As we move into the last few months of the year, the sad and simple truth is that, no matter how much we might want to be able stop including COVID-19 and its impact on every aspect of life in our daily discussions, the health crisis hasn’t gone away, but instead is showing more persistence […]
Read MoreAs recently as a few months ago, a lot of signs about the global pandemic seemed to suggest that the worst of the worst was over, and we could all finally begin to put COVID-19 concerns and commentary in the rear view. As contagious variants of the virus have emerged, however, it has become more […]
Read MoreHaving a contrarian temperament generally means doing the opposite of what most people would do. It’s a mindset that I’ve found very useful as an investor, because while most people tend to flock to stocks that are at or near all-time highs, I’m able to find excellent long-term opportunities at much lower, bargain-level prices. It’s […]
Read MoreBeing a value-oriented investor means that seeing stocks trading at or near all-time highs is actually a demotivating factor; that’s because value-based analysis compares the value of the company’s book of business against the stock’s current price. Since the market tend to inflate stock values, upward trends also tend to outpace the growth in profitability. […]
Read MoreThe Food Products industry in the Consumer Staples sector is an area of the market that tend to get overlooked because, let’s face it, it just isn’t very sexy. Even so, it is one of very few segments of the market that saw consumer-driven improvements in demand during the pandemic. That gave a lot of […]
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 MoreThe Tech sector has enjoyed a lion’s share of attention among all segments of the economy for a number of years. Throughout the pandemic, that attention only seemed both intensified and justified, as technology companies provided the tools that allowed much of corporate America to keep things going by shifting their workforces to remote working […]
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 generally don’t look very sexy – but I’m far less interested in being sexy than I am in being […]
Read MoreFor more than two years – even before COVID-19 became a global pandemic that collapsed economic and social activity for most of 2020 and that continues to strain health care systems and keep pressure on a variety of economic forces – I’ve been writing about the wisdom in being very selective about the investments you […]
Read MoreOne of the most interesting things to me about the stock market is that there really are as many different ways to invest your money as the human brain can imagine. That’s one of the reasons that there are so many different kinds of mutual fund and ETF choices geared for the average investor. One […]
Read MoreThroughout the past year and a half, stocks in the Health Care sector 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 […]
Read MoreIf you listen to a lot of “talking head” market analysts on TV, when a popular, well-known stock starts to drop in price, you’ll almost always start hearing about what a great deal the stock is at that price, and how you should “buy the dip” to take advantage of the next swing upward. For […]
Read MoreIf you’re like me, you’re probably more than a little bit tired of hearing all of the talk about coronavirus and its impact on daily life. That’s a big reason, I think that the market rebounded so quickly from pandemic-driven, bear market lows that took about a month to be seen from the market’s high […]
Read MoreThere are tens of thousands of publicly traded stocks on U.S. exchanges, from small, micro-cap stocks that most people wouldn’t recognize by name to many of the largest, most established, multinational companies in the world. With so many stocks to choose from, one of the biggest challenges for the average investor is how to sift […]
Read MoreOne of the biggest themes that just about all of us have been paying attention to in one way or another in 2021 is the reopening of social activities from 2020, COVID-driven shutdowns and restrictions. While the pandemic is far from over, previously hampered industries like restaurants, hotels, travel and resorts have resumed operations, with […]
Read More