Stocks To Buy

A company that’s successful will sometimes pivot to a new challenge. Sometimes, it may stay with its core focus. And at other times, it may rest on its laurels, allowing competitors to come in and find a better way to succeed in the sector. In that last case, an activist investor may step in to streamline operations, cut costs, and make the company competitive again. Such investments can often turn industry laggards into leaders. That could be the case with Public Storage ...
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Some companies have fared better than others this year. The restaurant space has been decimated, as sales have plummeted. But while that’s been hard-hitting for family-owned operations, large, publicly-traded firms have held up well. These are the companies that were already capable of providing their goods via pickup (such as drive-thru) and delivery options. So it’s no surprise that these restaurants have held up better, and will likely continue to do so. However, since the announcement of a Covid vaccine, a number ...
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It’s been an off year for apparel companies. With rising unemployment and work from home trends, a number of categories of sales have slumped. One analyst sees that changing. With companies increasingly moving staff back to the office, and with a vaccine in sight, a number of apparel companies look poised for a sales rebound in the coming year. That should lead to an attractive move higher. One such player is Nike (NKE). Best known for shoes and sports apparel, sales haven’t ...
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Income investors are a shy bunch. If a company looks like it’s not going to provide investors with the same (or a growing) level of income, they’ll leave. When that happens, a price drop occurs, sometimes creating a value opportunity. While investors may not want to stay in a company that’s cut their dividend, sometimes buying a company after it cuts its dividend makes sense. The lower price paid may offset a decline in yield. That looks to be the case with ...
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While toys sell throughout the year, the holiday season tends to see the biggest volume of sales. That’s a boon to toy makers in general. So it’s no surprise that this sector is seeing a holiday upgrade, courtesy of analysts at Citigroup. But the analysis has one key trend this year. Toy making has gone beyond simply manufacturing physical products. It also involves being in the entertainment industry, integrating its toys with intellectual property and technologies to create a bigger experience. With ...
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Most companies rejected the conglomerate business model. Once in fashion, the logic was that a company would have a division that would thrive whenever a different one was out of favor with the market. That model just created a lot of headaches for management instead. However, there are a few surviving examples. Run properly, a conglomerate tends to be a relatively strong performer in a weak economy, but may take time to rally when an economy recovers. That may be the case ...
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One old-school technology company has been making a few acquisitions in recent weeks. Rather than play to the company’s core advantages, however, the recent buys point to a new direction for the firm. The direction is toward cloud-based communications. Specifically, this company wants smarter and faster customer engagement solutions, but that also includes interactive video, messaging, and voice channels. In short, a tech company best known from the 1990s is now working to outdo Zoom Video Communications (ZM) in video networking. The ...
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Gold prices jumped in 2020. For most of the year, the metal has outperformed the stock market. Since the start of October, gold prices have been trending down from their highs, but are starting to see some resistance to that drop. It’s likely that gold prices will continue their long-term uptrend into 2021, and with talk of more stimulus fueling fears of inflation and out-of-control government spending, traders may want to start placing their bets now for the next upswing in ...
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