Michael Arone

Happy April Fool's Day, but there will be no chicanery here. Nor should there be, because April is one of the best months of the year for U.S. stocks. In fact, the fourth month of the year ties with October as the best month for the S&P 500 with an average gain of 2.1 percent over the past...

Industrial stocks and exchange-traded funds have been duds. Over the past year, the Industrial Select Sector SPDR Fund (NYSE: XLI), the largest industrial ETF is down 9.3 percent, a loss that is more than double that of the S&P 500 over the same period. For the six-year period ending 2015, XLI...

Share repurchase programs have been an increasingly popular way for companies to deploy excess cash. Buybacks have also been increasingly vilified, as critics assert that the cash would be better used to reinvest the business, hire new workers, reduce debt or make acquisitions. The companies that...