Carl Icahn recently battled Michael Dell in during his bid to take Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) private, and although Michael Dell won, Icahn still made $70 million in six months. Icahn is famous for investments like this where he takes an active role in trying… Read More

I hesitated to write about this trend. It’s disturbing. Many of its facets are also politically charged. But as an investor, I have to avoid politics. There’s no money to be made by laying blame or opining about what should be. My only job… Read More

Different market sectors carry different risks. In the precious metals sector, and for mining companies in particular, there are geopolitical risks not normally associated with investments closer to home. If you purchase… Read More

It’s not often that a company’s management tells you the company is grossly undervalued and it’s looking to sell itself, effectively giving investors a chance to jump into the stock before it takes off. This is… Read More

For a brief time in 1991, there was no question that I was going to earn a fortune.  By making a few lucky stock and option trades, I had accumulated a modest sum of trading capital in my brokerage account. Knowing that the United States was about to invade Iraq, I had no doubts that the markets would plunge as fears of Iraq’s weapons and military capacity reached a fever pitch around the globe. I decided to short the… Read More

For a brief time in 1991, there was no question that I was going to earn a fortune.  By making a few lucky stock and option trades, I had accumulated a modest sum of trading capital in my brokerage account. Knowing that the United States was about to invade Iraq, I had no doubts that the markets would plunge as fears of Iraq’s weapons and military capacity reached a fever pitch around the globe. I decided to short the market with all of my meager funds. Knowing that the U.S. would invade any day, buying put options on the S&P 100 index provided the most return for when the market plunged. As fate would have it, my timing on the invasion was dead on — the U.S. launched the first airstrike the day after I purchased the put options.#-ad_banner-# But I couldn’t have been more wrong with the direction of the market. U.S. Read More

Different market sectors carry different risks. In the precious metals sector, and for mining companies in particular, there are geopolitical risks not normally associated with investments closer to home. If you purchase shares of Bed Bath & Beyond (Nasdaq: BBBY), you don’t need to worry about guerrilla fighters coming in and stealing your stores at gunpoint. But in the mining sector, this threat is real. I’m referring to is known as nationalization or… Read More

Different market sectors carry different risks. In the precious metals sector, and for mining companies in particular, there are geopolitical risks not normally associated with investments closer to home. If you purchase shares of Bed Bath & Beyond (Nasdaq: BBBY), you don’t need to worry about guerrilla fighters coming in and stealing your stores at gunpoint. But in the mining sector, this threat is real. I’m referring to is known as nationalization or expropriation.#-ad_banner-# Nationalization occurs when a government takes assets held by individuals or private companies and converts them into public or government property. Sometimes compensation is offered. Often it is not. When Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba in 1959, he gradually nationalized all foreign-owned private companies. After a great deal of protest from former owners, the Cuban government eventually paid out $1.3 million to U.S. interests. It was a paltry sum, barely a fraction of what had been taken. When Salvador Allende became president of Chile in 1970, his government finalized the nationalization of Chile’s copper mining industry. The… Read More

If you enjoy the finer things in life, then you’ll love the action taking place in the specialty retail market. Great paintings, sculptures and fine jewelry are not only to be appreciated, but they can make for great investments as well.#-ad_banner-# We’ve already seen one shake-up in the specialty retail industry this year. Billionaire John Paulson is taking famous piano maker Steinway Musical Instruments private for $512 million. The bidding war between Paulson,… Read More

If you enjoy the finer things in life, then you’ll love the action taking place in the specialty retail market. Great paintings, sculptures and fine jewelry are not only to be appreciated, but they can make for great investments as well.#-ad_banner-# We’ve already seen one shake-up in the specialty retail industry this year. Billionaire John Paulson is taking famous piano maker Steinway Musical Instruments private for $512 million. The bidding war between Paulson, private equity firm Kohlberg & Co. and Samick Musical Instruments has driven Steinway’s stock up 90% this year. While Paulson is a fan of pianos, it’s no secret that billionaire and activist investor Daniel Loeb loves art. He is said to have various pieces of art hanging in his Park Avenue office and enjoys going to art shows. Loeb and his Third Point hedge fund are coming off one of their biggest wins after helping turn around Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO). Loeb… Read More

PC maker Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) kick-started the era of affordable personal computers — and made many people very wealthy along the way. Its rise was meteoric. Its stock price shot from about $1 in early 1998 to… Read More

For a brief time in 1991, there was no question that I was going to earn a fortune.  By making a few lucky stock and option trades, I had accumulated a modest sum of trading capital in my brokerage account. Knowing that the United States was about to invade Iraq, I had no doubts that the markets would plunge as fears of Iraq’s weapons and military capacity reached a fever pitch around the globe. I decided to short the… Read More

For a brief time in 1991, there was no question that I was going to earn a fortune.  By making a few lucky stock and option trades, I had accumulated a modest sum of trading capital in my brokerage account. Knowing that the United States was about to invade Iraq, I had no doubts that the markets would plunge as fears of Iraq’s weapons and military capacity reached a fever pitch around the globe. I decided to short the market with all of my meager funds. Knowing that the U.S. would invade any day, buying put options on the S&P 100 index provided the most return for when the market plunged. As fate would have it, my timing on the invasion was dead on — the U.S. launched the first airstrike the day after I purchased the put options.#-ad_banner-# But I couldn’t have been more wrong with the direction of the market. U.S. Read More

If you enjoy the finer things in life, then you’ll love the action taking place in the specialty retail market. Great paintings, sculptures and fine jewelry are not only to be appreciated, but they can make for great investments as well.#-ad_banner-# We’ve already seen one shake-up in the specialty retail industry this year. Billionaire John Paulson is taking famous piano maker Steinway Musical Instruments private for $512 million. The bidding war between Paulson,… Read More

If you enjoy the finer things in life, then you’ll love the action taking place in the specialty retail market. Great paintings, sculptures and fine jewelry are not only to be appreciated, but they can make for great investments as well.#-ad_banner-# We’ve already seen one shake-up in the specialty retail industry this year. Billionaire John Paulson is taking famous piano maker Steinway Musical Instruments private for $512 million. The bidding war between Paulson, private equity firm Kohlberg & Co. and Samick Musical Instruments has driven Steinway’s stock up 90% this year. While Paulson is a fan of pianos, it’s no secret that billionaire and activist investor Daniel Loeb loves art. He is said to have various pieces of art hanging in his Park Avenue office and enjoys going to art shows. Loeb and his Third Point hedge fund are coming off one of their biggest wins after helping turn around Yahoo (Nasdaq:… Read More