It's one of the few constants in the financial markets… Popular investment ideas are usually losers. As we often preach, it pays to be a contrarian. Or as billionaire investor Warren Buffett has famously said, "Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful." Whatever phrase you choose… whenever the "crowd" is heavily betting one way, it's often a good time to take the other side of that bet. We were reminded of this fact when we saw the Commitments of Traders ("COT") report on the U.S. Treasury market earlier this week… If you're not familiar, the COT is a weekly government report that tracks the bets of different types of traders in different futures markets, including U.S. Treasurys.
Top 5 Warren Buffett Stocks For 2018: Oriental Financial Group Inc.(OFG)
Advisors’ Opinion:
- [By Peter Graham]
Small cap OFG Bancorp (NYSE: OFG) is a diversified financial holding company that operates under U.S. and Puerto Rico banking laws and regulations. Its three principal subsidiaries, Oriental Bank, Oriental Financial Services and Oriental Insurance, provide a full range of commercial, consumer and mortgage banking services, as well as financial planning, trust, insurance, investment brokerage and investment banking services, primarily in Puerto Rico, through 48 financial centers.
Top 5 Warren Buffett Stocks For 2018: T-Mobile US, Inc.(TMUS)
Advisors’ Opinion:
- [By Chris Lange]
24/7 Wall St. took a peek at plans from Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ), AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T), T-Mobile US Inc. (NASDAQ: TMUS) and Sprint Corp. (NYSE: S). We have also provided some of the key highlights from each plan. In a separate post we looked at which companies offer the best service.
- [By Brian Stoffel]
But it was the powerhouse wireless division that probably accounted for most of the workforce growth. After all, AT&T is not the only wireless provider tapping the talent pool: Sprint (NYSE:S)made the 13th-most hires last year, and T-Mobile (NASDAQ:TMUS) came in at No. 21.
- [By WWW.THESTREET.COM]
Sprint was one of the company’s bright spots, with revenue up 4% to 楼910 billion. Sprint is reported to have resumed preliminary merger discussions with T-Mobile Inc. (TMUS) , according to report by Bloomberg Monday morning.
- [By Douglas A. McIntyre]
One of the notable things about the mall is the number of troubled retailers it houses. Long term, this may be bad for the mall’s finances. Macy’s, Abercrombie & Fitch Co. (NYSE: ANF), GameStop Corp. (NYSE: GME) and Gap Inc. (NYSE: GPS) have locations. However, Mall of America has buttressed its tenant list with scores of restaurants and with retailers like Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) and T-Mobile US Inc. (NASDAQ: TMUS), which have very well-financed parents.
- [By Money Morning Staff Reports]
SoftBank also purchased telecom upstart Sprint Corp. (NYSE: S) in 2013. And it is considering deals with other communications giants, including Charter Communications Inc. (Nasdaq: CHTR) and T-Mobile U.S. Inc. (Nasdaq: TMUS)
- [By Adam Levy]
Meanwhile, lower-end competitor T-Mobile (NASDAQ:TMUS) has focused on offering more value to its customers without relying on big mergers with media companies. And while T-Mobile is managing to increase its prices, AT&T and Verizon are seeing many of its customers switch to lower-priced, or at least higher-value, plans — if not switching carriers altogether.
Top 5 Warren Buffett Stocks For 2018: Pacific Mercantile Bancorp(PMBC)
Advisors’ Opinion:
- [By Lisa Levin]
Shares of Pacific Mercantile Bancorp (NASDAQ: PMBC) were down 24 percent to $5.78. Pacific Mercantile Bancorp reported a Q3 loss of $30.5 million on revenue of $10.2 million for its third quarter.
Top 5 Warren Buffett Stocks For 2018: ENERGY TRANSFER PARTNERS(ETP)
Advisors’ Opinion:
- [By Laurie Kulikowski]
Despite any intermediate fluctuations, we have only bad news to report on this stock’s performance over the last year: it has tumbled by 46.65%, worse than the S&P 500’s performance. Consistent with the plunge in the stock price, the company’s earnings per share are down 77.27% compared to the year-earlier quarter. Although its share price is down sharply from a year ago, do not assume that it can now be tagged as cheap and attractive. The reality is that, based on its current price in relation to its earnings, ETP is still more expensive than most of the other companies in its industry.
- [By Craig Jones]
Enterprise Products Partners L.P. (NYSE: EPD) has a too high yield, and Cramer thinks that it is a bargain. He added that the problem is in Energy Transfer Partners LP (NYSE: ETP), which is pulling the whole group down.
- [By Laurie Kulikowski]
Along with the very weak revenue results, ETP underperformed when compared to the industry average of 36.8%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenues plummeted by 55.8%. Weakness in the company’s revenue seems to have hurt the bottom line, decreasing earnings per share.
- [By Laurie Kulikowski]
The debt-to-equity ratio of 1.30 is relatively high when compared with the industry average, suggesting a need for better debt level management. Along with the unfavorable debt-to-equity ratio, ETP maintains a poor quick ratio of 0.86, which illustrates the inability to avoid short-term cash problems.
- [By Paul Ausick]
That includes pipeline companies like Kinder Morgan Inc. (NYSE: KMI), which already operates a pipeline transporting natural gas from Texas into Mexico, and master limited partnerships (MLPs) Energy Transfer Partners L.P. (NYSE: ETP) and TransCanada Corp. (NYSE: TRP), the company that has (so far) failed to get U.S. approval for its Keystone Pipeline expansion from Canada’s oil sands across the U.S. border.
Top 5 Warren Buffett Stocks For 2018: Nature's Sunshine Products, Inc.(NATR)
Advisors’ Opinion:
- [By Lisa Levin]
Non-cyclical consumer goods & services sector was the top gainer in the US market on Tuesday. Top gainers in the sector included Nature's Sunshine Prod. (NASDAQ: NATR), Bridgford Foods Corporation (NASDAQ: BRID), and SunOpta, Inc. (USA) (NASDAQ: STKL).
