It’s a question I’ve been getting almost daily from my subscribers: “What does the fiscal cliff mean for stocks, and how can I adjust my portfolio accordingly?” To be honest, you’re not going to like my answer… it’s not something most investors… Read More

After the financial and economic implosion of 2008, many companies were forced to implement drastic operational changes to stay competitive and profitable. That included increasing productivity, reducing labor resources and lowering capital spending to build… Read More

I fondly remember watching the TV series “Dallas” with my grandparents back in the early 1980s. The show featured a wheeler–dealer, oil tycoon character named J.R. Ewing. He was a man everybody loved to hate, but secretly respected for his business acumen.  Interestingly, J.R. Ewing has a real life twin. Read More

Income investors got an early holiday gift in October, when Kraft was split into two: A high-growth international snack-food business — Mondelez International (Nasdaq: MDLZ) — and Kraft Foods Group (Nasdaq: KRFT), a North American packaged-food business that’s more focused on paying nice dividends to shareholders.#-ad_banner-# The deal was structured… Read More

Investors can be rewarded handsomely by buying beaten-down sectors at the right time. In 2008, financial stocks were at the center of the storm that threatened the global financial system. An ETF that tracks an… Read More

Christmas is just days away, and apparently, a lot of people still have a good deal of shopping to do over the next fortnight.#-ad_banner-# According to a Consumer Reports holiday poll, conducted with three weeks left before Christmas, 36% of gift givers… Read More

There’s a battle raging for the nation’s soul, with half our citizens staunchly defending a basic level of government support for a range of social and public services, while the other half sees government spending as mostly wasteful. Yet both sides agree that our nation’s infrastructure performs a vital role… Read More

Teachers rarely dispense a “D” grade. They only do so when performance has been utterly lousy, or when they want to signal that without a better effort, a failing grade may be next. At least that was the logic behind the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and their quadrennial… Read More

Online brokers undoubtedly have made investing more affordable and accessible than ever before. Gone are the days when you had to make phone calls to a dozen brick-and-mortar… Read More

Some of my biggest gains have come from tracing powerful growth trends back to the source. If lemonade sales are booming, then I want to know who’s supplying the lemons. The smartphone revolution, for instance, has been very good to Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL). And analysts are forecasting a 27% increase… Read More