Opinions

There’s a local bakery near my office I try to get to at least once a week. Sam and his wife own the bakery, and Sam is usually the one there serving espressos and cappuccinos to the many small business owners who meet there early in the morning to talk

There’s a local bakery near my office I try to get to at least once a week. Sam and his wife own the bakery, and Sam is usually the one there serving espressos and cappuccinos to the many small business owners who meet there early in the morning to talk

PepsiCo, Inc. (PEP) is breaking out after a prolonged price consolidation since this time last year.  This mature enterprise fits into the very-slow-growth category, but the company offers a solid dividend. The stock is currently yielding three percent.  Some big investors are after PepsiCo to spin off its snacks business,

We are a few weeks away from the second-quarter earnings season and again, there’s a lot of hope and optimism that corporate America will be able to deliver the goods. But we also said that for the first-quarter earnings season—and prior to that, we said the same for the fourth-quarter

Don’t buy into the notion that there’s economic growth in America! We’ve already seen U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) “unexpectedly” decline in the first quarter of 2014, and now there are signs of another contraction in the current quarter. (The technical definition of a recession is two negative quarters of

My dad is earning a few percentage points on his fixed-income yields. Fortunately for him, that’s sufficient to live on when combined with his monthly pension and savings. He has no mortgage and lives a pretty normal, but somewhat frugal life. In fact, Dad has always favored the fixed-income market

With the Dow Jones hitting 17,000 being pretty likely in the not-too-distant future, from there, it’s only another 18% or so until the Dow hits 20,000, which is pretty incredible. These numbers seemed so unrealistic just a few years ago but now, it’s not too farfetched. The most amazing thing

Retail is tough, especially the bricks-and-mortar end (i.e. physical stores). Blockbuster and Circuit City are examples of two major companies that plummeted into the abyss after failing to recognize the strong moves long ago towards online shopping with the growing popularity and accessibility of the Internet, based on my stock

The great monetary expansion is still alive and well and the effect on equity securities continues to be profound.  But what I find striking about the stock market’s continued advancement is that it’s blue chips that are pushing through to new record highs.  Speculative fervor in several sectors has diminished,

Many of you may think AT&T Inc. (NYSE/T) and Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE/VZ) are some of the best ways in the stock market to play the mobile sector, but there are other choices; it’s just that you need to leave our friendly borders.  The biggest growth area for mobile is

Five years ago, it looked like the world was falling apart. Remember when Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, freezing financing on Wall Street? The government had to bail out General Motors and the Federal Reserve pumped money into too-big-to-fail banks. Investors were running scared of the stock market.  Seems like years

The last time we looked at Tesla Motors, Inc. (TSLA) it was a $24.0-billion company. It’s added another billion and a half to its market capitalization since then, and one Street firm recently increased the company’s earnings estimates for this year and next.  Tesla is very much a growth story,

In 2012, I predicted that if the Federal Reserve couldn’t get the economy growing again, it would take interest rates into the negative zone.  Well, yesterday, the European Central Bank (ECB), the second-biggest central bank in the world, trumped the Fed and became the first major central bank to offer

If you cannot get through the day without that cup of coffee, you may need to prepare to spend a little more to get it.  Coffee prices have been surging, up more than 30% year-over-year. The cost to have that morning cup of java has edged higher, but not at

The spot price of oil is holding up and there are countless oil stocks pushing their highs.  If the 1990s were the decade for technology stocks, then the 2010s are the decade for independent oil producers.  While the largest integrated oil and gas companies are struggling to grow production, mid-tier,

The retail sector is hurting at this time from the discounters to the luxury brands, with just a few exceptions. Even the dollar stores are facing slower growth.  Yet with the sector down, it’s time to look at picking up some of the damaged retail stocks as an investment opportunity. 

With money continuing to flow into the equities market and stocks, the gold market has seen an outflow of capital. The Ukraine situation appears to be under control, and with minimal geopolitical influences, the yellow metal has failed to gain any catalyst to move higher.  The prices paid for goods

The airline sector is flying higher, as the global economy strengthens and income levels in the emerging markets steadily improve, based on my stock analysis.  Yet unlike what you or your parents might have done when booking a vacation decades ago, we are now seeing a massive migration of travellers

The Dow Jones Transportation Average keeps powering ahead, and the rest of the stock market is very close behind it.  The strong performance of this index is confirmation of further Dow theory gains. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has been fighting its way higher since May 20.  Some of the

There’s one long-term investing adage that has shown a great amount of success over the years: buy when everyone is fearful and sell when optimism is over the top. This theory worked extremely well when key stock indices fell to their lowest levels. It worked in 1987, in 2000, and