-ad_banner-#It’s one of the first rules of investing: find stocks with strong earnings growth and reasonable valuations. We’re even taught a simple formula: look for stocks that have a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio that is lower than the earnings growth rate, or, a PEG ratio (P/E divided by the earnings growth rate) lower than 1.0. Yet the converse is also true. Stocks with a PEG ratio over 1.0 can be overvalued. It happens without many investors even noticing. A stock rises and rises until its value becomes disconnected from the reality on the ground. A high PEG ratio can limit further upside and make a stock especially ripe for a pullback in down markets. On the flip side, it can also make for a nice stock to short. Here’s a look at three stocks with alarmingly high PEG ratios. Each of the stocks on this table trade at least 50% above fair value when the PEG ratio test is applied. Salesforce.com (Nasdaq: CRM) This provider of contact relationship software has seen its shares fall roughly… Read More