Guides

Here’s an interesting bit of investing trivia: had an investor picked up shares of The Buckle (BKE) – a midscale casual apparel retailer – at the company’s 2008 low, the shareholder would now have received […]

Proponents of indexing as the best investment strategy seemed to take great delight in reporting how the vast majority of professionally managed portfolios (mutual funds, separately managed accounts, hedge funds, ETFs, etc.) fail to outperform […]

The lexicon of the financial world is full of phrases and jargon that are often tossed about without considering that there may be those who are not exactly familiar with the true meaning of the […]

There is a growing trend towards doing-it-yourself (DIY) portfolio management.  Many individual investors have become disillusioned with professional investment management at various levels, to include mutual funds as well as custom-designed professionally-managed portfolios. Consequently, they […]

During periods when emotions are dominating reason, price volatility can become more pronounced than is normal during calmer times. The purpose of this article is to provide some logic and reason that can be applied to stock price volatility that simultaneously weakens its potential damage. […]

The focal point of this article is to discuss, and try to answer the very important questions, regarding what is the best use of corporate profits.  Should a company retain their profits and reinvest in itself, should a company buy back their stock, should they use it to fund acquisitions, reduce their debt or pay dividends? All important questions I’ll answer here with examples. […]

This article, and the two that preceded it, were offered to present how to utilize the essence of valuation coupled with earnings growth to determine returns on your common stocks. By applying the same principles that we presented and discussed in Parts 1 and 2, we can calculate within a reasonable range of predictability what our future returns might be. […]

In part II we will focus on how to utilize current valuation in conjunction with earnings growth rates in order to come up with a reasonable expectation of the future total returns a stock can be expected to provide. So, the price you pay to buy the growth that the company ultimately delivers, will determine not only how much money you make, but how much risk you took to make it. […]

We believe there are two critical attributes that the prudent investor should consider before investing in a company, valuation and earnings growth. In part 1 of this article on determining value we’ll illustrate the concept of fair valuation and how it is arrived at within a reasonable degree of accuracy. […]

Precipitous drops in equity prices drove us to distrust stocks and stock markets over the last decade. In this article we’ll look at the important distinctions that were the true causes of our last two market crashes, and how it effects a dividend heavy portfolio. […]

Pundits state the three cardinal rules of investing are: diversify- diversify- diversify. However, careful analysis will reveal that diversification is a multifaceted concept that has different meanings, benefits and risks. […]

The investment industry is replete with pundits and self-proclaimed experts espousing various principles and rules that allegedly are the best way to value a stock correctly. In this article we’ll talk about doing it right. […]

In the second part of this analysis of fair value and future growth I confidently state that forecasting future earnings is the key to long-term investing success. In this article we’ll explain how to accomplish a reliable forecast by applying both a macro and micro analysis. […]

Fair market value is clearly a function of earnings.

In this article I’ll discuss fair value and establish the importance of a comprehensive fundamental analysis before an investment decision in a specific company is made. […]

Anyone who saw Priceline (NASDAQ:PCLN) this week can appreciate nailing a cyclical stock with strong, consistent growth.

We see this all the time, but how do we consistently scan for these golden opportunities? […]

Securities fraud comes in many forms, but surely the most common scheme is the good old pump and dump. These scams have become quite complex in the modern Internet age but lucky for us they’re still fairly easy to spot.

In this post we’ll cover a few recent examples in the hopes of helping you avoid a common pitfall. […]

A key concept for new investors to grasp is the importance of choosing a basket of stocks and watching them like a hawk every single trading day. In this article we’ll go over a couple of methods to monitor stocks with a custom watch list and work with market data. As usual we prefer free versus paid in almost every circumstance, so all of these methods are free or cheap, and relatively easy to setup. […]

A common question: “I woke up this morning to find stock XYZ corp. halted pending news. Now what?”

While a halted stock is normally the result of some pending news or other action that is expected to move its price, this is not always the case. Here is a complete list of the most common halt codes and their meaning. […]