Eight times a year in Washington, D.C., a dozen men and women sit down to vote on the economic fate of the United States. They come representing regions around nation — rural and urban, rich and poor — and the power they wield is unmatched. Together, they make decisions that… Read More

It’s become a bit of a holiday tradition. Each year in October, I step back and take a long hard look at where I think the market will be heading for the next year. It’s easy to get caught up in the trivial aspects of day-to-day market… Read More

It could be just the thing to put an end to the economic malaise. If enacted, shareholders of dozens — even hundreds — of companies would have to be ready for a tidal wave of stock buybacks and dividend hikes. And the overall… Read More

I don’t want to bury the lead, so let me start with my prediction: the economy will add over 2 million jobs in the next 12 months. But before we get to that, let’s add some context. To say that the job market is weak would be like saying the Saw horror movie franchise is a little gory. In fact, I’m not sure which has seen more bloodletting. Last month, The Los Angeles Times reported that 2.3 million California workers have been axed — and that’s just in the Golden State. Read More

I don’t want to bury the lead, so let me start with my prediction: the economy will add over 2 million jobs in the next 12 months. But before we get to that, let’s add some context. To say that the job market is weak would be like saying the Saw horror movie franchise is a little gory. In fact, I’m not sure which has seen more bloodletting. Last month, The Los Angeles Times reported that 2.3 million California workers have been axed — and that’s just in the Golden State. Nationwide, the unemployment rate has remained at elevated levels above 9.5% for 15 consecutive months, the longest such drought on record. The last time we saw a “jobless recovery” of this magnitude was in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, more than 2.5 million jobs were lost in the 18 months following the terror attacks. At that point, it seemed as if the labor market would never get in gear. But by January 2004, payrolls around the country were already… Read More

Want to know how much power the Federal Reserve holds? Late Tuesday, the Fed announced it would spend $600 billion on a program of buying Treasury bonds. That’s in addition to what it will also spend by reinvesting the proceeds of other bonds it had purchased already. On Wednesday, the S&P soared nearly +2%, creating about $220 billion in market cap in a single day. I can’t say it was unexpected. You see, every year for my StreetAuthority Market Advisor readers,… Read More

Want to know how much power the Federal Reserve holds? Late Tuesday, the Fed announced it would spend $600 billion on a program of buying Treasury bonds. That’s in addition to what it will also spend by reinvesting the proceeds of other bonds it had purchased already. On Wednesday, the S&P soared nearly +2%, creating about $220 billion in market cap in a single day. I can’t say it was unexpected. You see, every year for my StreetAuthority Market Advisor readers, I put together two lists. First comes a list of my predictions for the coming year. Next is a list of my top 10 stocks for the year. About a week before the Fed’s announcement, I sent my predictions for 2011 to my subscribers. Prediction No. 9 called for this next round of quantitative easing, or as it’s more elegantly called, QE2. But that was only part of the prediction. Now that the first half came true, I also predicted exactly where I want to invest based on the news… and it’s looking good, too. Read More

It’s pretty simple really. You sell products, you bring in revenue. Subtract whatever cash was spent on those products (cost of goods sold) and you have gross profit. The larger the gross profit, the more earnings are left over once… Read More

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin dropped a bombshell in early August.   Unrelenting drought, scorching heat and uncontrolled fires have ravaged farmland and destroyed Russian crops this year. It has been estimated that roughly a third of Russia’s wheat harvest has been lost. So Putin took the only… Read More

I have a little quiz for you. I’ll describe one of the most lucrative commodity plays I’ve ever seen, and you tell me which one I’m talking about. Ready? This commodity is one of the most versatile on the planet. It… Read More

Several months ago, I was lucky enough to sell my home relatively quickly (at full asking price, no less). Unfortunately, when the time came to hand the keys to the new owner, we still hadn’t found a replacement. Luckily, I knew a local commercial property manager who… Read More

Back in the mid-1980s, I was a bit of a computer nerd. I was not only fluent in basic (a programming language now deader than Latin), but also probably the only kid in school who new what DOS stood for. That would be “disk operating system” for… Read More