Long-time readers are familiar with my shtick on European stocks: many of the best plays on the rise of the emerging market consumer are to be found in boring, prosaic European blue chips.  Switzerland’s Nestle ($NSRGY), the British-Dutch Unilever ($UL), and Spanish communications juggernaut Telefonica ($TEF) are all companies I’ve highlighted for their large exposure...Read More

When I tell readers that Spanish stocks are still cheap, I can’t help but recall Chevy Chase’s 1970s Saturday Night Live skit in which for weeks after his death, Chase announced “breaking news” that “Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.” Spanish stocks are still cheap, as they have been for over a year, but they...Read More

Sin stocks.  Vice investments.  Merchants of death.  They all sound delightfully naughty, don’t they? That’s because they are.  Based on the recent returns of alcohol and tobacco stocks, investors might conclude that it’s good to be bad.  In a year marked by macroeconomic shock waves emanating from Europe, popular sin stocks like Altria ($MO), Philip...Read More

“Gimme what I need, uh, MasterCard or Vi-suh.” From Wyclef Jean’s “Perfect Gentleman” The U.S. consumer is in a bit of a pickle.  Jobs are not particularly easy to come by—the June jobs report showed unemployment sticking at 8.2% and only 80,000 new jobs created for the month—and the economy remains sluggish.  True, the average...Read More

It’s not often that a stock with a $5 billion market cap soars by over 20% in a single trading day, but such is the case for Constellation Brands ($STZ), the largest publically-traded wine merchant, and now the sole distributor in the United States of Corona and Grupo Modelo’s other Mexican beer brands. Constellation was...Read More