Sometimes when I analyze a stock, I am reminded of the marvels that investment bankers can do for their valuations, especially if the company is a good client. With its recent $3.7 billion acquisition of Gen-Probe, I would bet that Hologic (HOLX) made its investment bankers quite happy. Investors, on the contrary, should sell the stock and not be happy with that deal.
One of the biggest misconceptions in the investing world is that the merit of an acquisition should be judged by whether or not it is “earnings accretive”. The impact of an acquisition on a company’s accounting earnings is not indicative of its economic value to shareholders.
My last recommendation was new to the value-investing club (see Buy CSCO: A Treat For Value Investors). This week, I bring back a classic value stock: Phillip Morris (PM).
As detailed in "How To Make Money Picking Stocks", quantifying the future cash flow expectations embedded in stock prices is critical to making an informed investment decision.
My mentor, Michael Mauboussin, in his latest piece: " The Importance of Expectations – The Question that Bears Repeating: What’s Priced In?" explains more eloquently than I that the key to successful investing is to systematically distinguish between price and value – two very distinct concepts.
I explain key details behind our uniquely rigorous research process.
I also cover my top picks and pans in the "Hold It Or Fold It" portion of my interview with host Chuck Jaffe.
Really enjoyed my first edition of the "Danger Zone" for Chuck Jaffe's MoneyLife radio show.
MGM Grand (MGM) is in the first stock to put in the Danger Zone.
For the first time in many months, both Citigroup (C) and Bank Of America (BAC) are not on our Most Dangerous Stocks list as of the release of the August report.
Exxon was my Stock Pick of the Week last week. Here is an excerpt from my article: "Buying Exxon Mobil (XOM) now is one of the easiest calls in the market these days..."
When stocks are priced for perfection as SBUX is, they are very risky. Just look at today's 10%+ drop in SBUX shares in a market that is up 1%.
My regular readers know that I have, for a while, warned investors that SBUX was overpriced and due for a correction. See "Get Off the SBUX Bandwagon Before It Crashes".
Each quarter, we provide the most comprehensive review of equity ETFs and mutual funds available. We review the Best & Worst ETFs and Mutual Funds by sector and style.
This article provides quick access to all our reports on Style funds.
Fund holdings affect fund performance more than fees or past performance. A cheap fund is not necessarily a good fund. A fund that has done well in the past is not likely to do well in the future (e.g. 5-star kiss of death). Yet, traditional fund research focuses only on low fees and past performance.
The small-cap value style ranks last out of the twelve fund styles as detailed in my style roadmap. It gets my Dangerous rating, which is based on aggregation of ratings of 16 ETFs and 311 mutual funds in the small-cap value style as of July 20, 2012.
The mid-cap value style ranks eleventh out of the twelve fund styles as detailed in my style roadmap. It gets my Dangerous rating, which is based on an aggregation of the ratings of 12 ETFs and 206 mutual funds in the mid-cap value style as of July 19, 2012.