Alcoa Stock: Single-Handedly One Of The Reasons I Don’t Index
I have made no secret of the fact that I do not admire the aluminum business model in general and at Alcoa, specifically. It is not an insight that I can take credit for. A few years back, I stumbled...
View ArticleSelling Off A Competitive Business Advantage
One of the reasons why dividends can improve corporate governance is because they encourage restraint. If you are running the show at Procter & Gamble, and you know that the corporation has raised...
View ArticleTotal SA: The Upshot of Not Really Cutting The Dividend
If I’m going to be critical of Total SA for giving up one of its competitive advantages (namely, selling off specialty chemical business lines that act as offsets to provide profits coming into the...
View ArticleBoeing’s Move Into Program Accounting
One of the most important reasons why Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) exists is so that there can be a standardized way to track the effects of business transactions that take place...
View ArticleWhy Netflix Needs A Disney Merger
You can rarely go wrong if the basis of your search for a long-term investment hinges on the following question: “What do the profits per share figures look like over time?” It is a single-question...
View ArticleHSLAX 401k Investing: The Hartford Small Cap Growth Fund
Among people under the age of 35, 34% of their wealth is in a retirement account of some type. Among people older than that, almost 45% of their wealth is in some type of retirement account (or about...
View ArticleWells Fargo CEO John Stumpf Resigns
If you ever occupy a figurehead position for an organization, you will find yourself being judged unfairly for things that are outside the scope of your direct and even indirect control. Sometimes this...
View ArticleMy Interview With USA Investments
Mike Jefferson puts out a free investment pamphlet every month from his firm USA Investments that is aimed to increase investor literacy. These pamphlets appear in the Dallas area at business...
View ArticleSnapchat IPO? Don’t Buy
Snapchat, which prefers to go by the name of its parent company Snap Inc. in the investment context, is preparing for a $25 billion IPO in the second quarter of 2017. You already know my opinion on...
View ArticleAbercrombie & Fitch’s 5% Dividend Yield
After I poked at Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) in my article on Snapchat–using it as my example of permanent capital destruction following a period of high investor sentiment–I wanted to make sure that...
View ArticleIBM: Analyzing The Downside Of Dividend Investing
I have previously said that if you purchase a large-cap stock with a history of raising dividends, and then hold on for five years, the odds of you suffering significant harm is quite limited. It is my...
View ArticleLearning From the Nikkei Index’s All-Time High
On December 29, 1989, the Nikkei Index in Japan hit an all-time high of 38,957. Today, over three decades later, the index trades at 29,174. That is a 1% annual decline for a thirty-year period for a...
View ArticleMcDonald’s Stock: Past Five Years of Dividends
After I recently profiled IBM to examine one of the worst scenarios with a dividend growth investing strategy over the past five years, I thought I would take a look at another company that has fallen...
View ArticleThose Profitless High Flying Stocks
Mark Twain told us that history does not repeat but it often rhymes. I want to offer you another data point on the folly of paying high prices for “innovative” stocks. In 1999, there were 247 stocks...
View ArticleSouthern Company: No Dividend Cut Since 1948
A sub-theme that I occasionally stress is the difference between using the stock market as a vehicle to preserve wealth vs. using the stock market as a vehicle to build wealth. When your goal is wealth...
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Active Investing vs. Passive Investing Right Now
When Benjamin Graham was writing “The Intelligent Investor”, the market edge that American investors possessed was information asymmetry. Because there were few sources of comprehensive data–maybe...
View ArticleWhy Salesforce Tried To Acquire Twitter
When a stock is undervalued, one of the more intelligent things that a management team can do is repurchase the stock. If a stock is worth x but trading at 0.85x, a stock repurchase gives you an...
View ArticleDividend Cuts: Before, During, and After
I was reviewing some of the high-profile dividend cuts in the past five years–Pitney Bowes, Conoco Phillips, BHP Billiton, Viacom, Wells Fargo, General Electric, Dow Chemical, American Express, U.S....
View ArticleThe British American Tobacco-Reynolds American Stock Merger
My reaction to the news that British American Tobacco (BTI) has offered about $56 per share to purchase the 58% of Reynolds American (RAI) stock that it does not currently own. I. What is the publicly...
View ArticleApple Stock: Future Performance Expectations
Things to keep in mind after Apple reported earnings yesterday: I. Apple Sits On $237 Billion in Cash Cue the Rodney Dangerfield because, for the last ten years, cash hasn’t been getting any respect....
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