The bull market appears to still be alive and well for equities, but the risk of rising interest rates is plaguing bonds and investments tied to big dividends. What equity investors also need to…
Courtesy of Tesla MotorsYou already know by now that it is a bull market. Even if you missed out on the rally, the media is a constant reminder that the assessment that stocks were…
ThinkstockStocks were trading weak this morning before the economic news was out, but the markets had recovered going into the Chicago Purchasing Managers Index and ahead of the revised Reuters/University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment…
ThinkstockLowe’s Companies Inc. (NYSE: LOW) has held its annual meeting of shareholders. While the construction and repairs retailer reelected board members, approved compensation plans and ratified its accounting firm’s appointment, the big news is…
ThinkstockThe Reuters/University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment report for May is out. It offers a revised number from the preliminary report two weeks ago, and revisions rarely move the market as much as preliminary reports.…
ThinkstockThe May report from the Chicago purchasing managers is out, and it is off the charts on a better-than-expected report. While April’s report was down at 49.0 and while Bloomberg had consensus at only…
thinkstockNational Bank of Greece S.A. (NYSE: NBG) had a lot of investors looking at Web-based quoting systems confused this week. The huge jump in share price was based on the equivalent of a 1:10…
ThinkstockKrispy Kreme Doughnuts Inc. (NYSE: KKD) had a great run and the donut empire was set to make many investors rich as shares rose from $10 to about $50, but that was from 2001…
ThinkstockWe have now seen the report on personal income and spending for the month of April, and frankly both look a bit soft and may have a slight impact on some of the second-quarter gross…
Investors and traders are usually on the lookout for new research ideas that will generate higher income or more profits. 24/7 Wall St. reviews many analyst research calls from Wall Street and from boutique…
courtesy of Apple Inc.Nuance Communications Inc. (NASDAQ: NUAN) is the de facto leader in voice recognition and speech-to-text software. It has been known for quite some time that Nuance has had its hand in…
ThinkstockSmithfield Foods, Inc. (NYSE: SFD) should be enjoying a nice day-after in the sun now that it has answered activist investors with a new buyout offer for the company. The problem is that China-based Shuanghui International,…
ThinkstockIt was just yesterday that we noted that higher interest rates may cure higher interest rates. We have now seen our second strong Treasury Note auction this week after the U.S. Treasury had a…
courtesy of MicrosoftMicrosoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) had enough envy of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) that its radical changes to the first version of Windows 8 were so drastic for traditional Windows users that it…
ThinkstockInterest rates are rising and the 30-year mortgage just hit a 12-month high. Rising rates will eat up your spending power and erode the value of your fixed income investments. So, will that kill…
ThinkstockIf you think that the price of crude oil and the price of oil in general is too high or too low right now, you might want to consider what is happening on the supply…
courtesy Boeing Co.Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) is known rather well for making sector-moving research calls that create ripples due to the vast amounts of money that can flow in and out of…
ThinkstockSterne Agee’s Alex Kurtz has just issued his top picks for the second half of 2013 in the data networking and storage sectors under technology stocks. His top stocks to buy in the sector…
ThinkstockWith the recent spike in long-term interest rates acting as a proxy for rising short rates, investors need to be focused on which banks are best positioned for a sustained rising rate environment. Clearly,…
ThinkstockEMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC) has a lot going for it with dominance in storage and with its super-majority control of VMware Inc. (NYSE: VMW). Unfortunately, the tech giant is no longer growing at an…