Sometimes there are forces that affect a sector or industry in such a way that it creates a storyline that extends into not merely weeks, or months, but years. These can be positive or negative, but one of the things that I find interesting as an analyst is to look for those threads and try […]
Read MorePart of taking a smart, value-based approach to investing in the stock market involves keeping track of information on industry and economic trends that are likely to have broad residual impacts on market activity. One of the sectors that I think has a broad carryover effect on multiple other sectors in the economy is Energy, […]
Read MoreOne 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 MoreEnergy prices – particularly in crude oil – were among some of the most dramatically impacted components of the global economy at the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic. As businesses were shuttered, and shelter-in-place orders ground economic activity everywhere to a halt, demand for crude cratered; both West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and Brent crude […]
Read MoreThe Consumer Discretionary sector cuts a wide swath across the economic landscape of the United States. It’s easy to think about the sector as the place you’ll find retail stocks, but the truth is that there are a lot of other businesses within the sector that are much more than just the department stores and […]
Read MoreAfter seeing some increasing choppiness in the market last week, the S&P 500 and the Dow pushed to a new set of highs at the beginning of the week. Not surprisingly, the Tech sector has been leading the market higher; as measured by the S&P 500 Technology Sector SPDR (XLK), the sector is up a […]
Read MoreAs a value investor, the search for stocks trading at useful values gets more difficult the longer bullish conditions extend themselves.The market appears to have broken out of doldrums that had some people starting to wonder if all of the good news was already baked into stock prices. That’s generally good news for stocks you’re […]
Read MoreOver the past year, it’s been interesting to see not only how corporations have evolved to survive and get by, but also how consumer behaviors and trends have adjusted as well. Broad-based shutdowns that shuttered businesses all over the U.S. at the beginning of the pandemic sent people home for an unknown future. That move […]
Read MoreSometimes there are really remarkable events that diverge from the normally expected narrative that plays out in the markets. “Expected” events are what we usually expect to see talking heads discussing and analyzing – economic reports, consumer activity, monetary policy, the way the latest political intrigue will be felt, and for the past year, the […]
Read MoreThis week I’ve turned my focus primarily back on the Food Products industry in the Consumer Staples sector. It’s an area of the market that doesn’t get much buzz from market media types because it isn’t very sexy – but it is one of very few segments of the market that has seen consumer-driven improvements […]
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