Blog Posts by Chris Nichols

A remodeled Gap (GPS) has been named Yahoo! Finance's first ever "Company of the Year."

After years of being out of fashion, a bit of reinvention went a long way in 2012 for the Gap, its management and its investors: Shares of the retailer soared. It raised its dividend and set plans to repurchase shares. Revenue is on track to grow sequentially for only the second time in six years, and earnings are expected to climb sharply.

When you think "Gap" and "Company of the Year," you might be scratching your head. But remember, and this is key, this pick was about 2012, not the last five years, not the next five. And it's been a very good, and memorable, year for the San Francisco-based clothing shop.

With a 71% stock-price increase since the start of the year (through Dec. 11), Gap placed in the top 4% of the S&P 1500. Meanwhile, it rewarded stockholders by boosting its dividend more than 10% to 50 cents annually and announced it would reduce the number of shares on the market with a $1

Stocks in the U.S. are headed for their fourth straight year of gains, and two of the main equity measures are showing double-digit advances since the start of 2012. Not bad considering the economy didn't do a lot to warrant that kind of stellar performance.

Clearly, it's not entirely bad on the economic front. Signs of improvement are there, but the effects of the 2008 downturn are still lingering, in some areas more than others. What happened this year is further evidence that stocks don't need a humming economy to grow nicely. Through Dec. 18, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 7.7%, and the S&P 500 had climbed 13.3%. The Nasdaq Composite was the best of all, rising 21%.

If you're into the idea that stocks are valued today based on what's expected to happen tomorrow, then you could make a broad comment that traders believe the U.S. economy will improve, and therefore it's time to get shares now, even this far into the extended rally. There's also the greater fool theory. That

If you put them together, Katherine and Isabelle Adams wouldn't be old enough to drive a car. Yet these girls have managed, in the last 13 months, to reach across the oceans and make life immeasurably better for villagers they've never met, in lands far, far away from their own home in Dallas.

That's because these young sisters, ages 6 and 9, have raised a remarkable amount, more than $120,000 in total, for clean-water projects in Ethiopia and India, all through selling origami Christmas ornaments that they make and by collecting matching funds for their cause.

It's not every day you'll meet children who can say that before fourth grade they've touched more people than most of us will if we live to be 100. But Isabelle and Katherine have done just that through their project, Paper for Water.

A Very Strong Start

Paper for Water is barely more than a year old, though for the Adams sisters it isn't their first charitable endeavor. They'd previously raised funds for Parkland Hospital burn

Two young sisters from Texas are leading a movement to change the world -- and not in the figurative sense.

If you put them together, Isabelle and Katherine Adams wouldn't be old enough to drive a car. Yet these girls have managed, in the last 13 months, to reach across the oceans and make life immeasurably better for villagers they've never met, in lands far, far away from their own home in Dallas.

That's because the first- and third-grade siblings have taken up the cause of getting clean water to impoverished hamlets in Ethiopia and India, where water free from pathogens and pollution can be something only for the imagination. They're spreading their message using origami, the paper-folding process dating back centuries in Japan, and what they've achieved in just over a year is nothing short of remarkable.

It's not every day you'll meet children who can say that before fourth grade they've touched more people than most of us will if we live to be 100. But Isabelle, age 9, and

McDonald's (MCD) same-store sales rebounded to a positive number in November, as all three of its main regions, led by the U.S., showed growth in the important metric that had disappointed investors the previous month.

Shares of McDonald's were up 1% to $89.38 in early trading Monday after the Oak Brook, Ill., hamburger giant said same-store sales in the latest month rose 2.4% globally and were better than analysts had been expecting. In domestic stores, comp sales were up 2.5%, while Europe's sales rose 1.4%. Sales in the Asia/Pacific, Middle East and Africa region were also higher but had the lightest increase at 0.6%.

In October, same-store sales were down by more than 2% in all three areas, which produced a total decline of 1.8% and gave McDonald's its first negative monthly reading in nearly a decade. While the bounceback clearly is better than another downward month, a little perspective is helpful: Of the 11 months reported so far this year, November ranks eighth in terms of

McDonald's (MCD) has been running a little short on positive news lately, but it got some Friday when a research analyst reversed his opinion and put a buy rating back on the stock while simultaneously assigning it one of the highest price targets on Wall Street.

Janney Montgomery Scott analyst Mark Kalinowski upgraded the home of the Big Mac to buy from neutral and gave the company a $104 price target, up $8 from his prior target, according to FactSet data. The analyst is having a change of heart in fairly short order, after downgrading the burger seller from buy at the end of September -- only a little more than two months ago.

Prior to Janney's decision to put McDonald's back in the buy column, the last significant action on the stock was just after Thanksgiving, when Lazard Capital Markets analyst Matthew DiFrisco cut his rating on the shares to neutral from buy.

With the latest upgrade, Janney's got a target that's the second-highest among the analysts who follow Oak Brook,

Reports of Republican lawmakers abandoning the party's long-held position against tax hikes have been greatly exaggerated, according to one of the nation's most influential conservative voices.

Not only is the GOP not going to agree to new or higher taxes without simultaneous spending cuts, but the tea party, which in the last two years has sent a number of establishment Republicans into retirement, is poised to have an even bigger impact on American politics in the 2014 midterm elections. This, according to Grover Norquist, is simply the way it is.

With concerns about the fiscal cliff -- the combination of tax increases and government spending reductions that could go into effect at the start of next year -- dominating the headlines, President Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner have been leading the argument that higher taxes on the richest U.S. citizens is one of the keys to reaching a compromise that would avoid the cliff.

Both parties have acknowledged that the nation

Deckers Outdoor (DECK) shares were surging Monday after a research firm said the shoe maker's stock should be purchased, providing further momentum on top of what was already a 26% gain in only the past month.

Sterne Agee upgraded Deckers, the maker of brands such as UGG and Teva, to buy from neutral with a $65 target, lifting the stock 7.1% to $41 in recent trading. With 90 minutes gone in the market day, volume in the stock had already surpassed the average for a full session. The firm said it was optimistic about the second half of 2013 for the company owing to its products.

The upgrade continues a run of positive commentary on Deckers, including a recent Seeking Alpha blog post about how the stock could get to $92 and a Wall St. Cheat Sheet item pegging Deckers as a medium-term outperform. (If you want to follow what investors are saying about Deckers and the stock in real time, visit our Market Pulse page on DECK.)

Jefferies, another Wall Street firm, said less than a week ago