How to Invest in Halloween

Have you bought your candy yet? Halloween is practically here. Do you think Halloween related stocks may be tricks or treats? There are several stocks that may benefit from the holiday.

Watching scary movies is one of the popular activities of teenagers (and adults too) on Halloween, either in a theater or renting a DVD. Netflix (NFLX) took a huge dump after reporting earnings. That was scarier than watching Halloween I, Halloween II, and Halloween III. If you think the stock has hit bottom, you may want to take a closer look. The company has a substantial number of horror movies in its collection of titles. The stock currently trades at 14 times current earnings.

Lions Gate Entertainment (LGF), one of the top studios that produces scary movies, has made such films as American Psycho, Ginger Snaps, Route 666, The Devil's Rejects, House of the Dead 2, Saw VI, See No Evil, Hostel: Part II, My Bloody Valentine 3D and more. The company has a forward price to earnings ratio of 24.

The big beneficiaries of Halloween are the candy companies. Hershey Foods (HSY) is the large chocolate and confectionery company which is known for its Hershey Bars. The stock has a forward P/E of 18, and a yield of 2.4%.

Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory (RMCF) is a very low cap Colorado based company which makes and markets chocolate and candy. The stock has a forward P/E of 12 and pays a generous yield of 4.5%.

Tootsie Roll Industries (TR) makes all kinds of candy for trick-or-treaters including Tootsie Rolls, Tootsie Roll Pops, Caramel Apple Pops, Charms, Blow-Pops, Blue Razz, Zip-A-Dee Pops, Cella's, Mason Dots, Mason Crows, Junior Mint, Charleston Chew, Sugar Daddys, and Sugar Babies. The stock has a forward P/E of 26 and a yield of 1.2%.

Halloween costumes and decorations are available at discount retailers such as Target (TGT) which has a forward P/E of 13, and a yield of 2.2%. Wal-Mart (WMT) is another major Halloween retailer. It has a forward P/E of 12, and a yield of 2.5%.

If you like interesting sectors of stocks, such as casino stocks, cloud computing stocks, birth control stocks, coffee stocks, and China stocks, check out WallStreetNewsNetwork.com.

Disclosure: Author did not own any of the above at the time the article was written.

By Stockerblog.com

Sugar Stocks are Sweet

Sugar production actually started in India in ancient times, where sugarcane juice was turned into granulated crystals. Honey was obviously used as a sweetener in other areas of the world back then. Did you know that Christopher Columbus brought the first sugarcane cuttings to the New World? Now Brazil has the highest per capita production of sugar in the world. One growing byproduct of sugar production for food is fuel for energy such as ethanol.

Unfortunately, there are not too many sugar production companies that are publicly traded, but there are several that use sugar in their candy and chocolate products. Imperial Sugar Co. (IPSU) is a processor and marketer of refined sugar in several formats, including granulated, powdered, and liquid. The stock trades on NASDAQ at seven times forward earnings and pays a yield of 0.7%.

Cosan Ltd. (CZZ), based in Brazil, is one of the largest growers and processors of sugarcane in the world and the largest ethanol producer in Brazil from sugarcane. This New York Stock Exchange (NYX) traded company trades at 9.3 times forward earnings and pays a decent yield of 2%.

If you think the price of sugar is going up, but you don't want to invest in commodities directly, you might want to consider the iPath Dow Jones-UBS Sugar Total Return Sub-Index Exchange Traded Note (SGG), which attempts to replicate the Dow Jones-UBS Sugar Total Return Sub-Index. This ETN, which also trades on the NYSE, has a one year total return of over 25%.

The other alternative is investing in companies that use sugar in their products, such as The Hershey Company (HSY), Tootsie Roll Industries, Inc. (TR), and Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, Inc. (RMCF). To see a free down-loadable list of all the candy and chocolate stocks, which can be updated and sorted, go to WallStreetNewsNetwork.com.

Disclosure: Author didn't own any of the above at the time the article was written.

By Stockerblog.com