It’s no secret that home builders are in a funk. They’ve built just 500,000 to 600,000 new homes in each of the past three years, which happens to be the three lowest years on record (the data go back to 1959). And it’s just half the average rate seen during… Read More

Carl Icahn is among the 25 richest people in the United States, with a net worth estimated to exceed $13 billion. He accumulated his wealth by being an activist investor, acquiring stakes in companies that were performing poorly, then pushing for organizational and administrative… Read More

Earnings season can be a white-knuckle affair. You wait on pins and needles to see if your stocks deliver solid results and a robust forward outlook. So when results roll in and they are disappointing on most counts, it’s quite tempting to just… Read More

“I’m on the prowl.” Those four words were tucked in to Warren Buffett’s just-released 2011 annual letter to shareholders. And the mad dash begins to figure out what company may be in his sights. Such an exercise… Read More

It’s cork-popping time on Wall Street again. The Nasdaq is up 25% in the past six months to levels not seen since 2000, and many individual stocks are up by twice as much. That doesn’t mean it’s time to sell, but it surely… Read More

When Forest Oil (NYSE: FST) announced in late 2010 that it would spin off its Canadian energy fields in a new company called Lone Pine Resources (NYSE: LPR), investors shrugged. But investors who bought the parent of the spin-off when the deal was completed on Oct. Read More

I don’t know about you, but in the first two weeks of February there is always this nagging feeling in my head that I am forgetting something. Do you get that? Then, inevitably, my wife will hand me a red envelope and it will dawn on me that once again,… Read More

Bill Ackman may not be a household name in the world of investing, but he should be. For starters, he became a billionaire through the successful management of hedge funds and by concentrating his bets into a small handful of opportunities he thinks will pay off big. This was the… Read More

Every time the market swoons, the level of insider buying picks up sharply. It’s the natural reflex company officers and directors have in a bid to defend their stock. Trouble is, these folks don’t have the greatest track records. If the market falls… Read More

Prior to the 2007 meltdown of the subprime lending market, hedge-fund manager John Paulson was a name with a solid reputation for performance, but not necessarily put on the same pedestal with the likes of George Soros or Warren Buffett. The primary fund he… Read More