Stock Trading

If you're a fan of the classic 1970s TV show "The Brady Bunch", you know well the plight of Jan. While older sister Marcia was the pretty, do-no-wrong girl-next-door, and younger sister Cindy was a ball of lisping, curly-haired cuteness, Jan was awkward, angst-ridden, and often overlooked as the Bradys' middle daughter. (You may remember her famously complaining that all anyone ever talked about was, "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!")Well, in the stock market right now, a bit of a Brady-Bunch-girls dynamic is occurring among value stocks. According to Morningstar's total return style-box indices, small-cap value stocks are currently trading for about 13.6 times prospective earnings, and their large-cap peers are trading for 12 times prospective earnings. Mid-caps, meanwhile -- the Jan Bradys of the market -- are getting little attention, trading at a just over 10 times prospective earnings.The bargain-basement prices of mid-caps are perhaps a result of

By Dave Forest Commodity guru Don Coxe said opportunities come in sectors where "those who know it best, love it least." The quote fits today's natural gas sector to a T. Gas producers are increasingly bearish on prices for their sector. You can see it in their hedging.Look at the numbers. In 2011, Canadian gas producers surveyed by this letter hedged AECO-sold production at $5.27. Hedge prices have dropped steadily for gas sold since - to $4.27 in 2012, and to $3.29 for currently-hedged production in 2013.The falling hedge price of course makes sense. Natural gas prices fell steadily from the beginning of 2010 through to early 2012. Faced with two years of declines, producers looked to stave off further price risk by forward-selling their output.But something different has been happening since the second quarter of 2012. Gas prices have been rising. The monthly average AECO (the

I have discussed and recommended BP plc (BP) in several of my earlier articles. In a most recent positive development for BP, the RIL (Reliance Industries Ltd.), BP and NIKO partnership announced a significant gas condensate discovery in deepwater KG D6 Block, offshore India. RIL is the operator of KG D6 with 60% equity. BP has a 30% share and NIKO the remaining 10%.According to the press release by BP: The KGD6-MJ1 well was drilled in a water depth of 1,024 metres - and to a total depth of 4,509 metres - to explore the prospectivity of a Mesozoic Synrift Clastic reservoir lying over 2,000 metres below the already producing reservoirs in the D1-D3 gas fields. Formation evaluation indicates a gross gas and condensate column in the well of about 155 metres in the Mesozoic reservoirs. In the drill stem test, the well flowed 30.6 million standard cubic feet

Gold price has been heading south almost in a beeline since last testing resistance at $1800 unsuccessfully early in October 2012. In mid-April, the spot price fell through several support levels and the new-normal $1400 represents the glass ceiling that needs to be overcome. More down side seems possible in the short term and not everyone is convinced that the bull market for precious metals will continue anytime soon. Mining stocks have been dragged down by the underlying metal; in fact gold miners have underperformed the yellow metal as shown in the diagram below comparing the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX) with the price of gold represented by the SPDR Gold Trust ETF (GLD). Also shown is the Market Vectors Junior Gold Miners ETF (GDXJ) which fared even worse than its big brother. The chart shows price developments since the start of 2012. The 2012 summer low

With the most recent reports for key competitors of Apple (AAPL), the news is more bleak than expected, causing consternation and frustration for those looking for an Apple rebound. There are simply no catalysts in the pipeline or existing products that will change the course of the giant tech company in the near term.It's surely not going to be some type of iWatch, and Microsoft (MSFT) is already taking the lead over the non-existent Apple TV. If and when Apple ever gets an Apple TV out there, Microsoft will have already moved to another stage with its Xbox One, which is poised to be what Apple TV was hoping to be.That of course leaves its iPhone as the core product of the company - both now and in the next couple of years - and that isn't a compelling story at all. (click to enlarge) Samsung

We'd like to stop talking about the Federal Reserve so regularly. We really would. Unfortunately, we can't. The brave new world in which the stock market lives revolves around the Federal Reserve's monetary policy.With the latter in mind, and considering there was a good bit of hoopla this week around the issue of the Fed tapering its asset purchases sooner than expected, we felt compelled to provide an addendum to our Fed piece from earlier this week, Stock Market Not Ready to Handle Tapering Truth.The hoopla was borne out of Fed Chairman Bernanke's testimony before the Joint Economic Committee and the release of the minutes for the April 30-May 1 FOMC meeting on Wednesday. Each provided some headline fodder, yet neither provided new insight on the Fed's governing influence in making policy decisions.Incoming data has been, is, and will be the determining factor for any adjustments

American Capital Agency Corp. (AGNC) is a Nasdaq-listed mortgage real estate investment trust with a market capitalization of ~$11 billion and assets on the balance sheet as of 3/30/13 totaling ~$93 billion. AGNC owns, manages, and finances a portfolio of real estate related investments, including mortgage pass-through certificates, collateralized mortgage obligations, callable debentures and other securities backed by pools of mortgage loans.The bulk of AGNC's assets consist of mortgage-backed securities and debentures issued by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or Ginnie Mae (together, "Agency Securities"). AGNC relies primarily on short-term borrowings to acquire Agency Securities with long-term maturities. The shape of yield curve, the spread between returns on assets owned and the interest paid on amounts borrowed to purchase these assets, and amount of leverage (the bulk of which is generated via the repurchase markets) are the key drivers of profitability.AGNC currently yields ~18.2%. However, investors familiar with my

Ryanair (RYAAY) just announced record annual profits of €569 million ($736 million). It expects to break that total this financial year, with predicted profits of between €570 million ($737 million) and €600 million ($776 million). The Irish airline had 79 million passengers last year and it plans on expanding that number with an aggressive expansion strategy, including a number of new routes and with legacy airlines in their sights. Importantly, with Europe deep in economic crisis still, increasing numbers of passengers choose to fly low-cost with Ryanair. With a P/E ratio of 18.52 compared to the industry average of 12.43, according to Reuters, the future looks very bright for Ryanair. (click to enlarge) Growth Potential Ryanair is planning to significantly expand its operation at Dublin airport, according to recent report in the Irish Independent. While rumors of a move across the Atlantic persist, they are not on the agenda right

Is the Federal Reserve asleep at the wheel? If it is seriously considering ending quantitative easing now, I would have to say it is. Furthermore, Chairman Bernanke's crew would be blind at the wheel if it were considering raising interest rates this year. Fortunately, I do not believe the Fed is contemplating a near-term action, but unfortunately, it failed to communicate that clearly enough this week.The testimony of Chairman Bernanke to the Joint Economic Committee and the FOMC Meeting Minutes release that followed set stocks in motion downward, and raised a specter of doubt in Fed wisdom. The SPDR S&P 500 (SPY), SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average (DIA) and the PowerShares QQQ (QQQ) closed the period lower by 1.0%, 0.2% and 1.2%, respectively, but the week was much more tumultuous than the end result makes it to appear. Chart at Yahoo Finance The market may end up being justified

Shares of teen retailers Aerospostale (ARO) and Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) are both down around 9 percent as of this writing Friday afternoon, as fiscal first quarter results from both companies came in not only below analyst expectations, but at near-disastrous levels.At Aeropostale, the quarter saw a net loss of 16 cents per share, a huge swing from a 13 cent per share profit a year ago. Same-store sales (including e-commerce transactions) were down a stunning 14 percent from the year-prior quarter. Meanwhile, the company's second quarter guidance was for another loss, between 15 and 20 cents, compared to a breakeven fiscal second quarter a year ago.At Abercrombie, the company revised its fiscal 2013 guidance to $3.15-$3.25 per share, below previous guidance of $3.35-$3.45 and well below analyst estimates of $3.49 per share for the year. Comps at A&F showed a 15 percent decrease