Q2 2013 Performance Update

After having done pretty well for a while now, I was expecting to lose some ground to the major indices this quarter, and that's exactly...

Investopedia: Nike Stretches Its Lead

Chasing Nike (NYSE: NKE ) in the footwear business has to be a frustrating exercise for the likes of Adidas (Nasdaq: ADDYY ), Skechers (N...

Seeking Alpha: Forget Arena Vs. Vivus - Zafgen May Be The Ultimate Winner

As an investor and writer with no financial stake in any of the companies involved, watching the message board battles between Arena ( ARNA...

Investopedia: Weak Consulting Stings Accenture, But The Valuation Is Interesting

With weak IT spending in hardware and software, it shouldn't come as a huge surprise that conditions have softened in the service area ...

Investopedia: BlackBerry Still Doesn't Get It

There's maybe no better example of the disconnect between the real world and the stock market than the near-tripling of BlackBerry '...

Investopedia: Adobe Patches A Hole With A $600 Million Purchase

Make no mistake about what Adobe (Nasdaq: ADBE ) management is thinking – the company's legacy digital media business (Creative Suite...

Seeking Alpha: Without Emerging Market Growth, FLSmidth Stuck In Cement

China's break-neck infrastructure development over the past decade seriously distorted multiple commodity and resource markets, and now...

Seeking Alpha: A Window Of Opportunity At S & W Seed

When I wrote on S&W Seed Company ( SANW ) back in March, I was quite bullish on the prospects for the company, but relatively cautiou...

Investopedia: Paychex Still Muddling Through

It has been about a year since I last wrote on Paychex (Nasdaq: PAYX ). Back in 2012 , I suggested that the Fed's actions to stimulate...

Investopedia: Progress Software Showing Signs Of Life In A Tough Market

More than a year into large-scale efforts to reshape the organization, Progress Software (Nasdaq: PRGS ) is hinting that its transition to...

Investopedia: McCormick Looks Premium-Priced Even With Premium Performance

I appreciate why McCormick (NYSE: MKC ) has almost always carried a premium valuation in the packaged food sector. The company holds effe...

Investopedia: ConAgra Does Appear To Be On A Better Path

It's been easy to criticize ConAgra (NYSE: CAG ) management over the years, as relatively ham-fisted management of junior varsity bra...

Investopedia: General Mills Getting Back To Normal

Maybe the markets are getting a bit more rational when it comes to packaged food companies. With many of these stocks up 20% or more over ...

Investopedia: Unexpected Challenges For Self-Employed Finance Professionals

Self-employment is very nearly a universal goal across most industries. While not practical in fields like commercial aviation or nuclear ...

Investopedia: The Wait For $5 Gas Could Be A Long One At Ultra Petroleum

Reputations, good and bad, can be surprisingly sticky. Ultra Petroleum (NYSE: UPL ) has long been lauded for its high-quality operations, ...

Investopedia: Monsanto Has Eased Off, But Still Not Cheap

Monsanto (NYSE: MON ) generates a huge volume of press and public interest, but the reality is that the public bickering about GM crops h...

Investopedia: Should Investors Dividend Shop At Weingarten Realty Investors?

Real estate investment trusts (more commonly known as REITs) have long been a favored destination for income-seeking investors, as the ent...

Seeking Alpha: The Only Tears From TearLab Are Tears Of Joy For Now

Some day I'll learn to buy the shares of the med-tech stocks I really like before I write them up for Seeking Alpha. Emerging eye care ...

Seeking Alpha: Hurco Virtually Unknown And Meaningfully Undervalued

Typically when a writer talks about a company being "under-followed" it means that there are no analysts from big name firms foll...

Seeking Alpha: Wet Weather Soaks American Vanguard, But Analysts Look All Wet

Using discounted free cash flow as a primary valuation tool comes with certain drawbacks. Looking at the reaction to American Vanguard '...

Seeking Alpha: Achillion May Be The Most Underrated Biotech Left

There are broadly two types of biotech investors - the Wile E. Coyote types who see bargains everywhere and charge bravely after them and t...

Investopedia: MTN Group Has The Growth, But Ample Uncertainties

One of the predominant issues in telco service stocks right now is the weak growth environment – penetration rates in most developed market...

Investopedia: Down In The Vale

As I've mentioned in other recent pieces on Investopedia, these are tough times for commodity producers as the incremental Chinese dema...

Investopedia: Teck Profitable, Liquid, And Maybe Too Cheap

These are ugly days in the natural resources sector as the bottomless pit that was China's appetite for mined commodities apparently ha...

Investopedia: Turkcell Is Undervalued, But Also A Complete Mess

It's typically a given that undervalued stocks come with a “but”. In other words, there's usually a reason that a stock is trading ...

Investopedia: Symantec Fixing What Was Never Too Badly Broken

If you're going to repair and turn around a business, it certainly helps to start with one that wasn't too badly broken to start of...

Seeking Alpha: SLC Agricola - Come For The Crops, Stay For The Land

It isn't easy running a farm nor, by extension, a farming business. Couple that with extensive year-to-year volatility, and that may we...

Investopedia: China Mobile Trades Growth For Stability

Investors may be frustrated with some of the decisions that China Mobile (NYSE: CHL ) management has made in recent years, but at least th...

Investopedia: France Telecom Under Pressure From Both Sides

It certainly fits a lot of American stereotypes about France to see the incumbent telecom operator (and leading wireless provider) France T...

Investopedia: Above Average Opportunities Largely In The NXP Semiconductors Price

There are still bargains to be found here and there in the chip space, but many of these stocks have already rallied over the past year on ...

Investopedia: Could Alcatel-Lucent's Restructuring Boost Ericsson Further?

At the risk of sounding like I'm looking to bash Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU ), I have been thinking more about the company's recent...

Investopedia: The SoftBank-Sprint-Clearwire-Dish Network Game Of Musical Chairs Seems Over

In a process that has taken eight months now, it looks like SoftBank is going to succeed in its attempt to acquire Sprint (NYSE: S ), and ...

Investopedia: TIBCO Stabilizes, But Needs Growth

Looking at the results this week from Red Hat (NYSE: RHT ), Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL ), and TIBCO (Nasdaq: TIBX ), it's pretty clear tha...

Investopedia: Is It Oracle, Or Is It The Market?

To take an old cliché of the stock market and twist it around a bit, when a small tech company misses the quarter the question is “what is ...

MassDevice: MicroPort And Wright Medical Group Flip The Script

Apparently MicroPort and Wright Medical (NSDQ: WMGI ) didn't get the memo – American med-tech companies are supposed to buy Chinese m...

Investopedia: Relief At Red Hat, But The Long-Term Growth Debate Will Rage On

I realize that Rule 36 of the internet says that you cannot challenge or question a stock in any fashion without being “secretly short”, bu...

Investopedia: Finisar Perking Up On Datacom, With Telecom (Hopefully) On The Way

With Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO ), Juniper (Nasdaq: JNPR ), and Ciena (Nasdaq: CIEN ) all having decent enough recent quarterly reports, things ...

Investopedia: The Craziness Is Well Underway Again At Micron

As someone who has almost always had a semiconductor stock in his portfolio, I can tell you that you have to a have a loose screw or two t...

Investopedia: With So Many Sluggish Markets, There's Little Jabil Can Do Now

Unfortunately for Jabil (NYSE: JBL ), there's really nothing that this manufacturing specialist can do about the uninspiring demand c...

Seeking Alpha: Manitex Still Delivering Growth Investors Can Look Up To

About six months ago, I profiled an up-and-coming small-cap heavy equipment company that I thought had above-average potential. Since that ...

Seeking Alpha: Pacific Biosciences Will Go Checkers Or Wreckers

I live in NASCAR country and it's not that rare to hear the expression "going checkers or wreckers" - meaning throwing cautio...

Seeking Alpha: Celldex Turning Into A Compelling Immunotherapy Biotech

"Shoulda, coulda, woulda" will probably be my investing epitaph. While there is no shortage of investment advice telling you that...

Investopedia: Actuant Still Working Through A Lull

That big second-half rebound in industrial demand is starting to look weaker and weaker. Although companies like Grainger (NYSE: GWW ) and ...

Investopedia: FedEx Not Particularly Expensive, But Analysts Still Too Positive

Although I have tremendous respect for the business that FedEx (NYSE: FDX ) has built, the same cannot be said of my opinion of most analy...

Investopedia: Will A New Alcatel-Lucent Plan Lead To Better Results?

Stop me if you've heard this before – Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU ) has a bold plan to cut costs, refocus the business, and return the ...

Investopedia: Wall Street Has Converted To Adobe's New Model; Will Customers?

Wall Street analysts and investors can be an exceptionally stubborn bunch, and it sometimes takes several whacks with a 2x4 to make them se...

Investopedia: Why Is Monsanto Evil, But DuPont Isn't?

As I explored almost a year ago in the case of Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT ) and Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN ), public perception is a curious thing. Tw...

Seeking Alpha: Tough Conditions Burying The Quality Edge At C & J Energy Services

There's a school of thought out there that the best companies really show their stuff when their sectors come under serious pressure. W...

Investopedia: Amdocs A Good Value As Is, But With Growth Upside

Value-priced software and technology service companies often struggle to attract and maintain investor attention. To its credit, Amdocs (N...

Investopedia: Valuation Is Finally Reasonable At FactSet, But Growth Is Now A Concern

For much of its history as a public company, FactSet (NYSE: FDS ) shares have frustrated the value and GARP crowds. Now the shares look mo...

Investopedia: W.R. Grace - Maybe The Most Valuable Bankrupt Company Going

While individual/personal bankruptcy is pretty straightforward, the same cannot be said for corporate bankruptcy. Airlines go through bankr...

Investopedia: Enthusiasm Over SK Telecom Has Gone Far Enough

Investors don't love telecom service providers like they used to, largely due to extreme competition that has made it difficult to grow...

Seeking Alpha: Johnson & Johnson And Aragon May Have Medivation Feeling Sick

The already-successful new prostate cancer drug Zytiga is not solely responsible for turning around the fortunes of Johnson & Johnson ...

Seeking Alpha: American Vanguard Should Reap A Better Multiple

American Vanguard ( AVD ) has long been a volatile small-cap stock. Some of that can be chalked up to the vagaries of the agricultural ch...

MassDevice: CareFusion May Be Weighing Two Very Different Deals

At the risk of sounding a bit mean, CareFusion  (NYSE: CFN ) doesn't get all that much attention in the market. The company has a soli...

MassDevice: Smarter Strategic Moves Bode Well For Wright Medical

There's a saying in the markets that there's always a bull market somewhere. Along similar lines, it's almost always possible...

Investopedia: Elan Shareholders Bring Management To Heel

Financial writers often lament that shareholders are too passive with respect to exercising their rights to oppose management decisions tha...

Investopedia: Does AT&T Have Global Ambitions?

Monday is often the day for deals and rumors, and a doozy in the telecom market quickly made the rounds. Depending upon which reports you ...

Investopedia: Rockwood Gets Its Deal For CeramTec

Rockwood Holdings (NYSE: ROC ) hasn't been shy in talking about its intentions to simplify its operations around its high-quality lit...

Investopedia: Weyerhaeuser Has A Busy Father's Day

Weyerhaeuser (NYSE: WY ) didn't have the luxury of taking it easy on Father's Day, as the company announced a slew of transaction...

MassDevice: The Bulls May Have Run A Little Too Far With St. Jude Medical

Combine a bull market with increasing optimism that major med-tech markets are stabilizing, and it's not so hard to see why stocks like...

MassDevice: Can C.R. Bard Use A Windfall To Reignite Growth?

C.R. Bard (NYSE: BCR ) has a problem; specifically, a growth problem. While the company has #1 or #2 market share in markets that make up...

MassDevice: Is Valeant About To Make A Bold Bid For Bausch & Lomb?

Never let it be said that Valeant (NYSE: VRX) management is shy about doing deals. With a roster of past deals including Biovail, Cephalon,...

MassDevices: Boston Scientific May Finally Be On The Right Path Again

It feels like Boston Scientific (NYSE: BSX ) has spent the majority of the past decade in a perpetual limbo of ineffectual turnaround. Th...

MassDevice: Not A Lot Of Bargains Among Med-Tech Stocks

Medical technology stocks of all stripes have been enjoying a pretty exceptional run in the market, as healthcare has actually been 1 of th...

MassDevice: The Strange Case Of The Diabetes Market

It wasn't so long ago when diabetes was one of the hot sectors of med-tech where many companies felt they had to have a presence, no m...

MassDevice: Can Johnson & Johnson Fire On All Cylinders Again?

In what has become a red-hot stock market for med-tech stocks, it's the rare quality company that hasn't taken part in the rally. ...

MassDevice: Edwards Lifesciences Comes Back Down To Earth ... Hard

Although I had been writing for some time that I thought Edwards Lifesciences (NYSE: EW) was significantly overvalued by the market, I do...

Seeking Alpha: Natural Grocers Boldly Going Where Others Have Gone Before

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Natural Grocers ( NGVC ) (also known by its full name of Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage...

Investopedia: Even Near A 52-Week High, MetLife Seems Undervalued

MetLife (NYSE: MET ) has been one of my favorite financial companies that I don't actually own, and nothing has happened to dim my en...

Investopedia: Can National Oilwell Varco Win Back The Love?

It doesn't feel like it was all that long ago when National Oilwell Varco (NYSE: NOV ) was a darling in the energy equipment space. Sur...

Investopedia: Peabody Energy Carries Higher Expectations, But Solid Value

Having recently examined Arch Coal (NYSE: ACI ) and Cloud Peak Energy (NYSE: CLD ), it's time to examine the largest U.S. coal produce...

Investopedia: With Freeport McMoRan, It's Time To Get Over It And Move On

I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that some percentage of Freeport McMoRan (NYSE: FCX ) shareholders, or former shareholder...

Investopedia: Cloud Peak Energy May Have A Steeper Road To Recovery

Multiple sell-side analysts keep talking about the thermal coal recovery, but Wall Street seems to be responding with “that's okay, af...

Investopedia: Challenging Conditions And Conservatism Keeping U.S. Bancorp In Bargain Territory

Larger banks, particularly well-run companies like U.S. Bancorp (NYSE: USB ), haven't been at the top of most investors' buy lists...

Investopedia: Absent A Quick Turnaround In Power, GE Has Gone Far Enough For Now

General Electric (NYSE: GE ) has been one of my go-to industrial stocks since around mid-2009, and the stock hasn't disappointed in t...

Investopedia: Dover's Opportunities Matched Only By Wall Street's Enthusiasm For Them

Any significant worries about a failure of the second half industrial recovery thesis seem to have been set aside for Dover (NYSE: DOV ). W...

Investopedia: Afer A Strong Recovery, What Moves ADM From Here?

I've had a love/worry relationship with Archer Daniels Midland (NYSE: ADM ) for a while now, as I do believe that the Street is often ...

Investopedia: After A Good Run, Novartis Looks Fairly Valued

Like so many other pharmaceutical stocks, Novartis (NYSE: NVS ) has done pretty well for its shareholders over the past year and solidly be...

Investopedia: Impala Platinum Trying To Survive Multiple Challenges

Being a South African platinum miner is a pretty miserable existence right now. The contract price of platinum has fallen more than 12% ove...

Investopedia: Pandora Ups The Stakes In A Brewing Battle Royal(ty)

Life is seemingly never boring for Pandora (NYSE: P ). If investors (or, more likely, sell-side analysts) aren't openly fretting abou...

Quick question in regard to Twitter

I've gone back and forth thinking about getting onto Twitter and using that as a platform to link to articles (my own as well as others ...