Opinions

While business conditions are pretty good in the domestic oil and gas business, they’re also holding up very well in the railroad sector.  If railroad companies and related services are old economy, they are still important economic benchmarks and they continue to be great businesses producing excellent returns to stockholders. 

Investors poured $4.3 billion into the SPDR S&P 500 (NYSE/SPY) last week, an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that tracks the S&P 500. For the week, ETFs tracking U.S. equities witnessed the most inflows in the last four weeks. (Source: Reuters, July 17, 2014.) And as investors continue to inject vast sums

Crude oil has pulled back from its recent price strength, but it’s still holding up pretty well above the $100.00-per-barrel mark for West Texas Intermediate (WTI). Energy is still a top sector for equity portfolios, but it is the case that many oil stocks have already moved up tremendously and

Simply put, if Russia is held accountable, the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight ML17 in eastern Ukraine could destabilize the situation in the region and filter into the eurozone and Europe. That’s bad news. When the conflict first surfaced regarding the possible annexation of the Crimea region and the influence

One stock that’s experiencing serious upward price momentum is in the equipment rental business. Momentum stocks might typically be associated with other market sectors, but United Rentals, Inc. (URI) is doing fantastic operationally and the market is bidding.  It’s kind of odd to think of an equipment rental company soaring

Let’s start with the U.S. housing market. Has the recovery for it ended or just stalled?  My answer comes in one sentence: While it’s always a matter of location, only the high-end housing market is doing well, while the general market is weak.  I can see it in the mortgage

Global unrest and inflation will play a role in improving fundamentals for gold and silver, Byron King, newsletter editor for Agora Financial, tells The Gold Report. But miners have to control costs and clean up their internal cash flow, too. Meanwhile, investors who have run up gains in traditional investments are

Apple (NASDAQ/AAPL) may have finally come up with the killer apps that could vault the company ahead in the global race against Google Inc.’s (NASDAQ/GOOG) “Android” phones. Now, Apple could gain mobile supremacy, based on my stock analysis.  In an unexpected move, Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, inked a valuable partnership

In my previous article, I talked about the vulnerability of stocks at this time, a disappointing economy, and what will likely be disappointing earnings.  On the weekend, I was thinking back to 2000, when the stock market came crashing down after a sizzling but unwarranted run-up in technology stocks and

The market for natural foods is getting tighter as major supermarket and big-box chains, such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE/WMT), The Kroger Co. (NYSE/KR), and Costco Wholesale Corporation (NASDAQ/COST) invade the territory that had been dominated for years by market leader Whole Foods Market, Inc. (NASDAQ/WFM).  While you cannot ignore

The numbers are in from Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and they’re good. The position sold off on the news, which is no big surprise considering how well it’s done since the beginning of the year.  Johnson & Johnson is still mostly a pharmaceutical play, but it won’t likely be able

An upward trend is afoot in the silver space, says Sean Rakhimov, editor of SilversStrategies.com. Rakhimov believes that at $26/ounce the reversal of the downward trend in silver will be confirmed and silver investors should set their sights on the next resistance level—$32/ounce. And if that threshold is breached, silver will

I’ve been writing in these pages for most of 2014 on how the stock market has become one huge bubble. On my short list:  The economy is weak. The U.S. experienced negative growth in the first quarter of 2014. If the same thing happens in the second quarter (we’ll soon

Earnings season is always a great time of year to get up to speed on what corporations are saying about business conditions. The numbers are also useful in the sense that you can garner a lot of market intelligence regarding specific industries. And even if you aren’t interested in a

Consulting Mining Analyst Thomas Schuster looks at the longer term in mining. He is bullish on gold but cautions that we won’t see an end to the bear market in precious metals equities until financing again becomes readily available. In this interview with The Gold Report, the publisher of the “Rocks To

As a strong believer in the wealth-creating effects of large-cap, dividend paying stocks, I’m also an advocate of dividend reinvestment, which is the purchasing of a company’s shares using the cash dividends paid.  This can be done commission-free from your broker and/or through the company itself if it offers such

There are two important charts I want my readers to see this morning.  The first is a chart that is an indirect measure of demand in the global economy. Right now, the Baltic Dry Index (BDI) sits at its lowest level of the year. Since the beginning of 2014, the

 Chris Mancini, an analyst with the Gabelli Gold Fund, spends his days finding value in gold equities—and he thinks he’s found a recipe for success. Take a long-term outlook, add excellent management, fold in a great project in a quality jurisdiction with low-cost minable ounces in the ground at a

The stock market is looking higher. The DOW and the S&P 500 closed up for the fifth straight month as we enter into the second half of what has largely been a mixed and cautious year. For growth investors, the good news is that small-cap stocks came back in June

It’s no surprise that the railroad business is doing well. We’ve been looking at Union Pacific Corporation (UNP) and other railroad stocks consistently in these pages for a number of years. But not only are pure-play railroads doing well, offshoots within the industry are also booming. It’s a good time