A contrarian case for U.S. housing
Although housing has been on its back for several years, real estate trends and company fundamentals suggest a contrarian case for housing stocks.
Tag: Global sector
Health-care investing: What is the prognosis for emerging markets?
Over the next 10 years, some of the greatest growth in health-care spending is projected for emerging markets such as China, India, and Brazil. For many reasons, growth opportunities are abundant in developing economies, but selecting health-care stocks, particularly among the smaller-cap companies based in these regions, is not without its challenges.
All that glitters: Golden opportunity?
With political unrest and natural disasters around the world in recent weeks, investors rushed to gold as a safe haven and sent prices soaring. But while investors choose gold for many reasons, they may find that some gold-mining companies are a more attractive investment than the bullion itself.
AT&T speed dials for a bigger network
On March 20, AT&T announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire T-Mobile USA, the fourth-largest U.S. wireless carrier. This deal highlights the future investment potential unleashed by demand for mobile data.
Growing data traffic may power telecom company profits
The convergence of many types of high bandwidth content — especially video — on mobile devices, tablet computers, and Internet–connected television is generating rapid growth in data traffic on telecommunications networks. Forecasts suggest traffic may grow more than 30% annually over the next several years. Telecom companies may be able to translate data traffic into
China’s newly minted wealthy behind luxury-spending surge
While overall consumer spending continues to fluctuate this year between marginal growth and zero growth, luxury spending is experiencing a rebound. Often considered a harbinger for consumer spending in general, global luxury goods sales rose 15% in the first quarter of 2010 alone, compared with a year ago. And many individual luxury companies have reported
China tops U.S. in energy consumption
The International Energy Agency estimates that China has just surpassed the United States in overall energy consumption. What opportunities does this present for investors? Robust growth in China’s energy consumption Consumption of energy in China has doubled over the past decade, and the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that the country has just surpassed the
Does the Novartis acquisition foretell greater M&A activity for pharmaceutical stocks?
Swiss pharmaceutical firm Novartis’s pending bid to acquire majority ownership of Alcon, an eye care products maker, in a deal valued at about $40 billion, stood out against a backdrop of only 3% mergers-and-acquisitions growth across industry sectors globally for the first half of 2010. While we aren’t likely to see many more large-scale mergers,
Consumers benefit, but not all consumer-sector stocks
What are the potential implications for consumer-sector stocks? At the margin, we think the impact of increased regulation and taxation on financial services companies could be negative — particularly for businesses that touch the consumer directly, such as credit card companies. Anything that slows economic growth, increases uncertainty, or decreases confidence is negative. What are