Tag Archives: CSCO

Key Signals To Watch For A Major Stock Market Top

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By Eric Parnell:

It is a question that is on the minds of many investors today. They are watching the stock market relentlessly rising nearly every single trading day, with even the smallest of dips being bought in pushing the stock market to new highs. Yet they stand back and look at the fundamental data and see a complete disconnect between the direction of stock prices and the underlying economic reality. And believing that the rally is being completely fueled by the flood of monetary liquidity that continues to flow into the markets, they remain convinced that this will all end badly just as it has a few times before since the start of the new millennium. But this leads to the key question – exactly when will the market finally reach a major market top and plunge into a sharp correction? Fortunately, the recent past has provided us with some key signposts


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Apple: Too Far, Too Fast?

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By Bill Maurer:

It has been a couple of weeks now since Apple (AAPL) reported its fiscal second quarter results, which included a huge announcement on its cash return plans. I promised investors that I would be back in a couple of weeks with an update on Apple, and here I am today.

Apple has certainly enjoyed a nice run recently. The stock is up $75 from its 52-week low, of which $55 has been since the earnings report. While that has been a nice rally for those already in the name, those that don’t have a position have missed the rally. That gives me pause, as my goal here is to also look out for those that are looking to enter a name, not just those already in it. Today, I’ll detail why I think Apple has run a little far, too quickly, and why a pullback may be in order.


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Team Alpha Retirement Portfolio: Impressive Returns Plus Impressive Dividend Hikes

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By Regarded Solutions:

This month’s update for the Team Alpha Retirement Portfolio is unique. Not because the month was wonderful, actually the gains were minor, but because for the month of April, we made no major changes to the portfolio aside from swapping PFF for WFC. When all was said and done, the portfolio continues to show impressive gains.

The Team Alpha portfolio consists of Ford (F) Chevron (CVX) Apple (AAPL), McDonald’s (MCD), Exxon Mobil (XOM), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), AT&T (T), General Electric (GE), BlackRock Kelso Capital (BKCC), KKR Financial (KFN), Procter & Gamble (PG), CSX Corp. (CSX), Realty Income (O), Coca-Cola (KO), Annaly Capital (NLY), Cisco (CSCO), Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY), Healthcare Select Sector SPDR (XLV), and Wells Fargo (WFC).

I wrote this article, in which I stated that there are


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Intel Takes Back The Crown

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By Ashraf Eassa:

Despite being the largest semiconductor company on the planet by revenue (and certainly by profitability from semiconductor sales), Intel (INTC), for a few months, became the second largest semiconductor by market capitalization, ceding its crown to Qualcomm (QCOM):

INTC Market Cap data by YCharts

Now, it’s too soon to tell whether this will actually last, but I would like to share with you why Qualcomm commanding a higher market capitalization than Intel doesn’t really make sense, and why Intel’s recent recapture of the highest market capitalization semiconductor is probably a longer term deal.

Intel Still Makes A Lot More Money

Despite the "doom and gloom" surrounding Intel, and all of the brouhaha about the "death of the PC," Intel still rakes in the dough. Intel has been whacked with excess capacity charges, factory startup costs, and even softening demand during a phase of transition. And you know


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5 Stocks With Solid Upside To Buy On Weakness

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By David Alton Clark:

The Gist

It seems as though the sell in May and go away phenomenon is set to kick in once again. The recent uptick in volatility is a major tell. Furthermore, as usual, the sentiment of the market has turned completely bearish in very short order. The fact that it happens at the exact same time every year is somewhat suspect.

Even so, I have come to embrace this event as an opportunity to pick up shares at a discount in solid stocks. In the following sections I will review five stocks on my watch list I am looking to buy at a discount. When macroeconomic and geopolitical events drive good stocks down hopefully you have some dry powder and can take advantage. These stocks are all long-term investments with solid secular stories for future growth.

The Goods

In the following sections we will perform a review of the fundamental


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The Dow Weekly: 5 Cheapest Price-to-Book Stocks

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ByMichael Fu:

This is the second edition of the weekly series called The Weekly Dow (for last week’s article on the Top 5 Dividend Plays, click here). This week, we will look at the 5 cheapest Price-to-Book multiple stocks in the Dow Index Industrials Index (DIA). By the way, please reference my prior article on the pros and cons of looking at book value, specifically as it applies to bank and insurance stocks.

The 5 Cheapest P/B Stocks

As of April 9, 2013, the 5 cheapest P/B stocks in the Dow are Alcoa (AA) at 0.7x, Bank of America (BAC) at 0.9x, JP Morgan (JPM) at 1.2x, Travelers (TRV) at 1.3x and Verizon (VZ) at 1.7x.

Note that 3 of these stocks (BAC, JPM and TRV) are bank and insurance stocks. Note that bank stocks and insurance stocks are levered, and the financial assets that are held on their balance


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A Flight To Safety Or Crash And Burn?

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By Regarded Solutions:

I have been thinking about what will happen when (if?) the market, and our Team Alpha Retirement Portfolio, corrects (view the latest update here). Make no mistake about this; at some point the market will correct. I say IF, tongue in cheek, because throughout history every bull market corrects. This bull market will be no different.

Actually there is ONE difference, especially for us retired folks. In past market corrections, investors could park portfolio assets into fixed income securities, like Treasury Bonds. Since the equity markets were in a bull mode, interest rates for Treasuries were decent and the actual cost of the bonds were at or below par. A pretty good place for a “flight to safety”. In the very least, our money was just about keeping pace with inflation, and was safe by virtue of the fact that it was backed by the USA.

Now,


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Apple: Probably Going To Remain Painful For The Average Investor

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By Brennan Basnicki:

On December 16, 2012, I posted an article on Apple (AAPL) suggesting that the AAPL bull story may have reached its climax. Most of the comments on the article were extremely critical, saying that my arguments were extremely off basis as most investors remained enthusiastically convinced that AAPL was indestructible. Notably, I included some long-term charts that were widely criticized in order to provide perspective. Below I have reproduced the same charts:

Cisco (CSCO) 20-year Monthly

(click to enlarge)

Microsoft (MSFT) 20-year Monthly

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Netflix (NFLX) 10-Year Monthly

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Apple 10-year Monthly

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The thesis of the article was that it is close to impossible for a company to maintain above-average growth in earnings over the long term. This is a well established fact in both history and academia. Accordingly, I suggested that one should question the ability of Apple to continue its


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