Call it “The Mystery of the Secret Payout.” When I was young, Frank and Joe Hardy — the Hardy Boys — were my heroes. There was no shortage of bad guys in Bayport on Barmet Bay. That’s where the fictional teenage brothers and amateur detectives cracked cases involving all manner of miscreant behavior, from murder to auto theft to the ever-popular diamond smuggling.#-ad_banner-# Their adventures had titles such as “The Sinister Signpost,” “The Secret of Skull Mountain” and “The Crisscross Shadow.” What all-American adolescent reader could resist? The original Hardy Boys mystery stories consisted of 58 books published… Read More

Call it “The Mystery of the Secret Payout.” When I was young, Frank and Joe Hardy — the Hardy Boys — were my heroes. There was no shortage of bad guys in Bayport on Barmet Bay. That’s where the fictional teenage brothers and amateur detectives cracked cases involving all manner of miscreant behavior, from murder to auto theft to the ever-popular diamond smuggling.#-ad_banner-# Their adventures had titles such as “The Sinister Signpost,” “The Secret of Skull Mountain” and “The Crisscross Shadow.” What all-American adolescent reader could resist? The original Hardy Boys mystery stories consisted of 58 books published between 1927 and 1979. I lived vicariously through many of them. These days, I still like a good detective story — John Sandford’s “Prey” series featuring Minneapolis cop Lucas Davenport is my favorite. But when it comes to dividend sleuthing, The Daily Paycheck’s Amy Calistri is hard to top. Consider a recent installment of Amy’s, “These Above-Average Yields are Hiding in Plain Sight.” StreetAuthority researcher Austin Hatley introduced you to the topic earlier this month, but it’s a tale worth retelling. Remember the Baker Street Irregulars? They were the band of urchins upon whom Sherlock Holmes relied for tips. “Holmes… Read More

“Always be in a position to trade another day.” Those were some words of advice John Bollinger gave Income Trader’s Amber Hestla as they sat at a dinner table at Ted’s Montana Grill in Denver two weeks ago.#-ad_banner-# “John, like Amber, has made a career out of trading options. It was his initial work with options back in the ’80s that led him to develop the Bollinger Bands®, a technical indicator used by analysts the world over to identify when an asset may be overbought or oversold.” Given his contributions to the profession and his accomplishments as a… Read More

“Always be in a position to trade another day.” Those were some words of advice John Bollinger gave Income Trader’s Amber Hestla as they sat at a dinner table at Ted’s Montana Grill in Denver two weeks ago.#-ad_banner-# “John, like Amber, has made a career out of trading options. It was his initial work with options back in the ’80s that led him to develop the Bollinger Bands®, a technical indicator used by analysts the world over to identify when an asset may be overbought or oversold.” Given his contributions to the profession and his accomplishments as a trader, it’s safe to say John has had considerable success navigating the options market. So when Amber asked him what the key to that success has been, she wasn’t surprised to hear his answer: “Always be in a position to trade another day.” As any good trader or investor knows, you should always have capital preservation in mind when taking a position — especially when it comes to options. According to our research, nearly 80% of people who buy options lose money in the process. With those kinds of statistics, it’s not hard to see how some options traders can… Read More

A bond fund that actually benefits from rising interest rates? That’s the recommendation in the October issue of Nathan Slaughter’s High-Yield Investing advisory. Here’s how Nathan explains the idea behind this unique investment: “Banks and other financial institutions profit by borrowing money at low rates (say 1%) and then loaning… Read More

Sometimes I feel as if I have the best job in the world, especially each time the calendar turns. You see, this is when most of the fruits of the team’s labors come together here at StreetAuthority. It’s when we publish many of the newsletters we’ve been… Read More

Cast your net where the big fish swim. — Anonymous Who hasn’t dreamed of buying and selling stocks alongside the most successful investors of all time? I’m talking about big fish like Warren Buffett, hedge fund manager George Soros and activist investor Carl Icahn. (Let the record show that the… Read More

One company makes wireless chips for Apple’s (Nasdaq: AAPL) iPhone. Another company helps finance silver mining projects in exchange for a future piece of the action. A third owns and operates utility, transportation and energy businesses around the world. The common denominators? Each has rewarded investors with market-trouncing gains in… Read More

I hesitated to write about this trend. It’s disturbing. Many of its facets are also politically charged. But as an investor, I have to avoid politics. There’s no money to be made by laying blame or opining about what should be. My only job… Read More

I hesitated to write about this trend. It’s disturbing. Many of its facets are also politically charged. But as an investor, I have to avoid politics. There’s no money to be made by laying blame or opining about what should be. My only job… Read More

Q. How do you make a small fortune in commodities? A. Start with a large fortune. If you’ve been investing for a while, chances are you’ve happened upon that maxim, or a variation of it. I first heard it on the trading floor of… Read More

There’s a supercomputer at the University of Tennessee that can predict the future. Sort of. “Nautilus” scans tens of millions of news articles and archives from around the planet in search of emotive words — words such as “angry,” “tense,” and “concerned.” Words that convey emotions rather than facts.#-ad_banner-# The… Read More