If a CEO oversaw this sort of performance, they’d be ridden out on a rail. A fund manager? You better expect a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation and prison time. But there’s something different about this investment. It’s lost 99% in the past two years, yet it’s rarely in the news and it hasn’t been shut down. In fact, it still trades 30 million shares a day. Meet the Direxion Daily Financial Bear 3X Shares (NYSE: FAZ). It takes the crown as the worst investment we at StreetAuthority have… Read More

If a CEO oversaw this sort of performance, they’d be ridden out on a rail. A fund manager? You better expect a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation and prison time. But there’s something different about this investment. It’s lost 99% in the past two years, yet it’s rarely in the news and it hasn’t been shut down. In fact, it still trades 30 million shares a day. Meet the Direxion Daily Financial Bear 3X Shares (NYSE: FAZ). It takes the crown as the worst investment we at StreetAuthority have ever seen. The fund is built to triple the Russell 1000 Financial Services Index… in the opposite direction. So if the index is down 1 point, FAZ rises three points. During the financial crisis, buying a few shares would have actually been a nice hedge for your portfolio. But these highly leveraged short funds are time bombs if you hold them too long. Once the rebound took hold, owning FAZ meant disaster…   FAZ has its place — if you’re a trader or if… Read More

About 15 years ago I was held prisoner of war in Hartford, Conn., at a large, rookie broker re-education facility. While trudging to class each day, I passed by the headquarters of quite a few famous insurance companies. All were familiar except one: Phoenix. I did some research and learned that, at the time, it was a mutual company (owned by the policy holders) and not publicly traded. However, its investment management arm did trade publicly via master limited partnership (MLP) units. They were clearly trading at a deep discount… Read More

About 15 years ago I was held prisoner of war in Hartford, Conn., at a large, rookie broker re-education facility. While trudging to class each day, I passed by the headquarters of quite a few famous insurance companies. All were familiar except one: Phoenix. I did some research and learned that, at the time, it was a mutual company (owned by the policy holders) and not publicly traded. However, its investment management arm did trade publicly via master limited partnership (MLP) units. They were clearly trading at a deep discount to their actual value, so I bought what few shares I could. In less than a year, after collecting a couple dividend payments, Phoenix bought back all of the units they didn’t own and I made a nice little profit. Fast forward to now. Phoenix (NYSE: PNX) has long since demutualized. The investment arm was spun off a couple of years ago as a free-standing entity: Virtus (Nasdaq: VRTS). Phoenix’s common shares trade at an abysmal sub-$3.00 level The company just can’t seem to get out of its own way. The… Read More

Quick spurts of 50%, 75% or more aren’t uncommon. HiSoft Technologies (Nasdaq: HSFT) has surged 200% since it happened to their stock. JinkoSolar (NYSE: JKS) is already up more than 155%… in a matter of less than nine months. The best news?… Read More

For a decade, you’ve heard the glowing stories: enormous GDP growth, massive infrastructure building — even 15-story hotels being built in six days… China’s growth is unstoppable. It’s only a matter of time before it overtakes the United States as the largest economy in the world. Not so fast… China’s market is flashing a major warning sign. If you have money invested in Chinese stocks, keep a close eye. I use the iShares FTSE China 25 ETF (NYSE: FXI) as an easy way to keep tabs… Read More

For a decade, you’ve heard the glowing stories: enormous GDP growth, massive infrastructure building — even 15-story hotels being built in six days… China’s growth is unstoppable. It’s only a matter of time before it overtakes the United States as the largest economy in the world. Not so fast… China’s market is flashing a major warning sign. If you have money invested in Chinese stocks, keep a close eye. I use the iShares FTSE China 25 ETF (NYSE: FXI) as an easy way to keep tabs on China’s market. It holds 25 of the biggest companies in China, across all industries… banks, telecoms, oil companies. You can think of it as China’s Dow Jones Industrial Average. Well, China’s “Dow” is having problems:   A period of consolidation after a big rebound would be expected if this were anywhere but “unstoppable” China. And when you compare that flat performance with our own Dow, which has gained about 30% in the same time frame, you really start to see the trouble brewing. If you’re invested in China,… Read More

The stock market is dominated by traders and investors. Traders simply focus on today’s market action. Investors hold a much broader view, finding winning stocks that will ride future trends. In recent sessions, traders have found plenty to dislike about employment search firm Monster Worldwide (NYSE: MWW). Shares were… Read More

Want a peek at this summer’s headlines? Then just watch the action in the oil market. The price of oil has been rising steadily for nearly two years, and it’s coming close to the point of inflicting real pain on many businesses. If current trends continue, we may be talking about $4 for a gallon of gasoline by spring, and surging home heating oil costs later in the year. In many respects, the United States can tolerate $70 oil, or even $90 oil. But at $100 or even $110, so many companies will start speaking of profit-margin… Read More

Want a peek at this summer’s headlines? Then just watch the action in the oil market. The price of oil has been rising steadily for nearly two years, and it’s coming close to the point of inflicting real pain on many businesses. If current trends continue, we may be talking about $4 for a gallon of gasoline by spring, and surging home heating oil costs later in the year. In many respects, the United States can tolerate $70 oil, or even $90 oil. But at $100 or even $110, so many companies will start speaking of profit-margin pressures. And profit margins are the key factor behind many strategists’ forecasts for continued stock market gains in 2011. This is why you should be worried, even if you don’t own oil stocks in your portfolio. Up until now, stocks have been rallying in tandem with oil prices. That’s quite unusual. We’ve been in a rare period where rising economic activity has been good for both assets. Yet if history is any guide, further oil price spikes will tend to deflate stock prices. Here are three stocks in particular that simply cannot… Read More

For years, physical gold and gold miners traded in tandem. You’d expect the companies that make a living mining gold would move along with the price of the metal. And that’s what happened for a long time… until the market tanked in 2008. Since then, gold and gold miners have had a strange relationship. Investors love gold right now. They see a safe-haven; a tangible commodity you can hold, covet, even hoard. But people were scared away from equities during the crash, sending shares of gold miners… Read More

For years, physical gold and gold miners traded in tandem. You’d expect the companies that make a living mining gold would move along with the price of the metal. And that’s what happened for a long time… until the market tanked in 2008. Since then, gold and gold miners have had a strange relationship. Investors love gold right now. They see a safe-haven; a tangible commodity you can hold, covet, even hoard. But people were scared away from equities during the crash, sending shares of gold miners down much further than gold prices. And while many miners have rebounded nicely (even outperforming physical gold recently), it looks like investors have yet to completely warm back up to the companies that actually pull gold out of the ground. It’s one of the reasons you can actually buy the gold reserves held by miners for pennies on the dollar. [See: “How to Buy Gold for Only $159 an Ounce”] The chart below shows the performance of the SPDR Gold Shares ETF (NYSE: GLD) compared to the Market Vectors… Read More

I want to show you a chart. It’s nothing complex or hard to understand. In fact, I take pride in how simple it is to read. You’ll be surprised to learn that the money I made (shown in the chart below) is the result of just a… Read More

There aren’t many companies that can say they’ve paid dividends every year for the past four decades. Fewer still are those that have raised their dividends in every single one of those years. Of that elite group, I know of only one company that has hiked its… Read More

A healthy cushion of cash is always valued by large, stable companies. Many companies make good use of that cash by buying back their own stock. Just a few weeks into earnings season, we’ve already seen a hefty slate of new stock buyback announcements. Read More