In the decade after the dot-com stock boom ended, investors were in for a surprise. Even though many of their mutual funds lost value in the first few years of that decade, they still owed taxes. How’s… Read More

From its 2009 lows near $3 a share, Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) made a massive rebound near the $20 level in 2009 and 2010, but then saw a renewed push down with last year’s base lows at $7. The move back above the $10 pivot point this year sets… Read More

The “fiscal cliff” deadline came and went without even a bearish whimper from the stock market. Now, the so-called “budget sequester” — a set of laws that limit federal spending… Read More

The global trade rebound has been in full force during the past 12 months, after suffering a huge crash from the Great Recession of 2008. Today, shipping lines are on a mend, shipping everything from food and construction products to machinery and chemicals. Read More

In recent decades, the airline industry repeatedly burned investors as economic slowdowns or fuel price spikes wiped out industry profits. Many investors, including Warren Buffett, have suggested that it is best to steer clear of this boom-and-bust industry.#-ad_banner-# Yet in recent years, the entire… Read More

The stock market has experienced the perfect storm of bullishness in 2013.#-ad_banner-# The Dow Jones Industrial Average is making new all-time highs, surging more than 9% within the first three months of the year. Meanwhile, the broad… Read More

Editor’s note: This article was originally published on Dec. 12, 2012. In the past four to five years, investors have been more squarely focused on the consumer end of the tech landscape, bidding up shares of Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), Amazon.com (Nasdaq:… Read More

Editor’s note: This article was originally published on Dec. 12, 2012. In the past four to five years, investors have been more squarely focused on the consumer end of the tech landscape, bidding up shares of Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) and others. But on the business end of high-tech, the big winners haven’t been such industry leaders. Instead, most gains have come from small, but growing software and data-storage providers. But this theme may be upended in 2013, as one of the most dominant… Read More

Editor’s note: This article was originally published on Dec. 12, 2012. In the past four to five years, investors have been more squarely focused on the consumer end of the tech landscape, bidding up shares of Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) and others. But on the business end of high-tech, the big winners haven’t been such industry leaders. Instead, most gains have come from small, but growing software and data-storage providers. But this theme may be upended in 2013, as one of the most dominant companies in the enterprise space regains its mojo. I’m talking about Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO), which has had little to show investors during the past five years. Blocking and tackling Although the stock chart may give the impression of a company slowly losing relevance, nothing could be further from the truth. Cisco’s operational performance has been quite solid in recent years, especially when compared to stumbling giants such as Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ), Dell (Nasdaq: DELL), Computer Sciences (NYSE: CSC), and especially when compared to more direct networking competitors such as Juniper Networks (Nasdaq: JNPR). Consider… Read More

Americans still have a healthy obsession with cars. That was on display last week, with February car sales beating the most optimistic projections for the second month in a row, while rising to their best level in more than four years. According to research firm Autodata,… Read More