Free Investing

Zachary Scheidt submits:
Wednesday, many of the for-profit educational companies got a lift after Credit Suisse (CS) upgraded Devry Inc. (DV) and ITT Educational Services (ESI). The report basically stated that regulation changes for the industry are not likely to be as severe as originally expected and investors can now purchase these companies with better visibility for future profits.The Department of Education recently submitted “Gainful Employment” proposed language to the Office of Management and Budget to estimate the costs of the new proposed language. Credit Suisse expects this language to be submitted to the public by mid-May or at the latest June 1. From that point there would be a comment period followed by enforceable regulation likely to start November 1.Complete Story »

Stephen Castellano submits: Continuing a "tradition" of anticipating (or simply taking credit for) a number of sell side upgrades of stocks in our model portfolio, we point to DeVry, Inc. (DV) today (Tuesday), which was upgraded today by Credit Suisse. The upgrade helped the stock lead our "high-quality" portfolio today with a 10.25% return.According to Barron's, the DV upgrade was based on a "favorable decision by the Department of Education... which may fuel more investor optimism." More specifically, according to BusinessWeek, "...the U.S. government may loosen proposed rules that would restrict companies’ eligibility for federal student aid." While we try to figure out how to take credit for the government's decision, we would just note that when good things happen to good companies that we hold in a model portfolio, it is just icing on the cake.Complete Story »

My call to get long materials and energy at the beginning of the week was looking pretty spot on by Wednesday afternoon, and then, it got completely blown out of the water by the close on Friday as the dollar surged off the 50 day moving average. The OIH got slaughtered Thursday and Friday as crude CL_F pulled back from the $83 level. Crude and gold aren’t going anywhere with a rising dollar. Complete Story »

Hickey and Walters (Bespoke) submit:
Today is the unofficial end to earnings season with Wal-Mart's (WMT) report. Below we highlight the stocks that had the best and worst days on their earnings reports this season. For stocks that report in the morning, we use that day's change. For stocks that report in the evening, we use the next day's change. As shown, Affymetrix (AFFX), Pacer (PACR), and TheStreet.com (TSCM) had the best reactions to earnings reports this season with gains of more than 28%. The S&P 500 stocks on the list of best performers include Eastman Kodak (EK), Harman (HAR), DeVry (DV), Hasbro (HAS), Whole Foods (WFMI), Lexmark (LXK), and Intuitive Surgical (ISRG). Complete Story »

Hickey and Walters (Bespoke) submit:
With 2010 getting off to an even worse start than 2009 at this point in the year, it should come as little surprise that the current decline has been the sharpest since the S&P 500 bottomed in March 2009. One indicator we monitor on a daily basis and update each day in our Morning Lineup is the percentage of S&P 500 stocks that are oversold and overbought (stocks that are more than one standard deviation above or below their 50-day moving average). Currently, 305 stocks (61%) in the S&P 500 are oversold, while only 25 are overbought. As shown in the chart below, the percentage of oversold stocks in the S&P 500 (green line) is higher than it has been at any other time since the S&P 500 bounced off the lows in March 2009.click to enlargeComplete Story »

Value Expectations submits: In August 2009, The Applied Finance Group (AFG) explored the relationship between Valuation and Momentum variables. (The original article can be found here.) We wrote about an interesting observation of the S&P 500's performance between 9/1998 and 6/2009. We showed that strategies built around Valuation or Momentum variables had periods of outperformance and underperformance, but combining these variables led to fairly consistent outperformance, as well as better overall performance than the individual variables alone. The table below highlights S&P 500 returns for Valuation (AFG’s Percent to Target variable), Momentum (AFG’s EM Momentum variable), and Combination strategies. Table 1: S&P 500 Performance: 9/25/1998 – 6/26/2009 Complete Story »

Hickey and Walters (Bespoke) submit:
As noted earlier, Friday marks the two-year anniversary of the S&P 500's closing peak. As of Thursday's close (10/8), only 57 of the 500 stocks currently in the index are up since then. Needless to say, it has been a lousy two years. Below we highlight the 25 best performing stocks in the index over the last two years. As shown, sectors which are the most heavily represented include Technology (7), Energy (6), Consumer Discretionary (5), and Health Care (5). Check back Friday morning for a list of the top performing Mid and Small Cap stocks since 10/9/07.click to enlargeComplete Story »

Paul Price submits:DeVry (DV) is one of the largest for-profit education companies. DeVry University offers undergraduate and graduate programs in business and technology fields (77% of revenue). Under its health-care segment, Ross University offers medical and veterinarian programs, and Chamberlain College offers nursing degrees. Recently acquired schools add allied health programs. Its professional segment offers review courses through its Becker CPA review and Stalla CFA review programs.-Company profile by Morningstar Complete Story »

Robert Salomon submits: Given my interest in the history and development of universities and colleges, I found today’s article about private college enrollments interesting, though not entirely unexpected (see Enrollment to Drop at a Third of Private Colleges). According to Bloomberg: Almost a third of U.S. private colleges expect freshman enrollment to decline in the 2009-2010 school year as families struggle to pay bills and hold down debt, according to a survey.Complete Story »

Ned Brines submits: July 6th, 2009“Capitalism is the legitimate racket of the ruling class.” - Al Capone 1899-1947Complete Story »