Tag Archives: Alyce Lomax

5 Surprising Companies Going Green

By Alyce Lomax

Filed under:

Google / YouTube
When one thinks of environmentally forward-thinking businesses, some companies spring immediately to mind: Whole Foods Market (WFM), Annie’s (BNNY), Patagonia, Seventh Generation, and Method, for example, are all known for their commitment to being green.

However, there are other firms putting a lot of resources into planet-helping initiatives — companies whose green tactics are far less recognized, and may even come as a surprise to you. Let’s take a look at a few.

Huge companies making huge strides

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Motley Fool analyst Alyce Lomax owns shares of Waste Management and Whole Foods Market. The Motley Fool recommends Google, Unilever, Waste Management, and Whole Foods Market. The Motley Fool owns shares of Google, Waste Management, and Whole Foods Market.

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From: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/04/22/5-surprising-companies-going-green/

Tiffany Earnings: An Early Look

By Dan Caplinger, The Motley Fool

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Earnings season is winding down, with most companies already having reported their quarterly results. But there are still some companies left to report, and Tiffany is about to release its quarterly earnings. The key to making smart investment decisions with stocks releasing their quarterly reports is to anticipate how they’ll do before they announce results, leaving you fully prepared to respond quickly to whatever inevitable surprises arise. That way, you’ll be less likely to make an uninformed knee-jerk reaction to news that turns out to be exactly the wrong move.

As a stalwart in the luxury jewelry space, Tiffany has held up very nicely during the recession as upper-income consumers didn’t suffer as much as their less well-off counterparts. But with slowdowns in growth around the world, is the company finally vulnerable? Let’s take an early look at what’s been happening with Tiffany over the past quarter and what we’re likely to see in its quarterly report on Friday.

Stats on Tiffany

Analyst EPS Estimate

$1.36

Change From Year-Ago EPS

(2.2%)

Revenue Estimate

$1.25 billion

Change From Year-Ago Revenue

5.2%

Earnings Beats in Past 4 Quarters

0

Source: Yahoo! Finance.

Will Tiffany shine brighter this quarter?
Over the past few months, analysts have gotten a lot more worried about Tiffany. Earnings-per-share estimates have fallen by $0.06 for the just-ended quarter, and the full-year fiscal 2014 earnings consensus is down $0.32 per share. Yet the stock shows no signs of concern, having risen 15% since mid-December.

Tiffany has already warned that its holiday quarter wouldn’t be as good as investors had hoped. Back in January, the jewelry retailer announced that global sales were up just 4%, with U.S. revenue rising even slower at 3%. Projecting that earnings would come in on the low end of its previously projected range, Tiffany said that high input costs and even some rare discounting activity were responsible for squeezing margins to their lowest level in five years.

Tiffany’s poor results are a symptom of what seems to be a widespread phenomenon in luxury retail. Coach came in with earnings that were light during the holiday quarter, with a 2% drop in same-store sales in North America holding the company back despite stronger international revenue. Meanwhile, online jewelry specialist Blue Nile also disappointed investors despite seeing 31% sales gains for its engagement-ring segment, as its lofty valuation incorporated even higher expectations.

Interestingly, Tiffany filed suit against Costco last month, seeking damages from the warehouse retailer for allegedly selling counterfeit Tiffany diamond rings. Yet as Fool analyst Alyce Lomax argued just after the suit was filed, legal action may indicate weakness on Tiffany’s part.

In its quarterly report, watch for Tiffany to report on the latest conditions in Europe and Asia. If those international markets start to falter more seriously, it could spell another downturn for the jewelry-seller.

Tiffany’s lawsuit probably …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

An Investor's Moral Dilemma

By Brian Stoffel, The Motley Fool

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As a Foolish writer, I try to keep my non-financial beliefs expressed here to a minimum. Most of the time, most of the readers coming to this site do so because they’re looking for help navigating what can be a confusing, chaotic investment landscape. Usually, readers aren’t looking for non-financial advice.

At the same time, its important to remember that investing is a human endeavor. We aren’t robots, and I wouldn’t want us to be. Of course, we want to look out for the well-being of our families by investing wisely. But at the same time, investors often run into moral dilemmas in the process of building out their portfolio.

Our own Alyce Lomax has led the charge here at the Fool, with her Prosocial investing portfolio, to help offer one way of approaching these dilemmas.

I’m not here today to tell you what should or shouldn’t be your moral investing compass — that’s a very personal decision that every investor needs to make for him or herself. Instead, I want to talk about a dilemma I’m having right now, why I’ve been having it, and, more than anything, to at least get a little discussion going here about some of the tough questions we investors face on a daily basis.

Considering a big change to my retirement portfolio
About two years ago, I started a real-life portfolio I dubbed “The World’s Greatest Retirement Portfolio.” The premise was pretty simple: I would be investing $4,000 in each of 10 companies I was calling out and attempting to hold those investments for a bare minimum of three years. The results so far have been encouraging, as the portfolio has returned over 26%, and is beating the broader market by about four percentage points.

I have, however, already broken my promise to hold all 10 stocks for at least three years. Back in Sept. 2012, I decided to part ways with video game company Activision Blizzard .

While visiting my middle-school-aged cousins last year, I observed them playing Activision’s latest iteration of “Call of Duty.” Afterward, I couldn’t get over the glazed-over look they had in their eyes –and the violence and social detachment the game fostered — out of my mind. For me (and not necessarily for you, dear Fool), I just couldn’t hold shares of the company anymore.

In its place, I decided to buy shares of Chinese search engine Baidu . Although I recognized the concerns about the Chinese government holding a tight clamp on the company, I generally think that opening up information to larger portions of the world’s most populous country is a good thing.

Next up for consideration
More recently, I’ve been reconsidering another one of my investments: Coca-Cola . Back when I decided to select the company, I focused on its financial fortitude against competitors, the strength of its dividend, and its undeniable brand reputation.

Don’t get me wrong; when I was a middle …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Profit From These Rapidly Growing Small Caps

By Selena Maranjian, The Motley Fool

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Exchange-traded funds offer a convenient way to invest in sectors or niches that interest you. If you’d like to add some small-cap stocks to your portfolio, the SPDR S&P 600 Small Cap ETF  could save you a lot of trouble. Instead of trying to figure out which companies will perform best, you can use this ETF to invest in lots of them simultaneously.

The basics
ETFs often sport lower expense ratios than their mutual fund cousins. The SPDR ETF‘s expense ratio — its annual fee — is a very low 0.20%. The fund is a bit on the small side, too, so if you’re thinking of buying, beware of possibly large spreads between its bid and ask prices. Consider using a limit order if you want to buy in.

This ETF has performed well, handily beating the S&P 500 over the past three and five years. As with most investments, of course, we can’t expect outstanding performances in every quarter or year. Investors with conviction need to wait for their holdings to deliver.

Why small caps?
It’s common, and reasonable, to invest in lots of large-cap companies, as they’ve typically proven themselves enough to grow large, and tend to have some competitive strengths. But it’s also smart to include smaller companies in your portfolio, as the best of them can grow rapidly and eventually become large caps.

More than a handful of tiny growers had strong performances over the past year. 3D Systems , for example, surged 110%, but it’s been a bumpy ride for investors. Its last earnings report featured big double-digit growth rates, but that wasn’t enough for some, who expect huge things from the 3-D printing industry – including even health-care-related printing (new body parts, anyone?).

Hain Celestial popped 34%, rewarding my socially conscious colleague Alyce Lomax, who added it to her portfolio. The organic food maker is expanding into the promising “Big Yogurtmarket via an acquisition, and its acquisitions have been performing well.

Align Technology gained 23%. It’s behind the fairly well-known Invisalign dental aligner, as well as various CAD/CAM software, and its last earnings report was strong, featuring revenue up 11%. It beat analyst expectations, as well. Analysts at Zacks upgraded  the stock recently.

Other companies didn’t do quite as well last year, but could see their fortunes change in the coming years. Cubist Pharmaceuticals , for instance, gained 8%. Its 2012 revenue gained 23% over 2011, and EPS surged 304%. It has several products on the market, and several more nearing the end of clinical trials. It has also acquired the right to buy in-development pain medication Adynxx, as well as global rights to an antibiotic candidate.

The big picture
A well-chosen ETF can grant you instant diversification across any industry or group of companies — and make investing in and profiting from it that much easier.

With the European …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Why I'm Not Investing in Apple (but You Might Want to)

By Alyce Lomax, The Motley Fool

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When it comes to pro-social investing, Apple’s got some work to do. But given its dominant brand and extremely attractive valuation, you might want to ignore my caveats and jump in. Fool.com columnist Alyce Lomax is sticking to the sidelines. Where do you stand?

There’s no doubt that Apple is at the center of technology’s largest revolution ever, and that longtime shareholders have been handsomely rewarded with over 1,000% gains. However, there is a debate raging as to whether Apple remains a buy. The Motley Fool’s senior technology analyst and managing bureau chief, Eric Bleeker, is prepared to fill you in on both reasons to buy and reasons to sell Apple, and what opportunities are left for the company (and your portfolio) going forward. To get instant access to his latest thinking on Apple, simply click here now.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Why You Should Ignore the Economy

By Alyce Lomax, The Motley Fool

Filed under:

Macroeconomics is an interesting subject. Read all you like about it, but don’t let it rule your investment decisions. You’ll be better off in the long run if you follow this simpler strategy.

What macro trend was Warren Buffett referring to when he said, “This is the tapeworm that’s eating at American competitiveness”? Find out in our free report: What’s Really Eating at America’s Competitiveness. You’ll also discover an idea to profit as companies work to eradicate this efficiency-sucking tapeworm. Just click here for free, immediate access.

The article Why You Should Ignore the Economy originally appeared on Fool.com.

Catch up with Alyce Lomax here or by following her on Twitter @AlyceLomax. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance