For most of the past year or so, the Basic Materials sector has offered some of the most interesting cases for value-based investing. The idea of finding useful “targets of opportunity” when the broad market is highly uncertain is one of the reasons I like to put so much emphasis not only on a stock’s […]
Read MoreFor bargain hunters, the search for useful value in the stock market is a never-ending task. Sometimes it’s easier than at other times. It isn’t just about the direction the broad market is going—although that certainly plays a role in how abundant or scarce those opportunities may be. It’s also about recognizing areas of the […]
Read MoreNo matter what the market’s current direction may be, the hunt for useful opportunities never really ends for a bargain hunter. One of the pockets of the market that I always find interesting is the Energy sector. Energy products in the form of crude oil, natural gas, heating oil, and others make up some of […]
Read MoreSince the early part of this year, one of the most-talked-about sectors of the economy has been the Financial sector, with a specific emphasis on the Banking industry. From early in 2020 until the beginning of 2022, the sector was one of the biggest stars of the market. As interest rates have increased this year, […]
Read MoreWhen uncertainty is high in an industry, and you’re a bit of a contrarian, there’s a natural temptation to gravitate to the industry’s largest, most dominant companies. It takes a contrarian mindset to focus on industries where uncertainty and fear are driving volatility higher – because in those situations most growth-oriented investors are certainly looking […]
Read MoreOne of the constant struggles all investors, analysts and experts deal with is trying to find the thread that will define economic and market activity for the foreseeable future. Identifying that thread, of course is as much guesswork as anything else when it comes to predicting market action or direction. 2022 was filled with uncertainty […]
Read MoreA big piece of successful value investing involves the ability to identify useful “targets of opportunity.” That’s something that isn’t altogether easy, but it can be done in a few different ways. One approach is to work from top to bottom. Rather than sifting through thousands of individual stocks, that means starting at the broad […]
Read MoreOver the last few years, I’ve used stocks in the Food Products industry to find useful value under often uncertain market conditions. Food Products companies, and others in the Consumer Staples sectors don’t generally get a lot of investor attention because they just aren’t very “sexy.” The dichotomy between fundamental strength and lack of investor […]
Read MorePart of the challenge of the stock market comes from the fact that stocks don’t always react the way you would expect. What you may perceive as good news or positive indicators can often be interpreted in an entirely opposite fashion; in the same way, it isn’t a given that what is generally considered as […]
Read MoreMore than two decades of experience as a student of the markets have taught me that while the market is generally resilient, there is one word that always seems to automatically put the market on edge: change. For the last few years, change has been a constant reality in the global economy. Whether you want […]
Read MoreNo matter what current market conditions are at any given time, the point of value-oriented investing is to find stocks that offer attractive long-term upside. For my approach, that means using a combination of valuation, fundamental strength, and technical analysis to filter through the thousands of stocks that are available. That puts a big emphasis […]
Read MoreNo matter how much the world moves away from COVID-19, the truth is that it isn’t going away. The move by government entities as well as healthcare organizations around the world to “endemic” phase protocols doesn’t mean the disease has been eradicated. It really means that the disease is acknowledged as a permanent part of […]
Read MoreBeing a value-oriented investor means that seeing stocks trading at or near historical lows tends to make a stock more interesting than when it is trading near historical highs. For growth investors, that sounds odd since growth investing puts an emphasis on upward trends and stocks trading at or near their yearly highs. Sometimes a […]
Read MoreWhen everybody is buying, contrarian and value-focused investors tend to get more cautious. The opposite is also true – when everybody is running for the exits, we start finding more and more attractive opportunities at great prices. The past year and a half has been rough for just about every investing strategy, no matter whether […]
Read MoreIt seems that every year, economic and market activity finds a way to revolve around one or two primary themes. It’s safe to say that no matter where you start, the primary economic theme for most of the last year and a half, if not longer, boils down to inflation. Economic metrics were clearly starting […]
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