The DividendRank formula at Dividend Channel ranks a coverage universe of thousands of dividend stocks, according to a proprietary formula designed to identify those stocks that combine two important characteristics — strong fundamentals and a valuation that looks inexpensive. Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust (NYSE: PEI) presently has a stellar rank, in the top 10% of the coverage universe, which suggests it is among the top most "interesting" ideas that merit further research by investors.
But making Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust an even more interesting and timely stock to look at, is the fact that in trading on Tuesday, shares of PEI entered into oversold territory, changing hands as low as $16.35 per share. We define oversold territory using the Relative Strength Index, or RSI, which is a technical analysis indicator used to measure momentum on a scale of zero to 100. A stock is considered to be oversold if the RSI reading falls below 30.
Click here to find out what 9 other oversold dividend stocks you need to know about, at DividendChannel.com »
In the case of Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust, the RSI reading has hit 29.7 — by comparison, the universe of dividend stocks covered by Dividend Channel currently has an average RSI of 54.7. A falling stock price — all else being equal — creates a better opportunity for dividend investors to capture a higher yield. Indeed, PEI's recent annualized dividend of 0.80/share (currently paid in quarterly installments) works out to an annual yield of 4.85% based upon the recent $16.52 share price.
A bullish investor could look at PEI's 29.7 RSI reading today as a sign that the recent heavy selling is in the process of exhausting itself, and begin to look for entry point opportunities on the buy side. Among the fundamental datapoints dividend investors should investigate to decide if they are bullish on PEI is its dividend history.
In general, dividends are not always predictable; but, looking at the history chart below can help in judging whether the most recent dividend is likely to continue.
According to the ETF Finder at ETFChannel.com, PEI makes up 1.00% of the iShares Retail Real Estate Capped ETF (AMEX: RTL) which is trading relatively unchanged on the day Tuesday.
Getty Images "People think you can just walk right in," the bemused security guard said to his co-worker, who snickered, shook his head and returned to his outpost under the tented area outside the otherwise-regal entrance to the New York Stock Exchange. The dejected tourist walked away after learning that, no, there is no visitors' gallery at the exchange where he could watch what was happening inside 11 Wall Street. He then disappeared into a dense crowd of tourists. Nearby, folks posed in front of the George Washington statue at Federal Hall, across the walkway from the exchange. They aimed their camera phones curiously around Broad and Wall streets, many drawn to the enormous American flag that flies in front of the NYSE, where it has stood since shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. And they wondered what was going on inside. This is supposed to be the financial capital of the world. Truth is, there's really not that much to see anymore inside these majestic halls. An exchange that used to house more than 5,000 traders shouting out their business now is a mostly docile habitat in which those still left on the floor quietly tap out orders on hand-held computers and barely make a peep at swift changes in market activity. Things indeed have changed a lot for the exchange over the past 25 years. The next 25 years-well, things could get dicey. The Future of Trading Will the exchange still exist? Will it be a museum? An office complex? An automated emporium run by robots? More importantly, will New York still be the financial capital of the world? Nobody seems quite sure, though the building itself does maintain its nostalgic appeal even if it's lost much of its relevance as a trading center. "Symbols matter," said Nicholas Colas, chief market strategist at New York-based brokerage ConvergEx. "It's important to have a symbol that people can relate to, and it's much easier to relate to a physical space. It will be important for the New York Stock Exchange to maintain some relevance with investors." Prospects for the building and what happens inside it hinge on three things: Just how far the trading community pushes automation, how hard regulators push back and how well the 80 or so locations now where stocks are traded can maintain their trust and credibility with the investing public. A Rapidly Changing Ecosystem New York faces a bevy of challenges. Automated trading has taken up about four-fifths of the market's volume. Dark pools -- privately run trading centers away from the NYSE -- are scattered around the metropolitan area. Exchanges around the world -- such as those in Tokyo, London and Shanghai -- are seeing their volumes increase, though they still draw just a fraction of the volume seen in New York at the NYSE and the Nasdaq. The current market is dealing with one whale of a black eye caused by suspicion over high-frequency trading and its stranglehold on market activity. The proliferation of trading aberrations such as 2010's "Flash Crash" and the intense debate over "Flash Boys," Michael Lewis' 2014 HFT-centered book, has underscored the credibility problem, which will have to be rectified -- and soon. Conversations with the folks who help make the market machinery work reveal some interesting-and surprising-thought trends. For instance, there is a pervasive belief that the market will become less fractured and perhaps even a bit slower than the current incomprehensible millisecond-moving speeds. While automation is a fact of life, there is no widely shared dystopian view of a market run by faceless machines without accountability. There's even a bit of whimsy. Look Into a Hypothetical Crystal Ball Market veteran Art Hogan sees two megamergers that could shake Wall Street. One would see Facebook (FB) and Twitter (TWTR) take over the NYSE; the other would have Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG) wrest control of the Nasdaq, which trades mostly tech stocks. In the Hogan scenario, the two mammoths blow out the rest of the 80 or so exchanges and dark pools where trades currently take place and defragment the market. At the same time, regulators change trading "ticks," or the increments in which stocks can trade, from the current decimalization to nickel sizes, eliminating the benefits that high-frequency traders enjoy from capitalizing on moves of pennies. Hogan is kidding ... sort of, but in a way that indicates the general direction the market needs to trend to win back investor confidence. "You've got a world [in 25 years] where technology, social media and financial markets have come together to increase investor confidence in markets," said Hogan, the chief market strategist at Wunderlich Securities. In his future vision, "Wall Street gets to play its role again as the greatest place to form capital for emerging companies, and to research those emerging companies." Don't laugh too loudly. Hogan's scenario of a market that undergoes massive transformation that actually benefits the retail investor and re-establishes some sanity in a market that has lost so much of its trading volume over the years is a widely shared vision. "We're moving faster and faster. The speeds are incredible, but we're going to get to the point where it doesn't go any faster," said Peter Costa, president of Empire Executions and an NYSE governor with 33 years of trading experience. A Quieter Street In the Costa scenario, trading changes completely. In a future world where cash becomes marginalized and digital "credits" take over as a system of payments, companies find stock issuance a trite method of raising funds. Stocks, meanwhile, start to more closely resemble mutual funds, with very little if any price movement during market hours and instead "a final pricing at the end of the day," Costa said. "There will be more financial options for investors," said Todd Schoenberger, managing partner at LandColt Capital. "For example, we now have stocks, bonds, mutual funds, etc. Look for new products to enter the market, which will be a real hassle for regulators. But, expanded options is what you get when you have too many players transacting business." Whatever form trading takes -- high speed, low speed or no speed -- what will matter most is fairness, and many Wall Street pros expect Washington regulators to continue their pursuit of an equitable environment. "What they're realizing is money managers like myself don't care about getting a sell in half a second," said Michael Cohn, chief market strategist at Atlantis Asset Management. "I don't care about the pennies; I care about the perception and the fairness. It affects my business if people think the market is not fair." If there is a common theme in terms of hopes for the future, it indeed would be some simple fairness. "You can still have automation, but it would be nice to bring back some sort of ecosystem into it," said Joe Saluzzi, co-founder of Themis Trading and an ardent campaigner against the ills of high-frequency trading. He hopes the next 25 years hold a greater emphasis on human involvement, not less. "You like to have someone involved. The investor relations officer, the chief financial officer, really has no idea what's going on in their stock," he said. "There are no specialists involved. They need more information as to what's going on. It's not there anymore." While the amount of bodies on the exchange floor indeed has dimmed considerably over the years, the level of employment in financial services has remained fairly and surprisingly resilient. Financial services jobs peaked out in late 2006 at about 8.4 million, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. While that level certainly has declined, the nearly 6 percent drop to 7.9 million as of March 2014 could have been much worse considering the way Wall Street banks cut jobs en masse during the crisis. A Shift to Markets Abroad Expectations, though, are for even fewer footsteps on the Street. "The amount of employees that will be working on Wall Street, if you want to call it that, is going to continue to go down year after year," said Marc Pfeffer, a former trader at Goldman Sachs (GS) and the defunct Bear Stearns who now works as a portfolio manager at CLS Investments. "I am perplexed till today to understand why there are that many people at these firms. I think they're going to be cut by a huge percentage, if they even exist at all." 
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Earnings Wall 
It's not time to buy natural gas yet. But it is time to take profits on any short sales. Two months ago, the price of natural gas looked ready to break down. The chart was tracing out a bearish rising-wedge pattern. And we suggested a short trade at $4.30 might work out as the price dropped down to our target at about $3.60. 
The price fell hard last week after natural gas inventories were announced on Thursday. Natural gas prices haven't reached our $3.60 downside target. (As you can see, natural gas is around $3.80 per thousand cubic feet right now.) But traders might want to lock in their profits before this week's inventory report – due out this morning. 
BOIL has fallen 25% over the past two months, and it has stretched below the downside target of the rising-wedge pattern. That's another reason to take profits on this trade. But we don't yet have any positive divergence on the MACD momentum indicator (the bottom box on the chart above). So it's too early to use BOIL to speculate on rising natural gas prices. The price needs to consolidate at this level for a while longer – or perhaps work even a bit lower – while the MACD indicator reverses and starts to move higher. Once that happens, it'll be time to bet on rising natural gas prices. For now, it's time to take profits on the short trade and just move to the sidelines. – Jeff Clark 
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) If you feel like things are starting to cost a bit more, you're right. 
Soaring prices make it hard to be a foodie 