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5 Stocks to Sell in March

Stocks to Sell in March: Big 5 Sporting Goods Corporation (BGFV)

Stocks to Sell in March: Big 5 Sporting Goods Corporation (BGFV)

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When I think of stocks to sell, Big 5 Sporting Goods Corporation (NASDAQ:BGFV) comes immediately to mind. Unfortunately, BGFV suffers from two double whammies: a terribly poor retail environment for sports equipment, and rising outcry over gun violence.

My first point is obvious. A surefire way to fail in business is to open a sporting goods store. The more specific the endeavor — in this case, outdoors sports — the more likely you’ll fail. Consider that in the past few years, specialty retailers Golfsmith and Eastern Outfitters filed for bankruptcy. Additionally, big name stores like Sports Authority and Sport Chalet closed their operations.

As a forgotten side note, the upside to BGFV stock is extremely limited. Even worse, the company will have to deal with the stigma of selling guns and ammunition. That in and of itself wouldn’t be a significant problem if it weren’t for the fact that Big 5 sells boring guns at ridiculous premiums.

Whenever gun control fears spike, people buy out politically targeted firearms; namely, the maligned AR15 and Kalashnikov-style rifles. Unfortunately, Big 5 doesn’t sell these guns. Instead, they offer shotguns, bolt-action rifles among other firearms. Thus, they deal with the stigma without any of the “benefit.”

That’s bad news for BGFV stock, and I don’t think circumstances will improve.

Stocks to Sell in March: New York Times Co (NYT)

Stocks to Sell in March: New York Times Co

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The bear case for New York Times Co (NYSE:NYT) is a tough pill to swallow for me. Last year, I stated that NYT stock will win big in the era of “fake news.” No matter what side of the political spectrum you belong, we can say that everyone loves drama. Despite the NYT obviously not liking President Trump, he ironically gave the Times a reason to exist.

Since I last wrote about NYT stock, shares have gone up a whopping 67%. On a year-to-date basis, the Times has, in my view, inexplicably gained nearly 34%. I was bullish on this iconic news organization, but I think enough’s enough. The rally has gone too far, too fast and it’s time for a pullback.

Supposedly, rising sales in digital advertising and digital-only subscriptions contributed heavily to NYT stock. I say big deal. Not only are we experiencing a media revolution in which mainstream outlets are falling behind, people simply don’t get their news from the news anymore. How else can you explain Alex Jones’ popularity?

We live in a world where conspiracy theorists are given a (generous) platform simply because they’re not mainstream. And while NYT benefits from Trump scandals, I think the American people have had enough.

NYT stock deserves to be up, but not by this much!

Stocks to Sell in March: Jack in the Box Inc. (JACK)

When I was growing up, eating a McDonald’s Corporation (NYSE:MCD) Big Mac was considered a rite of passage. Today, it’s rightfully considered child abuse. That’s why I was so shocked when I read our Will Ashworth’s latest piece on MCD. Mind you, I don’t care that he’s bullish on the company. Rather, I was floored when he gladly admitted to eating the stuff!

Joking aside, American public sentiment towards fast food is sharply declining. Most people are concerned about their health than ever before, particularly the younger generation. With several fast food companies having made strong gains in recent years, I think now is a great time to take profits. This goes double for smaller eateries like Jack in the Box Inc. (NASDAQ:JACK).

The McDonald’s eating Ashworth made strong points about MCD, noting their aggressive push into budget meals and food deliveries. You combine this with their overall image renovation, and you have an outperformer in a soon-to-be-declining industry. McDonald’s can afford to do this. I’m not so sure that JACK can pull it off.

While I appreciate Jack in the Box’s humorous commercials, the competition moving forward will be fierce. McDonald’s has the brand, the locations, and the resources. JACK has funny advertisements. Beyond that, its shares’ technical volatility concerns me.

JACK stock enjoyed a stellar run from 2016, but it’s time to take some profits off the table.

Stocks to Sell in March: Twitter Inc (TWTR)

Stocks to Sell in March: Twitter Inc (TWTR)

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Admittedly, I’m not the social media platform’s biggest fan. Therefore, it’s no surprise that I’ve been rather dim on Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR). While TWTR stock’s recent meteoric rise has been nothing short of stunning, I don’t like to chase momentum. I especially don’t like to chase investments that are not fundamentally sound.

Say what you want about the nearer-term trading opportunities for TWTR; its organizational structure is pure chaos. As my InvestorPlace colleague Dana Blankenhorn explained, COO Anthony Noto left the company to seek greener pastures. We all know that head executive Jack Dorsey is a part-timer. Blankenhorn writes that “Twitter has lost its adult supervision.” I do not disagree.

A breaking Reuters story, though, offers a contrasting take. TWTR is gaining both subscribers and ad revenues in Japan. The implication is that Twitter can duplicate the Japanese success in other markets.

To that, I say, good luck. Things are different in Japan. Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) isn’t the undisputed, dominant social media platform. The Japanese prefer the Yahoo search engine over Alphabet Inc’s (NASDAQ:GOOG,NASDAQ:GOOGL) ubiquitous Google.

Even if Twitter manages to turn Japan into its own powerhouse asset, one country won’t solve its problems. Specifically, its subscriber growth is stagnating and until they figure that out, TWTR is just floating on empty speculation.

Stocks to Sell in March: Dillard’s, Inc. (DDS)

Stocks to Sell in March: Dillard's, Inc. (DDS)

Source: Shutterstock

Business owners always fear market saturation, but in reality, saturation in and of itself isn’t a problem. Issues arise when the underlying industry cannot support the present number of competitors; that’s when market saturation rears its ugly head. I believe that head is turning quite aggressively against Dillard’s, Inc. (NYSE:DDS).

With e-commerce giants like Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) tearing into market share, being a specialty department store was always going to be a challenge. What brick-and-mortars had to their advantage was the apparel industry: you don’t know if something is going to fit you until you try it. But because every other brick-and-mortar have rebranded their businesses, DDS looks ancient.

It lacks Nordstrom, Inc.’s (NYSE:JWN) pizzazz. More people recognize the Macy’s Inc(NYSE:M) brand than Dillard’s. Neither of the companies have investors aching to buy their respective shares. Unfortunately, the physical retail market is shrinking, and DDS is the odd man out.

But the most important point to consider is the technical argument. On a year-to-date basis, DDS stock is up nearly 36%. Does it, or any other specialty department store, deserve to be up this high so quickly? I seriously doubt it, which is why I placed DDS on this stocks to sell list.

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Source: Investor Place 

Cryptocurrency

4 Bitcoin Alternatives That You Need for 2018

Bitcoin Alternatives: NEM

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I first featured NEM as a cryptocurrency idea for our InvestorPlace readers last October. With a then-price of less than 21 cents, NEM was one of the cheapest major altcoins available. Given that my article was one of the most heavily visited on the topic, I sincerely hope my readers acted on my suggestion. Today, the NEM price is a dime under $2.

If you’re doing the calculations, NEM jumped approximately 800% in two-and-a-half months. You will not find such performance buying and holding equities in the pedestrian stock markets. My absolutely best stock idea, Bitcoin Investment Trust (OTCMKTS:GBTC), gained only 447% in half-a-year’s time. In contrast, you can take smaller-sized risks with altcoins, and make more money than you would in the traditional markets.

Of course, most people might get discouraged about the 800% move, thinking that the best is behind us. Consider, though, the remarkable case of ripple. Like NEM, ripple is a heavily diluted token, with nearly 39 billion coins in circulation. That hasn’t stopped ripple jumping from 19 cents to nearly $4 in the past three months.

More importantly, NEM arguably has a better blockchain. While ripple is exclusively focused on streamlining bank transactions, the NEM blockchain is open to multiple applications. Furthermore, businesses are attracted to NEM because its blockchain is scalable to increasing demand.

Given the success of similar altcoins, you’d be crazy not to try your hand at NEM!

Bitcoin Alternatives: Ethereum

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Prior to the aforementioned ripple coin’s rally, ethereum used to be the number-two cryptocurrency by market capitalization. Despite ripple’s shocking price explosion, ethereum still commands tremendous respect. Coinbase, the world’s most popular cryptocurrency exchange, offers ethereum on its trading platform, not ripple. But it might surprise some newcomers that ethereum isn’t the original coin that bears its name.

That honor belongs to ethereum classic. The entire story of how ethereum and ethereum classic were born is beyond the scope of this article. But a long story short, in the run-up to creating a fully-fledged market for the original ethereum, a hacker exploited a loophole in the system, draining out ether tokens. The crypto community panicked as ethereum backers debated on a solution.

A consensus of supporters decided to create a hardfork of the ethereum blockchain. However, a significant amount of dissenters existed. They objected to the hardfork on the basis that it violated the immutable principle of a blockchain application. Rather than follow the new blockchain pathway, the dissenters remained on the original. Thus, ethereum classic came to existence.

The hardforked ethereum is what most investors today get excited about, and for good reason. Its price will very likely hit and exceed $1,000. However, ethereum classic is the better deal. At under $33, if the original could duplicate half of the offshoot version’s success, it would be a phenomenal investment.

Bitcoin Alternatives: Steem

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The biggest hesitation that investors have against altcoins is that they must spend real money to acquire virtual currencies. We often hear criticisms that bitcoin is simply vapor that is destined to vanish, eliminating billions of actual dollars. But what if there was a way to acquire cryptocurrencies for free? Steem is the answer to this seemingly rhetorical question.

The steem coin is the underlying cryptocurrency of Steemit, a blockchain-powered social media platform. Unlike Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) or Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR), regular folks can earn money through posting original content. Before you dismiss Steemit as a too-good-to-be-true fairy tale, take a look at the network’s top earners. With just one post, you can make hundreds of dollars, even thousands.

Better yet, you can transfer the steem coins you earn to a third-party exchange like Bittrex. Using my Bittrex beginner’s guide, you can easily sell your steem coins for bitcoin. From there, you have access to hundreds of altcoins. Using the Steemit network is undoubtedly the least riskiest way of building a cryptocurrency portfolio.

However, there is a catch: it’s very difficult to build a profitable steem account through blogging alone. In order to “juice up” your profitability potential, you can purchase “steem power” coins. This of course is a capital risk.

But with most major altcoins flying through the roof, getting involved with steem today could pay huge dividends later.

Bitcoin Alternatives: Stellar

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It’s hard to imagine any asset priced below a dollar as having a solid profitability potential. Hardened market investors understand that penny stocks are usually only attractive because of their unit price. However, with youth comes blissful ignorance. While older investors avoid cheap investments like the plague, Millennial cryptocurrency investors run to them like flies on stink.

When it comes to the digital markets, though, it pays to listen to youth. This is particularly the case for stellar. A little more than a week ago, stellar traded hands at 22 cents. At time of writing, the digital token came within striking distance of a buck. That’s serious performance given the ridiculously short time frame.

More importantly, I think stellar has additional room to run. Unlike the scalability-challenged bitcoin, the stellar blockchain closes transactions within seconds, not hours or days. As the blockchain concept becomes an everyday reality, transaction speed will be critical.

Furthermore, stellar extends the lightning-quick transactions to fiat currencies. For example, users can swiftly convert dollars to euros, rather than relying on cumbersome and expensive banking institutions. Recognizing the potential, International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) uses the stellar blockchain to develop a payments system with large banks.

With so much opportunity, and an accessible price point, stellar is one of the best altcoins to buy in 2018!

Can a $10 Bill Really Fund Your Retirement? The digital currency markets are delivering profits unlike anything we’ve ever seen. ​23 recently doubled in a single week. And some like DubaiCoin have jumped as much as 8,200X in value in 18 months. It’ unprecedented... but you won’t receive any of the rewards unless you put a little money in the game. Find out how $10 could make you rich HERE. ​

Cryptocurrency

4 Cryptocurrencies to Buy If You Missed the Boat on Bitcoin

Not known for providing conventional trading dynamics, bitcoin prices again shocked the world, this time exceeding $8,000. At this juncture, we may be standing on a critical inflection point. For those that believe that cryptocurrencies are in a bubble, the present bitcoin prices are a perfect argument. But to crypto supporters, the dramatic rise only proves the viability of the digital markets.

I’ve written extensively about cryptocurrencies, and I’ve traded them as well.

But even I have to admit that the meteoric skyrocketing of bitcoin prices is a shocker. I’m not so surprised in terms of nominal targets: a few months back, I wrote about the not-so-crazy case for $10,000 bitcoin. My InvestorPlace colleague, Will Ashworth, did the same. Rather, the speed at which bitcoin prices accelerated caught me flatfooted.

Obviously, I stand with virtual currency supporters. My personal view is that if cryptocurrencies were a bubble, it would have popped by now. While I get why investors are hesitant to jump onboard what appears to many as internet tokens, we shouldn’t underestimate how much information we have available today.

If Google was around during the tulip-mania era, I doubt that so many people would have lost their life savings. And in the same logic, we hear so many stories about bitcoin prices being unsustainable. This is a bull market that has had every opportunity to collapse.

Still, bitcoin prices today represent a considerable risk. Not too many can afford to plop down more than eight grand for a single coin. But if you feel that you missed the boat, don’t worry! The following cryptocurrencies are much more reasonably priced, and have greater return potential. 

Cryptocurrencies to Buy: Bitcoin Cash

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Cryptocurrencies to Buy: Bitcoin Cash

On Aug. 1, 2017, virtual-currency investors learned firsthand the strange beauty of a “hard fork.”Yes, I’m sure the granular programming details are sublime for tech geeks. However, most folks recognize this date as the day when they received “free money.”

Bitcoin Cash was born as an offshoot currency from Bitcoin. In recent years, the enormous popularity surrounding cryptocurrencies meant that the original digital token could not satisfactorily handle transaction volumes. Bitcoin had to be upgraded, but as a decentralized platform, this would require consensus. That consensus never came, resulting in a new platform: Bitcoin Cash.

For Bitcoin holders prior to the hard fork date, they received an equivalent unit of Bitcoin Cash. At first, the offshoot currency soared to the moon, and then crashing down. Now, it’s back up to the moon, or nearly $1,200.

But more so than free money, Bitcoin Cash does indeed solve Bitcoin’s onerous and costly transactions. One of the personal oddities that I’ve experienced is that the original token doesn’t scale its transaction cost. It doesn’t matter if you want to send $1 or $1,000 of value — the cost is the same.

The other problem is that Bitcoin’s transaction speeds are deathly slow. Several years ago, transactions were nearly instantaneous. Now, it’s not unusual to wait days for your payments to go through. It’s maddening, which is why Bitcoin Cash could really be the next Bitcoin.

Cryptocurrencies to Buy: Ethereum

When Bitcoin first emerged, early adopters viewed it as an alternative payment mechanism. That obviously caught the attention of unscrupulous characters, who used the medium for illicit purposes, outside of prying government eyes. But what if a cryptocurrency could do more than just transfer value from one party to another? This is where Ethereum comes into play.

Underlining Ethereum is the “smart contract” concept. This is similar to all other contracts except for one significant difference: no intermediary party, such as an attorney, exists. The terms of the contract are stored in a distributed ledger that is immutable. Furthermore, any contractually-bound payouts won’t occur until the agreed-to terms are fulfilled. Artificial intelligence essentially governs this process, which ironically, people trust more than human intelligence.

Because Ethereum has a much broader scope than Bitcoin, it arguably has greater potential. Financial institutions and big banks are analyzing how the Ethereum blockchain can reduce risks with dealings involving untrustworthy parties. Others are exploring its use as a supply-chain efficiency solution.

But the real reason why people are looking at Ethereum is the attractive entry point. Currently ranked at number two in terms of market capitalization, Ethereum’s total value is $35.3 billion. A $100 billion market cap isn’t unreasonable, considering this blockchain’s potential. If so, this valuation would imply a $1,000 price tag.

Cryptocurrencies to Buy: Litecoin

If you check its official website, you’ll discover that Litecoin is a “peer-to-peer” internet currency. In other words, Litecoin is just like Bitcoin, but without the drama or the scrutiny. And while it may sound dismissive to call Litecoin the silver to Bitcoin’s gold, the programmers have no issues. In fact, their site describes their cryptocurrency as a complement, not a competitor, to the original digital token.

Don’t get me wrong: Litecoin has a number of awesome features aside from being relatively “cheap” at $70. Primarily, the transaction speeds are much faster than its older brother, which is a huge deal. Remember, slow transactions were the primary catalyst for the Bitcoin Cash hardfork. Moreover, Litecoin has very reasonable transaction costs and purchasing costs from exchanges such as Coinbase.

Still, I think the biggest Litecoin driver is the price point. With Bitcoin prices going ballistic, Litecoin provides a psychologically easier path to public integration. Would you rather pay one Litecoin to pay your utility bills, or 0.00853 Bitcoin?

More importantly, as the Gen-Z demographic enters the workforce, they’re going to be interested in virtual currencies. They’ll consider Bitcoin prices way too onerous. But Litecoin at under $100 may be a deal too sweet to pass up!

Cryptocurrencies to Buy: Ripple

I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say that most people bought cryptocurrencies to avoid the banks. Why on Earth, then, would it make sense to buy a virtual currency owned by the banks?

The digital toke in question, Ripple, is a tough nut to crack. Not only is Ripple an extremely speculative vehicle (currently priced at 23 cents), it’s “theologically” controversial. On one hand, major financial institutions supporting the coin provides significant confidence and credibility. On the other hand, it could be an Illuminati trap, or something to that effect.

I personally view Ripple as a bigger, “badder” SWIFT network. A properly scaled blockchain platform has proved effective in transacting value quickly and efficiently. Ripple is exactly that — a platform that can meet the demands of tomorrow. Furthermore, banking institutions can’t afford to sit back and let the blockchain technology overcome them. Ripple is their answer.

At the same time, we have to acknowledge the risks. A good portion of the crypto community will not trust Ripple, so integration is a problem. More critically, nearly 39 billion of these coins are in circulation. If Ripple hits $1, its market capitalization would exceed Bitcoin’s by a wide margin.

It’s a crapshoot, but one worth taking with your speculative money fund.

Can a $10 Bill Really Fund Your Retirement? The digital currency markets are delivering profits unlike anything we’ve ever seen. ​23 recently doubled in a single week. And some like DubaiCoin have jumped as much as 8,200X in value in 18 months. It’ unprecedented... but you won’t receive any of the rewards unless you put a little money in the game. Find out how $10 could make you rich HERE. ​



Source: Investor Place