By Rebecca McClay, Money Morning - • Print | Email
Stock Market Today, Dec. 30: In the second-to-last trading day of the year, stocks are fairly flat except for some double-digit movers in the consumer and biotech sectors, like Crocs Inc. (Nasdaq: CROX) stock.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average today clutched a small gain of 25 points while both the Standard & Poor's 500 and Nasdaq Composite Index ended in the red. They fell about 0.02% and 0.06%, respectively.
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Today (Monday), Money Morning Chief Investment Strategist Keith Fitz-Gerald appeared on FOX Business' "Varney & Co." to tell investors what he sees in retail web giant Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN)'s future.
The big question for Amazon stock in 2014 is if this e-commerce and online retailing giant can keep going to record highs. Amazon stock has gone up 60% this year to about $394 per share.
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By Diane Alter, Contributing Writer, Money Morning - • Print | Email
As Main Street gears up for the holiday shopping season, the retail sector takes center stage on Wall Street.
The bad news for those investing in retail stocks: Morgan Stanley cautions overall retail sales growth is expected to be the weakest since 2008 – meaning the sector's robust 40% year to date could be headed for a slowdown.
Weighed down by concerns over pay and hiring, consumer confidence continues to fall, suggesting consumers will continue to be tight-fisted. After a steep drop in October, the consumer confidence level fell further in November. Slipping to 70.4 from 72.4, it marks the lowest level in seven months, Tuesday's Conference Board data revealed.
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By Tim Melvin, Special Situation Strategist, Money Morning - • Print | Email
Insider buying has been proven to have significant predictive power for stock prices – which is why we like to make a list of possible "insider" stocks to buy.
No one knows more about the condition and prospects of a business than the chief executive officer (CEO) and chief financial officer (CFO). When insiders like them buy stocks in the open market of the companies they control, the stock often outperforms the broader market for the next several years.
According to Nejat Seyhun, a professor and researcher in the field of insider trading at the University of Michigan, when insiders are buying shares in their own companies, the stock tends to outperform the total market by 8.9% over the next 12 months.
it's time for investors to go shopping...
Pharmaceutical and biotech mergers and acquisitions (M&A) is on track to hand us the best year for non-mega merger deals since 2010 – which is delivering juicy profits for anyone investing in drug stocks.
On Monday, Dublin-based pharmaceutical firm Shire (Nasdaq ADR: SHPG) announced that it will buy Pennsylvania-based ViroPharma (Nasdaq: VPHM) for $4.2 billion in cash. The $50 per share purchase price is a 27% premium to Viropharma's Friday close and a 64% premium to the price when sale rumors first emerged this summer.
You, too, can profit from this "feeding frenzy"...
By Money Morning Staff Reports, Money Morning - • Print | Email
The bull market has continued this week – the Dow Jones Industrial Average set a new record high yesterday, closing out at 15,744, and the S&P 500 is just a point below an all-time high at 1,770.49.
While there are a lot of boats lifted by this rising tide, not every stock is a winner…
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By Diane Alter, Contributing Writer, Money Morning - • Print | Email
Money Morning's best stocks to buy last week focused on key earnings reports, the Federal Open Market Committee meeting, and the continued climb of market indexes.
Markets closed out October – a month haunted by the specters of the 1929 and 1987 crashes – with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 3.6% and the S&P 500 higher by 5.4%. Year to date, the indexes are up 19.7% and 24.2% respectively.
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It is a truth universally acknowledged that a developing country with a rising middle class must be in want of a higher standard of living.
In other words: Emerging economies want more stuff, they want better stuff, and they're willing to pay for it… and this is as true for medicine as for luxury cars and Levi's.
That's why these economies are driving the bulk of growth in the global pharmaceutical market.
We've identified the handful of companies best-positioned to take advantage of this...
By David Mamos, Money Morning - • Print | Email
Las Vegas is not the world's biggest gambling mecca – and that's just fine with Las Vegas Sands (NYSE: LVS), which happens to hold four properties in the Chinese territory of Macau.
Macau, you see, wrested that title away from Las Vegas back in 2006 – with hotels and casinos that are mind-blowing in size and scope – even by extravagant Las Vegas standards.
And now those moves are about to pay off in a big way...
By Diane Alter, Contributing Writer, Money Morning - • Print | Email
Amid closing the third quarter and kicking off the fourth, last week's best stocks to buy revolved around the government shutdown, the looming debt ceiling deadline, and the hotly anticipated Twitter IPO.
September is historically the worst month for equities, but investors were mostly unscathed. The broad-based S&P 500 Index rose 3% in September and 4.7% in Q3. The Dow added 1.5% in the third quarter and is up 15.5% for the year.
As Q4 gets under way, many investors have retreated to avoid giving up gains, pulling $1.3 billion out of equity funds last week. Bond and commodity funds were also walloped with redemptions.
