Stock Reviews | $aving to Invest

How to Invest in Stocks, ETFs, Mutual Funds and Cryptocurrency – A Beginners Guide to Investing

With the economy showing continued signs of improvement and financial markets continue to chug along (example: Market indexes back to record highs), many would be investors are more willing to invest in the stock market in order to earn higher than average returns. Investing in this day and age is …

Does the Stock Market Feel Rigged?

It’s hard to believe that the stock market keeps rising every day while we are still in the middle of a pandemic, dealing with record unemployment and in the midst of a national political divide that could have serious implications for the nation in the years ahead. For most Americans, …

What to Do In Times of Stock Market Mayhem – Your 5 Step Sanity Checklist

It seems like 2008 and March 2020 all over again as stock markets around the globe continue to free fall against the backdrop of higher inflation and interest rates. This is compounded by ongoing geopolitical issues (Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine) and the still present Coronavirus (COVID-19) and subvariants raging …

5 Reasons I am Buying Apple Over $500 and Before $1000

On and off over the last 5 years I have been a holder of Apple stock (AAPL). While a simpler and probably more profitable strategy would have been to accumulate and hold the stock, I instead traded AAPL as it continued to rise and occasionally pullback. However, I am now …

Don’t Trade Company Earnings For a Short Term Gain

Short term traders love earnings season and much like all things investing, the opinions of what to do with earnings season are as varied as the direction of markets tomorrow. Although every trader says they’re making money, are they telling the truth? Is trading during earnings season really a profitable …

What Do Stock Buybacks Mean For a Company and Its Share Price

The financial news media does it all of the time, don’t they? They assume that the millions of retail or part time investors know all of the terms used on a daily basis. When IBM announced another stock buyback, the financial news channels reported it leaving investors unsure of what …

Banks to Increase Dividends. Financial Stocks to Benefit Include JPM, BAC, WFC, GS, USB, STT and BNY

The Federal Reserve will soon allow banks with strong enough capital cushions to raise dividends, making them much more attractive to local and foreign investors. Only banks that satisfy new capital requirements from global regulators (Basel III) and domestic regulators (Dodd-Frank), will be able to raise dividends. The potential for …

10 Boring Blue Chip Stocks Offering Strong Growth and Dividend Protection

With the economic outlook uncertain to say the least, investors are now looking ahead to what the best stocks next year could be. Investors need to ensure that they still have growth in their portfolios to deal with inflation and higher taxes, while also picking stocks that protect their portfolio …

Cash Rewards on Visa (V) and Mastercard (MA) Earnings With No Credit Card Needed

Going into the earnings season, credit card transaction processing companies like Visa (V) and MasterCard (MA) have been hit pretty hard due to adverse impacts of the recently approved financial reform regulation which limits the interchange fees they can charge banks and merchants for card transactions. However the actual regulation in the financial reform bill was scaled back to only cover debit card network fees, which impacts the banks more than it would Visa (V) or it’s card processing competitor MasterCard (MA). Following the public release of the financial reform bill, Visa and MasterCard stock prices dropped nearly 20% from recent highs within just a couple of weeks. While they have recovered somewhat along with the broader market in improving and more certain market conditions I think the stocks have much more upside going into earnings. In fact a fairly risk free trade, albeit with a bit of initial up-front capital, is to buy the stock before earnings (see dates below) and buy put options to cover any short-term down side risk.

How US and Global Stock Markets Performed with an Outlook and Forecast for the Year Ahead

It was a year in which governments and central banks around the world took extraordinary measures to get their economies growing. While the bailouts and economic stimulus boosts that many countries employed may have had mixed results for it’s citizens, the boost to stock markets was definitely real. The U.S. stock …

5 Blue-Chip Stocks Warren Buffett Would Buy – GE, MSFT, GS, CAT and Disney

Could the economy and stock market be recovering faster than we expect? In terms of the Economy, Fed chairman Ben S. Bernanke said the worst U.S. recession since the 1930s has technically ended and cited various signs of a recovery. Even President Obama has said that the embattled US economy …

Trading Stocks and Options with Robinhood – A Better and Cheaper Online Brokerage Option than E*Trade, TD Ameritrade or Fidelity

I have been a big fan of discount brokers, primarily because of their low to zero trading costs and easy to use online brokerage platforms. However it looks the low cost broker wars have intensified with a strong new player in the stock trading scene, who is winning the race …

Apple Stock Soaring – A new iPhone and Media Tablet in the Works makes the Stock worth Buying

The recent run up in Apple stock (AAPL) over the last three months has made me one happy stock holder indeed. My ill fated and much disparaged purchase last year (see comments) of the stock at $180+ had many saying that I was crazy to buy. I always had a …

Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Downgraded as AAA Credit Rating Lost

I don’t feel so bad about my past year investing. After all, even the world’s most famed investor – Warren Buffet – had his wings clipped today. Bloomberg reported that rating agency Moodys cut his company Berkshire Hathaway’s top-level Aaa credit rating by two levels to Aa2, on the falling …