All posts in Trades

When a large enough investor with ideas of his own starts to make moves to influence the direction of his investments, all kinds of things can happen. Activist investing isn’t new. But it doesn’t have an incredibly long history either. It wasn’t until the 1980s that these activists starting becoming…

A lot of money is left on the table, especially in options, because of emotional bias. No matter if you’re talking about some supposedly unbiased algorithm – which is coded by a real human – or expert traders and fund managers… bias is everywhere. Of course, saying this isn’t really…

Banks are in trouble once again. This time, they face risk on multiple fronts. That’s according to Neil Barofsky, the Treasury Department Inspector General from 2008 to 2011. In other words, he was the man in charge of overseeing TARP – the controversial bailout of banks during the last financial…

Whenever the market takes a tumble, as it has this week, investors seek to find a handful of companies to blame. This time around, two seem to be popping up constantly. Walgreens Boots Alliance and CVS Health Corporation operate in somewhat of a duopoly. These two are the largest drug…

As the Trump Administration continues its talks with China’s Xi Jinping’s government over tariffs and a truce in their trade war, one company feels hung out to dry. Harley-Davidson (HOG) is the poster child for a company that got caught up in these trade issues and how not to respond….

Earlier today, two key retailers announced their fourth-quarter and fiscal 2018 earnings. Both blew away expectations. Target announced top and bottom-line growth – above analyst expectations. It also released a very enthusiastic forecast for the rest of 2019. Kohl’s did the same. The driver for Target at least, and its…

According to Barron’s, there’s a cold war brewing. It involves China and the U.S., but has next to nothing to do with the trade war and ongoing tariff talks between the countries’ leaders. The last one between the Soviet Union and the West used espionage and soft power with the…

U.S.-China trade talks continue to heat up. Trump announced that his administration is going to extend the deadline for new tariff increases as these talks progress. Originally, the two sides were set to hike tariffs on products tomorrow. Now, this indefinite extension seems to be signaling to some that the…

One of the world’s most widely-held stocks has been a sore spot in investor portfolios over the last year. General Electric is many things to many different people. The maker of washing machines, turbine engines and MRI machines has been in turmoil. Last year, the company suffered a credit rating…

The way we watch TV has changed so much over the last few years, there are shockwaves rippling through several related industries: media, technology and communications. Most people don’t make a call to the local cable provider a top priority when they move anymore. Many people don’t even use a…