"This is no time to be buying stocks. Greeks are not going to budge and the Chinese are leveraging up a bit. I am having trouble finding good stock values within my investment criteria"

Dow Jones Industrial Average 18,027.63 (UP) Week ending 06/19/2015
Dow Jones Industrial Average 17.949.12 (Down) Week ending 06/26/2015

Time to do a little profit taking on your stocks. I even lightened up a bit on my Apple (AAPL) stock position this week because they need to run a sales gain over last years $212 Billion in Revenues, a tough task.You need to access the risk in your portfolio and take some corrective action. (DO NOT sell everything!)

The market is looking for a reason to correct and sell-off here. Greece, no matter which way it goes, will cool off any gains in Europe. The Fed is sure to raise a 1/4 percent on interest rates and throw some cold water on the US stock market expansion. The Chinese are having to ease up on capital requirements, (i.e.leveraging) to keep their economy going at a high clip. It is simply time for a rest stop here. 

There are some stocks I like that fit my PEG Ratio under 1.5 and Return on Equity of 15% plus after we have a 8 -10% correction. These stocks are good building blocks for a solid portfolio.

PPG Corp. (PPG), Gilead Sciences(GILD),Middleby Corp. (MIDD) and Disney (DIS) would be some of the names to look at.

I would like Merck here , (MRK), if the stock had not flat-lined for the last five years in price. They have made efficiency cuts but have dropped in revenues for the last four years. They need an activist investor in here to stir things up a bit. They have a nice dividend if you want to buy it and wait for something to happen.

My worse blog call of the year: Keurig Green Mountain Coffee. (GMCR). These guys have come down from a high of $155.00 per share to now $77.96 and falling in six months. This is where you try to "catch a falling knife" and it takes your hand off. Avoid even at this price!I thought the interest from Coca Cola would hold this one up a little better.

So get to your Greek ATM and get your money out and batten down the hatches. This could be a rough ride for awhile here. 

If your bored and just need something to buy, 

Ironwood Pharmaceuticals Inc. Cl A ,(Symbol IRWD ), is not a bad speculative buy here at $12.03 per share. The conversion price on their $300 Million Senior debt offering is $16.58 per share, so you have a lot of headroom here for a gain. Linzess is their product and they should have positive earnings in 2016. You may want to let this Greek thing play out first and get even a better buying position.

"Remember. The train does not always stay of the track!"

Enjoy your summer and keep your money in your pocket for now.

Freewilly

I threw in the towel on DFS, Discover Financial Services, one of my 15 for 2015 picks. It trades to much like a bank. I moved that money into American Express Company , (AXP) which is more popular with institutional investors, and is currently trading at a discount because of the loss of the Costco account.

Dow Jones Industrial Average 17,899 (Down) Week ending 06-12-2015

Discover Financial Services still has great numbers, but the stock is unloved by wall street. The Momentum guys trade up on Visa and Mastercard which are are near all time highs. I decided to go with another value credit card company trading at a similar PE to DFS and that at least I can be pretty sure will be more popular with institutional investors which include Warren Buffett.
You cannot chase these other momentum credit card names here. Do not fall into the trap.

American Express Company ( Symbol, AXP, $79.53) with a PE of 13.95 seems to be a better way to go here. Bernstein likes it with a target price of $94 or $95 per share. 

American Express has a PEG Ratio of 1.62 and has a Return on Equity of 28.60 so fits my investment criteria.  The operate at a Gross Margin of 73.3% and pay a dividend currently at 1.46%.

EPS for next year is looking like a healthy $5.72 per share.  The company employees 54,000 employees worldwide.

"American Express, don't leave home without it"  I think it is a safe bet for a nice 1 to 3 year return on your investment.

Enjoy the nice weather and head to the garden or the beach,

Freewilly

One side is saying "Bullish herd" of homebuilders on May 26th and on the other side Raymond James downgrades all the housing stocks on on May 15th. Myself, I am willing to put some coin on the stock of Lennar Corp. Cl. A , at the right price.

Dow Jones Industrial Average 18,010.68 (Down) Week ending 05-29-2015
Dow Jones Industrial Average 17,849.00  (Down) Week ending 06-05-2015

I apologize for the lost Month of May on the blog. A weekend working in Washington, DC, a Memorial day driving 1100 miles out to Western Pennsylvania and Wheeling, WV. to a niece's graduation and family get together. Then last weekend finally worked on the backyard garden on Saturday only to get heat exhaustion on Sunday which lead into a week long upper respiratory viral infection. See you really didn't need to know all that, but I didn't want you to think that I am just slacking off. 

While stocks in the US continue to churn and burn and merge and rise, I think a place that is still undervalued is Real Estate. The Federal reserve really can't raise interest rates more than like a quarter percent because of the currency and trade imbalances it creates around the world. The IMF is imploring them not to raise and delay it. Also the United States with it's 18 Trillion dollar debt load cannot afford a large rise in the interest service payments. So this all bodes well for the continuing improvement in the real estate market.

One way to play this trend is to buy a high quality home builder of new houses that are moderately priced to sell easily. Lennar Corp. CL. A (Symbol LEN, $46.71) is just such a stock. 

The stock falls in close to my guidelines on ROE and PEG ratio. The Return on Equity of the stock is 14.49% and the PEG ratio is 1.08.

Q1 Revenue was up 20% over last years first quarter which continues a 3 year trend of strong sales growth. The stock price is up 14.01 % for 1 year and 4.06% YTD. 

Earnings this year are projected at $3.17 per share and for next year $3.60 per share. They also offer a small 0.34% dividend payment

I believe the stock will continue it's long term growth path and should hit my $60.00 price target by the end of next year. That would be a 28% return over the next year and a half.

Because of the demands on my time in the summer months to not be sitting at a computer, I may write blogs as good stock opportunities arise and should be recommended. 

If you need to park money somewhere in the meantime, just park it in stock of AT&T (Symbol T). It pays a 5.47% dividend and they are merging with Direct TV who has the exclusive on the NFL Ticket TV programming. That should keep you out of trouble.

Good health and happy and safe travels to you,

Freewilly