Top 5 Growth Stocks | Investing for Solid Long Term Gains

We’ve had a huge rally since the march lows, and my current stance is that we should see the collapse of this massive bear market rally any day now.  That being said, prices on some stocks are low enough that given their growth potential, you’d probably do fairly well for yourself even if you bought now, near what is likely the high of this bear market rally.  Of course, you may be able to do better by timing your entry, waiting for a pullback in the major indices before pulling the trigger, but for the more long term investor, now is as good a time as any.

To find these companies, I used a combination of fundamental and technical criteria, searching for the best companies in a decent technical position.  Here are the companies I uncovered. Read the rest of this entry »

RIMM vs. AAPL; Another Economic Recovery Play

What’s the better economic-recovery play?

These companies were both major media darlings before the recession, posting strong revenue and earnings growth, and sporting sky-high PE multiples.  Yet with the recession, many stocks got CLOBBERED, and these companies are now both trading at a PE of around 22.  So the market is pricing these companies similarly; is the market right to do so, or is there hidden value in one of these companies?

Looking at their PE ratios of 22ish, there are two ways the companies can go up in value.  They can make more money, driving up the E side of the equation, or sentiment towards the company can improve, driving up the ratio itself.  Since sentiment is also based on earnings, earnings are definitely the most important variable here.  Read the rest of this entry »

Time to short financials?

So lets get straight to the point.  The financial industry has been destroyed during this recession.  Going by the XLF, a ETF that focuses on the financial sector, at the prior bottom, the sector was down 83%. Meaning a recovery to previous levels would be a 488% gain.  Since the March bottom, it rallied 110%, and after a small pullback, has dropped to just 85% higher then the march levels.

So what happens next?  After this rollercoaster ride of a sector, what’s likely to happen next?  There are a couple key ways we can predict that, but keep in mind that the point of technical analysis isn’t to be 100% sure of the direction; the idea is to get a good idea of what is most likely to happen next, and capitalize on the opperunities the market gives you, while keeping your risk in check.  With that said, lets take a look at the technical picture.  Basic technical analysis, step 1 is to identify support and resistance levels.  Key support levels seem to be 11.20, and 9.80.
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Stock Trading Strategy: The Bullish Percent Chart

In my previous article on stock trading strategy, I showed you how to use relative performance to decide what sectors you should be buying and selling.  In this article, I’ll show you how to use a little-known tool to call reversals in the major economic sectors.  What is this little known tool?  Its called a Bullish Percent Index, or BP Chart. Read the rest of this entry »

Picking the right sector

The vast majority of your returns are determined not by what stocks you choose to invest in, but what industries you choose to invest in.  With this in mind, one of the key things you should be doing when investing is deciding what sectors you think will do the best.  How do you do this?

Determining what sector should do well is actually a fairly simple task.  It’s all based on the observation that markets trend.  Day to day fluctuations may be fairly random and unpredictable, but the effect of those day to day fluctuations on the stock price over a period of months is generally consistent, weather it be up or down.

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Stock Option Strategy: The Vertical Leap

Most people view stock options as strictly a short term tool. This is because the idea of a highly leveraged instrument with the potential to make big bucks quickly appeals to the gambler inside all of us. Just like a card counting black-jack player, options can be used to make short term profits, provided the user is careful, and knows what they’re doing. But while options are usually employed solely by that group of high-octane traders, they actually have enormous benefits that tend to go unnoticed by many a long term investor.

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Pyramid those profits!

by: Jordan J. Weir

We’ve all heard the age old adage, cut your losses short, and let your profits ride. Yet the vast majority of traders don’t use this concept to its fullest. The proper application of this single, pivotal piece of advice, is usually the difference between showing a profit at the end of the month, and showing a loss. This method is known as “pyramiding your profits”.

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ETF Basics

by: Jordan Weir

For many years, investors have attempted to diversify their overall portfolios by trying to pick stocks across a diverse set of asset classes. Which is all well and good, but the problem it generally runs into is you should also be diversified within any given asset class, lest something adverse happen to the company you happened to bet on. Yet as soon as your diversifying both within, and between asset classes, now your running a portfolio of potentially 40+ equities, and even the active investor rarely has time to do due diligence on the hundreds of companies required to find 40 excellent investments. Read the rest of this entry »

Shorting Stock - The path to riches in a troubled economy

Every day, the stock market seems to continue its precipitous drop towards worthlessness, crushing hopes, dreams, and investors in a flurry of dizzying price movements. Yet there is an answer; a light in the darkness, used by the masters of investment to generate excess returns even - no, scratch that, - especially in falling markets like this one.
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