Paul Blenheim, Author at Investing stock

Gladstone Investment Upgraded to “Holds” Rating

October 21, 2015 By Paul Blenheim

Recently trading up 0.40% and reaching $7.49 of their 155,781 shares of stock traded hands, with 52 weeks low of $6.66 and 52 weeks high of $8.25, Gladstone Investment was upgraded by Zacks from a rating of “sell” to “hold”. The company’s stocks had a 200-day moving average of $7.62 and a 50-day moving average of $7.31. Zacks stated, “Gladstone Investment Corporation is an investment company that seeks to make equity-type investments in small and mid-sized private businesses in the U.S.”

from finance.yahoo.com

In their post on August 4, Gladstone Investment reported $0.17 earnings per share for the 3^rd quarter of 2015, missing the consensus estimate of $0.19 by $0.02. According to equities research analysts, the company was expected to post $0.73 EPS in average for 2015. Also, they recently announced a monthly dividend, which will be paid on December 31, 2015, and investors of record on December 18, 2015 will be paid a $0.0625 dividend, which represents a $0.75 dividend on a yearly basis with a 10.01% yield.

Operating as a non-diversified, closed-end management investment company, Gladstone Investment Corporation is a publicly traded business development firm investing in small and moderate-sized private enterprises and seeks to achieve capital gains and returns through equity and debt investments, paying monthly dividends to their stockholders. Based upon small to mid-market companies, the company’s investment funds are making debt and equity investments in the US. Focusing on mezzanine debt, second lien debt, secured and unsecured subordinated loans, as well as real-estate sale leasebacks, the company invests in sectors, such as industrial goods, light and specialty manufacturing, media and communications, company and government services, healthcare services, consumer products and services, energy services, specialty chemicals and transportation. They have Gladstone Management Corporation as their investment adviser.

On a separate note, Jefferies Group initiated coverage on Gladstone on June 30, 2015, issuing a “hold” rating and an $8.00 for the company’s target price.

Keeping Track of Your Stock Market Investments—Cost-Free!

October 20, 2015 By Paul Blenheim

As a new investor, a challenge you’ll face on your road to success is to find a means to efficiently keep track of your stock market investments—a task that’s so important in the business, which applies to monitoring your portfolio and making effective investments. As you may know, useful information can include changes in the stock market itself, as well as social media data, company announcements, relevant news, etc. When you’re about to engage in the exchanges, remember that you’re likely to gamble, where essential stock market data would not lead you to the most profitable investments, nor would it put you in a place where you know when to buy and sell. For a true investment, it’s based upon certain data that would lead you to calculating the chance of profit in a given stock, considering its risk. To maximize your returns, you should keep track of your investments.

What You Should Do

As an investor, you should be aware of your investments and implement extremely sophisticated technology to track the whole stock market and your portfolio. There are many means where you, as a young stock market investor, can make your way onto the scene, with the use of tools that can help you to track your stock market investments for free. Considering that your investment portfolio is your group of assets, there are many ways that allow you to track your stock market investments and can vary in their detail level and data depth, but they can provide you with dynamic and useful vision of your stock performance both in the short and long term.

You manually collect data.

Like other un-missable tools used in the industry, you can manually gather data about your investment portfolio by closely following a web update on the stock market or by gathering stock market data from your prospect company itself. In doing this, you will need to gather additional data by following the company’s social media accounts, news feeds and other information that is collated from any channel you found that is relevant to your investments in the stock market. As you will be able to imagine, this can be extremely time consuming, where it is not likely that it will leave you with data that is very manageable.

You use free apps.

In these modern days, there are solutions here and there that you can use in monitoring your stocks. However, the truth is, almost (or all of them) are not free, where you might pay a small or large amount to be able to use the more sophisticated ones. One suggestion is the “Stockwatch”, a solution that offers stock market data, together with a lot of helpful metrics.

You take advantage of Google Finance.

A highly accessible search engine, Google can offer you access to an array of financial tools, which include free stock market monitoring and portfolio tools that can offer you pretty handy data.

You use the Morningstar portfolio tracker.

For those who are into the stock for a while now, they are using the ever popular site for stock market tracking, the Morningstar. They are an independent company that offers high-quality stock data to their members for free. As for its tools, they include a transaction and watch-list portfolio.

You take advantage of start-ups.

These days, there are new start-ups, such as INDX.guru, that provide free solutions that break down hindrances to information and tracking for new investors. You need not worry about these sites as they use sophisticated software programs.

Now, with these tips, you can keep track of your stock market investments—for free!

Knowing the Difference Between a Stock’s Value and Price

October 20, 2015 By Paul Blenheim

Are you planning to engage in the stock market exchange? Then, you should know that there is a lot of things you should know. One of the essential investment components are knowing the difference between a stock’s value and price, which is very important in assessing the macroeconomic trends when you are investing. Here are some tips you can pick up:

The Issue

Take note that often confounds stock market investors is resolving the difference between a stock’s value and its price. For those who have spent quite some time in the market, they know that these two aspects are different measures that arrive at by different means. A good situation that demonstrates such a principle is the real estate collapse of 2008, where houses, which may have a value derived from appraisals and other means, were sold for substantially less prices.

Stock Value

As investor in the stock market, you can determine the value of a stock by looking at factors, such as past, present and future earnings, market share, sales volume over time, current and potential competitors, metrics and reviewed reports by analysts following the company. As for the analysis, most of it is straightforward and is based upon published figures and facts, though different interpretations of the number are still welcome. As an example, a company that enters a new area of business through acquisition or merger may, or may not, work. As you can see, stock market analysts make a lot of money from sorting out the figures and facts, together with the possibilities of success or failure. Ultimately, they will arrive at value, which is believed to be how the stock should trade on the market.

In a Nutshell

Usually, the price of a stock is at or near the value that discounts daily fluctuations because of a rising or falling market. However, there are instances where prices will be way off the value. Put in mind that the price a stock would trade for is simply the number that a willing buyer or seller would reach and agree for each party. Simply put, a stock, which is sold in a free market, would be worth the amount someone is willing to pay. While stock prices are influenced by the fundamentals over the long term, demand and supply still rule prices of stocks in the short term.

Now, when there are more buyers than sellers, prices will increase, which will be the opposite otherwise. This depends on many factors, such as good or bad news, market trends, economy, economic confidence, earnings, scandals and many more. Basically, traders would be more concerned with prices, while investors would be more concerned with value. Whether it is up or down, traders would live on price changes, making money by figuring out which way prices would move and taking a position to profit if they are right, while investors would rely long term on an appropriate assessment of value, which will guide their buying or selling decisions.

When you take a long-term view on stock investment, it does not mean you should buy and forget. Remember that things will rapidly change, and it is crucial to reassess value on a regular basis. By doing so, it would be unlikely that you will be holding a failing stock, and would be selling one with strong future prospects.

Fortress Investment Is Shutting Down

October 20, 2015 By Paul Blenheim

In his speech at the annual Skybridge Alternatives Conference (SALT) in Las Vegas, president of Fortress Investment Group Michael Novogratz said his company is halted for news pending, with stocks trading up 0.18% at about $5.45 per share. In a recent securities filing, the macro fund fell 4.67% in September 2015 and was down 17.49% year-to-date.

The company announced that it will close the Fortress Macro Funds and return to their investors all capital by the end of 2015. In conjunction with this announcement, the company will redeem all of Novogratz’ Fortress Operating Group Units, which will be repurchased by the company at a price of $4.50. As Novogratz stated, the transaction is subject to completion of the approvals of the board in terms of customary and definitive documentation.

“After careful consideration and analysis, we have decided to close the Fortress Macro Funds and return cash to our investors,” he said. “This was a difficult decision given my confidence in both the research positions we hold and the talent of our team. But we have had an extremely challenging two years, and I do not believe the current environment is conducive to achieving our best results. The recent past does not negate years of hard work and achievement. It has been a rare privilege to lead the Macro team and to serve as a Principal at Fortress.”

CEO Randal Nardone and Fortress co-chairmen Peter Briger and Wesley Edens also made a joint statement, “We are obviously disappointed in this outcome, and we are grateful for Mike’s many contributions to Fortress over the years. While we regret closing a fund that has been productive in the past, we also recognize the market’s reluctance to ascribe value to this strategy even in its best years.” They added, “Looking ahead, all meaningful drivers of business and earnings growth remain in place, embedded value on our balance sheet and in our funds is enormous relative to our market cap, and approximately 90% of our alternative capital will now reside in long-term or unlimited duration structures. We have an exceptional group of businesses in place today, and we have tremendous confidence in the ability of our company to grow and create value in the years ahead.”

Novogratz is also expected to leave the firm.

What You Should Do

The Issue

Stock Value

In a Nutshell

Pages