Market News

The DividendRank formula at Dividend Channel ranks a coverage universe of thousands of dividend stocks, according to a proprietary formula designed to identify those stocks that combine two important characteristics - strong fundamentals and a valuation that looks inexpensive. Flowers Foods, Inc. (NYSE: FLO) presently has an excellent rank, in the top 25% of the coverage universe, which suggests it is among the top most "interesting" ideas that merit further research by investors.

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Are dividend stocks in a bubble? Like the NASDAQ in 1999;

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Since 2010, Lear Corp’s after-tax profit (NOPAT) has grown by 10% compounded annually to $1 billion in 2015 and $1.1 billion over the last twelve months. Lear’s NOPAT margin has seen slight improvement, from 5% in 2010 to 6% TTM.

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Utilities are on a tear. Without accounting for dividends, the Utilities Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLU) is up 17% so far in 2016 and 28% over the past three years, in both cases outperforming the S&P 500 (SPY). Stocks that are supposed to be safe income plays have delivered major capital gains.

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Investors in Nokia Corp (NYSE: NOK) saw new options begin trading today, for the September 30th expiration. At Stock Options Channel, our YieldBoost formula has looked up and down the NOK options chain for the new September 30th contracts and identified the following put contract of particular interest.

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After the stock market close last Friday, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.A)(NYSE:BRK.B) reported its second-quarter results. Overview Berkshire ended June with $72.7 billion in cash, up marginally from the start of the year. While cash generation has been strong through the first six months of the year (roughly 10% growth in cash flow from operations to $15.3 billion), this has been more than offset by a cumulative $36 billion spent on acquisitions (primarily Precision Castparts ) and capital expenditures.

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Phillips 66 is down about 20% from its 52 week high and currently has a dividend yield of 3.25%. Although the dividend is attractive, the best value investors look for a significant capital gain as well. Rahul Garg says the company's decision to pull out of the Deutsche Bank Energy Summit may indicate they are in a quiet period. The dividend plus the potential for a near-term capital gain is why Rahul is recommending PSX as a best idea.

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Among the underlying components of the Russell 3000 index, we saw noteworthy options trading volume today in Alphabet Inc (NASD: GOOG), where a total of 8,053 contracts have traded so far, representing approximately 805,300 underlying shares. That amounts to about 51.3% of GOOG's average daily trading volume over the past month of 1.6 million shares. Particularly high volume was seen for the $785 strike call option expiring August 12, 2016, with 1,433 contracts trading so far today, representing approximately 143,300 underlying shares of GOOG. Below is a chart showing GOOG's trailing twelve month trading history, with the $785 strike highlighted in orange:

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Looking at units outstanding versus one week prior within the universe of ETFs covered at ETF Channel, the biggest outflow was seen in the PowerShares Global Listed Private Equity Portfolio (PSP), where 1,950,000 units were destroyed, or a 7.1% decrease week over week. Among the largest underlying components of PSP, in morning trading today Leucadia National (LUK) is lower by about 1.2%.

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The U.S., once the poster child of foreign oil dependence, has largely changed its energy future due to its shale oil and gas boom. Now, this four decade old quandary will be one that China has to deal with as the Middle Kingdom continues to increase it reliance on imported foreign oil.

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