Chad Brand

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• A Turnaround Plan for Best Buy is Not Complicated

  By Chad Brand - September 5, 2012 | Tickers: AMZN, BBY, WMT

  Despite widespread discussions within the retail, investment, and technology communities lately about the issues plaguing electronics retailer Best Buy (NYSE: BBY), the company's lack of major initiatives to regain sales momentum has been surprising. And now there are even more distractions as co-founder Richard Schulze makes a half-hearted (so far) effort to put together a private equity-led offer to buy the company. To me, Best Buy's options are more »

• How Groupon Can Survive and Prosper

  By Chad Brand - August 24, 2012 | Tickers: AMZN, GOOG, GRPN

  Shares of Groupon (NASDAQ: GRPN) hit a new low last Friday, sinking to $4.50 per share, a stunning 77.5% below the November 2011 IPO price of $20.00 and 85% below their $31 peak on that first day of trading. Evercore's Ken Sena downgraded the stock to a "sell" and slapped a $3 target price on the beleaguered daily deals pioneer. 

  Before discussing Groupon's business model more »

• Facebook and Zynga: The Dot-Com Bubble All Over Again?

  By Chad Brand - July 27, 2012 | Tickers: FB, ZNGA |

  The late 1990s dot-com bubble burst because most Internet start-ups never really figured out how to turn eyeballs into earnings. Without viable business models, the companies disappeared. Now more than a decade later it is becoming apparent that the second wave of hot Internet IPOs may face the same problem: turning users into cash.

  With Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) down some 40% from its IPO valuation of more than $100 billion more »

• J.C. Penney’s New Retail Strategy is Confusing Their Marketing Staff Too, Not Just Shoppers

  By Chad Brand - June 4, 2012 | Tickers: JCP, TGT

  On the surface, Ron Johnson’s new strategy for turning around J.C. Penney (NYSE: JCP) seemed like it had potential. By refocusing on core brands and reallocating employees and customers' efforts away from bargain hunting and coupon clipping, the concept is to offer a unique product assortment at everyday low prices (a la Target (NYSE: TGT), one of Johnson’s former employers).

  The company’s new advertising campaign was more »

• One Year Later: Why I'm Selling Coinstar for a Huge Profit

  By Chad Brand - February 7, 2012 | Tickers: CSTR, NCR, NFLX, VZ |

  One of Tuesday's best performing stocks is Coinstar (NASDAQ: CSTR), the owner of Coinstar and RedBox branded kiosks. The stock is trading around $60 per share, up about 18% after a busy 24 hours of news. In addition to reporting very strong fourth quarter sales and earnings, CSTR announced a streaming video partnership with Verizon (NYSE: VZ) and a $100 million acquisition of DVD assets from NCR Corp (NYSE: NCRmore »)

• For Solar Energy Believers, SunPower Has Blue Chip Energy Industry Backing

  By Chad Brand - January 3, 2012 | Tickers: KWT, SPWR, TOT

  Last year it surprised a lot of people when French oil and gas giant Total SA (NYSE: TOT) offered $1.3 billion in cash for a 60% stake in San Jose-based SunPower (NASDAQ: SPWR), a leading solar energy company in the United States. There are plenty of skeptics who believe that without governmental subsidy support around the world, solar energy simply cannot be profitable at the current time.

  Total’s more »

• Oracle's Earnings Scare Gives Investors Great Price on Symantec

  By Chad Brand - December 22, 2011 | Tickers: CTXS, INTC, ORCL, SYMC

  A big earnings disappointment crushed shares of business software provider Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) on Wednesday and most software stocks lost significant ground in sympathy. The logic being that if Oracle is seeing demand soften in the enterprise sector, the same will be true for other corporate IT providers. High multiple stocks such as Citrix (NASDAQ: CTXS) were hit especially hard due to exteme valuation levels for the cloud computing sector more »

• Horrible Sentiment and Deep Discounts Point to Gains for Financials in 2012 and Beyond

  By Chad Brand - December 13, 2011 | Tickers: C, GS, METR

  For those who believe in efficient markets, the financial sector of the equity market probably appears baffling. Bank stocks in particular are absolutely hated on Wall Street these days and their stock prices make little sense as a result. Although the S&P 500 index is down 2% year-to-date through December 14th, the financial sector is the largest loser this year, falling by a stunning 22%. The strange thing is more »

• A Safer Way To Speculate on High-Fliers like Groupon and Netflix

  By Chad Brand - November 29, 2011 | Tickers: GRPN, LULU, NFLX, UA

  Rather than making big directional bets on speculative emerging growth stocks, which often burn investors badly, hedged paired trades offer a way to place bets on highly controversial companies with reduced market risk.