A number of big banks reported earnings earlier in the week. All of them beat expectations, although all of the big banks gave Wall Street traders a few cautious items to think about as well. A recovering economy largely helped to reduce reserves, and earnings and revenue were up overall. Of the big banks,Wells Fargo (WFC) looks the most interesting here. The company posted earnings of $1.05 per share, well above estimates of $0.71 per share. The stock has already been trending up, but these earnings numbers also reflect that the company may finally be moving past its troubled past. ...

A rise in Covid shutdowns internationally, combined with concerns over vaccine safety, may point to a prolonging of a full economic reopening. In any event, the past few weeks have caused a pullback in a number of recently high-flying names. One of those areas is energy. While the sector is still up strongly for the year, the sector as a whole peaked in mid-March and has come back down. It’s starting to look like a solid entry point for long-term investors. For instance, shares of energy giantExxonMobil (XOM) are down over 12 percent from their 52-week highs set a month ago. That’s i...

Nvidia (NVDA) has done it again. The graphics processing giant just took the thunder from a number of competitors by releasing the specs on its first line of data-center chips. That will open up an entirely new market for the company, and one with massive potential in a world driven by a need to quickly process big data. The company also noted that it would likely exceed its revenue forecast, as the firm has been a beneficiary from the recent semiconductor shortage. The timing was enough to send the big tech name back to near its all-time highs set back in February, even as other names i...

Heavily-regulated industries tend to be mature, offering little in the way of growth, but most earnings can be given to shareholders as income. While power generation and telecoms tend to be fairly stable, the next step up the growth chain is that of waste management stocks. Not as regulated as these other industries, they tend to operate as a monopoly or duality in a municipality. That provides safety of cash flows, which in turn can translate into steadily growing profits and gradually rising dividends. It may also be why analysts are starting to upgrade the space. An economic r...

One of the past few trends of the past few years has come from streaming. A number of media companies have considerably expanded their offerings in the past few years. While the media companies themselves are likely to benefit, companies providing streaming hardware and software in general can profit from the ongoing rise of streaming even without having to benefit from a specific media company’s growth. One such play isRoku (ROKU). They provide a platform device that allows for streaming services, as well as a player program with over 51 million accounts under the Roku TV brand. ...

Semiconductors continue to look like a bright spot in the tech space following a drop in a number of tech heavy names so far this year. In particular, companies offering new products now to meet demand for the latest and next-generation tech can likely fare well. One surprising play?Intel (INTC). Often written off as a has-been in the chip space thanks to its focus on computers, the company just launched its latest line in server chips, and early results are promising. Intel has significantly lagged the overall market in the past year, rising about 15 percent, or one-third that of th...

Wall Street loves hearing the words “recurring revenue.” That business model means receiving smaller sums from a customer, but on a regular, typically monthly, basis. Companies that move towards that model tend to be rewarded with upgrades. One big name tech giant has been lagging the market lately. But it’s been focusing on increasing its recurring revenue by developing a suite of services rather than focus on creating new hardware to sell to customers. That company is none other thanApple (AAPL). Investors have known for years that the company’s annual improvements to its existing ...

Stock buybacks have had mixed results. But companies that are able to buy back shares at this point in the economic recovery are likely companies that are doing something right. Case in point?Corning (GLW). The high-end glass supply company, responsible for products such as smartphone screens, is looking to buy back a 35 million share block held by Samsung Display. The block represents about 4 percent of outstanding shares. Shares of Corning moved higher over 3 percent on the news and hit a new 52-week high. The stock is now up 123 percent in the past year. With smartphones in an upg...

Investing is often about reverting to the mean. After one asset soars higher, another is likely out of favor. That will generally change as traders book profits in one area and look for a new trend underway. A quiet trend has been going on with gold. Prices fell under $1,700 in early March, and have started to show some strength again. As investors look to alternatives to gold such as Bitcoin, the metal has gotten oversold, but is starting to move higher. That’s a trend likely to continue to play out. Gold prices moved over $2,000 last year and remain about 15 percent off their highs...

While the pandemic caused a shift to working from home and made companies likeZoom Communications (ZM) a household name, other trends played out as well. Spending more time in the home, consumers started spending more on home goods. That’s a trend that looks likely to continue as the economy recovers and incomes rise. For those on the higher-end of the economic scale who were relatively unaffected, it bodes very well for high-end furnishing companies. One big player?Williams-Sonoma (WSM). The company recently saw an upgrade thanks to the strong home furnishing trend. Although shares ...