Very early Saturday morning I’ll leave my farm in North Central Kansas and drive to Omaha for a sit-down with Warren Buffett at the Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-B) annual meeting. With his longtime partner and vice chairman Charlie Munger, Buffett will speak without notes and answer every question until the… Read More

We all like to stock our portfolio with some high-growth/high-potential names along with some more conservative investments to sleep well at night. With the stock market now approaching the 14-month point of a remarkable bull run, it may be time to add another conservative… Read More

The whole DVD rental business has befuddled short-sellers. For several years, Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) disproved its detractors, and its shares have steadily climbed, forcing short-sellers to eat big losses. The same appears to be happening for Netflix’s rival Coinstar (Nasdaq: CSTR), which rents… Read More

In cost-competitive markets, managements often need to decide to pursue either market share or firm pricing. One approach can preclude the other. Management at MEMC Electronic Materials (NYSE: WFR), which had been smarting from lost market share in recent years, chose to win… Read More

If you thought Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s announcement Wednesday of an offshore wind farm was big news for alternative-energy investing, then you must have missed the far bigger news from his Cabinet colleague, Energy Secretary Steven Chu. While Salazar was standing behind a rostrum touting a 130-turbine… Read More

The Senate officially brought financial reform to the floor today after a deal was reached to end a three-day Republican filibuster on the bill, which seeks to overhaul the nation’s financial regulatory system. “The Wall Street Transparency and Accountability Act of 2010,” Democrats say, aims to set… Read More

Diversification is your best friend in the investment world. During the market crash of 2008-2009 that wiped some -55% off the major averages, a diversified portfolio allocated across many different types of investments suffered far less. Sometimes, even a single stock could provide… Read More

Very few companies went completely unscathed by the global economic downturn brought about by the credit crisis, but this firm was one of them. In fact, sales and earnings have steadily increased for the past decade. This recession-resistant quality has to… Read More

Just a few years ago, Eastman Kodak (NYSE: EK) looked set to go the way of the dodo bird. Obituaries for this former “Nifty Fifty” stalwart were being written at a furious pace as the digital photography revolution seemingly passed the company by. But Kodak has staged a phoenix-like rise… Read More

Every year, a handful of stocks emerge as intriguing high-growth stories that attract hordes of momentum investors. Shares of these hot stocks can climb and climb until the valuations move into the stratosphere. And then, inevitably, a company can become big enough that it… Read More