The Training Wheels Are Off

Fundamentals? What the...? Weird, but I am hearing this word more and more often, both on the tube and from the analysts and traders I talk to every day. I thought nobody cared anymore. As Jim Cramer likes to say, "Wrong!". Investors are going old-school and beginning to look again at factors like dividend yields, revenues, earnings and cash reserves in the stocks they buy.

Imagine that.

Thursday morning on TV I heard someone trying very hard to tout REITs as an emerging theme in this stock market. They quoted Abbey J. Cohen as being positive on the real estate trusts and mentioned dividend yields as high as 8%. I laughed, but then it began to eat at me and I had to take a look at the stocks in that group. Bingo! REITs have indeed caught a bid. ...