Thursday, May 23, 2013

Microsoft: It's Time To Put Your Game Face On!

In my latest Seeking Alpha exclusive article, I discuss why Microsoft Corporation (MSFT)'s recent Xbox One unveil was a major disappointment and why it presents Sony Corporation (SNE) with an excellent opportunity to seize gaming console market share. Click here to read!

Phil

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Boston Beer: Almost Time To Take A Sip

My latest article on Seeking Alpha is an Editor's Pick and focuses on Boston Beer Company (SAM), which is responsible for popular alcoholic brands like Samuel Adams, Twisted Tea and Angry Orchard. After a recent earnings miss the stock dropped significantly and now presents investors with fair valuation. Read the article here to see why I believe shares of SAM will continue to stay buzzed for the long-term and why I plan to initiate a position in the stock soon.

Phil

Friday, May 10, 2013

Content-Creation And Payments: 2 Growth Trends Driving My Portfolio Forward

Check out my latest Seeking Alpha article, in which I cover the two major growth trends that have been driving my portfolio's outperformance: media content-creation and payment-solutions. It is my belief that investors attuned to overall trends in the equity markets are better prepared to anticipate future growth. Click here to read why I think the two dominant trends in my portfolio are set to continue for years to come!

Phil

Saturday, May 4, 2013

The Five Greatest Stocks Update For May 2013

When I originally wrote my post on The Five Greatest Stocks For The Next Five Years back in October of 2011, I really thought that these five great stocks would basically trounce the S&P 500 by now, but something certainly did change with one of the five greats named Apple Inc. (AAPL). At the time of the original post Apple was trading just over $400 per share and went on to rally to just over $700 per share by the middle of September of 2012 and then preceded to crash all the way under $400 in April of this year. I have attached a chart below to show what happened:




 Chart courtesy of Barchart.com

Because of this correction in Apple, I now became convinced that the portfolio would now be on the losing end of things, but low and behold that would not be the case. So here are the results going into May 6th, 2013:

Portfolio Total Return With Dividends Reinvested: 34.6%
S&P 500 (SPY) With Dividends Reinvested: 32.9%

MasterCard (MA): Price: $553.55, Total Return of 60.1%
Under Armour (UA): Price: $57.71, Total Return of 36.7%
Google (GOOG): Price: $845.72, Total Return of 42.7%
Apple (AAPL): Price: $449.98, Total Return of 12.8%
Amazon (AMZN): Price: $258.05, Total Return of 20.9%
Stats courtesy of Low-Risk Investing

So there you have it, the Five Greats managed to continue to beat the S&P 500. Going forward. I think that the correction in Apple is probably done, but it now may be a company that is no longer in its growth phase, this is a bit concerning and something that I did not see coming this fast, but on a good note the company is committed to increasing their dividends as well as buybacks, this should allow the stock to at the least match the performance of the S&P 500. Once again, even after some corrections, I am still convinced that for the next 3+ years this portfolio should outperform the S&P 500.

Disclaimer: All articles are written as an opinion of the writer or writers. The contributors on this website are not professional investment advisors. These articles are written to share investing ideas that may be of interest to the reader. Always seek the advice of a professional investment advisor before investing.
Disclosure: I am long GOOG, UA, MA.

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Step Up Your Dividend Growth With Stepan Co.

My latest Seeking Alpha exclusive article is on Stepan Co, a basic and intermediate chemical manufacturer. The company announced disappointing earnings results earlier in the week and I believe the recent weakness presents long-term investors with a nice opportunity to buy shares of this dividend champion. Click here to read.

Phil