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Our dads gave us some great advice, and on this pre-Father's Day edition of Investor Beat, we’re going to share that wisdom with you, the viewer. 

Plus, our analysts provide a couple of stocks we think the fathers of the world will like -- certainly more than just slippers or a necktie. 

By Michael Vodicka

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) made a groundbreaking policy change last year that is having a large impact on the biotech industry and creating a big opportunity for investors.

To create a faster path to commercialization for potentially life-saving drugs and medicine, the FDA in July introduced a new "breakthrough" status for drugs that show "substantial improvement on existing therapies for clinically significant endpoints."
 
For an industry that is accustomed to a costly 10-year commercialization process, the breakthrough status is a welcome shift. An accelerated channel to commercialization could enable drug companies to shave years and billions of dollars from the cumbersome process. 

John Person sat down with MoneyShow.com's Nancy Zambell recently to give his take on profitable tech picks for the summer months.

John, the technology sector has been interesting. There have been pockets of it that have been very valuable lately, and other pockets that seem well overdone. We've heard about cloud computing...on and on and on and on about cloud computing. No one has really seemed to have done much with that in terms of stock prices. Do you have any place in that area at all?

It's real interesting that just, say towards the beginning first week of May, the world started to come alive with the knowledge that technology was now starting to be the place to invest. The funny thing is, some technology pockets had had a nice run.

 

By Alex Rosenberg

 

Apple's decline has been well-documented. One need only look at a stock chart, which shows that shares of Apple (AAPL) have lost more than a third of their value in nine months. Or one could look at the number of Google (GOOG) searches for "Apple," which peaked with the stock in September 2012 and have since dropped precipitously.

 

But Max Wolff says that Apple investors should look out for a variety of risk factors that haven't yet materialized. According to Wolff, chief economist and senior analyst at GreenCrest Capital, Apple faces four big risks that no one is talking about.

 

By Larry Meyers

Readers of my column know that I often make reference to "your long-term diversified portfolio." That's because I think any serious investor is in the market for the long haul, and the portfolio must be diversified across many different asset classes. Diversification, properly allocated, will ideally smooth out your risk over time and provide you with market-beating returns with less risk than the overall market offers.

So what the heck is actually in a long-term diversified portfolio? Only you can answer that based on your risk tolerance, time horizon and overall financial plan. What I can offer is the diversified portfolio I would construct today if I were an investor with a 30-year time horizon, and average risk tolerance.

 

By Jim Lowell, Forbes ETF Advisor

Overall, I think the international markets may recover...not a bold claim. But that if they do, I don't think such favor will be universal and equal.

That means that I don't like buying whole established international marketplace ETFs as if their risks and returns are created equal, as much as I like more selectively constructed and concentrated foreign stock ETFs. If a rising tide lifts all boats, I'd expect the more selective and concentrated international ETFs to rise faster and higher than the average broad-based international ETF.

 

By Peter Morici

 

Wall Street is cooking up another crisis -- making shoddy loans and selling worthless securities to investors hungry for higher yields than CDs and government bonds offer.

 

Dodd-Frank banking reforms imposed very costly regulations on mortgage and commercial lending. Regional banks, which have solid knowledge of smaller businesses, could not bear these costs and sold out to large Wall Street institutions. Now a handful of money center banks control more than half the deposits and lendable money.

 

Although big banks have branches everywhere and are flush with funds, they don't know much about which businesses are likely to repay what they borrow.

 

By Richard Saintvilus

 

Retailers across all sectors are finding it increasingly difficult to get customers to come in their stores. When customers do arrive, there is also the challenge of getting them to spend money.

 

Unfortunately, Target (TGT) has fallen short in both categories.

 

Although rival Wal-Mart (WMT) has faced similar challenges, Wal-Mart has figured out ways to offset weakening sales and softer comps (TheStreet). Making matters worse, Target's management has issued meager guidance, which has resulted in several analyst downgrades.

 

If you are looking for safe stocks that are relatively undervalued, the place to start is Warren Buffett's portfolio. As the best investor ever, none of Buffett's holdings has suffered a permanent loss. If we buy relatively undervalued stocks that Buffett already owns, the chance of losing money over the long term should be small.

GuruFocus hosts many valuation tools, including Peter Lynch charts (GuruFocus), a very useful tool that can tell you clearly if a stock is undervalued and whether it is a good time to buy. 

This tool, used by the great investor Lynch, charts a company's stock price against its earnings line; if the stock price is dramatically lower than the earnings line, it is usually a good time to buy.  

Information provided by Theflyonthewall.com 

Information provided by Theflyonthewall.com 

Yacktman Asset Management's Donald Yacktman looks for good, low-priced businesses to hold for the long term. Using this strategy, he has earned prodigious returns for investors on the firm's $22 billion in assets under management.

When analyzing stocks, Yacktman's team is primarily concerned with price. Below are three valuations of Yacktman's new buys based on Peter Lynch charts, reverse discounted cash flow (DCF) and price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio. It appears that he bought two of the stocks at low prices under most of the measures.

Dell (DELL)
Yacktman invested in 14,912,159 shares of Dell in the fourth quarter 2012 and first quarter 2013, at average prices of $10 and $13, respectively. Dell shares have since advanced 16%, to $13.37 per share. 

By Michael Fowlkes, InvestorsObserver

FedEx reports earnings Monday

What's happening: Shipping giant FedEx (FDX) will report its fiscal fourth quarter results before the market opens on June 19. Analysts have forecast earnings of $1.97 per share, down slightly from the $1.99 it earned during the same period last year. The stock sold off sharply following a disappointing third quarter report in March, but has still managed to trade up 6.4% year to date.

Technical analysis: FDX was recently trading at $97.49, down $12.17 from its 12-month high and $13.57 above its 12-month low. Technical indicators for FDX are bullish and the stock is showing signs of a possible trend reversal. The stock has support above $92.00. Of the 20 analysts who cover the stock 14 rate it a "strong buy," one rates it a "buy," four rate it a "hold" and one rates it a "strong buy." The stock receives Standard & Poor's 5 STARS "Strong Buy" ranking.

 

By Tim Parker

iTunes is adding 500,000 new accounts each day, according to Appleinsider.

This week, Apple (AAPL) CEO Tim Cook announced that iTunes now has 575 million users, equating to an average of a half million new accounts per day. At current rates, the company will add 100 million accounts by the end of 2013.

This puts Apple second only to Facebook (FB) in total number of user accounts, and while Facebook may have nearly two times as many users as iTunes, Apple is growing at a faster pace. In 2012, the iTunes account base grew about 55%. Interestingly, Pandora (P) grew its user base by 39%, while Facebook came in third, growing its user base by 25% last year.

 

IBM (IBM), a Wall Street favorite for years, has fallen on hard times.

 

After Big Blue's most recent quarterly results missed analysts' estimates for the first time since 2005, several brokerages slashed their price targets on IBM's stock. And indeed, the shares have sputtered, tumbling about 5% over the past three months amid a broader market rally.