In addition, Pat thinks then beginner investors should cultivate two important qualities: a healthy sense of skepticism and patience.
[text_ad]
Investors should approach all investments with a healthy sense of skepticism. This can help keep you out of fraudulent stocks that masquerade as high-quality stocks. It will also keep you out of legally operated, but poorly managed, companies that promise more than they can possibly deliver.
If you are a new investor, you should also realize that losing patience can cause you to sell your best choices right before a big rise. All too often, investors buy a promising stock just as it enters a period of price stagnation. Even the best-performing stocks run into these unpredictable phases from time to time. They move mainly sideways in a wide range for months or years before their next big rise begins. (Stock brokers often refer to these stocks as “dead money.”)
If you lack patience, you run a big risk of selling your best choices in the midst of one of these phases, prior to the next big move upward. If you lose patience and sell, you are particularly likely to do so in the low end of the trading range, when stock prices have weakened and confidence in the stock has waned.
[text_ad]
ETFs trade on stock exchanges, just like stocks.
Incorporated in 2004, the company operates destination properties. These feature premium accommodations, world-class gaming, entertainment and retail malls. Those properties also have convention and exhibition facilities, celebrity chef restaurants and other amenities.
In 2022, Sands sold its properties in Las Vegas to focus on Asia. Sands sold the Venetian Resort Las Vegas and the Sands Expo and Convention Center, for a total of $6.4 billion.
Activist investing has surged in the past decade, led by a relatively small but powerful group of hedge funds. They follow different strategies, but all have the same goal: to wring the greatest possible profits from the company’s assets. This could include forcing a change in its board of directors, bringing in new management, selling off underperforming business units, spinning off other units to unlock value, or even selling the entire company.
On August 25, 2025, Keurig Dr Pepper announced that it would acquire JDE Peet’s (symbol JDEPY on the U.S. Over-the-Counter market) for $18 billion.
In the quarter ended June 28, 2025, Kraft’s sales fell 1.9%, to $6.35 billion from $6.48 billion a year earlier. If you exclude divestitures and currency rates, sales decreased 2.0%. Higher selling prices (up 0.7%) were not enough to offset lower volumes (down 2.7%).
Of course, spinoffs have the potential to reward investors in other ways. Those new stocks—and indeed their former parents—often attract lucrative takeover offers within just a few years of a breakup.
The enhanced takeover appeal reflects the smaller, more-focused operations of both the spinoff and the parent. Their reduced market caps also make it easier for would-be buyers to fund their acquisition. In addition, the smaller operations are easier for buyers to integrate into their existing businesses. That often translates into a quick revenue and earnings boost.