When America was on the doorstep of the Roaring ’20s and the birth of modern American consumerism, the predecessor to SunTrust Bank (NYSE: STI) made a shrewd investment.#-ad_banner-# When Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO) went public, the bank was part of the underwriting group. The lead underwriter, J.P. Morgan (NYSE: JPM), took its $100,000 fee in cash. SunTrust took its payment in the company’s newly issued shares, which came out… Read More

When America was on the doorstep of the Roaring ’20s and the birth of modern American consumerism, the predecessor to SunTrust Bank (NYSE: STI) made a shrewd investment.#-ad_banner-# When Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO) went public, the bank was part of the underwriting group. The lead underwriter, J.P. Morgan (NYSE: JPM), took its $100,000 fee in cash. SunTrust took its payment in the company’s newly issued shares, which came out to be around $70,000. The stock certificates and Coca-Cola’s secret formula sat in the bank’s vault for nearly a century growing to nearly 30 million shares worth more than $2 billion and paying around $53 million annually in dividends. Fast-forward to 2012. After a brutal financial crisis, SunTrust decided to do what many considered sacrilege. After being battered by a soft economy, tighter government regulation and bad loans, the company decided to sell… Read More

The financial crisis forced every company in the world to re-evaluate its business model. Frozen credit markets, a recessionary global economy and weak consumer demand scared even the most profitable and… Read More

Known as an activist investor, David Einhorn is actually a methodical value investor with a long-term track record of success. He started his hedge fund, Greenlight Capital, in 1996 with… Read More

Six hundred fifty million dollars is a lot of money — even for Bill Gates.  That’s how much his investment firm has invested in what might be considered the best way to play China. It’s not a software firm or even a computer hardware firm. It’s mining giant Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT). Gates started building a position in Caterpillar before the financial crisis, but he became a very aggressive buyer once the crisis hit and… Read More

Six hundred fifty million dollars is a lot of money — even for Bill Gates.  That’s how much his investment firm has invested in what might be considered the best way to play China. It’s not a software firm or even a computer hardware firm. It’s mining giant Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT). Gates started building a position in Caterpillar before the financial crisis, but he became a very aggressive buyer once the crisis hit and shares had fallen by half. Yet remarkably, Gates has kept on buying, even as shares steadily rebounded to previous peaks. But now that Caterpillar has come under pressure on concerns that China is slowing, is Gates locking in profits? No, he’s been buying more, picking up another 500,000 shares in this year‘s second quarter. At current prices, his firm’s stake of 10.76 million shares is worth a cool $650 million. The key question: Why does Gates continue to buy shares even after China’s slowdown has signaled the potential end of a global commodities… Read More

Warren Buffett once summed up his approach to investing as “Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.” Great advice, but with bonds plunging on higher… Read More

In a globally connected world, viruses can spread quickly. From influenza to dengue fever to herpes to HIV, viral contagions can spread at an alarming pace.  Trouble is, it’s difficult to identify permanent cures to viral diseases. For example, even though doctors completely understand how the flu virus works, millions… Read More

We have Charles Martin Hall to thanks for many major industrial advances of the 20th century. His discovery of the process of aluminum smelting produced many breakthroughs in food services, packaging, automobiles and aerospace. But Hall and the company he founded are no longer held in such high esteem on Wall Street. Alcoa (NYSE: AA) has just been asked to pick up its things and leave the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA). Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) and Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) have also been shown the door.#-ad_banner-#… Read More

We have Charles Martin Hall to thanks for many major industrial advances of the 20th century. His discovery of the process of aluminum smelting produced many breakthroughs in food services, packaging, automobiles and aerospace. But Hall and the company he founded are no longer held in such high esteem on Wall Street. Alcoa (NYSE: AA) has just been asked to pick up its things and leave the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA). Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) and Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) have also been shown the door.#-ad_banner-# I noted the possibility of these changes last year, predicting that Alcoa and HP were headed for the exits. I also thought Travelers (NYSE: TRV) would be given the boot, though the ongoing troubles at Bank of America made that financial services firm more vulnerable. The fact that BofA has more than five times the market value of Travelers was apparently of little concern. (And the fact that Travelers was added to the index only four years ago likely meant that it… Read More

In 1905, Charles Henry Robinson spotted a unique opportunity. After moving west with his family to the North Dakota town of Grand Forks, he soon realized that settlers were in need of supplies. He founded a transportation company with the goal of delivering perishable products to consumers before they spoiled… Read More

Q. How do you make a small fortune in commodities? A. Start with a large fortune. If you’ve been investing for a while, chances are you’ve happened upon that maxim, or a variation of it. I first heard it on the trading floor of… Read More