wall street
RUBY TUESDAY INC., $7.48, symbol RT on New York, posted a smaller loss in the latest quarter as it continues to close unprofitable restaurants. It’s also moving its remaining locations back to their roots, serving reasonably priced food in a bar-and-grill atmosphere. However, Ruby Tuesday continues to face weak consumer spending, along with most U.S. casual dining chains. Competition also remains intense. The company’s shares have jumped 36% since it released its latest quarterly results. We think now would be a good to time sell the stock....
Sales are slowing at these beverage makers, mainly because health-conscious consumers are cutting back on sugary drinks and alcohol. Still, they are taking measures to support their well-known brands and help them continue to prosper. They’re also cutting their costs in order to free additional cash. PEPSICO INC. (New York symbol PEP; www.pepsico.com) is the world’s second-largest soft drink maker after Coca-Cola. It also makes other products, such as Frito-Lay snack foods, Gatorade sports drinks, Tropicana fruit juices and Quaker Oats cereals....
Dear Inner Circle member, Lots of investment advisors and commentators are worth listening to. However, one essential fact about investing is that nobody can foresee the future consistently. So, it pays to listen to the people who are worth listening to, but don’t take their predictions as sure things. Be especially skeptical about predictions that would lead you to take extreme measures with your portfolio. As you probably know, I always have an opinion on the way the market is headed, and I’m happy to share it with my Inner Circle members. But I’ve been wrong in the past and will be wrong in the future, just like everybody else. That’s why you need to follow our three-point Successful Investor approach to investing. Our goal is to help you make money in the good times and avoid losing too much during the inevitable downturns....
HILLSHIRE BRANDS CO., $61.82, New York symbol HSH, rose 5% this week in response to a new takeover offer. The company makes a variety of packaged meat products. Its main brands include Ball Park hot dogs, Jimmy Dean sausages and Hillshire Farm deli meats. Other foods include Sara Lee frozen desserts and Chef Pierre pies. This week, Tyson Foods (New York symbol TSN) offered to buy the company for $63.00 a share. That topped an earlier $55.00-a-share bid by Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. (Nasdaq symbol PPC). Pilgrim’s Pride has now withdrawn its offer....
Every Wednesday, we publish our “Investor Toolkit” series on TSI Network. Whether you’re a beginning or experienced investor, these weekly updates are designed to give you advice on specific investment advice. Each Investor Toolkit update gives you a fundamental piece of investing strategy, and shows you how you can put it into practice right away. Today’s tip: “Value investing’s good reputation owes a great deal to Warren Buffett, but he and other successful investors owe their success to much more than just one relatively narrow approach to the market.” In last week’s Investor Toolkit, I pointed out that learning what not to do can be the hardest and costliest part of an investor’s education (see the Toolkit here). I focused on how this applies to technical analysis—the practice of trying to base investment decisions on past trading and market history. This week I want to expand on what I said, since the idea applies to a wide range of narrow approaches to investing....
Businesses will likely spend more on software this year, as the global economy continues to recover. That’s good news for two market leaders we cover regularly in our advisory on U.S. stocks, Wall Street Stock Forecaster. We analyze which is in a better position to benefit as more companies adopt cloud computing. Note: This article updates our recent report on Symantec, issued just after the company had fired its CEO (see the article here). ADOBE SYSTEMS INC. (Nasdaq symbol ADBE; www.adobe.com) earned $151.3 million, or $0.30 a share, in its fiscal 2014 first quarter, which ended February 28, 2014. That’s down 14.9% from $177.9 million, or $0.35, a year ago. Revenue fell 0.8%, to $1.00 billion from $1.01 billion. The declines are mainly because Adobe is now selling its Creative Cloud package of photo-editing and desktop-publishing programs as a subscription instead of a one-time purchase. That hurts the company’s short-term growth, but it should provide stable revenue streams as more users switch over. Subscriptions now supply over half of Adobe’s revenue....
HILLSHIRE BRANDS CO., $58.92, New York symbol HSH, continues to attract new takeover offers. The company makes a variety of packaged meat products. Its main brands include Ball Park hot dogs, Jimmy Dean sausages and Hillshire Farm deli meats. Other foods include Sara Lee frozen desserts and Chef Pierre pies. The stock jumped 11% this week after Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. (Nasdaq symbol PPC) offered to buy the company for $55.00 a share. That topped last week’s $50.00-a-share bid by Tyson Foods (New York symbol TSN)....
NORDION INC., $13.89, Toronto symbol NDN, gained 8% this week in response to a new takeover offer. The company recently accepted a $12.25 U.S.-a-share friendly bid from Sterigenics, a privately held Illinois firm that sterilizes surgical tools, drug ingredients and other materials. However, Nordion now says it has received a $12.50-U.S.-a-share offer from an undisclosed bidder. That prompted Sterigenics to raise its bid to $13.00 U.S....
We still think investors will profit most—and with the least risk—by buying shares of well-established, dividend-paying stocks with strong business prospects. These are companies that have strong positions in healthy industries. They also have strong management that will make the right moves to remain competitive in a changing marketplace. Stocks like these give investors an additional measure of safety in today’s volatile markets. And the best ones offer an attractive combination of moderate p/e’s (the ratio of a stock’s price to its per-share earnings), steady or rising dividend yields (annual dividend divided by the share price) and promising growth prospects....