Stocks and Dollars

By Peter Tchir:

I think we all know now what the Fed is thinking. Ben is happy to add more liquidity to the system but is constrained by a group that needs to see bad data before they can support him. I think it is pretty straightforward on the economic data front. Bad data, particularly in jobs and housing will make the Fed react, but it will take some actual bad data, not just “blah” data like we have had the past few weeks.

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By Brad Thomas:

Historically, REIT yields have exceeded dividend yields of most publicly traded stocks, making them ideal for an individual retirement account (IRA) or other tax-deferred portfolio. Their actual dividend yields tend to be somewhat correlated with – and generally higher than – yields on 10-year U.S. Treasury bonds.

It is the dividend consistency (of the REITs) that attracts most investors and the reliability of the income is measured by consistency and sustainability. In 2010, REITs paid out over $18 billion in dividends and that portion of total returns represented around 60 percent of the industry’s average total return (or around 13.75 percent).(Source: NAREIT)

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Ideally, REITs are able to generate dividends and grow capital and the notion of taking “two bites of the apple” is a compelling reason to consider this fixed-income alternative. Conversely, the attraction to the increasingly popular REIT sector is distinguished by the consistency of the

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By Ploutos:

As Seeking Alpha’s growth expands its stable of contributors, the challenge for a given author to present their readership with unique and differentiated content will heighten. When I reflect on what distinctive perspective I can provide, I believe that value for the reader can be created by tying my knowledge base from my role as an institutional portfolio manager to Seeking Alpha’s retail-tilted readership. This article discusses an institutional topic, credit default swap spreads, in a way that hopefully connects with individual investors. Credit default swaps are insurance-like agreements where the seller of protection agrees to compensate the buyer of protection in the event of a default by the underlying company. In exchange, the seller of protection is paid quarterly premiums over the life of the contract. The standard contract is five years, and the spreads below will reference this tenor, but maturities are often quoted from 3 months to

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By Morningstar:

By Patricia Oey

Many investors are aware that Vanguard MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (VWO) and iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index (EEM) (which both track the cap-weighted MSCI Emerging Markets Index) may not be the best vehicles to gain access to the most attractive growth trend in the emerging markets–a rapidly expanding middle class and rising disposable incomes. For example, South Korean and Taiwanese companies, which make up 15% and 11% of the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, respectively, tend to be exporters with significant exposure to North America and Europe. In China (18% of the index), Brazil (14%), and Russia (6%), many of the largest companies tend to be government-owned entities, which, at times, may have to put political interests ahead of profitability. We also note that Indian (6%) and Russian stocks tend to have low floats and not a lot of domestic liquidity, so large foreign fund flows in and

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By Helix Investment Management:

Newly public companies rarely have their stories written in the first few months, or even the first year of trading. As one of the most prominent IPO’s of 2011 Groupon (GRPN) has received a great deal of coverage, both positive and negative. On balance, however, the coverage has tilted towards the negative side, and there has been a substantial impact on Groupon’s stock price.

(click to enlarge)With such a fall in the stock since its IPO, is Groupon now a buy? That is the question we wish to explore. As a matter of disclosure, we hold no position in Groupon stock or options. We would like to remind readers that this article is not intended to recommend Groupon one way or another. We will be presenting a look at both the bullish and bearish theses on Groupon, and readers should draw their own conclusions from those.

Before we delve into

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By TechCrunch:

By Kim-Mai Cutler

One thing that has been remarkable about Facebook (FB) is its willingness to expand in developing markets that many other consumer Internet companies would otherwise write off because they’re hard to monetize.

But that growth abroad plus the company’s increasing headcount and share-based compensation expenses are eating into its operating margins, according to Tuesday’s earnings numbers from a revised IPO filing. Facebook made $381 million in operating income (or 36 percent of its $1.06 billion in revenue) in the first quarter of this year. That’s down from $388 million in operating income (or 53 percent of its $731 million in revenue) from a year ago.

Net income is actually down 12 percent year-over-year to $205 million from $233 million a year ago.

What gives? A couple of things:

1) Share-based compensation is a huge part of it. These expenses came in at $103 million for the first

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strong>By Delian Naydenov:

Xerox (XRX) was founded in 1906 in Rochester but it later relocated to Southern New England where its headquarters are today. The company is known for technological innovation with more than 10,000 active patents. However, its main business of printing has been in distress since the 1990s, caused by the internet and the digitalization of documents. Investors are skeptical about Xerox because it still relies on its printing business with over 40% of revenue generated by this segment in 2011. I think that there is little to be concerned about. Xerox is successfully transforming itself into a service oriented company after the Affiliated Computer Services acquisition in early 2010. The company strategy is to continue to acquire more service oriented competitors in the next few years. From a valuation standpoint, Xerox appears to be undervalued and the stock is a good long-term investment. Also, Xerox is led by a remarkably

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By Michael Johnston:

As the ETF universe has expanded by leaps and bounds in recent years, investors now have tools at their disposal to accomplish almost every objective. From plain vanilla stock and bond indexes to hyper-targeted regional and sector funds, there are ETFs to bet on just about every asset class. And there are also a number of ETFs that can be used to bet against certain asset asset classes, which can be powerful tools for turning a profit in the types of environments that generally bring a sea of red ink to portfolio statements. Inverse ETFs, also known as short ETFs, have become extremely popular for a wide variety of objectives, including as hedging tools and vehicles for speculating on declines in value.

Short ETFs 101

Short or inverse ETFs generally seek to deliver results that correspond to the inverse, or -100%, of the movement in a specified index over a

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