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  • Alternative Energy Investing: A New Perspective - 05/08/2008 by Timothy Lutts
    Today I want to review the expansion and subsequent shrinking of the Internet stock universe, and then relate that to the growth of today's alternative energy stocks. The best time to invest in a sector, such as Alternative Energy, is when it is uncategorized and indistinct.
  • Lessons Learned From the Tech Bubble That Burst - 05/05/2008 by Paul Goodwin
    When the technology bubble burst in 2000, many investors held onto their stocks even as they plummeted, believing in the mantra of time, not timing. In the end, it’s market timing indicators and having sell disciplines in place that count.
  • Introducing the Weekend Digest; The Business of Green - 05/03/2008 by ElyseAndrews
    Clorox introduces Green products, endorsed by the Sierra Club no less. “Green collar” jobs are replacing some blue collar ones that have gone overseas. And a home in Colorado puts Green housing on the map. These are just some of the ways the Green revolution is manifesting itself in our lives.
  • A Trip to Alcatraz and the Best Prison Stock in America - 05/01/2008 by MichaelCintolo
    After visiting San Francisco and touring Alcatraz, Timothy Lutts found a company that specializes in privatized prisons, and seems like a good investment opportunity.
  • The Law of Unintended Consequences and an IPO - 04/28/2008 by Paul Goodwin
    The increase corn production to be used for ethanol as a gasoline additive has caused the price of fertilizer to spike, resulting in inflation, hunger and poverty.
  • Timely Lessons for Investors and a Fast-Growing Company - 04/26/2008 by MichaelCintolo
    Wedding planning provides a time to learn lessons that can be applied in the market. And Canadian Solar is looking good, as it’s growing lightning fast, but it’s only owned by 20 mutual funds, making it a higher risk/reward situation.
  • Investing Words of Wisdom; A Buy Recommendation - 04/24/2008 by JRoydenWard
    Cabot Benjamin Graham Value Letter editor J. Royden Ward is back today writing his second Cabot Wealth Advisory and recommending a great value stock.
  • Market Appears Back on Track - 04/21/2008 by Timothy Lutts
    Leading stocks have been breaking out to new highs and recently begun uptrends are looking more and more sustainable, indicating that the worst is most likely behind us.
  • Being Right or Making Money - 04/17/2008 by MichaelCintolo
    If you're being battered by all the negative headlines, don't despair. Remember that your goal is to make money, not to always be correct, and so you should be focusing on future opportunities.
  • Investing in a Cleaner Planet - 04/14/2008 by Timothy Lutts
    Clean Harbors (CLHB) is a Green stock that is benefiting from the growing demand for a cleaner planet.
  • Peak Oil Issue Sparks Dialogue; Solar Looks Great - 04/12/2008 by Timothy Lutts
    We got a great response to Wednesday's Cabot Wealth Advisory about Peak Oil, and many of the responses are reproduced in today's issue.
  • An Inadequate SNaC: Two Out of Three Isn't Enough - 04/10/2008 by Paul Goodwin
    A true solid growth stock must adhere to all three criteria of the SNaC selection method: Story, Numbers and Chart.
  • Solar Stocks, and Oil and Gas Stocks, Lead the Market - 04/07/2008 by Timothy Lutts
    It's absolutely fascinating to see stocks in both the oil and gas and the solar power industries leading the market higher in recent days. So where to invest?
  • Negative Sentiment Indicates Possible Market Bottom - 04/03/2008 by MichaelCintolo
    The ridiculously poor sentiment of the last few weeks leads me to believe the market's next big move is up.
  • Finding the Next Great Growth Stock - 03/31/2008 by Timothy Lutts
    Last year one of the market's biggest winners was Crocs (CROX). Most people just call them plastic, but we made a lot of money in the stock, and therein lies an excellent opportunity for a lesson in Romance, Transition and Reality.
  • Your Primer for the Coming Buy Signal - 03/29/2008 by MichaelCintolo
    As I've written in recent weeks, there are ample signs that the market's bear phase is close to (or has already reached) its end point. I won't rehash all the signs here (double-bottom in the indexes, new lows divergence, Bear Stearns bad news, etc.). Instead, I want to take a few paragraphs to dispel a common belief among most investors-that you must get in as quickly as possible to make big money in a bull market.
  • Trip to China Proves Fruitful Personally and Professionally - 03/27/2008 by Paul Goodwin
    I didn't have a strong business agenda for my visit to China. The real purpose was to put a face on the place, so to speak. I was fortunate to hear lectures by people with extensive China experience and to go on a couple of interesting factory visits. But the investing system used by the Cabot China & Emerging Markets Report doesn't make a lot of use of the kind of "look-them-in-the-eye" analysis of management that is popular with large institutional investors.
  • Microsoft and Yahoo! are the new IBM - 03/24/2008 by Timothy Lutts
    Microsoft (MSFT) bid $45 billion to buy Yahoo! (YHOO) back on February 1. My investment perspective on these companies is two-fold. First, every investor in America knows these companies. It's going to be very hard to beat the market by investing in them. Second, those companies are going down the same road traveled by IBM decades ago.
  • Don't Rush in to Visa's IPO - 03/20/2008 by MichaelCintolo
    I've received a bunch of questions regarding the Visa IPO this week. Many believe, because MasterCard (MA) turned out to be such a good investment, that Visa is probably a good buy. My answer to that is ... maybe. From a technical perspective, the game plan is obvious: Do not buy the Visa IPO, but do keep an eye on the stock. If it can form a relatively tight consolidation and if the market can show real signs of turning up, then you could consider taking a position on a breakout. It takes some work, but the rewards can be worth it.
  • Buy the Steak but Avoid the Stock - 03/17/2008 by Timothy Lutts
    I recently visited Ruth's Chris steakhouse in Boston for a wonderful meal. Despite the stigma of being a chain, every meal has been absolutely terrific. Ruth's Chris (RUTH) just came public in 2005, but has since slid from the mid 20s to 6 1/2. Revenues have grown fairly consistently, but earnings were cut in half during the fourth quarter, and projected to shrink some more this year. The stock just hit a new low today! Thus, I think it's a good idea for any steak lover to visit one of the premier steakhouses in your area every couple of months. It's a real treat! But when it comes to investing, the message is clear: Enjoy the steak, but avoid the stocks.
  • Find Your System and Stick to It - 03/15/2008 by MichaelCintolo
    Now is the time to formulate a system that works for you. You're more than welcome to start with the general philosophy from one of our newsletters and then tailor it to your own personality. Some rules, like cutting losses short when buying growth stocks, are absolute. Others, like how to sell can be adjusted to your own trading and investing goals.
  • Discover Value Stock Opportunities the Benjamin Graham Way - 03/13/2008 by JRoydenWard
    Warren Buffett has said, "Only buy something that you'd be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years." What about us ordinary investors who can't wait 10 years? I have an easy solution-- I buy when a stock is undervalued and sell when it becomes overvalued. The time frame is usually about two years. The basic principal is simple: the stock market and the individual stocks that make up the stock market have always bounced back and forth from overvalued to undervalued to overvalued, over and over again.
  • The Market Wants to Take Your Money - 03/10/2008 by Paul Goodwin
    Stock market old-timers will often tell newbies that "the market wants to take your money," which, on the face of it, isn't all that credible. After all, lots of people make lots of money on Wall Street. Still, there's something to the warning, and the quicker you learn about it, the quicker you can start printing your yearly results in black ink, rather than red. So what can you do about it? As any of our longtime readers know, the answer is: have a system.
  • FAQs: From Investing Tools to Indicators - 03/06/2008 by MichaelCintolo
    A couple of years ago, before we began writing Cabot Wealth Advisory, someone in our office came up with the idea of sending out a free monthly email that answered many of our subscribers' most common questions. We named it Ask Cabot, but as time went on we stopped getting as many general investing questions, and we got busy with our paid publications. So we stopped that and started Cabot Wealth Advisory. Since its inception we have gotten a slew of questions and today some of our readers FAQs get answered.
  • Three Steps to Successful Stock Trading - 03/03/2008 by Timothy Lutts
    In 1931, Humphrey Neill, who later became famous as the Vermont Ruminator, wrote a book called "Tape Reading and Market Tactics - The Three Steps to Successful Stock Trading." What are the Mr. Neill's three steps to successful stock trading? The first step is familiarizing yourself with the methods of the institutions that move the market. The second step is learning how to interpret the actions of both these groups and the investing public. The third step (and hardest of all) is achieving mastery of yourself; of the "temperament, emotions, and the other variables that go to make up human nature."
  • Brazil Surpasses China as World's Largest Emerging Market - 03/01/2008 by Paul Goodwin
    The news is out: Brazil is now the largest emerging market in the world by market capitalization of its stocks, and Petrobras, the Brazilian oil giant, is the largest company in the emerging markets by market cap. Brazilian stocks now make up about 15% of the MSCI Global Emerging Markets Index, compared with China's 14%. The South American giant has surpassed China, in part, because the Chinese stock market is in the middle of a pullback that has given its stocks a significant haircut. That's the way it is with emerging markets; they go up faster than developed markets and come down faster, too.
  • Heed the Market's Message; Two Sectors to Watch - 02/28/2008 by Timothy Lutts
    We appear to be at a major turning point, a changing of the guard, if you will, and if you don't heed the market's message, you risk discovering that it has taken some of your hard-earned money. The fact is, most leaders of the last bull market are toast. Google is 37% off its high. Apple is down 37%, too. So what's working? Two sectors.
  • Battling the Market ... and Yourself - 02/25/2008 by MichaelCintolo
    One thing that I am almost never asked about is what it takes to be a great investor. Everyone is focused on today's stock, or tomorrow's headlines. I can literally count on one hand the number of questions I've answered that concern building a successful system that will generate above-average profits for years. The funny thing is, that system - while it involves many rules and tools for finding, buying and selling the best stocks at the right times - really begins with the individual. People are usually their own worst enemies when it comes to winning the investment battle.
  • When Calling the Market Bottom, Hindsight is 20/20 - 02/21/2008 by Paul Goodwin
    Intellectually, everyone knows that the right time to get into the market is at the bottom. Stocks are cheap and there are bargains galore. Unfortunately, figuring out when a bear market is going to bottom is about as easy as knowing when a long-winded speaker is going to quit talking. It can't be done. Maybe it's fairer to say that you can't see a market bottom by looking forward through the windshield. It's something that can only be seen in the rear-view mirror.
  • Bad Management Puts Companies in Peril - 02/18/2008 by Timothy Lutts
    At Cabot we've learned that it takes excellent, innovative management to steer a fast-growing company down the highway of success. Contrarily, bad management can wreck even the most promising company. As might be the case with one carbon fiber company Cabot’s been watching for more than a decade.
  • Factors for Successful Trading; Commodities Show Promise - 02/16/2008 by MichaelCintolo
    Here's one of the biggest differences between successful and ineffective traders: The market can change its tune in a heartbeat but ineffective traders cannot...or at least they refuse to try. These traders think everything has to make sense, and rapid changes in direction rarely make sense, so they fight the new trend.
  • With Changing Market, Time to Adjust the Sails - 02/14/2008 by Timothy Lutts
    William Arthur Ward (1921-1994) said it like this: "The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails." My thesis is simple: that the market is always changing, and that to succeed as an investor, you've got to change with it. Well, I think it's time to adjust the sails, because as the market works to build a base here, the strongest stocks in the market are coal stocks...and never before in my career have coal stocks been attractive investments.
  • Story, Numbers, and Chart: The SNaC Diet - 02/11/2008 by Paul Goodwin
    SNaC stands for Story, Numbers and Chart, and it's the method I use to pick stocks for the Cabot China & Emerging Markets Report. There's nothing complicated about it, but it can be very powerful. Just because it's simple, that doesn't mean it's easy to do, any more than the simplicity of "exercise more and eat less" makes that particular prescription easy. Here are the basic principles.
  • Investing in a Troubled Credit Market - 02/07/2008 by Timothy Lutts
    If I try to think rationally about this problem, here's what I get. Debt is bad; equity is good. Consumers and businesses are already working to reduce their debt loads, and as they continue, they will develop stronger balance sheets and greater financial health, which is a good thing. (One aspect of this that is often forgotten is that this debt shrinkage is right on schedule for aging baby-boomers.)
  • The Good and Bad of Risk - 02/04/2008 by MichaelCintolo
    The moral of the story: Successful investors always consider risk when analyzing their portfolio, adhering to rules like cutting losses short (if you're into growth stocks) or diversification (value stocks). I constantly talk to investors who fail to think of the downside, plowing a huge percentage of their portfolios into a few stocks ... and then failing to cut the loss short if things go amiss.
  • Microsoft's Purchase of Yahoo! - 02/01/2008 by Timothy Lutts
    Microsoft wants to pay $44 billion - perhaps the largest technology purchase ever - to buy Yahoo! Why? To compete with Google! But does it make sense? Well, from a big-picture point of view, anything that can thwart Google's dominance of Internet search and advertising probably makes sense for Microsoft, and if they've got the cash, there are worse places to spend it. But does this make for an attractive investment opportunity? Do you want to own a piece of Microsoft/Yahoo!, recognizing that the Microsoft part is eight times the size of the Yahoo! part?
  • Rogue Traders and Stock Screwups - 01/31/2008 by Paul Goodwin
    I know that these trading fiascos are bad things ... and yet part of me is strangely pleased about them. I like having big object lessons that show what happens when people break the rules and refuse to cut their losses short. Rogue traders aren't greedy criminals - none of the big ones have made any money for themselves on their dealings. But their mistakes remind us that anyone who reacts to losses by making increasingly riskier trades can parlay bad luck into a financial catastrophe of amazing proportions.
  • Personalized Medicine Stocks - 01/28/2008 by Timothy Lutts
    The industry is the realm of genetic medicine and the stock is Illumina (ILMN), currently trading in the low-60s. Illumina is one of two major public companies that make tools used for genetic medicine. The other is Affymetrix (AFFX). To say that they've been competitive would be polite; there have been lawsuits and countersuits about intellectual property in recent years.
  • Flexible Investing in a Volatile Stock Market - 01/24/2008 by MichaelCintolo
    The market appears ripe for a short-term bounce ... but so what? The reason most people want to pick bottoms isn't really to make money; that's part of it, of course, but not the sole purpose. The reason they want to pick bottoms is to feel like they outsmarted the market and most other investors. There's nothing shameful about that, but in the market, wanting to prove that you're right usually costs you money.
  • On Managing Risk during a Bear Market - 01/21/2008 by Timothy Lutts
    When we're in a strong bull market, it's like driving down the highway on a clear summer day. Visibility is unlimited and your tires grip as well as they ever will. You can go pedal to the metal and rack up the miles - and the profits - quickly. But a bear market, such as we're in today, is more like the weather I drove in Friday. It's far less tolerant of aggressive behavior. The effects of your mistakes are magnified. And if you make enough wrong decisions, it can ruin you.
  • Why Market Timing Works - 01/19/2008 by Paul Goodwin
    The Cabot Market Letter has been timing the market for over 37 years, and it is darned good at it. Even the Hulbert Financial Digest has noticed, giving the Letter an attaboy for its success in getting out of bear markets and back into bull runs. There are reasons for the divergence in the opinions of Cabot and the market commentators, and they don't require that one or the other has to be wrong. It's a good illustration of the power of the individual to grab victory from the jaws of defeat. Here's how it works.
  • How to Invest during a Recession - 01/17/2008 by Timothy Lutts
    Eventually, when real estate prices fall low enough, the patient value-oriented souls who've been waiting for bargains will come out of the woodwork and start buying. They'll buy individual houses, apartment buildings, entire condominium projects and more. Downtrends will end. The recession will end. And the U.S. of A. will return to its pattern of slow growth. But should you wait until then before you invest? No, as I explain in the next section.
  • Gold stocks strong due to price of bullion hitting all time peaks - 01/14/2008 by MichaelCintolo
    Here's what I wrote about Barrick in last week's edition of Cabot Top Ten: The price of gold is in a solid uptrend, and that's helping all gold stocks, including Barrick Gold. The company, based in Canada, is one of the largest gold producers in the world...most gold stocks simply trade up and down with the price of gold, and for good reason—cash costs for mining activities are holding relatively steady, so as spot and futures prices increase, the extra money will fall to the firm's bottom line.
  • Apple vs. Baidu vs. Suntech vs. MasterCard vs. Home Depot vs. Coach - 01/10/2008 by Timothy Lutts
    My pick, by the way, is New Oriental Education (EDU), which is thriving by teaching English to Chinese students of all ages, and also teaching test preparation courses. I like it because I think the growth of China will continue at a rapid rate and because I value education highly. Also, the company is fast-growing and very profitable; in the third quarter, revenues grew 50% from the year before while the after-tax profit margin was 43.9% (there's a strong seasonal component here). And finally, the chart looks good.
  • What Should You Resolve? - 01/07/2008 by Paul Goodwin
    Rather than give the same old big advice (buy quality stocks on reasonable pullbacks, let your winners run, cut your losers short, and don't try to go against the trend of the market) I'm going to recommend three small changes that you might actually be able to implement. And a successful small change is much better for you (both financially and emotionally) than a big change that you can't make happen.
  • Good and Bad Everywhere - 01/05/2008 by MichaelCintolo
    My stock idea for this issue stems from the "you can find good news among a heap of bad news" theory. It's a company whose entire business stems from the airline industry ... probably the only industry that's lost more money than the auto firms during the past few years. And today, the outlook would seem to be even worse, as businesses begin to cut back spending and oil prices flirt with $100 per barrel.
  • A Great Steel Stock for the 21st Century - 01/03/2008 by Timothy Lutts
    So which book leads to the investment idea, the book by the dreamers or the book about the doer? There's no surprise here; it's Carnegie, the doer. Because today's idea is about steel and iron ore, once again in great demand by the world. For Carnegie, demand came from the expansion of the American railroad system. For this company, demand comes from the global building boom, particularly in Asia.
  • Adapt or Perish - 12/31/2007 by Timothy Lutts
    Now, this would be a natural place to write about a solar power stock, but I've done enough of that in recent issues. Instead, I want to write about a nifty little Brazilian company. And here's why. In my mind, the world's stock markets are linked by conduits that channel money this way and that, every minute of every day, always reacting to the latest news and the resulting changes in perception.
  • Keeping Watch Over Your Stocks By Night - 12/27/2007 by Paul Goodwin
    As a growth investor, my investment horizon is considerably shorter. The portfolio I manage (for the Cabot China & Emerging Markets Report) can turn over as much as 300% a year, so I need to…
  • Five Trends To Watch In 2008 - 12/22/2007 by Timothy Lutts
    The best way to make big money in growth stocks is to invest in fast-growing companies in fast-growing industries, and ride the major trends for as long as they remain up. In 2007, the biggest trend - still ongoing - was the rise in solar power stocks. And next year? Here are my five best guesses for the trends that will reward investors in 2008.
  • Review of 2007 Yields Five Investing Goals for Next Year - 12/20/2007 by MichaelCintolo
    I have always believed that cutting losses short is, by far, the #1 rule when investing in fast-moving growth stocks. So much so that my stops are often less than 10%, even 5%, as I try to buy a leader near a logical support level.
  • Insurance Competition: Are You A Better-Than-Average Driver? - 12/17/2007 by Timothy Lutts
    If I could buy any insurance company, I'd buy Geico. Unfortunately, it's already owned by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway. My second choice? China Life Insurance (LFC). China Life was a government entity until it was sold to the public in December 2003, in the biggest Chinese IPO to date.
  • Western Digital Corp (WDC): My Favorite Data Storage Stock - 12/13/2007 by Timothy Lutts
    Why would you want to invest in a hard disk maker? Because historically, these companies have provided many opportunities to make big money quickly, and it looks like we're entering one of those periods today.
  • World-Class Mining Stock: UK's Rio Tinto (RTP) - 12/10/2007 by Paul Goodwin
    And if you're trying to build an entire country, the materials you need might just be prosaic steel and copper, and that brings me to my investment idea for the day. The company is Rio Tinto (RTP), the U.K. mining giant that sells billions of dollars worth of iron ore, copper, aluminum and other minerals every year. The company is growing fast because of demand from China and the rest of the developing world, and that growth is having some unexpected consequences.
  • Invest Like Terry Francona - 12/08/2007 by Timothy Lutts
    Today, one investment strategy that's struggling a bit is the value strategy. While growth stocks in general have had a great year, and international investments have had a great year, thanks in part to the falling dollar, value investing strategies have lagged.
  • What's Price Got To Do With It? - 12/06/2007 by Timothy Lutts
    For almost everything we buy in life, price matters. From gasoline to automobiles, cheeseburgers to chateaubriand, we've learned that the lower the price, the better the deal.
  • Bidding Your Inner Chump Goodbye - 12/03/2007 by Paul Goodwin
    My investing idea in this issue is FLIR Systems, a global leader in thermal imaging. The company’s name is an acronym for Forward Looking Infrared, a kind of imaging technology that allows military aircraft and vehicles to see through darkness (and also daytime fog and smoke). Government Systems applications may be FLIR’s calling card, but they’re a small part of the whole story. The company also has a Thermography division that designs and manufactures temperature sensing technologies that can spot overheating machinery, leaks, flaws in buildings and gradients in scientific experiments.
  • Thanksgiving wrap-up, CROX and WCG - 11/29/2007 by Timothy Lutts
    Now, unlike Wellcare Group, Crocs still has an excellent growth business, and we still have high expectations for the company. But we don't confuse the stock with the company, and we never argue with the stock. CROX, like WCG, is heavily damaged. Every rally from here will be met with selling pressures from investors who bought higher who will now be content to "get out even." And thus it's highly unlikely that this stock will return to its winning ways in the near term. So we say sell.
  • Planning For The Next Bull - 11/26/2007 by MichaelCintolo
    Back on October 13, I penned a CWA titled "Finding Your System" where I wrote about finding a system that fits you. It's a topic that's frequently on my mind - money management-type topics are always worth some thought - and I was reminded of it just a few days ago when I was re-reading parts of Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, the fictional biography of Jesse Livermore, and one of the best investment books ever written.
  • Profiting From The Mortgage Mess - 11/24/2007 by Timothy Lutts
    Ideally, you want to invest in industries where the dominant factors are positive, where booming demand for products and services means revenue growth is rapid and profit margins are high. Trouble is, in the current market climate, the best growth stocks, which have enjoyed great advances earlier this year, are in retreat. Buying them is a high-risk proposition. But there is one exception, and it's interesting enough to discuss here.
  • Back to the Basics … Again - 11/19/2007 by Paul Goodwin
    The investment idea that I'm floating in this issue is just that, an idea. But it's a big idea. Taleo Corporation is a California-based company, founded in 1999, that's trying to do two huge tasks: First, get companies the talent that they need to succeed; and, second, reduce the cost of an in-house human resources department. Taleo uses talent management software that is designed to recruit, manage and develop different classes of employees, from Professional to Hourly to Contingency (temporary). Among other tasks, Taleo's online programs guide clients through recruiting on campuses, complying with labor laws, and transitioning a new hire from candidate to employee.
  • Robot Value - 11/15/2007 by Timothy Lutts
    And now one brief recommendation. It's a gold stock, Freeport McMoRan (FCX). Freeport owns the Grasberg open pit mine in Indonesia, which is not only the world's richest gold mine but also the world's third-largest copper mine. And it acquired Phelps Dodge earlier this year, making it the largest publicly traded copper company in the world.
  • Perspective and Perception in Investing - 11/12/2007 by Timothy Lutts
    Back at the beginning of this email, I mentioned the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII). I'm a life member; they made me an offer I couldn't refuse about a decade ago, and I expect to come out ahead on the deal. Anyway, AAII regularly tests investing systems to see which ones perform best, and over the long run, two systems stand head-and-shoulders above the rest. The first is the CANSLIM approach advocated by Investor's Business Daily (IBD). The second is Martin Zweig's system.
  • The FAQ Issue - 11/10/2007 by MichaelCintolo
    Of course, I couldn't finish this weekend's Wealth Advisory without at least mentioning the overall market. In case you missed it ... the sellers have taken control. But the most important thing is that the sellers had taken control of most stocks before this week - I wrote two weeks ago about how there was a growing divergence between the few leading glamour stocks and the broad market.
  • Legalize It - 11/08/2007 by Timothy Lutts
    Legalizing marijuana would not only create a great new source of revenue, it would also bring quality control to the industry, create thousands of new legal jobs, and - best of all - stop the practice of imprisoning people who were only working to make a buck by filling the market's demand ... which could save us many billions of dollars a year, reduce ancillary violent crime, return people to the labor force and make families whole again.
  • Making It Through the Minefield - 11/05/2007 by Paul Goodwin
    Crocs, the maker of the deliciously comfortable, horrendously ugly shoes reported its earnings on Wednesday, October 31 after the market closed. The good news is that the company's profits more than doubled, reaching $0.66 a share vs. $0.25 for Q3 last year. This profit exceeded expectations by a few cents. Hurrah. But when the company issued its outlook for total 2007 earnings, raising its guidance by about a nickel over last quarter's estimate, the Street wasn't pleased.
  • My Favorite Turkish Stock ... No Kidding! - 11/01/2007 by Timothy Lutts
    It's the largest provider of cell phone service in Turkey, with a 60% market share, and it's named, appropriately enough, Turkcell. The firm's ADRs (American Depositary Receipts) trade on the NYSE under the symbol TKC. With 32 million subscribers, Turkcell is the third-largest provider of GSM service in Europe. It has $5 billion in annual revenues; it's expected to grow earnings 42% this year and 21% in 2008; and it pays an annual dividend of 3.8%!
  • A High-Potential Energy Stock - 10/29/2007 by Timothy Lutts
    For a long time, I've had a note to myself saying I should write about witch-hunts. And now, as the clock ticks toward Halloween, is the perfect time to do so. My status as a native and lifelong resident of Salem, Massachusetts means I know a fair amount about the historical kind, and my decades observing and analyzing the behavior of investors, who can act rational as individuals but who combine to form irrational crowds, means I've experienced many of the modern kind.
  • Back to the Future - 10/27/2007 by MichaelCintolo
    Here’s the funny thing: I’m not describing 2007. I’m talking about 1998, a year that’s paralleling this one so closely I believe it’s prudent to look back before looking ahead.
  • Warren Buffett's Railroad Stock - 10/25/2007 by Timothy Lutts
    Of course, six months is far too short a period in which to judge a value-oriented investment. More important, Warren Buffett, as far as we know, never paid more than 82 for his shares. Those folks who deluded themselves into thinking they were following the master when they were buying above 90 were only getting half the equation right. They forgot the importance of price.
  • Evening The Odds - 10/22/2007 by Paul Goodwin
    There is a doom-and-gloom quality to much of the talk about the subprime crisis. The reasoning is that this wad of bad debt is hanging like an enormous boulder over the stock market highway, and that when it falls, the world as we know it will essentially end. In this regard, it's a lot like assertions that the U.S. national debt (or current account balance or poor educational system or declining manufacturing base, etc.) will ruin everything forever.
  • The Dollar, The Passport And Baidu - 10/18/2007 by Timothy Lutts
    First, Baidu (BIDU) is the Chinese equivalent of Google. Both companies get 99% of their revenue by presenting ads to Internet users. But Baidu is just 1% of the size of Google, as measured by revenues, and 5% the size as measured by market capitalization. And it's growing twice as fast as Google. Furthermore, Baidu's market penetration is far less than Google's and it's addressing a far larger population, so its growth prospects are substantially greater.
  • A Great Conservative Stock Yielding 3.4% - 10/15/2007 by Timothy Lutts
    So on to the stock. To refresh your memory, Force Protection is a South Carolina company with $340 million in annual sales that makes trucks for the military ... trucks that resist the force of various explosive devices. The majority of these vehicles are bought by the U.S. government, and they've proven quite valuable in Iraq. Some have been sold to Canada. And last Monday the British government, which has already bought 100, ordered 140 more.
  • Finding Your System - 10/13/2007 by MichaelCintolo
    I think one such stock is VeriFone Holdings (PAY), which is benefiting from the same mega-trend as MasterCard (MA) - more people are paying with plastic instead of cash, especially in developing countries. Here’s what I wrote about the firm in Cabot Top Ten Report, where it earned a spot due to the stock’s powerful breakout…
  • Who Cares About The Fed? Everybody! - 10/11/2007 by Timothy Lutts
    Trends are up, but overextended, suggesting that a normal correction is likely. Our Hi-Lo Alert, which measures the number of Dow stocks above their medium-term moving averages, is at its highest point since May, just two weeks before the market got very rocky and embarked on the course that took it down to the August low.
  • My Favorite Solar Power Stocks - 10/04/2007 by Timothy Lutts
    In general, I like this trend and I think it has a long way to go … but there are two risks to be aware of today. The first is market risk. While the rebound over the past six weeks has been awesomely profitable for leading stocks - the ones being driven by institutional buying - the breadth of the market is not quite good enough to allow me to relax. I still fear that a “re-test” of that August low may still be possible.
  • I Was Wrong About The Buffalo - 10/01/2007 by Timothy Lutts
    Which brings me to the state of the stock market today. My strongest thought today is that while the headlines are absolutely glum, forecasting recession, lamenting the prospect of $100 per barrel oil, and worrying that the Chinese, the Mexicans and the Arabs (to name just three) threaten our American way of life …the market is very strong!
  • Predictions, Free! (and worth every penny) - 09/28/2007 by Paul Goodwin
    One company that has caught my eye recently is Gafisa (GFA), a Brazilian company that’s trying to bring North American-style housing developments to Brazil. Brazil’s population is more than 70% larger than that of Mexico, but its housing market is about half of that in Mexico. But as prosperity works its way through the Brazilian economy, more and more people will be able to afford homes, and Gafisa is bringing the efficiency of modern building methods to the building process.
  • The Global Beef Boom - Good Or Bad? - 09/27/2007 by Timothy Lutts
    So where’s the investment? I have two. The first is a big, fast-growing Russian dairy company, Wimm Bill Dann Foods (WBD). It brought in over $2 billion in revenues last year selling milk, cream cheese, yogurt, butter, kefir, cottage cheese, juice, water, baby food and dairy desserts. It’s growing revenues at a rate of about 40% per year. It’s expected to grow earnings by 35% in 2007 and 40% in 2008. Its current PE ratio is 33. And the stock is trending up!
  • The #1 Sector in the Market Today - 09/24/2007 by MichaelCintolo
    Which brings us to today. With last week’s powerful market upmove - one of the best of the year, thanks partly to Mr. Bernanke’s half-point rate cut on Tuesday - we believe we’ve kicked off the next stage of this bull market … a stage that figures to be very powerful. Why so powerful? Because many unique indicators we follow are giving us a bright green light. Here are some…
  • Six Characteristics Of Great Growth Stocks - 09/20/2007 by Timothy Lutts
    The market’s upside action this week, in the wake of the Fed’s interest rate cut, has been unusually bullish by many technical measures. But I’m not going to write about that today. I’ll leave that to ace technical analyst Mike Cintolo, who weighs in on Monday. Until then, suffice it to say that you should be heavily invested now.
  • Vroom Vroom - 09/17/2007 by Timothy Lutts
    Last, but not least - there’s one more automobile company that’s public, but you won’t find its vehicles on any highways. It’s Zenn Motor Company (4ZNN). The name stands for Zero Emission No Noise), and if you’ve got your thinking cap on you’ve probably guessed that means it runs on batteries. Correct.
  • The Good, The Bad and the Oddly - 09/15/2007 by Paul Goodwin
    Synaptics introduced the world’s first touchpad interface for a computer in 1995, and it’s been on the leading edge of the industry ever since. The company’s biggest hit, at least from the stock’s perspective, was the clickwheel for the iPod, which helped the stock soar from 2002 to the end of 2004. But the company has also developed pointing sticks and a variety of other “pads,” including SecurePad, RoundPad and LuxPad.
  • Housing Is Out - Gold Is In - 09/13/2007 by Timothy Lutts
    A few nights ago, as I found myself sitting at a dinner table with a group of strangers, by way of making conversation (and doing research) I asked, "What do you think will happen with the real estate market?" Their answers: "It'll come back" and "We've been here before." Not wanting to be a wet blanket, I didn't disagree. But I think they're wrong. I think there's a lot more downside ahead, and that getting there will take much longer than most people imagine today.

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