Are you locked and loaded with the financial industry’s so-called “Top Stocks for 2011?” If you are, or even if you’re just mulling them, you may want to look beyond those names — these stocks don’t always pay off no matter how reputable their pickers may be. You don’t even have to look too far back for proof. Last year, Assured Guaranty (NYSE: AGO), Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ), and Comcast Corp. (Nasdaq: CMCSA) were among the most-suggested picks for 2010. Yes, Apple and Comcast gained 54% and 29%, respectively, but Hewlett-Packard fell 19% last year,… Read More

Are you locked and loaded with the financial industry’s so-called “Top Stocks for 2011?” If you are, or even if you’re just mulling them, you may want to look beyond those names — these stocks don’t always pay off no matter how reputable their pickers may be. You don’t even have to look too far back for proof. Last year, Assured Guaranty (NYSE: AGO), Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ), and Comcast Corp. (Nasdaq: CMCSA) were among the most-suggested picks for 2010. Yes, Apple and Comcast gained 54% and 29%, respectively, but Hewlett-Packard fell 19% last year, while Assured Guaranty lost 22%. By comparison, the broader market gained 11% during this timeframe. That’s not meant to be a critique of the folks who picked those names in early 2010. It’s difficult to see the future. On the other hand, if the odds of success are 50/50 and the losing stocks lagged as badly as the winning names outpaced the market, what’s the point? So which equities were last year’s actual leaders? And to be clear, we’re not talking about any wild and illiquid (not to mention unlisted) penny stocks either —… Read More

It takes ample courage to bet against stocks when they’re rising. Indeed, many investors that seek out stocks to short have been moving to the sidelines throughout the late 2010 rally. Yet with stocks now notably more pricey than they were last summer, the temptation to start… Read More

Last week it was announced that Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) and Russian firm Digital Sky Technologies would be investing $500 million in social networking sensation Facebook. Investments by Goldman are rather common, and the amount was a tiny fraction of the company’s nearly $90 billion market cap, but a buzz… Read More

It’s been 22 years since the Berlin Wall came down. Since then, economies behind the Iron Curtain have been slowly building a head of steam. Even though countries such as the Czech Republic, Romania and Croatia have not yet caught up to their Western neighbors in terms of… Read More

After two months as a newly-public company, shares of GM (NYSE: GM) have posted a decent 10% gain, slightly better than the 6% gain posted by the S&P 500. Then again, rival Ford Motor (NYSE: F) has risen by an even more impressive 14% since… Read More

There is a clear downside to the impressive bull market we’ve seen during the last 22 months: it’s getting harder and harder to find real bargains. To ferret out value plays, investors are increasingly turning to stocks that have lagged the market, hoping to… Read More

Mary Meeker, known as the “Queen of the Net” during the heady 1990s, is back. Her latest prediction is that the mobile Internet will be a huge wealth generator. She even thinks it will surpass the Internet and that mobile commerce will overtake traditional e-commerce.     The fact… Read More

As part of your ongoing investment research, it pays to periodically check in with company insiders. When they are buying or selling a company’s stock, you’ll get a first-hand suggestion on whether shares are a bargain, or possibly ripe for a fall. Decisions on when to… Read More

You can’t blame a number of retailers for waving the white flag. Already battered by tight-fisted consumers throughout the year, they had to contend with a traffic-sapping massive East coast snowstorm as the year came to an end. The predictable result: same-store sales for many retailers were pretty lousy in December. The unpredictable reaction: investors seemed caught off-guard by the results, handing some stocks their biggest pounding in quite some time in Thursday trading. Wet Seal (Nasdaq: WTSLA) and Pacific Sunwear (Nasdaq: PSUN) shed more than 10% on Thursday, while Zumiez (Nasdaq: ZUMZ) and Gap Inc. (NYSE:… Read More

You can’t blame a number of retailers for waving the white flag. Already battered by tight-fisted consumers throughout the year, they had to contend with a traffic-sapping massive East coast snowstorm as the year came to an end. The predictable result: same-store sales for many retailers were pretty lousy in December. The unpredictable reaction: investors seemed caught off-guard by the results, handing some stocks their biggest pounding in quite some time in Thursday trading. Wet Seal (Nasdaq: WTSLA) and Pacific Sunwear (Nasdaq: PSUN) shed more than 10% on Thursday, while Zumiez (Nasdaq: ZUMZ) and Gap Inc. (NYSE: GPS) fell by almost as much. Yet for investors willing to take a broader view than monthly sales trends, these sell-offs have created a compelling entry point for some of these stocks. As a quick recap of an article I wrote six months ago, many retailers have taken advantage of the downturn to tighten up their operations by reducing inventories, throttling back risky growth plans and cutting any fat from overhead. Some retail stocks are already benefiting from this trend, especially the ones that cater to upscale shoppers. But many teen-focused retailers have yet to mark… Read More

Carl Icahn has a pretty simple formula for investing: Find a company with unappreciated assets and a sleepy management team, rattle a few cages, and wait for shares to finally appreciate. That’s what he did with Motorola (NYSE: MOT) and many other companies over the years. [Read my take on that here.] He doesn’t always succeed, but several big hits have pushed him into the billionaire’s club (he’s actually worth an estimated $8.9 billion, according to Forbes). He’s at it again. Icahn has been buying up shares of natural gas firm Chesapeake Energy (NYSE:… Read More

Carl Icahn has a pretty simple formula for investing: Find a company with unappreciated assets and a sleepy management team, rattle a few cages, and wait for shares to finally appreciate. That’s what he did with Motorola (NYSE: MOT) and many other companies over the years. [Read my take on that here.] He doesn’t always succeed, but several big hits have pushed him into the billionaire’s club (he’s actually worth an estimated $8.9 billion, according to Forbes). He’s at it again. Icahn has been buying up shares of natural gas firm Chesapeake Energy (NYSE: CHK), and is gearing up some fresh cage rattling. Icahn just announced in a 13-D filing that his firm now owns 5.8% of the company and “intends to seek to continue to have conversations with the company’s management to discuss the business & operations of the company and the maximization of shareholder value.” There’s one small problem: Chesapeake’s CEO Aubrey McClendon is stubborn as a mule, and not likely to warm to Icahn’s overtures. As I noted this summer, McClendon thinks he’s smarter than his peers and can identify cheap assets better than anyone else. But I… Read More