Looking at a stock in the context of an analyst’s price target can be a tricky endeavor. #-ad_banner-#Most analysts place such targets in the context of where they believe shares will trade in a quarter or two. And that’s not really how you should look at a stock. The focus on near-term quarterly results can be too short-sighted. The most profitable style of investing is to focus on stocks that possess considerable upside (or downside) a year or two down the road. Still, I monitor analysts’ price targets anyway, often in search of a big gap between the current price… Read More

Looking at a stock in the context of an analyst’s price target can be a tricky endeavor. #-ad_banner-#Most analysts place such targets in the context of where they believe shares will trade in a quarter or two. And that’s not really how you should look at a stock. The focus on near-term quarterly results can be too short-sighted. The most profitable style of investing is to focus on stocks that possess considerable upside (or downside) a year or two down the road. Still, I monitor analysts’ price targets anyway, often in search of a big gap between the current price and the target. Anytime you see an analyst suggest a stock is worth 50% or even 100% more than the current share price, it’s surely worth further research. Here are three such stocks that could surge far higher — if analysts are on the mark with their predictions. 1. ZS Pharma (Nasdaq: ZSPH )​ When it comes to pulling off an IPO, timing is everything. A broad range of young biotech companies came public early this year, only to get wiped out in a late winter rout. Many of the biotech stocks that swooned back then are only now regaining… Read More

Believe it or not, France exports much more than soft cheeses and techno bands. Despite the worries about the stability of the European banking system, French bank stocks offer some of the best value I’ve stumbled on recently.  #-ad_banner-#While BNP Paribas (OTC: BNPZY) has grabbed headlines thanks to a $9.8 billion fine related to doing business with countries blacklisted by U.S. regulators, a cleaner name has showed up on my radar…  Credit Agricole (OTC: CRARY). While it’s true that I wrote an article titled “Why I Will Never Buy Another Bank Stock” a few months ago, the focus… Read More

Believe it or not, France exports much more than soft cheeses and techno bands. Despite the worries about the stability of the European banking system, French bank stocks offer some of the best value I’ve stumbled on recently.  #-ad_banner-#While BNP Paribas (OTC: BNPZY) has grabbed headlines thanks to a $9.8 billion fine related to doing business with countries blacklisted by U.S. regulators, a cleaner name has showed up on my radar…  Credit Agricole (OTC: CRARY). While it’s true that I wrote an article titled “Why I Will Never Buy Another Bank Stock” a few months ago, the focus was on regional banks — not global giants. There’s a big difference.  With assets of over $2 trillion, Credit Agricole comes in at #9 among the world’s largest banks — but its ADRs (American depositary receipts) have had a rough go of things over the past few years: After falling below $2 in the depths of the Greek-fueled European debt crisis, CRARY has rebounded smartly, more than tripling since mid-2012. But is it still worth buying?  Put simply, the stock has sufficient potential growth combined with an extremely pessimistic value placed on it by a shortsighted market —… Read More

When George Soros is the largest shareholder of any company, investors pay attention. Yet not even Soros is immune to market pullbacks, especially when an entire sector is weak. #-ad_banner-#For Soros, it’s like owning the best house in a depressed market. When the market bounces back, he’ll make the most money. That’s the case with Soros’ investment in ClickSoftware Technologies (Nasdaq: CKSW). At the end of this year’s first quarter, Soros owned nearly 10% of the outstanding shares, his largest stake percentagewise in any software company. ClickSoftware makes computer programs to manage workforces across a wide variety of… Read More

When George Soros is the largest shareholder of any company, investors pay attention. Yet not even Soros is immune to market pullbacks, especially when an entire sector is weak. #-ad_banner-#For Soros, it’s like owning the best house in a depressed market. When the market bounces back, he’ll make the most money. That’s the case with Soros’ investment in ClickSoftware Technologies (Nasdaq: CKSW). At the end of this year’s first quarter, Soros owned nearly 10% of the outstanding shares, his largest stake percentagewise in any software company. ClickSoftware makes computer programs to manage workforces across a wide variety of industries. Part of its weakness has been due to its transition to selling software as a service (SaaS) and offering its services in the cloud for a monthly fee.  ClickSoftware’s business model was previously based solely on selling software with an upfront contract and then installing the software on the client’s computers. In contrast, the risk of the cloud computing model is that clients can cancel their contracts at any time.  The transition to the cloud resulted in ClickSoftware posting a loss last year, its first in more than eight years. Although the company posted a 16% year-over-year increase in… Read More

“Nothing under $5.” #-ad_banner-#That was often the message I was greeted with by mutual hedge fund managers as I sat down to discuss my latest picks with them. As a Wall Street analyst, it was my job to help these managers discover winning ideas. And unfortunately, many of them were restricted from buying any stocks priced below $5. It’s an arbitrary rule established by boards of directors at funds… but one that the rest of us can profit from. That’s because once a stock reaches $5, a lot of these same fund managers start to consider such stocks — and… Read More

“Nothing under $5.” #-ad_banner-#That was often the message I was greeted with by mutual hedge fund managers as I sat down to discuss my latest picks with them. As a Wall Street analyst, it was my job to help these managers discover winning ideas. And unfortunately, many of them were restricted from buying any stocks priced below $5. It’s an arbitrary rule established by boards of directors at funds… but one that the rest of us can profit from. That’s because once a stock reaches $5, a lot of these same fund managers start to consider such stocks — and if they like what they see, they’ll push shares yet higher as they take a stake. Here’s a look at three stocks with each trading under $3 that could reach and surpass that $5 threshold in the year ahead. 1. Ceragon Networks (Nasdaq: CRNT ) Just a few years ago, this provider of high-speed wireless network equipment to emerging-market countries was a popular choice among fund managers. Its sales had surged from $184 million in 2009 to $445 million by 2011. But the past few years have seen a pullback in capital spending by wireless service providers, and… Read More

In addition to a strong fundamental growth story, Monster Beverage (Nasdaq: MNST) has one of the better-looking charts in the consumer goods space. The energy drink company also looks to be a takeover candidate. #-ad_banner-#All of this speaks to a higher stock price in the short to intermediate term. As the energy drink market continues to grow, I can’t help but notice an ever-expanding presence of Monster Energy drinks in grocery and convenience stores. And J.P. Morgan analyst John Faucher recently said the company could be acquired within two to three years. Frankly, it makes sense. Arguably, the barrier to… Read More

In addition to a strong fundamental growth story, Monster Beverage (Nasdaq: MNST) has one of the better-looking charts in the consumer goods space. The energy drink company also looks to be a takeover candidate. #-ad_banner-#All of this speaks to a higher stock price in the short to intermediate term. As the energy drink market continues to grow, I can’t help but notice an ever-expanding presence of Monster Energy drinks in grocery and convenience stores. And J.P. Morgan analyst John Faucher recently said the company could be acquired within two to three years. Frankly, it makes sense. Arguably, the barrier to entry for brewing up a new energy drink is not all that huge. But companies like Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO) and PepsiCo (NYSE: PEP) could surely benefit from acquiring a well-established brand such as Monster, which brings with it access to a new generation of carbonated beverage drinkers. A takeover candidate often makes for an interesting trade, but what really puts the odds in traders’ favor is MNST’s charts. In the multi-year chart, note the ultra-steep slope of the rally in 2011 and the first half of 2012. When a stock’s slope becomes too steep, it often sees a more violent… Read More

One of the toughest parts of investing is knowing when to sell your winners, especially ones that have delivered exceptionally large gains in a relatively short time. The thing about stocks that go up fast is they can go down even faster, quickly wiping out your profits — and then some. #-ad_banner-#This may be exactly where one well-known stock is headed because it, too, has risen fast, about 135% in the past year and a half or so. But that’s not the only reason it could drop. Just because a stock is way up doesn’t necessarily mean it’s… Read More

One of the toughest parts of investing is knowing when to sell your winners, especially ones that have delivered exceptionally large gains in a relatively short time. The thing about stocks that go up fast is they can go down even faster, quickly wiping out your profits — and then some. #-ad_banner-#This may be exactly where one well-known stock is headed because it, too, has risen fast, about 135% in the past year and a half or so. But that’s not the only reason it could drop. Just because a stock is way up doesn’t necessarily mean it’s poised to pull back. No, there are specific reasons to be leery of this firm, a relatively small but popular upscale footwear and accessories maker best known for its Ugg brand of boots, shoes, sneakers and other products. I see the company as something of an upstart because even though it has minuscule sales relative to its biggest competitors, such as Nike (NYSE: NKE) and Adidas (OTC: ADDYY), it clearly has had its share of success in the past. Indeed, Deckers Outdoor Corp. (NYSE: DECK) has more than doubled annual sales to $1.6 billion from $689 million in 2008. During… Read More

Somewhere, comic book creator Chester Gould is smiling. #-ad_banner-#Though he passed away in 1985, he’d be thrilled to know that the smartwatch he created back in the 1940s for his most famous character, Dick Tracy, would finally land on consumers’ wrists in 2014. The first few of these watches have now hit the market and Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) appears poised to launch its own version in coming months. In fact, smartwatches and larger smartphones (known as phablets) are likely to be the hottest consumer electronics products this coming holiday season. Whether these products deliver major share price gains for Apple… Read More

Somewhere, comic book creator Chester Gould is smiling. #-ad_banner-#Though he passed away in 1985, he’d be thrilled to know that the smartwatch he created back in the 1940s for his most famous character, Dick Tracy, would finally land on consumers’ wrists in 2014. The first few of these watches have now hit the market and Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) appears poised to launch its own version in coming months. In fact, smartwatches and larger smartphones (known as phablets) are likely to be the hottest consumer electronics products this coming holiday season. Whether these products deliver major share price gains for Apple and its peers remains to be seen. For the most part, analysts are bullish. But in the consumer electronics space, winners can create losers. And few companies have as much to lose from these product categories as Garmin (Nasdaq: GRMN). For years, we’ve been buying stand-alone GPS devices from Garmin and others (which are known in the industry as personal navigation devices or PNDs). Garmin and its peers have managed to forestall any threat from increasingly functional smartphones, largely because such phones had smaller screen sizes. “Garmin has talked periodically over the past two years that its larger screen size… Read More

I was chatting with a wealthy friend last week about the portfolio returns on my website. He interrupted me with an odd question: “Yeah, but how much did a millionaire make?!” #-ad_banner-#I wasn’t quite following him, and then it struck me. He was under the impression that large stock transactions earn a higher percentage of profit than small transactions do. And he was wrong. My friend is a self-made man, with several successful careers under his belt… but clearly none of them required a good working knowledge of math. When a stock goes up… Read More

I was chatting with a wealthy friend last week about the portfolio returns on my website. He interrupted me with an odd question: “Yeah, but how much did a millionaire make?!” #-ad_banner-#I wasn’t quite following him, and then it struck me. He was under the impression that large stock transactions earn a higher percentage of profit than small transactions do. And he was wrong. My friend is a self-made man, with several successful careers under his belt… but clearly none of them required a good working knowledge of math. When a stock goes up 10%, all shareholders make 10% profit — from the millionaire down to the guy who owns just one share. For example, Gilead Sciences (NYSE: GILD) is up 13.6% since I wrote about it a couple of months ago. All investors who bought then are up 13.6%, with slight variations based on transaction fees. (Fees are a factor, yes, but you can’t assume that the rich guy pays lower fees. As a matter of fact, small investors often manage their own accounts, with ridiculously low transaction fees, and millionaires frequently pay somebody an annual fee to manage their accounts. The case… Read More

The airline industry has taken it on the chin over the past few weeks. The NYSE Arca Airline Index was down 6% in just over a week last month on a perfect storm of bad news. #-ad_banner-#However, the index is slowly climbing higher, demonstrating the resiliency of the airline industry amid a combination of higher oil prices thanks to the conflict in Iraq, a slump in business travel in Central and South America, and downward profit revisions by European operators. Each of the big three airline stocks are down at least 4% over the past week. Delta Air Lines (NYSE:… Read More

The airline industry has taken it on the chin over the past few weeks. The NYSE Arca Airline Index was down 6% in just over a week last month on a perfect storm of bad news. #-ad_banner-#However, the index is slowly climbing higher, demonstrating the resiliency of the airline industry amid a combination of higher oil prices thanks to the conflict in Iraq, a slump in business travel in Central and South America, and downward profit revisions by European operators. Each of the big three airline stocks are down at least 4% over the past week. Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL) is down 8%, United Continental Holdings (NYSE: UAL) is down 5%, and American Airlines (NYSE: AAL) is down 4%. A slight pullback shouldn’t come as a surprise, considering all three stocks were up 47% or more over the past year. However, despite the pullback, all three are off their lows of the month. This type of bounce in the current environment should be seen as a big positive by investors who have been on the fence about buying airline stocks. Surprising Strength Last week, the industry took note of the fact that World Cup fever slowed… Read More

Sometimes it’s easy to recognize when “the future” is on its way. For example, think back to the time you received your very first email. For many of you, that was probably around 1990. A few of you may have gotten emails in the workplace earlier than that. Before that moment, it could have taken weeks to mail someone something as simple as a one-page note. All of a sudden that same note could be sent in less than 30 seconds. Once you got that first email, it probably didn’t take long before you realized the way you’ve been doing… Read More

Sometimes it’s easy to recognize when “the future” is on its way. For example, think back to the time you received your very first email. For many of you, that was probably around 1990. A few of you may have gotten emails in the workplace earlier than that. Before that moment, it could have taken weeks to mail someone something as simple as a one-page note. All of a sudden that same note could be sent in less than 30 seconds. Once you got that first email, it probably didn’t take long before you realized the way you’ve been doing things for decades was about to change forever. #-ad_banner-#There’s another ground-breaking invention in play that, like email did in the 1990s, promises to revolutionize one of the world’s oldest industries. Also like e-mail, early investors in this trend have the chance to make a small fortune… I’m talking about electronic cigarettes (or e-cigs) — the product that could change America’s oldest industry, Big Tobacco, forever. Before I go on, we know many of you may scoff at such a suggestion. We recognize a lot of people have reservations when it comes to investing in tobacco companies. We also understand that… Read More