As interest rates collapsed in the past few years to multi-decade lows, investors had no choice but to flee low-yielding government bonds and bank CDs for higher-yielding, dividend-paying stocks. From master limited partnerships (MLPs) and real estate investment trusts (REITs) to foreign government bonds, it’s been an era of profitable investing. Yet… Read More

As interest rates collapsed in the past few years to multi-decade lows, investors had no choice but to flee low-yielding government bonds and bank CDs for higher-yielding, dividend-paying stocks. From master limited partnerships (MLPs) and real estate investment trusts (REITs) to foreign government bonds, it’s been an era of profitable investing. Yet signs are emerging that this trend may start to reverse course. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note has spiked higher since the beginning of May to roughly 2.2%, and if we continue to see robust monthly employment reports, then these rates will probably climb steadily higher as the year progresses. Simply put, the economy is… Read More

Bonds are supposed to be safe investments. But what most fixed-income investors don’t realize is that bonds have rarely been more risky. That’s because with interest rates near record… Read More

After another big gain, the S&P 500 closed in overbought territory for the first time since October. Overbought, But Not A Sell Signal To define overbought, the 52-week rate of change (… Read More

Anytime a new CEO takes the reins of a struggling company, he or she is typically given a full year to implement a full turnaround. That’s the time in which the CEO can boost flagging employee morale, articulate a fresh game plan for Wall Street to assess, and put the wheels in motion for a sustained upturn in… Read More

Anytime a new CEO takes the reins of a struggling company, he or she is typically given a full year to implement a full turnaround. That’s the time in which the CEO can boost flagging employee morale, articulate a fresh game plan for Wall Street to assess, and put the wheels in motion for a sustained upturn in sales and profits. Yet when that one-year grace period (also known as the “honeymoon phase”) is over, investors tend to take a much more circumspect view. Talk becomes cheap, and financial results start to speak for themselves. July 16 marks the one-year anniversary of Marissa Mayer’s debut as CEO of Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO), so the time is at hand for a steady path to much improved results. Considering that shares have rallied 70% since Mayer arrived 10 months ago, investors already appear… Read More

The lessons I learned in college during the summer vacation months have proved more valuable than the hard-earned academic ones. While working in the evenings and Saturday mornings at my uncle’s small marketing company in Miami, my cousin and I were fortunate to spend the days at the beach. Having grown up with a very fiscally conservative family in the Pennsylvania countryside, the fast life and glamour of Miami really took me by surprise! Fancy cars, speedboats, yachts and massive homes immediately caught my attention. It was truly mad money, and to top it… Read More

The lessons I learned in college during the summer vacation months have proved more valuable than the hard-earned academic ones. While working in the evenings and Saturday mornings at my uncle’s small marketing company in Miami, my cousin and I were fortunate to spend the days at the beach. Having grown up with a very fiscally conservative family in the Pennsylvania countryside, the fast life and glamour of Miami really took me by surprise! Fancy cars, speedboats, yachts and massive homes immediately caught my attention. It was truly mad money, and to top it off, some of these folks never seemed to work. While some were my uncle’s friends who owned this or that company, some of the over-the-top lifestyles really seemed to have arisen from out of thin air — in other words, from dubious sources.#-ad_banner-# Fascinated by what I was seeing, I naively asked my uncle whether most people in that area were millionaires. He chuckled. “While there are very successful people around, many of them are fakers,” he said. Fakers? What did he mean? He explained to my overly impressed self that many of the… Read More

In China, the economic news is going from bad to worse. The country’s Purchasing Manager’s Index (PMI), which in May dropped to 49.2, signaling contraction, has slipped further in the first three weeks of June, to 48.2. A key component of the PMI, new export orders, fell to just 44.0. In May, imports fell to their lowest levels in roughly nine months, due in large part to growing commodities stockpiles. Pricing power at key companies is dropping, thanks to chronic industrial overcapacity. Weaker… Read More

In China, the economic news is going from bad to worse. The country’s Purchasing Manager’s Index (PMI), which in May dropped to 49.2, signaling contraction, has slipped further in the first three weeks of June, to 48.2. A key component of the PMI, new export orders, fell to just 44.0. In May, imports fell to their lowest levels in roughly nine months, due in large part to growing commodities stockpiles. Pricing power at key companies is dropping, thanks to chronic industrial overcapacity. Weaker corporate profits are raising concerns for the Chinese banking system, as many banks have issued a tremendous amount of loans to manufacturers and real estate developers in recent years. The era of easy money in China appears to be winding down as interest rates are quickly moving higher. (The seven-day repurchase rate shot above 8% this week, after being below 4% for much of the past few years.) Economists cite a… Read More

Four years ago, if an individual investor even entertained the idea of buying a stock, chances are it was in the utility sector. They were boring. Our grandparents would collect them like tourists collect sippy cups from amusement parks. While some people feared the… Read More

It’s the feel-good story of 2013 that nobody is talking about. The nation’s budget deficit, which had been spiraling out of control, is finally returning to manageable levels. Thanks to higher government revenues and lower government spending, this… Read More

One of the best income strategies in the world involves a “glitch” in the financial markets. It allows individual investors to generate “Instant Income” from the best companies in the world. The best part, more than 80% of the time, in my experience, investors don’t have to buy a single share of stock. I’ve been using this strategy to deliver winning income trades for readers during the past few months. So far, the results have been great — my strategy has… Read More

One of the best income strategies in the world involves a “glitch” in the financial markets. It allows individual investors to generate “Instant Income” from the best companies in the world. The best part, more than 80% of the time, in my experience, investors don’t have to buy a single share of stock. I’ve been using this strategy to deliver winning income trades for readers during the past few months. So far, the results have been great — my strategy has allowed Income Trader subscribers to enjoy thousands of dollars in “Instant Income” since I first launched my service in Februrary. But you don’t have to take my word for it, here’s what one subscriber had to say: “Great advice. Very clear to understand. [Income Trader] is a must for anyone interested in making money. No fluff, no hype. Just $$$$. I demo traded a few months before going live and was amazed at the results. I’ve been subscribing to newlsetters for years and this by far is the best one.” Using my strategy, subscribers… Read More

My job as chief investment strategist for Game-Changing Stocks requires me to look for “the next big thing.” Sometimes that means I’m looking through obscure government reports to learn about the latest technology the Pentagon is using that… Read More