If you're looking for promising investment ideas -- stocks that seem poised to grow at a good clip over the coming years -- you'd do well to check out our suite of investing newsletters (which you can do for free). But you have other options, too -- even here at The Motley Fool.
For starters, you can explore our rich Fool Community of discussion boards, where denizens are frequently dissecting interesting companies. Here's one example -- a post I recently ran across on our Liquid Lounge board, where a member who goes buy TheNajdorfDefens made a case for smokeless-tobacco company UST (NYSE:UST). Its brands include Copenhagen, Skoal, Red Seal, and Husky, and it deals in wine and spirits, too.
After disclosing that he's a shareholder, he summarized why he likes the stock: "5.5% dividend yield. Trading at $41.50. Stock is down 17% in 12 months, only up 2% this year. $7 billion company. P/E ratio of 13, earnings due 4/26. Traded as high as $54.84 last year. Dividends growing at 5% per year." He then added: "What alerted me to this company was the record insider buying last month of $680,000 -- not a huge amount, but any time you see 'record insider buying,' especially from an old-school firm like this, you sit up and take notice. ... David Dreman is one of the largest holders of UST. ... I know -- you're thinking 'tobacco is a shrinking market.' Well, that's true for cigarettes, but smokeless tobacco has been growing each year as people stop smoking but need their nicotine fix."
Check out his whole post, where he offers many other appealing characteristics of the company. You'll also be able to read responses from others, such as member Tytthus, who explained why he's interested in fellow tobacco concern Altria Group (NYSE:MO). Here's a snippet: "[There's a] dividend of 4.5%, which grows by 5%-10% every year. With the litigation environment relaxing, share buybacks may start in earnest again. [Altria] returns about three-quarters of its $8 billion in free cash flow to shareholders."
You'll also find perspectives on these and other companies in our free daily offerings. Here are some related articles as examples:
- "Investing Layups" by David Meier
- "Altria: Still Smoking" by Nathan Parmelee
- "Great All-Around Stocks" by David Meier
I am not invested in any tobacco companies, but learning about how attractive some of them may be does serve a useful purpose. It reminds me of how powerful dividends can be, for one thing. As I keep an eye out for my next investment, I'll try to find one offering attractive yields. In a recent article, my colleague Tim Hanson profiled a bunch of dividend-paying stocks that you can almost forget about after you buy them -- simply letting them work their long-term magic. Along with Altria, he highlighted Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT), PepsiCo (NYSE:PEP), and Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO) as stocks that have outperformed the S&P 500 index by more than 5 percentage points on an annualized basis from 1957 to 2005. (Check out his article for three more names.)
So there you have it. Investment ideas galore are just a few clicks away. Take advantage of all that we offer!
And hey -- share your own good ideas, too. We'd love to hear them.
Coca-Cola is a Motley Fool Inside Value recommendation. Try the service out free for 30 days to learn about more great companies trading at great prices.
Longtime Fool contributor Selena Maranjian owns shares of Coca-Cola and PepsiCo. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
