In the late 1990s, I was on the Board of Trustees for a nonprofit educational organization. The board’s primary responsibility was to oversee the investment of the organization’s trust funds, worth roughly $5 million. One of the trust funds was used to grant college scholarships. So it… Read More

It appears as if we’ve finally shaken the ghost of the dot-com bubble. The Nasdaq Index has been moving up sharply during the past few years and now trades at levels seen back in 2000, and a few recent dot-com IPOs are now… Read More

If you think the main impediment to solid long-term investment returns is lousy stock picking, then think again. Yes, there are many factors that can hinder investment returns — missing out on fast-growing IPOs, having an advisor who steers you wrong, high fund expenses or taxes, an uncertain… Read More

“I’m on the prowl.” Those four words were tucked in to Warren Buffett’s just-released 2011 annual letter to shareholders. And the mad dash begins to figure out what company may be in his sights. Such an exercise… Read More

Let’s face it: natural gas prices are low. Very low. Despite the recent three-week rally in futures, prices remain in the gutter. The recent rally in futures prices came on the heels of reports that domestic supplies… Read More

Beware the “sideways chart.” When a specific stock or the entire market stops rising in value and their charts “move sideways,” then there is often something else afoot. The change from a rising market to a flattening market signals that… Read More

I’ve found what I think is one of the safest dividend-paying stocks on the planet. During the past year, this company earned $8.6 billion in profits. It only distributed $4.6 billion in dividends. In other words, it could see its… Read More

It’s cork-popping time on Wall Street again. The Nasdaq is up 25% in the past six months to levels not seen since 2000, and many individual stocks are up by twice as much. That doesn’t mean it’s time to sell, but it surely… Read More

It’s tried-and-true wisdom on Wall Street that yesterday’s laggards are often tomorrow’s outperformers. That’s exactly what’s shaping up for the energy, metals and basic materials sectors. These stocks were laggards in 2011, but now they look to… Read More