Credit card usage has slowly been increasing since 2011 and with more than a few credit card providers to choose from, including another favorite of ours, Discover Financial, it is important to pick from the best. Our pick this week is American Express (AXP).
The Consumer Discretionary sector ranks fourth out of the 10 sectors for the first quarter of 2015 and receives our Neutral rating. The Consumer Discretionary sector as a whole underperformed the S&P 500 in 2014, rising 9% to the S&P’s 12%.
Brocade Communication Systems (BRCD) is our hot stock of the week and earns an Attractive rating. Brocade, a provider of storage area networking and Internet protocol networking solutions, had a very impressive 2014.
Investors who aren't paying attention to the information disclosed in companies' financial footnotes are increasingly in danger of losing some of their investment.
This week, CEO David Trainer discusses the general whipsaw action of the markets we've been seeing over the last few months and more recently, the last few days.
At the beginning of the first quarter of 2015, only the Consumer Staples sector earns an Attractive-or-better rating. Sector ratings are based on the aggregation of our fund ratings for every ETF and mutual fund in each sector.
Our stock pick this week is one that has great potential in 2015 and beyond, as online security becomes a bigger issue in light of the most recent hacking attacks.
MidWest One, a smaller regional banking institution, had its ups and downs during 2014. The stock ended the year up only 3%, but was up 23% from its October lows. For many reasons, we feel MidWest One could be poised for a strong 2015.
Instead of our usual weekly sell/short call, we are going to open 2015 with two of our favorite stocks for the upcoming year. These stocks have strong growth potential in the coming year, and are attractively valued, trading below their economic book values.
If you’re investing in stocks, identifying those that are set to take off is key to outperforming the market. Unfortunately, identifying stocks that are about to take off is extremely difficult.