Price patterns on stock market charts are the building blocks of technical analysis. Patterns are thought to make stock predictions regarding the continuation or reversal of price trends.

December E-mini S&Ps (ESZ14 +0.41%) this morning are up +0.40% and European stocks are up +0.77% on positive carry-over from yesterday's FOMC meeting where policy makes kept their pledge to keep interest rates near zero for a "considerable period" after completing asset purchases.

For much of the past decade, the biofuels industry in the US grew exponentially. During this period, the US became the world’s leading producer of transportation fuel made from recently harvested plant material, producing about 44% of the world’s biofuels supply in 2013.

This is the second article in a four part series that will walk readers through how to rate and value a stock. For this article, we will continue to walk you through the process of valuing chemical manufacturer DuPont (DD), which we began by calculating NOPAT.

Sep E-mini S&Ps (ESU14 +0.32%) this morning are up +0.29% on a +1% recovery in the Euro Stoxx 50 index and a +1.8% recovery in Russian stocks.

Trading stocks sometimes feels like a very modern phenomenon, so it’s easy to forget that some of the companies we’re investing in go back a century or more.