In this video, Isaac Pino reviews Boston Beer‘s latest earnings and why they declined, including increased selling and advertising expenses, and the fleeting brand loyalty of the craft-beer business.

However, Boston Beer is rolling out canned beer, making its product more convenient and helping it compete with larger brewers. Isaac thinks Boston Beer is a classic buy and hold stock that and a dip may be a good time to get in.

Check out the video for more details.

The article Why Boston Beer Stumbled originally appeared on Fool.com.

Isaac Pino, CPA, has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends and owns shares of Boston Beer. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools don’t all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

On Friday, shares of Microsoft rose 2.32%. When the closing bell rang, the stock price had climbed to $34.87 and set a new 52-week high. Since the beginning of 2013, shares have risen 30.55%, making Microsoft the fourth best performing Dow Jones component. Since the beginning of March, the stock has had only one losing week and 10 winning weeks.

The stock has been a little more volatile in May, but I would say most investors aren’t complaining. The first week of the month, Microsoft was the best performing Dow component after it gained 5.34%, but the second week of the May, shares slipped 2.38%. The this past week, if it wasn’t for an insane run by Cisco, gaining 14.88% over the past five trading sessions, Microsoft would have likely been the Dow’s best stock of the week, as it rose 6.69%. With the stock on fire like this, it’s attracted a lot of investors’ attention, and the question they all want to find an answer to is: Should I buy, sell, or hold?

Sell
The biggest argument for selling is that Windows 8 is performing extremely poorly. This is supposed to be Microsoft’s bread-and-butter product. And if its most important product is falling, where will the company be in a few years? The PC market was praying the new operating system would help with hardware sales, but to anyone who follows the industry, it’s very clear that has not happened.

Dell , which just reported first-quarter earnings last week, saw profits drop 80% compared with the same timeframe last year, and the company is on the verge of losing money from its PC business because of disappearing margins. We should have a better idea of how the PC business is truly during after Hewlett-Packard reports earnings this coming week on May 22, but as of right now, things don’t look good.

The company built Windows 8 so that it could run on tablets and other mobile computing devices, but those products have yet to gain any real traction in a market that’s highly competitive and where everyone is fighting over a relatively small pool of customers.

Hold
While it was announced this past week that Microsoft passed BlackBerry in total smartphones shipped during the first quarter of the year, Microsoft still controlled only 3.2% of the smartphone market while BlackBerry fell to 2.9%. But I also believe this may be a slightly misleading report, because BlackBerry didn’t release its newest smartphones and start selling them until late in the first quarter. And since consumers knew a new BlackBerry was coming out soon, they may have even held off purchasing a new device and just decided to wait. So we could see Microsoft relinquish the third spot in the smartphone industry once again to BlackBerry sometime later this year.  

Microsoft also pays a dividend yield of 2.6%, which is fundamentally strong. The current payout ratio is only 44%, which means the company has a lot of room to increase the dividend in the coming years even if profits stay flat.

Buy
Even despite the poor Windows 8 sales and the slow start to the Windows smartphones, from a financial aspect the company is extremely healthy. Microsoft has more than $73 billion in cash, with less than $15 billion in debt. Operating cash flow for the past 12 months is more than $30 billion, while operating margins are at 35% and profit margins come in at 21%.

Furthermore, with the current share price and earnings per share of $1.94, the stock is trading at just 18 times past earnings, which is very reasonable. But with estimated 2013 earnings per share of $2.76, the forward price-to-earnings ratio of 11 is extremely cheap.

But while the balance sheet and fundamentals all look strong, the biggest reason I see for buying shares of Microsoft is its diversity. As I mentioned, the company’s key product is not performing all that well right now, but Microsoft is still making good money. Microsoft has spread itself out over a number of different products and industries and built a company that doesn’t need just one killer product, because it has five or 10 good ones. The Xbox, cloud data centers, email Web services, Microsoft Office, Skype, the company’s investment in the Nook, and the list could go on.

My point is, at one time Microsoft was a one-hit wonder, but today the company is more like a multiplatinum artist who keeps recording new tracks that are all good but still occasionally writes a blockbuster. I’m a shareholder of Microsoft and believe the company is a strong buy today.

The article Microsoft Sets New 52-Week High! Should You Buy, Sell, or Hold? originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Matt Thalman owns shares of Microsoft.
Check back Monday through Friday as Matt explains what caused the Dow’s winners and losers of the day, and every Saturday for a weekly recap. Follow Matt on Twitter: @mthalman5513.

The Motley Fool owns shares of Microsoft. 
T
ry any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools don’t all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Despite arriving years after key rivals, Ford has had tremendous success in China recently. And it appears on track to duplicate that success in Russia — but its sales in India are falling fast.

In this video, Fool.com contributor John Rosevear looks at the challenges facing Ford and other big names in India — and at what Ford is doing to try to get established in this rapidly growing emerging market.

The article Why Ford Is Losing Big in India originally appeared on Fool.com.

Motley Fool contributor John Rosevear owns shares of Ford and General Motors. The Motley Fool recommends Ford and General Motors. The Motley Fool owns shares of Ford. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Dividend stocks are everywhere, but many just downright stink. In some cases, the business model is in serious jeopardy, or the dividend itself isn’t sustainable. In others, the dividend is so low, it’s not even worth the paper your dividend check is printed on. A solid dividend strikes the right balance of growth, value, and sustainability.

Today, and one day each week for the rest of the year, we’re going to look at one dividend-paying company that you can put in your portfolio for the long term without too much concern. This isn’t to say that these stocks don’t share the same macro risks that other companies have, but they are a step above your common grade of dividend stock. Check out last week’s selection.

This week, I’ll point out a “purrrrfectly” positioned company in the pet sector, Zoetis , and highlight why it could be paying hefty dividends for decades.

Can competition slow down Zoetis?
There isn’t much standing in the way of Zoetis’ success, other than a rash of growing competitors and the fact that its parent company, Pfizer , still exerts quite a bit of control over the company’s growth prospects with 80% ownership in the recently spun off company.

The pet medication space is quite the crowded field. Zoetis certainly leads the pack with $4.3 billion in annual sales, but with a $22 billion pie from animal health revenue alone, Merck‘s animal health division, Sanofi‘s Merial, and Eli Lilly‘s Elanco, all take a greater than $2 billion annual bite as well. Sanofi’s Merial was the only animal products maker of the four to see sales decrease in its latest quarter, as unfavorable weather conditions and increased competition to Frontline hurt its results. 

The Zoetis advantage
There’s a reason I dubbed Zoetis as the most exciting IPO of the year back in January — it has a slew of competitive advantages that will keep its growth and cash flow strong for years to come.

The most interesting aspect that differentiates animal pharmaceuticals from human pharmaceuticals is that while competition exists, personalized competition for common ailments like obesity and diabetes really doesn’t exist on the animal side of the business. Sure, there may be branded drug competition for things like flea medication (see Merial’s Frontline issues again), but the general trend in the sector is that Big Pharma has better things to do than spend millions researching biosilimars of existing drugs — at least for pets. This means that Zoetis’ anti-obesity pill for dogs, Slentrol, should be well protected when it comes off patent, and the same could be said for much of its pipeline, as well as that of Merck, Sanofi, and Eli Lilly’s animal health divisions.

Another factor that’s undeniable is that we as pet owners will do whatever’s necessary to ensure the health of their pets. Don’t get me wrong: The Association for Pet Obesity Prevention says that more than half of all pets are currently considered overweight or obese, so not all owners are doing what’s in the best interest of their pets. But the general trend is that our pets have become ever-more engrained into the American household as a family member.

Source: U.S. Marine Corps, commons.wikimedia.org. 

This is an important point, as few owners choose to provide health insurance for their pet. Most drugs are thus paid for right out of consumers’ pockets, providing unparalleled margins that you just won’t find in many, if any, human pharmaceutical drugmakers.

It’d be foolish of me not to mention the simple fact that as a spun off entity, Zoetis is the most transparent pharmaceutical company of its peers. Merck, Sanofi, and Eli Lilly’s animal health units are all incorporated into their results, making it tougher to see where the strengths and weaknesses of their animal health businesses lie. This spinoff certainly unlocked value for shareholders and made researching Zoetis’ pipeline considerably easier than it had previously been.

Bring on the payouts
Most of you are going to look at Zoetis’ 0.8% yield, scoff or snicker, and probably move right along … but hear me out. Consider for a moment that Zoetis just made its debut a few months ago, so it needs to get its bearings about it as a public company. It’s fairly uncommon to see a big dividend right out of the gate unless the company is a REIT, so I say cut it some slack.

Also consider that Pfizer still owns 80% of all outstanding shares of Zoetis. This means that as Zoetis’ share price rises and as it pays dividends, Pfizer is a direct beneficiary just like shareholders. Current Pfizer CEO Ian Read has made no qualms about beefing up Pfizer’s share repurchase program or paying out a significant portion of earnings in the form of a dividend in order to appease shareholders, so I wouldn’t expect anything different from Zoetis’ management. At the moment, with an annual payout of $0.26, Zoetis is paying just 19% of projected 2013 EPS. Pfizer, comparatively speaking, is paying more than double that at 43%. I think it’s just a matter of time before Zoetis dramatically boosts its payout to reflect something similar to Pfizer’s payout ratio.

Foolish roundup
Zoetis’ yield may not be much to look at now, but a growing trend that has pets becoming a part of the American family has certainly given rise to a massive animal health market. Zoetis is by far the best positioned to capitalize on that trend and looks poised to deliver growing profits and payouts to shareholders in the coming years. I guess what I’m saying is that it gets four paws of approval in my book!

The article 1 Great Dividend You Can Buy Right Now originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Sean Williams has no material interest in any companies mentioned in this article. You can follow him on CAPS under the screen name TMFUltraLong, track every pick he makes under the screen name TrackUltraLong, and check him out on Twitter, where he goes by the handle @TMFUltraLong.

The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools don’t all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

General Motors has been building and selling cars in Brazil for decades, but the car market in this big nation has recently taken off: Some estimates suggest that as many as 40 million Brazilians have joined the middle class over the past decade.

In this video, Fool contributor John Rosevear looks at the state of GM’s position in this fast-growing market, and at the competition it faces for a huge crowd of new car buyers.

The article GM’s Big Push in Brazil originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor John Rosevear owns shares of Ford and General Motors. The Motley Fool recommends Ford and General Motors and owns shares of Ford. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools don’t all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.