Category Archives: Investments

McDonald’s Corp Is The Leader

Companies, Investments

McDonald’s is a multinational blue chip firm which will hold its own no matter how bad the market gets. That’s because McDonald’s is not only well entrenched in mature markets like the United States and Europe, but is growing rapidly in the emerging markets such as India, China, Latin America and Eastern Europe.

In fact, McDonald’s has a program to build a new restaurant every day for the next 3 to 4 years in China. They will have 2000 restaurants in China by 2013. The emerging markets are developing a new middle class which works hard and loves to eat fast food. McDonald’s is there for them.

In addition, McDonald’s has discovered that they earn much more from their franchises than they do from running the restaurants themselves. It’s good income with very little work. Out of 32,800 McDonald’s restaurants, 26,400 are franchises (80.6%) and only 26,400 (19.4%) are company owned and operated. The company uses these stores for training and for testing new foods.

According to Simon Baker, the CEO of Baker Avenue Asset Management, multinationals such as McDonald’s stand to benefit from the weakened dollar and make good investments in these volatile markets. By the way, as a bonus McDonald’s pays a 3% dividend which is better than treasury bonds.

Go India, Buy Sterlite

Emerging Markets, Investments, , ,

As the West falters there are plenty of ways to ensure your investments keep giving you returns. The key is to think long term and put your money in companies that growing and have a reach in the emerging markets.

Sterlite (SLT) headed by Anil Agarwal is India’s largest non-ferrous metals and mining company and is one of the fastest growing private sector companies in India. Sterlite has a focus in Aluminum, Copper, Zinc & Lead and Commercial Energy. Sterlite is trading lower from its highs of a few weeks ago and is a good buy for long term investment.  It should go up as the dust clears on the debt crises hurting Europe and the US.

Buy Phillip Morris International

Companies, Investments, , ,

This highly volatile market is not a safe havens by any means, and fixed income investments yield very little. In this situation, one might be wise to take some moderate risks and examine equities. Equities which offer both growth prospects and dividends with help to stabilize portfolios.

Phillip Morris International (PMI) is an economically insensitive business because people will smoke in good times and in bad times. In bad times people want the upper to calm their nerves and therefore they will not quit smoking easily. PMI is not connected to the American Phillip Morris Company and therefore is not exposed to the American Company’s legal problems. Pmi is headquartered in Switzerland and operates in 180 countries. It owns the 15 top cigarette brands in the world and employs 75,000 workers worldwide. Whether you smoke cigarettes or not, the company is on its way up and looks like a good short to mid-term investment and also pays a decent dividend.

Buy Real Estate

Investments, Real Estate, ,

Yes it sounds strange, but perhaps the best investment right now is real estate.  Besides the housing prices being so darn low, housing can offer a great way to have some sense of stability when everything else in the economy seems so out of whack.

Its true housing hasn’t always been a great in terms of get rich quick investments, but long term stability is what the average person should be after and that comes with owning a house.  Houses also can provide passive income through renting rooms, yet most of all houses when valued correctly can offer long term stability when nothing else seems to.

Safety With Johnson and Johnson

Companies, Investments, ,

With all the talk of placing investments in currency instead of company stocks there is one thought that most investors are not thinking about right now.  There is panic and so investors are trying to find the safe haven where they can leave their money.  Currencies like the Franc and Australian Dollar might be good in the short term, but these countries don’t want a lopsided exchange, so expect an intervention soon to close the difference.  If that happens those investments will be lost.

So Where to Invest?

One must think calmly and invest long term.  Multinationals seem to be a good long term bet.  Have they gone down? Yes, but that is to be expected since almost everything is going down in the short term.  When the dust settles these stocks will be stable and perhaps safer over 3-6 month range.

Take a loom at Johnson & Johnson stock over the last 6 months:

johnson and johnson stocks

Over the last 6 months there have been ups and downs but moreover they have been safe and up. These types of companies won’t make an investor rich over night, but are the kind of stock that remains more or less stable in the storm the finance world now finds itself in.