John Dorfman Columns category, Page 8

Your neighbor is playing stock-market roulette by buying the stocks he hears about on Reddit’s “Wall Street Bets” forum. You know he may double his money – or lose half of it – in a matter of days. But perhaps frenzied speculation isn’t your style. Is there a sounder way?...

Once a year, I devote this column to a rundown on the stocks I own. Here are the stocks in the model portfolio of Dorfman Value Investments. I own each of them personally and for the majority of my clients. Infrastructure Bipartisan cooperation sometimes seems no more real than the...

“Eating your own cooking” is a good sign in the stock market. When a company’s executives are buying its shares, it often pays for investors to follow suit. Lately, there’s not a lot of buying, and it’s happening at companies you might never have heard of. Here’s a peek at...

Wall Street issues about eight buy recommendations for every sell recommendation. But at times, knowing when to sell is the most important skill in the stock market. Here are six stocks I think you should sell now, if you own them. If you don’t own them, I’d avoid them. And...

Stocks that soar or plunge get all the attention. But sometimes the best buys are in stocks that have done nothing for a while. That’s why, each year around this time, I write about my Do Nothing Club. Members of this club are stocks that are not far from where...

When it comes to picking stocks, most investors go gaga over earnings and pay little attention to a company’s financial strength. I say that a strong financial position is far more important than whether a company “beat consensus” by 10 cents a share in the latest quarter or failed to...

In a crazy-good year for stocks, Robert Zedler, a 91-year-old retiree in Suffolk, Va., won Dorfman’s Three Stock Derby with a 334% return. Despite his age, Zedler’s picks in my stock-selection contest were newish companies. His biggest gainer was Plug Power Inc. (PLUG), a maker of hydrogen fuel cells. That...

I’ve never seen the Old Faithful Geyser in Yellowstone National Park. But I’m grateful to it. Years ago, I named one of my stock screens (computerized stock-picking aids) after it. And it has indeed served me faithfully. I use the screen to help pick stocks for clients, and once a...

For a long time, academics and investors were convinced that small stocks outperform large ones. The theory was that small stocks, because they carry greater uncertainty, sell at a discount to large ones. Investors in the small fry are rewarded for taking extra risk. Proving the theory was difficult. Many...

Only 41 baseball stars have ever made the 30-30 club — the likes of Hank Aaron, Willie Mays and Mike Trout. To make it, you have to hit 30 home runs and steal 30 bases in a season. I have a 30-30 club for corporations. To make it, they have...

When stocks are punished, it’s not always for a good reason. That’s why I compile a quarterly Casualty List of stocks that have been banged up in the latest quarter and which I think have the potential to provide above-average gains. On the whole, the Casualty List has been successful....

I think a big boom is coming in the U.S., which may keep a richly valued stock market out of trouble. But you never know. Some international diversification is usually a good idea. And I think it’s wise now, since U.S. stock valuations are high and interest rates are rising...

It’s been a long time coming, but the great value comeback appears to be underway. The value school of investing, to which I adhere, seeks to find stocks selling for bargain prices compared to their intrinsic net worth. In the 30 years through 2009, value outperformed growth 19 times. That...

All eyes are on Nasdaq. The Nasdaq stock market is home to the big technology companies — the likes of Apple and Microsoft — that dominated the market and provided most of its oomph in 2019 and 2020. In the two years ended in December, the Nasdaq 100 Non-Financial Index...

The chief executive and chief financial officer of Intel Corp. (INTC) both bought Intel shares last month. Robert Swan, chief executive officer, bought more than 27,000 shares, shelling out $1.5 million. His total shareholdings now amount to almost $30 million. George Davis, the CFO, bought a little more than 9,000...

Can you make money going against the Wall Street Bets crowd? Yes, but you can also lose a lot — and fast. Investors and traders who frequent the Wallstreetbets forum, part of the website Reddit, have rammed up stocks with questionable fundamentals such as GameStop Corp. (GME) and AMC Entertainment...

Residents of Nebraska earned a clean sweep of the honors in my 19th annual Derby of Economic Forecasting Talent (DEFT). Contestants entered from Pennsylvania, Virginia, Iowa, Kentucky and even Poland. But none of them won. It must be something in the Nebraska water. Oh yes, Warren Buffett, widely considered the...

Is any price too high to pay for a sizzling stock? The denizens of Wall Street Bets (a hot-stock group on the internet), might say no. They’re wrong. Price still matters, no matter how sexy a stock’s concept. My favorite example of stock market lunacy is chasing stocks that sell...

While many individuals and governments have fallen deeply into debt during the pandemic, many companies have strengthened their balance sheets. Each year (2001-06 and 2011 to the present), I’ve compiled a list of companies that qualify as Balance Sheet Powerhouses. Until now, the largest number of companies that made the...

You might think, in the aftermath of Tesla and GameStop’s huge recent gains, that momentum investing has gone crazy. Maybe so, but momentum stocks were popular even before the Reddit “Wall Street Bets” frenzy. There have always been folks who like to jump onto a speeding train, but they have...

So far, this January looks the way Wall Street folklore says it should. Stock traders talk about the “January effect” and the “January barometer.” The January effect is actually a confluence of three effects. The market in general tends to rise in January. Small stocks usually do better than large....

Not every stock that gets whacked deserves it. Stocks may fall because of bad news that’s real but temporary. They may fall because a company sacrifices short-term profits for long-term benefits. They may fall because investors, moving as a herd, take a dislike to a particular industry. That’s why I...

As a new year gets underway, the four stocks Wall Street analysts love most are Amazon.com, Microsoft Corp., Burlington Stores and Valero Energy (VLO). Should you run out and buy them? No, according to my 22-year study. Analysts’ favorites frequently flop. For example, at the beginning of last year, 15...

Pfizer, Walt Disney and D.R. Horton are among my favorite stocks for the coming year. As you tune up your portfolio for the coming year — a year that hopefully won’t be dominated by a pandemic, as this year was — here are 10 of my favorite stocks to consider....

Perhaps you’ve seen the Energizer Bunny in a battery commercial. It is “still going” long after you’d expect it to fade. That bunny is the namesake for my Bunny Portfolio, a hypothetical stock portfolio I created in 1999. These are stocks that have shown rapid earnings growth (25% or better)...