BHP Billiton (NYSE: BHP), the world’s largest natural resources company, is restructuring its operations around the world.  This is resulting in change in the business model of the firm as its sells off assets and realigns its strcture. This is naturally causing short term pain in the stock price of BHP Billiton. As a result, […]

While Big Oil stocks like Chevron (NYSE: CVX) and ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) should reward long term investors, the short term performance has been painful.  That is much the same for the stock markets overall as both the Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSE: DIA) and the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (NYSE: SPY) have been doing […]

BP PLC (NYSE: BP), the second largest energy company in Europe, is down for the last week, month, quarter, six months, and year of market action. For 2014, BP PLC is down by nearly 17 percent. This is the same with other oil and natural gas firms like Chevron (NYSE: CVX), ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM), and […]

Chevron (NYSE: CVX) is like ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) in that it is a “Big Oil” company that has not spun off units like so many others. As a result, Chevron, again like ExxonMobil, has not fallen in recent stock market action like so many other energy companies. Chevron is down for the last week, month, […]

All investors should read Dan Weiner’s article in Kiplinger’s about market timing for equities. Basically, the article states that is it best to don’t even try to time the stock market as it does not work!!! The most important lesson from the excellent piece in Kiplinger’s, which is a fine personal magazine, is to get […]

Like many other major oil stocks, ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) is down for the last week, month, quarter and six months of market action. For the last 52 weeks, ConocoPhillips has dropped, too (chart below). Projections are that ConocoPhillips and other oil and natural gas stocks will continue to fall.  The exchange traded fund for oil, […]

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), the drug and consumer product maker, is a classic blue chip that all should all have in their portfolio, That is shown in that more than two-thirds of the stock is owned by institutional investors such as mutual funds, pensions groups, and others. It is always a bullish when institutional […]

Opportunities in the natural resources sector which includes stocks such as BHP Billiton (NYSE: BHP), Rio Tinto (NYSE: RIO), Peabody Energy (NYSE: BTU), and others are at an “all time high” according to a recent research from Barings Asset Management, an investment firm based in London, England. A major reason for the opportunities are the […]

Those who thought that The Affordable Care Act, or ObamaCare, would be unhealthy for health insurance stocks such as Aetna (NYSE: AET), Cigna Corp. (NYSE: CI), and UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH) have been proven wrong by the stock performance of each. UnitedHealth Group, the largest health insurer in the United States, is up for the […]

Cold weather is making for a hot performance by the exchange traded fund for natural gas, United States Natural Gas (NYSE: UNG). United States Natural Gas is up for the last week, month, and quarter of market action (chart below). When cold weather hits the United States, the price of natural gas rises.  That is […]