Browse by ▼

Daniel Ferry

Editor's Choice

  • Surprise Winners of the Natural Gas Boom

    By Daniel Ferry - July 20, 2012 | Tickers: GLOG, GLNG, RDS-B, TGP, WPRT | Editor's Choice

    The rise of hydraulic fracturing has unlocked vast new reserves of natural gas, and despite environmental concerns, American natural gas is set to become an increasingly important source of energy. A lot of excitement surrounds innovative companies like Westport Innovations (NASDAQ: WPRT) using natural gas to power vehicles as well as boring old electricity utilities building natural gas-powered plants. Such investments in demand capacity, however, will take years to reach more »

  • Reports of Bricks-and-Mortar's Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

    By Daniel Ferry - July 13, 2012 | Tickers: AMZN, AAPL, COST, HD, LOW, WFM | Editor's Choice

    This week, shares of appliance and electronics retailer hhgregg tumbled after the company announced that, under heavy pressure from Internet retailers like Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN), it was cutting profit outlook. The company's plunge brought Best Buy down with it, triggering a renewed round of speculation about the imminent demise of bricks-and-mortar retailers. It's time to step back and remember this is not the first time we've more »

  • Digging for Pay Dirt in European Markets: France Telecom

    By Daniel Ferry - July 13, 2012 | Tickers: T, FTE, TEF, VZ, VOD | Editor's Choice

    Last weekend, customers of the largest telecommunications provider in France endured a nine-hour blackout of phone and Internet service. Customers were furious, and the company will have to pay compensation, estimated to cost “several dozen million euros.”

    Yet shares of the firm barely budged. Why? Perhaps because the company, after being battered by the recession and the ongoing financial turmoil in Europe, simply doesn't have much further to fall more »

  • Digging for Pay Dirt in European Markets: Veolia Environnement

    By Daniel Ferry - July 11, 2012 | Tickers: AWK, WTR, RSG, VE, WM | Editor's Choice

    For the past few years, Europe has been embroiled in a financial crisis that never seems to end, always teetering on the brink of collapse without quite falling over. The reluctance of politicians to move decisively to settle the issue in one way or another has introduced so much uncertainty that capital has fled Europe in droves.

    While this is certainly a reasonable response when faced with the potential collapse more »

  • Barclays' Admission of Moral Bankruptcy is Just the Beginning

    By Daniel Ferry - July 5, 2012 | Tickers: BAC, BCS, C, HBC, JPM | Editor's Choice

    “Duuuude,” begins a note that will go on to exhort committing fraud on a global scale, “what's up with ur guys 34.5 3m fix... tell him to get it up!” The writer was attempting to get the recipient to knowingly falsify a three month interest rate upwards, so that the writer could profit. The note emerged in an investigation of Barclays PLC (NYSE: BCS) for attempting to manipulate more »

  • Why Investors Should Demand Employee Satisfaction

    By Daniel Ferry - July 5, 2012 | Tickers: COST, GOOG, QCOM, SBUX, WFM | Editor's Choice

    What do Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), Whole Foods (NASDAQ: WFM), Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX), Costco (NASDAQ: COST), and Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) have in common? They were the five highest ranked publicly-traded companies in Fortune's 2007 Best Companies to Work For ranking with over 5,000 employees. All of them still rank amongst the best companies to work for in 2012, and four out of five have outperformed the market since then more »

  • Enterprise Software Firms Rush to Plant a Stake in the Cloud

    By Daniel Ferry - July 3, 2012 | Tickers: AMZN, MSFT, N, ORCL, CRM | Editor's Choice

    Enterprise software is typically a staid field. Customers in this industry tend to be sticky: businesses often stay with their incumbent provider due to the high switching costs of retraining staff and IT departments for a new system. This has been especially true while business software required physical installation on local machines.

    However, as storage and processing increasingly takes to the cloud, companies are rethinking their software needs. Cloud computing more »

  • Breaking Up the Banks — Can Investors and Occupiers Agree?

    By Daniel Ferry - July 2, 2012 | Tickers: BAC, C, GS, JPM, MS | Editor's Choice

    “Break up the banks” might sound like a rallying cry for Occupy Wall Street. But increasingly, restructuring the largest banks and spinning off their different business lines looks like an attractive strategy for investors.

    There have been a lot of reasons advanced for dismantling the nation's largest banks: their concentration of market share resembles an anti-competitive oligopoly, their centrality to the financial system makes the entire economy more vulnerable more »

  • Defense Contractors Stare Down Fiscal Cliff

    By Daniel Ferry - July 2, 2012 | Tickers: GD, LMT, NOC, RTN, BA | Editor's Choice

    Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT), America's largest defense contractor, announced on Thursday that unless something is done soon to prevent automatic budget cuts to defense, it may be forced to issue tens of thousands of layoff notifications—mere days before the presidential election. The cuts will begin to take effect in January. Lockheed claims that, due to a law requiring companies to give 60 days notice for layoffs, it is more »

  • The Battle for the Living Room

    By Daniel Ferry - June 29, 2012 | Tickers: AMZN, CBS, NFLX, TWX, DIS | Editor's Choice

    If Netflix is losing the battle for the living room, then Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) is winning. The company gets bashed often and eagerly by early adopters for failing to adapt to a changing television environment. Time Warner is seen as particularly stodgy compared to innovators entering the space: Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX), Hulu, and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN). I believe, however, that Time Warner recognizes these threats, and has taken steps more »

  • J.C. Penney is not Apple -- the Power and Peril of a Brand

    By Daniel Ferry - June 21, 2012 | Tickers: AAPL, COST, JCP, TGT, WMT | Editor's Choice

    News this week that J.C. Penney (NYSE: JCP) president Mike Francis is resigning “effective immediately” will leave new CEO Ron Johnson in control of J.C. Penney's marketing and merchandising. Last year Johnson came to J.C. Penney to execute a turnaround, after developing the successful Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) retail stores. With previous experience bringing exclusive designer lines to Target (NYSE: TGT), he seemed a natural fit.

    But more »

  • Panama Canal Expansion will Change the Landscape for Freight

    By Daniel Ferry - June 20, 2012 | Tickers: CNI, CSX, EXPD, NSC, UNP | Editor's Choice

    A century after opening, the Panama Canal is due to inaugurate a third set of locks in 2014. This added capacity will not just increase the throughput of the canal, it will also accommodate significantly larger vessels. Today, the Panama Canal is one of the most notorious bottlenecks in global trade, with a particular class of ship, the Panamax, designed specifically to be the largest vessel that can still fit more »

  • Could Microsoft's Tablet be as Successful as the Zune?

    By Daniel Ferry - June 19, 2012 | Tickers: AMZN, AAPL, ARMH, INTC, MSFT | Editor's Choice

    Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) announced ambitious plans on Monday to produce a tablet computer, competing for the fast-growing segment alongside the likes of Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPad and Amazon's (NASDAQ: AMZN) Kindle Fire. The Microsoft Surface comes with a keyboard built into its cover, a magnesium case, and two available versions -- a basic Surface running WindowsRT with processors from ARM Holdings (NASDAQ: ARMH) and a Surface Pro model running more »

  • Buffett is Too Optimistic on Housing

    By Daniel Ferry - June 19, 2012 | Tickers: BAC, BRK-B, FIG, WFC | Editor's Choice

    Warren Buffett doubled down on residential real estate this week, announcing on Monday that his Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-B) was bidding to acquire the bankrupt mortgage originator Residential Capital LLC (ResCap), including its loan portfolio, for $3.85 billion. Buffett appears to be willing to pay up for the assets, as Berkshire's entry into the process is likely to start a bidding war with ResCap's favored buyer Nationstar more »

  • Will Smartphones Make Credit Cards Obsolete?

    By Daniel Ferry - June 15, 2012 | Tickers: AXP, DFS, MA, SBUX, V | Editor's Choice

    Sitting at a Starbucks today, I realized I'd forgotten my wallet – but I had already paid for my coffee. As always, I had used the Starbucks app on my phone to pay, which displays a code that scanners can read, deducting the purchase from the balance on your Starbucks account. Flashing my phone is faster and more convenient for me and for Starbucks. If you're a credit card more »

  • Finding the Right Market for the Electric Car

    By Daniel Ferry - June 14, 2012 | Tickers: F, GM, TSLA, ZIP | Editor's Choice

    The economics of the electric car rest on a flawed model; namely the ownership model. When an individual purchases a car, one takes a stake in the continued value of that car. When we pay a big premium for a vehicle, we expect that it will remain valuable for some time. For a new electric car, the battery accounts for a significant amount of the entire price. For example, the more »

  • Diageo's Whiskey Acquisitions Make for a Top Shelf Investment

    By Daniel Ferry - June 11, 2012 | Tickers: BEAM, BF-B, KO, STZ, DEO | Editor's Choice

    In a time of economic uncertainty, one thing is guaranteed: people are going to drink. Lost your job? Drown your sorrows in a beer. Got a new one? Pop the champagne. Truly, any event whatsoever appears to be a legitimate reason to imbibe. And no company is better positioned to profit from the place alcohol holds in our hearts (and livers) than Diageo (NYSE: DEO), a global company with strong more »

  • Beware the Productivity Bubble

    By Daniel Ferry - June 11, 2012 | Tickers: AAPL, BAC, COST, LNKD, PAYX | Editor's Choice

    A big success story coming out of the recession has been the stock market recovery. Though prices have been volatile, overall the S&P 500 is up 80% since early 2009. Despite these gains, stocks still don't appear overvalued. Fears of another stock bubble have been calmed by the observation that the S&P 500's current aggregate price to earnings ratio is a hair under 15, its historical more »

  • Delta CEO Calls for More Corporate Welfare, Praises Free Markets

    By Daniel Ferry - June 11, 2012 | Tickers: DAL, UAL, LCC, DIS | Editor's Choice

    In an impressive display of cognitive dissonance, Delta (NYSE: DAL) CEO Richard Anderson proclaimed this week that the US government should let the free market go to work in the airline sector, by using taxpayer money to subsidize the industry. In an interview with Robert Siegel on All Things Considered, Anderson advocated making a “volitional determination that the airline industry is a strategically important industry for the U.S.” (which more »

  • Disney Bans Advertising Unhealthy Food to Children

    By Daniel Ferry - June 8, 2012 | Tickers: MCD, PEP, TWX, VIA, DIS | Editor's Choice

    Anybody who's ever spent a grueling 12 hours at a theme park with tired, sore children in tow would have an easy time associating Disney (NYSE: DIS) with the Darwinian struggle for survival. But the company has taken “survival of the fittest” to new heights with their announcement on Tuesday that they will no longer accept advertisers that market unhealthy foods to children on Disney's networks. This new more »

  • Page 1 of 2