Investing in Vermont: Green Mountain Coffee shares due for pullback

posted by   Ian Wyatt   |    September 7, 2009

Posted in   Small Cap Stocks   |   Comments

My second Investing in Vermont column for the Burlington Free Press newspaper was printed today in the Business Monday section. You can read Green Mountain Coffee shares due for pullback by clicking here for the Burlington Free Press site.

In this column, I examine one of Vermont's most successful companies, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (Nasdaq: GMCR). Shares of the Waterbury-based coffee company have risen 1,224% over the last five years as Green Mountain Coffee Roasters has expanded rapidly and profitably. The company has rewarded early shareholders with significant returns, and also had a very positive impact on the local economy.

But as I argue in my column, significant insider selling and plans for a $321 million equity financing could weigh on shares of this high flying growth stock. I believe investors should be cautious, and wait for a pullback in the share price before buying shares of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters.

Enjoy the article, and let me know what you think. You can read my column by clicking here.

---

The Small-Cap Investor: Book Web Site Launches

posted by   Ian Wyatt   |    August 19, 2009

Posted in   Small Cap Stocks   |   Comments

The Small-Cap Investor: Secrets to Winning Big with Small-Cap Stocks is on schedule, with an official release date of September 14! I just received my advance release copy from the publisher yesterday, and have enjoyed paging through the book that consumed so much of my life for the past year.

My book web site is now live, and you can check it out at SmallCapBook.com. Be sure to check out my blog on that site as well, and my recent post about our t-shirt contest. Click here to read the blog post T-Shirt Contest...we have a winner.

I encourage you to check out The Small-Cap Investor book web site, and consider purchasing a copy through Amazon, which is showing a release date of September 8.

---

Contest: Help Design the Small-Cap Investor T-Shirt

posted by   Ian Wyatt   |    July 30, 2009

Posted in   Small Cap Stocks   |   Comments (6)

My first book, The Small-Cap Investor: Secrets to Winning Big with Small-Cap Stocks, is coming out on September 14. I've been working on the book for a year and a half, and after many fits and starts, I'm pleased to say the publisher just told me that the book is on the presses, being printed right now (you can pre-purchase the book through Amazon).

I'm incredibly excited about the upcoming release, and relieved to have the book completed. In The Small-Cap Investor: Secrets to Winning Big with Small-Cap Stocks, I share my strategies for finding, researching, evaluating, and profitably buying and selling small-cap stocks for big profits. I hope my experiences will help you with your personal investment portfolio.

As part of the book marketing, I've bought the November 10 sponsorship of I Wear Your Shirt. I Wear Your Shirt has a neat concept, allowing marketers to rent a full day of Jason wearing their shirt and getting exposure through his social media networks including YouTube, Twitter, Upstream.tv, and his blog. January 1 sells for $1, and December 31 sells for $365. @IWearYourShirt currently has 14,768 Twitter followers, making this a significant marketing opportunity.

Problem is, I don't have a T-shirt that can be used to promote the book. So I'm inviting my blog readers, newsletter subscribers, @IanWyatt Twitter followers, and friends to share their ideas for a great T-shirt slogan than can be used to promote my book, The Small-Cap Investor: Secrets to Winning Big with Small-Cap Stocks. I'm looking for something funny or clever, related to investing in the stock market and small-cap stocks. You can view the cover and find out more about my book on Amazon by clicking here (you can also pre-purchase it today).

Send me a slogan, tag-line, and idea for a great T-shirt. You can email your ideas to or post to our Facebook discussion page and become a fan of Small Cap Investor on Facebook by clicking here. Please share your ideas by August 9.
 
After receiving submissions, I'll select my favorite three ideas. I'll then invite everyone to vote on your favorite T-shirt concept. The concept that gets the most votes will be the winner, and will be printed on T-shirts and used in our promotional materials for the book, and worn by Jason on I Wear Your Shirt on November 10.
 
I have some great prizes lined up for those who participate:
    - Everyone: a 30-day, 100% complimentary trial to SmallCapInvestor PRO (a $41.25 value)
    - 3rd place: a signed copy of the book and one t-shirt
    - 2nd place: a 1-year subscription to SmallCapInvestor.com PRO ($495 value), plus a signed copy of the book and one t-shirt
    - 1st place: a 1-year subscription to ALL Business Financial Publishing newsletters and trading services ($2,680 value), plus a signed copy of the book and three t-shirts

I need your help, and know you'll have some great ideas for a creative and funny t-shirt to help promote my book. Thanks in advance for your ideas, and help in making my first book a big success. Just email your ideas to me at .  Or become a Small Cap Investor fan on Facebook (just search "Small Cap Investor") and post your idea to our discussion page. Thanks for your help.

---

My Book: The Small Cap Investor: Secrets to Winning Big with Small-Cap Stocks

posted by   Ian Wyatt   |    March 9, 2009

Posted in   Small Cap Stocks   |   Comments

This blog has recently taken a back seat to a much larger writing project - my first book, The Small Cap Investor: Secrets to Winning Big with Small-Cap Stocks.

The Small Cap Investor is scheduled to be published in September, 2009 by John Wiley & Sons, a well-known publisher of business and investment books including the For Dummies series, I.O.U.S.A., and Louis Navellier's The Little Book That Makes You Rich.

As the title of my book suggests, the topic is investing in small cap stocks. Small caps are those with market capitalizations below $2 billion, and often represent some of the highest growth and most innovative publicly traded companies. Small caps are a focus of my investing strategy, and a core aspect of my company, through our web site SmallCapInvestor.com and Small Cap Investor PRO service.

How did I end up writing a book?

In late 2007, a publisher at John Wiley & Sons approached me about writing an investment book. She had seen our classifieds ad for a research analyst on Craig's List NYC, and after looking at our web site, she realized that we were a growing publisher of investment research and stock picks. Wiley had previously forged a successful publishing partnership with Bill Bonner's Agora Publishing in Baltimore, and was seeking similar partnerships.

Writing a book sounded fun. Who doesn't want to write a book, right? Every American seems to think they have a great idea for a book.

The idea was to write a book on small caps, since the focus of my investment research. Wiley assumed we had lots of content on hand already, and suggested that we hire a freelance ghost writer to help put things together. This sounded easy enough. This spring I signed a contract with Wiley and slowly began working on the book.

Completing a 256-page book is much easier said than done. Even with some existing content and a ghost writer to help put things together. The project was overwhelming and frustrating at times, giving me second thoughts about whether this was a worthwhile use of time and effort.

After three ghost writers, two research analysts, and numerous rounds of editing by colleagues at Business Financial Publishing, my father, and my wonderful wife Carrie (she was the best, most thorough editor of all who contributed much to the book), the book was completed and manuscript delivered to John Wiley & Sons last Friday night. Which meant I got to spend a weekend without writing or editing chapters.

Was all the work worth it? Time will tell. But I definately think so.

I'll be writing more about The Small Cap Investor book and why I decided to write a book. With the book now behind me, I'll be back to blogging more frequently.

---

Barron’s Highlights Small-Cap Outlook from Growth Report

posted by   Ian Wyatt   |    January 28, 2009

Posted in   Small Cap Stocks   |   Comments (5)

Dow Jones' Barron's last weekend printed an excerpt from Business Financial Publishing's Growth Report newsletter, which I founded in 2001 and currently serve as the Editor-in-Chief and Chief Investment Strategist.  The below except discusses the performance of small cap stocks last week, as written by our analyst Kevin Pendley.  PR is always great when you get it, and exposure in the premier weekly investing publication is a great accomplishment.

Sideways Consolidation
Market Review by Growth Report / Business Financial Publishing
1015 18th St. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036

Jan. 21: Small-cap stocks took flight [Wednesday], notching the biggest one-day gain of 2009 -- just one day after sinking to the worst performance of the new year [and the worst ever recorded for a presidential inauguration day] -- amid strong earnings from technology-bellwether IBM ... . The fact that small-caps led the way on the rally is a positive sign amid plenty of gloom for the marketplace. Investors will have to become more comfortable embracing risk for the market to truly rally off these bear-market lows, and putting their faith in small-caps would be an interesting development. But that leap of faith hasn't been made yet ... .

The market has been buffeted with poor profit reports for months, and a majority of the news so far this year has been gloomy, but when IBM beat the estimate after Tuesday's close, it raised hope that things aren't as bad as feared. In addition, bank stocks have been relentlessly hammered in recent days, but Northern Trust handily beat the forecast as well, showing that not all banks are wallowing in a sea of red ink needing a handout from taxpayers to survive these rocky times. NTRS stock jumped 30% on [Wednesday], and IBM climbed 11%, providing a nice tech/financial one-two leadership punch.

Of course, that doesn't mean that everything is now all rosy for the market ... [Regarding housing,] it appears that a pickup in new sales in the near term is unlikely.

Energy prices provided a source of strength for the Wednesday, with energy stocks climbing 6.7%. Crude-oil prices rose 6.6% on the day -- those higher [prices came because] the New York market rolled out of the February contract into March, which has been trading at a steep premium to the February futures contract. Even after the close of the New York market, crude continued to climb, bolstered by the rise in equities, a slide in the U.S. dollar and production cuts out of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

Looking at sector activity [Wednesday], diverse financial-services shares, investment banks and brokerage companies, asset-management firms, banks and real-estate investment trusts were the biggest gainers....On the downside, automobile manufacturers, auto-parts suppliers, hypermarkets and apparel firms were soft performers, but losses in those areas were much less pronounced than the gains for banks, financials and energy companies. Airline stocks struggled. It was nice to see the Russell [2000] climb back above 450 quickly, but the overall market path remains a sideways consolidation, with a mild short-term bearish slant. A push above 466 would help further any bottoming argument here, while any slide back below 450 (and especially 440) would be damaging.

--Kevin Pendley

---

Page 1 of 1 pages