One of the things about value investing that I think makes it hard for most investors to embrace is the fact that value-based principles tend to be counter-intuitive to the mindset that most often gets presented about the market. The first, most basic principle of value investing fits well with rule #1 of investing in […]
Read MoreThroughout the past year, stocks in the health care business have drawn a lot of attention from investors and analysts. That includes stocks in the Pharmacy/Drugstore industry; these were names, like Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA)and CVS Corporation (CVS) that worked actively in the early stages of the crisis to provide a critical piece of the […]
Read MoreUncertain economic conditions are often a good time to think about stocks that most people tend to overlook because they’re “boring.” These are stocks that also tend to operate in counter-cyclical fashion. They often make up segments of the economy that you and I rely on every day, but that don’t generate the same kind […]
Read MoreOver the last few weeks, the market has started to get choppier, which generally means that it’s harder to determine whether investors are bullish or bearish. That’s a sign of uncertainty about market direction, and I’ve noticed that an increasing number of analysts have started to talk or write about something I’ve believed for some […]
Read MoreThe “herd mentality” can be a funny thing to think about in societal terms – but it’s a real thing in the stock market. The sheer number of publicly traded stocks on U.S. exchanges alone creates a wave of market data that no single person can handle alone, and that’s a big reason why it […]
Read MoreThe broad sense of hope that 2021 will set the stage for a broad recovery on multiple fronts seems to be a primary reason the broad indices pushed to a new set of all-time highs at the end of last week, with a total increase since January 1 of a little less than 6%. Indications […]
Read MoreFor more than a year, the Aerospace industry, which includes commercial airlines has been one of the biggest, unquestioned losers in the stock market. Yes, the biggest portion of that drop comes from the reality that the industry took some of the biggest drawdowns in the market starting in February 2020 as commercial travel dried […]
Read MoreAs a conservative-minded, value and fundamental-driven investor, my natural tendency is to shy away from stocks that market experts and popular market media analysts tend to talk to the most about. That means that my investments rarely look very sexy – but I’m far less interested in being sexy than I am in being able […]
Read MoreI tend to take most of the information I get from news media with a large grain of salt. That is especially true of market media outlets, which have so much information to try to report about on a daily basis that they really can’t do much more than talk about whatever happens to be […]
Read MoreWhat tends to generate less buzz in market news and other media outlets than the attention that is focused on the Tech sector that has dominated most of the past year is another COVID-driven trend that I think is also very important and has a few different interesting layers to it. Stay-at-home orders, shuttered restaurants […]
Read MoreI’ve been writing quite a bit lately about positioning yourself conservatively to keep trading in a functional way even when the market is very extended. The commentary lately, and even market activity (increasing bond yields, rising inflation uncertainty), seems to be grappling with this question too. One of the biggest elements that comes to play […]
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