Guest Editorial
How To Find the Best Online Broker for You
Internet stock trading has soared in popularity recently – but most investors still are not well versed in how to find the best online broker for their needs.
Finding an online broker may seem easy. Nowadays, all the resources you need are at your fingertips, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There are many reputable sites that have become household names.
While you may recognize the E*Trade (Nasdaq: ETFC) from the catchy commercials it runs during the Superbowl, you might find you fall short of actually knowing if E*Trade is a good broker for you.
When it comes down to it, selecting an online broker requires some serious thought. Several factors must be weighed, and what is good for your neighbor, brother, or co-worker might not be the best option for you.
These brokers provide a service, but a personal one; it is more akin to choosing a doctor than choosing a restaurant or drycleaner.
Here is a three-step breakdown of what to consider when picking the best online broker for you:
FLIR Systems (Nasdaq: FLIR): Grow Your Portfolio With The "Eye in the Sky"
Smile…. you're on the 21st century's version of Candid Camera.
Whether you're an Islamic troublemaker in North Waziristan, a rowdy football fan, or a hopeful immigrant trying to slip across the border, the eye in the sky sees everything.
In the halls of power, there's a term for this. It's called the surveillance society. And it is one of the biggest trends inside and outside the military industrial complex.
Also known as ISR – intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance-it's an outgrowth of more than a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's a place where everyone has heard of unmanned aerial vehicles or UAVs.
But while UAVs are an amazing technology in themselves, they aren't very effective unless they can report on what they see -that's the ISR piece of the puzzle.
And that's precisely where a company like FLIR Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: FLIR) comes in. FLIR provides the optics and equipment to make it all happen both in the air and on the ground.
What Analysts are Missing About FLIR Systems
Founded in 1978, FLIR has developed a reputation for building world-class equipment.
And now that these systems have proven themselves in some of the harshest conditions on Earth, the company is expanding to a broad number of other applications in market sectors outside the military.
However, looking at FLIR's chart, it's an understatement to say that this specialty defense imaging stock has been hit hard by the budget cuts and the winding down of our presence in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Tech Stocks: Can Meg Whitman Deliver the Next Great Turnaround?
Meg Whitman is aiming to be Hewlett-Packard's Lou Gerstner.
Gerstner was the CEO of International Business Machine (NYSE: IBM) from 1993 until his retirement in 2002, and is widely credited for IBM's turnaround.
How did he save IBM from going out of business and reverse its fortunes?
Well, among other things Gerstner made the difficult decision to lay off more than 100,000 employees shortly after his arrival.
And now Meg Whitman, CEO of Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ), has taken a page from IBM's playbook.
On Wednesday, Hewlett-Packard announced it would lay off 27,000 employees, or roughly 8% of its worldwide workforce, over the next two years.
HP hopes the layoffs will save the company $3 billion to $3.5 billion and it plans to reinvest those savings in research and development, innovation, and the overall quality and design of products.
These High-Yield Natural Gas Stocks are Cheap Buys
Cheap natural gas has made this a year for price pullbacks among natural gas stocks and related investments.
Look at United States Natural Gas Fund (NYSE: UNG), the exchange-traded fund following the price of the fuel. In July 2011 it was selling for over $45 a share.
UNG hit a 52-week low of $14.25 on April 19.
Now it's climbed back up to near $20, but still well off its 52-week high of $50.52.
But don't think this price lull is permanent. There are many reasons the fuel will be more in demand – and eventually, more pricey.
"Natural gas doesn't give cancer…it'sa very useful product, very cheap per Btu — much less than oil, and is less pollutive than oil or coal," said legendary investor Wilbur Ross, who is long-term bullish on natural gas, in a recent interview. "There may be a little more downward blip but I think the worst part has got to be over."
Still, no one wants to "catch a falling knife."
Gold Prices and the "Grexit" Effect
Lately gold prices have been affected by a strengthening dollar resulting from troubles overseas.
On Tuesday, Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos told Dow Jones Newswires that considerations were being made for a potential exit by Greece from the euro. He also warned that such an exit would be "catastrophic" for the country and that fallout across the entire Eurozone would be severe.
Concerns over what will happen to Greece and the Eurozone if Greece leaves have caused the euro to drop to $1.255, its lowest level against the dollar since July 2010.
These issues have led to a rising dollar as investors continue to move out of gold and into the dollar.
"Not surprisingly, Greece is the biggest single factor behind the move [out of gold and into dollars]," said Money Morning Chief Investment Strategist Keith Fitz-Gerald on May 11. "Traders are concerned that the nation will summarily go its own way, shatter the EU's bailout and potentially sink the euro itself."
Constant worries loom of a "Grexit" as European leaders met in an informal summit in Brussels today (Wednesday) to talk about the debt crisis and how best to spur growth in the struggling Eurozone.
The meeting comes a day after the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) issued a warning that the 17 countries that use the euro risk falling into a "severe recession."
"The crisis in the Eurozone remains the single biggest downside risk facing the global outlook," said Pier Carlo Padoan, chief economist for the OECD.
So just how low can gold prices go?
How Natural Gas Companies Could Save You 25% on Fuel
Thanks to new developments from natural gas companies, fuel costs might soon be falling by as much as 25% for some individuals.
Royal Dutch Shell PLC (NYSE: RDS:A, RDS.B) plans to spend $250 million on a liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant and filling stations in what is the biggest single investment yet in making frozen gas a transport fuel.
LNG has been a hot topic of late as an overabundance of fuel from North America's shale rocks has made the U.S. the world's largest natural-gas producer and led to decade-low natural gas prices.
Chad Porter, the COO of Ferus, a Calgary-based oil services company, tested the savings of running vehicles on LNG compared to diesel and liked what he saw.
Porter told Bloomberg News that he estimated switching from diesel to LNG as a transport fuel will lower his fuel bill by 22%, or $1 a gallon at the tank.
That helps make the case for switching to engines that run on liquefied natural gas.
"LNG holds great potential as a transport fuel," Mark Williams, Shell's director for downstream, said in a speech this month. "North America, for example, now has a century of gas supplies at current consumption rates. So gas is likely to gain market share in transportation."
If You Want to Be a Winner, Follow These Four Rules
[Editor’s Note: It has been a tough May for commodities. But as this story explains, it’s times like these when you need to consider going long. Whether it’s stocks, commodities, or any other investment, though, the rules in this story are timeless.]
Last month, our in-house metals-and-commodities expert Peter Krauth hosted one of his regular conference calls for his Real Asset Returns advisory service subscribers.
Peter's guest was Rick Rule, founder of Sprott Asset Management's Global Companies unit – a real heavy-hitter and one of the sharpest resource investors you'll find.
Rick is always engaging and provocative, and his presentation to Real Asset subscribers was no exception.
He capped off predictions for gold, energy and other commodities with four rules successful resource investors must follow.
And they're so good I had to share them with you.
Rule No. 1: Use Common Sense: "If it something sounds too good to be true, it is too good to be true," Rick told the conference call audience.
The Takeaway: Like all of Rick Rule's Rules, this one applies to all investments, not just commodities. For maximum gains and minimum heartache, be realistic about your expectations, thoroughly understand what you're getting into, manage your risk and don't succumb to hype.
Facebook Stock Price Gets Small Bump in Lackluster Debut
In what was one of the most highly anticipated initial public offerings in history, Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) finally made its debut among much fanfare and frenzy Friday.
But the Facebook stock price failed to soar as high as the hype. While not exactly a dud, the intro was definitely subdued.
Shares opened around 11:30 a.m. in New York at $42.05, up about 11% from Facebook's IPO price. Momentum quickly ebbed, and shares dropped as low at the $38 IPO price in the first half hour of trading.
By 3 p.m. shares were hovering just above $38. But with an hour of trading still to go, investors shouldn't get complacent.
"The day isn't over," cautioned Money Morning Chief Investment Strategist Keith Fitz-Gerald. But regarding Facebook's debut, "initial trading has not been impressive."
JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM) Losses Keep Unraveling
JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) beleaguered CEO Jamie Dimon will not be happy when he reads through Friday's papers.
The Financial Times reported that more than a dozen senior traders and credit experts know that JPMorgan is in a lot more trouble than just suffering $2.3 billion – and counting – in losses.
Turns out the unit at JPMorgan that's responsible for the loss has been the biggest buyer of European mortgage-backed bonds and other complex debt securities in all markets for three years.
Now JPMorgan has built up positions totaling $100 billion in the same risky financial products that triggered the financial crisis in 2008.
But anyone who followed Money Morning's Shah Gilani as he covered the topic knew this was a likely hidden truth.
You see, Gilani told us last Sunday, just days after news of the losses broke, that there was more to these trades than one hedge-gone-wrong.
"The idiots at the bank wanted to hedge against European credit exposure that they had," Gilani wrote last to his Wall Street Insights and Indictments readers. "They are idiots because the money that's shepherded by the Chief Investment Office (some $379 billion, yeah, that number is right) is money that the bank has and hasn't lent out, or technically is "available" to play with. And instead of parking it in U.S. government bonds (Citi has $293 billion of the same float and has 87% of it parked in "governments"), they parked a lot of it in Europe's crappy credit markets."
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