Festival of Stocks #168

This week we have the honor of hosting the 168th edition of the Festival of Stocks.  According to the festival’s original sponsor, ValueInvestingNews, “The Festival of Stocks is a blog carnival dedicated to highlighting bloggers’ best articles on stock market related topics. This will include research and commentary on specific stocks, industry analysis, ETFs, REITs, stock derivatives, and other related topics.”  This is the ninth time ModernGraham has hosted the festival, and we are looking forward to hosting it again in the future.

Before I get to this week’s submissions from some of the best financial blogs on the web, I want to take a moment to introduce new readers to our site here at ModernGraham.  Since August of 2006 we have been devoted to the study and modernization of Benjamin Graham’s teachings from his classic book, The Intelligent Investor. Some features you may find interesting include our valuation calculator, where you can estimate the value of a company based on the formula Graham presented, our valuation database, a growing list of companies that we are tracking, and our ValueInvesting Search Engine, a search engine focused on providing content relevant to the value investor.  Please feel free to subscribe to our site, by RSS feed or email, and come back again to use our features.  In addition, we are currently looking for guest authors as well as full-time contributors.  If you are interested, please contact us.

Now, on to this week’s submissions.  There are a lot of great posts included here from some great writers and thinkers.  Enjoy!

The Smarter Wallet presents Price Earnings Ratio: The Cyclically Adjusted P/E Ratio.

Bargaineering presents 2010 Roth IRA Conversion Rules.

Learning Stocks presents Starting Small.

MagicDiligence presents MFI Stock Review: Time Warner Inc (TWX).  Time Warner’s transformation is creating a very attractive pure content play going forward, and looks quite undervalued given the quality of the business.

ZachStocks presents Solar Manufacturers Draw Attention.  Suntech Power Holdings (STP) and Yingli Green Energy (YGE) have bolstered investor confidence in solar energy. Both companies have issued positive news and the sector is trading higher.

Dividends Value presents McDonald’s Corporation (MCD) Dividend Stock Analysis.  McDonald’s Corporation is the largest fast-food restaurant company in the world. Its restaurants serve a varied, yet limited, value-priced menu in more than 100 countries around the world. Linked here is a detailed analysis and commentary.

The Oblivious Investor presents Tax Diversification: Roth IRA vs. Traditional IRA.  Sometimes the best answer to “Roth IRA or Traditional IRA?” is “a little bit of both.”

Jeff Rose presents Municipal Budget Woes Return.

ETF database presents Ultimate Guide To China Yuan ETF Investing.

Darwin’s Finance presents 787 ETFs Listed – Every Exchange Traded Fund Known to Man.  The most comprehensive list of 750+ ETFs ranging from sector and country ETFs to short and leveraged ETFs. A quick one-stop bookmarkable reference list for future reference.

The Dividend Guy Blog presents Why I Allocate Part of My Portfolio to Small-Caps.  The Dividend Guy uses small-caps as part of his asset allocation – this post discusses why.

FastSwings presents Dell Falls on Poor Earnings.  Dell is moving into the services market with its recent acquisition of Perot Systems.

The Digerati Life presents Thoughts On Technical Analysis of the Investment Markets.  Wanted to share this discussion on technical analysis. The debate rages on!