Investors are creatures of habit. They do the same thing over and over again without a thought of approaching the market differently. Whether they invest in stocks, bonds, commodities or even currencies, everyone has their own entrenched way of choosing investments.  However, the best investors think outside of the box… Read More

Google parent Alphabet (Nasdaq: GOOG) has struggled with problems around its advertising in recent years. First it was complaints by advertisers of placements on racist and inflammatory videos. Then some of its most popular YouTube stars were caught posting potentially racist or violent content.  YouTube cracked down last year, but the same problems have persisted. Major brands including AT&T, Verizon, Pepsi, and Walmart pulled millions of dollars from the video sharing platform until YouTube could provide assurance to the quality of the videos on which ads were being shown. In response, YouTube shocked its creator community in April by requiring… Read More

Google parent Alphabet (Nasdaq: GOOG) has struggled with problems around its advertising in recent years. First it was complaints by advertisers of placements on racist and inflammatory videos. Then some of its most popular YouTube stars were caught posting potentially racist or violent content.  YouTube cracked down last year, but the same problems have persisted. Major brands including AT&T, Verizon, Pepsi, and Walmart pulled millions of dollars from the video sharing platform until YouTube could provide assurance to the quality of the videos on which ads were being shown. In response, YouTube shocked its creator community in April by requiring channels to have at least 10,000 views before videos could be monetized with ads. Some video creators reported as much as an 80% drop in ad revenue after the change. #-ad_banner-#YouTube again changed its revenue sharing model earlier this month in a move that could shut out many more publishers.  The policy change could have unintended consequences. Investors have yet to react to the news, but could be in for a rude awakening over the rest of the year.  The New YouTube Policy Hits Google Where It Hurts The Most YouTube is again raising the bar on its revenue-sharing… Read More

As I’ve said before, it’s best to approach ultra-high yields above 10% with a healthy amount of skepticism. More often than not, the lofty rate stems from a plunging share price, not from a rising distribution. And stocks seldom get cut in half without a reason — particularly when the major averages are setting new highs almost daily.  I found 170 candidates in this month’s screen offering rich payouts of 10% to 15%. Frankly, most of these obscure businesses aren’t worth your time or money. Many are irreparably damaged and in terminal decline. But if you dig through enough rubble,… Read More

As I’ve said before, it’s best to approach ultra-high yields above 10% with a healthy amount of skepticism. More often than not, the lofty rate stems from a plunging share price, not from a rising distribution. And stocks seldom get cut in half without a reason — particularly when the major averages are setting new highs almost daily.  I found 170 candidates in this month’s screen offering rich payouts of 10% to 15%. Frankly, most of these obscure businesses aren’t worth your time or money. Many are irreparably damaged and in terminal decline. But if you dig through enough rubble, you sometimes get rewarded with a diamond in the rough. —Sponsored Link— Your Financial Planner Will NEVER Tell You This Income Trick… But those that know stand to make as much as $1,400 per week. That’s why nearly 65,000 Americans use this every day. But still, MILLIONS more could do this, yet don’t take advantage of it… DO NOT miss out on this opportunity… Click here for the full details. Occasionally, I run across solid businesses facing threats that are real, but over-exaggerated and surmountable. They might have temporarily drifted off… Read More

We are in the midst of the most magnificent speculative frenzy of our lifetimes. The media has been on fire with articles and chatter about the monster gains in cryptocurrency.  Small investors, some starting with under $1,000, have become millionaires over the last year. Larger investors, such as the Winklevoss twins (formerly of Facebook fame), have earned billions by risking significantly more.  Now with Bitcoin hovering around $11,000, investors are hungry to find the next millionaire-making cryptocurrency. With over 900 active choices and hundreds (If not thousands) more initial coin offerings (ICOs) in the works, choosing winning investments has become… Read More

We are in the midst of the most magnificent speculative frenzy of our lifetimes. The media has been on fire with articles and chatter about the monster gains in cryptocurrency.  Small investors, some starting with under $1,000, have become millionaires over the last year. Larger investors, such as the Winklevoss twins (formerly of Facebook fame), have earned billions by risking significantly more.  Now with Bitcoin hovering around $11,000, investors are hungry to find the next millionaire-making cryptocurrency. With over 900 active choices and hundreds (If not thousands) more initial coin offerings (ICOs) in the works, choosing winning investments has become very difficult.  As an active cryptocurrency investor, I have discovered five ways to increase your odds of finding the next bitcoin.  #-ad_banner-#​1. Monthly Volume Trading volume is a crucial method of identifying winning cryptocurrencies. Think of choosing profitable coins and tokens as a popularity contest. The more excitement and potential of a coin, the more investors it attracts. Volume often begets volume, and speculation becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, pushing the price higher.  I use CoinMarketCap to identify the top monthly volume rankings. Look at the top 25 highest-ranked cryptos to start your search for a… Read More

My most profitable years as a trader were when markets were behaving oddly: The dot-com rally in the 1990s… its subsequent crash in 2000… the housing and energy bubble of the mid-2000s… its subsequent crash in 2008… etc. —Sponsored Link— Yours Free: 7 Best Stocks For The Next 30 Days Each of these seven stocks has just been rated a #1 “Strong Buy” by Zacks Investment Research and each one is poised to breakout immediately. Zacks’ Strong Buys have beaten the S&P 500 two to one over the last 25 years!… Read More

My most profitable years as a trader were when markets were behaving oddly: The dot-com rally in the 1990s… its subsequent crash in 2000… the housing and energy bubble of the mid-2000s… its subsequent crash in 2008… etc. —Sponsored Link— Yours Free: 7 Best Stocks For The Next 30 Days Each of these seven stocks has just been rated a #1 “Strong Buy” by Zacks Investment Research and each one is poised to breakout immediately. Zacks’ Strong Buys have beaten the S&P 500 two to one over the last 25 years! Get the list, free, today only. But it wasn’t just my profits that increased; the cost to lease a seat at the exchange I traded at was also at record highs during the late 2000s, when trading volume was near record territory.  If you’ve played this market long enough, you know how most of these euphoric bubbles end up. For those in the know, options, futures and specialized financial products are used as protection and speculation for both the rally and the fall. #-ad_banner-#​CME Group (Nasdaq: CME) is the world’s largest and most diverse futures exchange group, operating in four… Read More

Today’s vernacular is riddled with acronyms ending in the letter “O”: IMO, YOLO, BOGO, and the newest one that’s most relevant to the investing racket, FOMO, which stands for “Fear of Missing Out”.  FOMO can often drive the type of investment behavior that can lead to bubbles and mania. We saw lots of FOMO during the dot-com bubble of the late 90s.  However, professionally speaking, “fear of missing out” sounds almost as absurd as “fear of success”. FOMO in relation to investment behavior is the notion that an investor will chase prices without regard to valuation or fundamentals, driven solely… Read More

Today’s vernacular is riddled with acronyms ending in the letter “O”: IMO, YOLO, BOGO, and the newest one that’s most relevant to the investing racket, FOMO, which stands for “Fear of Missing Out”.  FOMO can often drive the type of investment behavior that can lead to bubbles and mania. We saw lots of FOMO during the dot-com bubble of the late 90s.  However, professionally speaking, “fear of missing out” sounds almost as absurd as “fear of success”. FOMO in relation to investment behavior is the notion that an investor will chase prices without regard to valuation or fundamentals, driven solely by the fear of not being able to participate in a rally. When this happens on a widespread scale, many hearts are broken, and a lot of money is lost. Pundits and talking heads contend that the market is entering this phase. I can neither confirm nor deny this. However, there are a few late-cycle bargains level-headed investors can take advantage of at the expense of FOMO lemmings. #-ad_banner-#The Financials I Like Right Now If you’ve followed my writing on StreetAuthority, you’ll know that I’m a frequent fan of asset manager stocks and master limited partnerships (MLPs). These firms… Read More

The year is still young, but the S&P 500 has already run up more than 6%. That’s not bad at all — especially considering that we’re only two weeks into the year!  For such a short time, this is outstanding. And this should make you happy, especially if you subscribe to the so-called “January Theory,” which states that a strong (positive) month of January will often be followed by a strong year in the markets.  —Sponsored Link— The Only 5 Stocks To Buy And Hold For 2018 It may be one of the most controversial… Read More

The year is still young, but the S&P 500 has already run up more than 6%. That’s not bad at all — especially considering that we’re only two weeks into the year!  For such a short time, this is outstanding. And this should make you happy, especially if you subscribe to the so-called “January Theory,” which states that a strong (positive) month of January will often be followed by a strong year in the markets.  —Sponsored Link— The Only 5 Stocks To Buy And Hold For 2018 It may be one of the most controversial stories gripping the U.S. at the moment. But it’s already turned smart investors into millionaires. The best part — stocks that once returned 200%, 300%, even 500% are offering us another ground floor opportunity to double, if not triple our returns this year. To learn more about these stocks, check out the full story here. But the truth is that, as much as every investor’s situation is unique, every year in the stock market’s history is quite different from the rest, too. This year’s set of circumstances range from the enactment of the new corporate tax… Read More