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Monthly Archives: October 2010

Two Stocks to Consider

October 15, 2010
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Two Stocks to Consider

The rally that began on September 1 continues to look good, though there’s clearly some rotation going on underneath the surface.  Last week, most stocks related to the cloud computing movement topped out, at least in the intermediate-term.  That’s not to say all those names are going to zero, but at the very least, cloud stocks are going to have to take a few weeks, if not months, to rebuild some bases. My point here is that, even though we’re in a general bull trend, you don’t just buy stocks and sit on them for six months.  You must...

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How to Handle Earnings Season

October 14, 2010
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How to Handle Earnings Season

Earnings season is here again, that time of the quarter when thousands of companies tell investors how they performed during the prior three months and, more importantly, how they believe they’ll fare in the three-to-nine months to come.  These four periods each year—generally the latter half of January, April, July and October—have become vital for investors, as stocks can make big moves in the blink of an eye. In the old days (by old, I’m talking about 10 years ago), earnings reports were noteworthy, but not all-important.  Back then, analysts would often get the “wink, wink, nudge, nudge” from...

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In Green Investing, the Future is Now

October 12, 2010
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Most of you are reading this column on one of two mediums: either from your email inbox or a webpage you navigated to. What you may not realize is that we have the U.S. military to thank for both of them. Let me explain: In response to the launch 53 years ago this week of Sputnik, the Soviet Union’s satellite, the U.S. government launched a series of initiatives that led to the formation of NASA. Overlooked at the time was the concurrent creation of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or Darpa. Darpa worked with a few major research...

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51job: A Stock for Your Watch List

October 11, 2010
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If you take the responsibility seriously, recommending any stock is a genuine risk.  After all, mutual fund managers who can pick 51% winners—even with all the research and analysis resources in the world—are considered real gunslingers.  For me, if a stock doesn’t meet all of my requirements, it goes on the Watch List, not into the portfolio. That’s why I won’t be recommending 51job (JOBS), the Chinese recruiting and human resource company, for the readers of Cabot China & Emerging Markets Report. The company has lots of things going for it, including its admirable earnings line (up 300%, 233%...

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It’s Time to be an Optimist

October 9, 2010
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This Tuesday, October 12, marks the 40th anniversary of Cabot Market Letter, our flagship publication. Today, we work in a beautiful, old library in Salem, Massachusetts, but Cabot had humble beginnings at a farm down the road that gave the company its name. Carlton Lutts, a trained engineer with a love for investing, started writing Cabot Market Letter in 1970. At first, the venture was part-time, but eventually, the newsletter brought in enough money that Carlton could work on it full time and Cabot was born. The stocks Carlton recommended in that first issue were Crown Cork & Seal,...

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