Meryl Baer

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• Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottages and Two Competitors in the Natural Foods Marketplace

  By Meryl Baer - January 28, 2013 | Tickers: NGVC, TFM, WFM

  Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottages (NYSE: NGVC) is a chain of grocery stores offering natural and organic foods and personal care products. The company, based in Colorado, is expanding but has not yet reached east of the Mississippi River. Therefore millions of us have never seen a Natural Grocers store or heard of the company. Currently there are about 60 stores reaching from Missouri west to Idaho, south to Arizona more »

• Four Natural Food Stocks for Portfolio Health and Profit

  By Meryl Baer - January 21, 2013 | Tickers: BNNY, BDBD, HAIN, WWAV

  The natural and organic foods and personal care products industry is a dynamic, growing business. New products, new companies and new consumers appear daily. Over the past few years the industry has emerged from the fringe marketplace of health nuts and special diet devotees to mass-market acceptance.

  Expansion continues as consumers become more health-conscious, intent on avoiding obesity, minimizing consumption of chemical-laden products, and interested in foods that might relieve more »

• How Sweet It Is When Chocolate Is Everywhere

  By Meryl Baer - December 20, 2012 | Tickers: KRFT, RMCF, HSY, TR

  It is the holiday season and time for chocolate. As an investor I prefer to buy products and services I understand, and I understand chocolate. I also like to invest in things I like and believe others will like and therefore buy. Perusing the grocery store this week there was, in the center of the first aisle, in the middle of all the healthy produce, a large display of chocolates more »

• Product Brands We Love and Two Companies Who Own Them

  By Meryl Baer - December 19, 2012 | Tickers: CL, PG, CLX, UN

  Stores are cornucopias of merchandise marketed to lure us into placing the items in our shopping cart and taking them home. Consumers can be fickle, and corporations are always looking for, or attempting to develop themselves, product blockbusters. Sometimes items are dropped from product lines and other times new ones added to an ever-growing list of corporate assets. The lifeblood of successful companies is selling products consumers buy. As Mae more »

• Profiting On the Rocky Road to Energy Independence

  By Meryl Baer - December 13, 2012 | Tickers: BP, CVX, ICLN, GEX, PBD

  The United States will be the world's largest oil producer by 2020, according to the IEA, the International Energy Agency, and the world’s largest gas producer by 2015. 

  It is about time.

  The world’s first oil well began pumping in Pennsylvania in 1859. Over 100 years later, 1970, the U.S. became a net oil importer. Texas oil wells reduced output as cheap oil flooded the country more »

• Restoration Hardware and Three Additional Mass Luxury Retailers

  By Meryl Baer - November 7, 2012 | Tickers: BRBY, JWN, RH, TIF

  Mass luxury sounds like an oxymoron, but I think it aptly describes the retail category for Restoration Hardware (NYSE: RH), Coach, Steve Madden, and similar companies. Another name for this group might be the low-end luxury market. Products appeal to individuals seeking high-quality, well-known designer names offering a touch of panache at high, barely affordable, prices.

  True luxury-priced goods are beyond the pocketbook of most Americans. The 1% can afford more »

• Two Convertible Bond ETFs to Consider

  By Meryl Baer - November 2, 2012 | Tickers: CVRT.DL, CWB

  I like bonds. Bonds are less volatile than stocks, provide steady interest income, and have an end date. A bond is redeemed at maturity and another can be purchased. I am a buy and hold bond investor, rarely selling before maturity.

  The past few years a lot of companies called high interest bearing bonds, replacing them with securities at a much, much lower interest rate. It has been difficult replacing more »

• Why a Buy and Hold Investment Approach Works Best

  By Meryl Baer - October 29, 2012 | Tickers: AAPL, T, COP, K

  Stock market investing is all about risk. Individuals who do not want to lose money, cannot sleep at night knowing their account could drop in value, or who might need the cash within the next five years, should not invest in the stock market. No investor, including professionals, famous stock pundits and amateurs, bats 100% all the time. Everyone has winners and losers. With a bit of luck and a more »

• The Coach Mystique

  By Meryl Baer - October 22, 2012 | Tickers: COH, FNP, RL

  The Coach Shopping Experience

  I have experienced the Coach (NYSE: COH) mystique first hand, observing customers swoon over the products, watching in awe as one customer after another passed the ultimate test – whipping out their money and purchasing merchandise. I am definitely missing something when it comes to Coach products. I have never been a fan of big handbags and do not even like Coach styles or designs.

  Not far more »

• 2 Sells and 2 Holds for Recovering Companies

  By Meryl Baer - October 20, 2012 | Tickers: AEO, CROX, SBUX, GBX

  The economy teeters between tepid recovery and roaring revival, stagnant slowdown and recession. No one knows where the economy is headed, but everyone speculates. What we know are facts and figures. The third quarter is history and the stock market is doing fine.

  Index	Year End Close 12/31/2011	Third Quarter Close 09/28/2012	2012 Year-to-date Change
  DJIA	12,217.56	13,437.13	10%
  Nasdaq	2,605 more »

• Three Growth Stocks in the Health Food Business

  By Meryl Baer - October 10, 2012 | Tickers: BNNY, STKL, TFM, UNFI, WFM

  I have been on a journey teaching my family and myself the art of eating a healthy, nutritious diet. It occurred to me my research could be used to find companies worthy of my investment dollars.

  The Search for Successful Health Food Stocks

  There are a number of successful health food companies in the marketplace. One of the most successful is Hain Celestial. The company produces and markets a variety more »

• Large Financial Institutions: Profits Over Friendship

  By Meryl Baer - September 25, 2012 | Tickers: AXP, DFS, MA, V

  Large financial institutions are not our friends. They want our business, soliciting us with sweet talk and endless junk mail, urging us to sign on the dotted line.  People think the nice person talking to them across the table, or on the phone, really cares about them. So they shake hands and take out a car loan or home equity line of credit. But miss a payment or have a more »

• Worldwide Diaper and Tampon Demand Bolster U.S. Paper Manufacturers

  By Meryl Baer - September 20, 2012 | Tickers: BKI, IP, MWV

  Who thought the birth of Chinese and Indian babies, as well as infants born in overseas countries would eventually result in the resurgence of an American industry, the re-opening of a U.S. paper mill, and additional American jobs?

  Who could have projected years ago that the increase in demand for personal hygiene products, specifically diapers and tampons, in growing middle class populations around the world might result in a more »

• Spirit Airlines Does Not Soar

  By Meryl Baer - September 18, 2012 | Tickers: DAL, LUV, SAVE, LCC

  Spirit Airlines (NASDAQ: SAVE) is the airline equivalent of your local city transit system. It is cheap, crowded, somewhat chaotic, yet most of the time gets you where you want to go.

  An outperform to market perform downgrade by Raymond James caused Spirit stock to slump during trading September 14^th. The analyst stated, “This is the fourth quarter in a row where we and the Street have overestimated Spirit more »

• Uncle Sam Buys Guns and Butter and Investors Hopefully Buy Winners

  By Meryl Baer - September 15, 2012 | Tickers: ANF, DG, F, LMT, PG, SBUX

  Investment decisions focus on many criteria, including the state of the economy. Stocks rise with a vibrant, expanding economy and fall when the economy contracts. Investing with these trends in mind minimizes portfolio volatility and increases wealth, or at the very least minimizes losses.

  Over 40 years ago we fought a war in Vietnam. The country’s economy was robust and expanding in the mid-1960s. President Johnson thought the country more »

• Smart Balance Caters to Affluent Health-Conscious Consumers

  By Meryl Baer - September 13, 2012 | Tickers: BDBD, CAG, HAIN

  Smart investors seek opportunities in industries and individual businesses about to take off in the marketplace. The market for health foods and natural personal care items is expanding, and one small company competing alongside larger fish is ready to take advantage of the opening.

  Health food sales, however, faltered in recent years as recession-weary, belt-tightening consumers were reluctant to pay additional pennies for organic and health food products. During tough more »

• A Dismal Investment Decade Plus Two

  By Meryl Baer - August 3, 2012 | Tickers: AAPL, DMND, GMCR, SBUX

  It is getting redundant and boring to continually describe the stock market as volatile. But that is what it is and has been for months, if not years.

  Stock market volatility is probably the key word of the twenty-first century investment world to date. Additional words describing the markets over the past decade plus two years are down dog (I know, that is also a yoga term), flat, horizontal, depressed more »