David Smith

Brazil's mega-companies have been hit by a steep slide in the country's economy. With a potential for improvement in the fortunes of both the country and the companies, is it time to buy Vale and Petrobras?

You likely have noticed a steady run-up in crude prices during 2014. Are there identifiable reasons for the hike? What do they mean for your portfolio?

With the major oil companies scooting all around the globe, the independent producers are more and more sticking successfully close to home.

The major oil companies were effectively uniform in announcing sloppy results during the early stages of the current earnings season. It's now time for the independents. The picture is likely to brighten considerably.

While DuPont is still very much in the restructuring stage, its outlook as a primarily agriculture entity makes for a far brighter picture for the longtime chemicals company.

With forward crude prices apt to remain in a trading range, or perhaps to head either meaningfully up or significantly down, oil-field services representation can help to stabilize your portfolio. Here are three specific names to aid in that process.

Preventing the construction of TransCanada's proposed Keystone XL pipeline could result in more explosions aboard railroad trains transporting Bakken crude. At the same time, such obstruction would likely also play into China's hands.

A conglomerate that's involved in all manner of technologically sophisticated products, GE is rapidly heading for the top of the class in the fast-developing world of energy technology.

With a bevy of 2013 woes generally having been corrected, Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold is facing a potentially costly edict from Indonesia's parliament.

With agricultural commodities prices lagging, Deere & Company's valuation is similarly moribund. Neither trend can continue indefinitely.

DuPont, which was founded during the administration of Thomas Jefferson, is in the process of transforming itself from a chemicals emphasis to an agriculture base. Will shareholders benefit in the coming months from its major changes?

With oil and gas companies pulling back in Iraq, it's hard to see how a deal with Iran could be at all beneficial, either to those companies or to the war-torn country.

The iconic Oracle of Omaha has bestowed a blessing on the integrated energy model by buying up 40 million ExxonMobil shares. Is that the best way to play the group?

Peripatetic investor Carl Icahn has been pushing the powers that be at Transocean to make some major changes to their limping company. Now that they've agreed to do so, does Transocean become a buy?

Even with results that blew away both year-ago numbers and analysts' expectations, EOG Resources took a hit from a market that may have come to expect too much from the company.

Danbury Resources has provided us with some information on its current operations, with more to come at an analyst presentation next week. In the meantime, unique Denbury continues to appear compelling for those with a bent for domestic energy.

With its earnings released on Monday and its conference call on Tuesday, Anadarko Petroleum's shares dipped about 1.5% between Friday and Tuesday. Did the market lend too much credence to tough-to-get-right analysts' forecasts on Anadarko's quarter?

ExxonMobil managed to achieve a meaningful increase in production volumes during the third quarter. Do the company's shares merit a place in your portfolio?

National Oilwell Varco's management continues to do an unusually effective job of telling the company's story. And the story continues to be unusually compelling.

Venerable DuPont, which dates its history to the early 1800s, is fast becoming a brand new company. What will its most recent move mean to its progress?