The stock market is a temperamental beast. Every year, month, week, day and even hour is different than the one preceding it. Long-term 100-year charts clearly show a substantial upward drift in stock prices, however, there are multi-year periods of very little change and even times of bearish, downward movement. If you begin investing in stocks during the start of one of these down cycles, it can take years just to get back to even, and that’s if you had the luck to buy the right stocks. … Read More

The stock market is a temperamental beast. Every year, month, week, day and even hour is different than the one preceding it. Long-term 100-year charts clearly show a substantial upward drift in stock prices, however, there are multi-year periods of very little change and even times of bearish, downward movement. If you begin investing in stocks during the start of one of these down cycles, it can take years just to get back to even, and that’s if you had the luck to buy the right stocks.  The market is littered with the financial corpses of those who went “all-in” during a bearish cycle or bubble burst of a particular sector. One only has to look back as far as the banking crisis of 2007-2008 or the Internet bubble burst at the turn of the century to find stocks of companies that never recovered. Even the broad indexes are well off their all time highs. Plenty of long term investors bought near the top and are still negative overall in their stock portfolios.  One way to prevent being caught at the wrong time and in the wrong… Read More

  If you were angling for a piece of the Facebook (NYSE: FB) IPO — only to see it quickly drop — then know that it could have been worse. You could have invested in stocks like Brightcove (Nasdaq: BCOV) or Millennial Media… Read More

  Whenever you short a stock, there’s always one huge risk: that your fellow short-sellers will get spooked, buy to cover their positions and unwittingly push the stock up. Indeed, that’s what appears to have happened in the days after I predicted a big pullback (and shorting opportunity) in… Read More

A little more than 10 years ago, when the market was fixated on high-flying tech stocks like Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) and Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO), a few savvy commodity investors were making a fortune on a certain industrial metal. During that time, orders for this metal were so strong, that all the mining production in the world couldn’t keep pace with demand…  To cover the shortfall, buyers had to dip into reserve stockpiles in Russia. All this drove prices for this metal skyward. Between January 2000 and February… Read More

A little more than 10 years ago, when the market was fixated on high-flying tech stocks like Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) and Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO), a few savvy commodity investors were making a fortune on a certain industrial metal. During that time, orders for this metal were so strong, that all the mining production in the world couldn’t keep pace with demand…  To cover the shortfall, buyers had to dip into reserve stockpiles in Russia. All this drove prices for this metal skyward. Between January 2000 and February 2001, spot market prices surged 157% — from $430 an ounce to $1100 in a matter of months. Why do I bring this up? Because not much has changed in the past decade, and I’m seeing a similar situation play out in the market that could send this metal — palladium — soaring again. Here’s the story… #-ad_banner-#Palladium is an extremely important metal. In fact, I would say it’s indispensable for the global economy.  The metal has a multitude of uses, most notably in the dental,… Read More

Ah yes… it’s 13-F season, the time when investors’ fancies turn to what the investment gurus are buying.  Bill Ackman, the legendary value brain behind Pershing Square Capital Management, has been pretty busy these days. With a focused management style that typically involves accumulating… Read More

For a number of decades, it made little sense to invest in emerging markets. These markets would do very well when the U.S. stock market rose, and they would get crushed when it tanked. Who needs that… Read More

  It is a good thing for long-term investors when the market only looks at things a quarter or two at a time. This short-sightedness causes lots of day-to-day volatility, but it can also create some attractive bargains. Lately, for example, the market has… Read More

During uncertain economic times, true value becomes the consumer’s guiding mantra. Getting your money’s worth on whatever it’s spent on is the definition of true value in this sense. Whether it’s a great meal at a discount, a good deal on a luxury car or going on a first-class vacation at a fraction of the expected price, true value for one’s discretionary income has become a driving force in consumer culture.  Evidence of the consumer seeking his money’s worth is made clear in the success of discount coupon… Read More

During uncertain economic times, true value becomes the consumer’s guiding mantra. Getting your money’s worth on whatever it’s spent on is the definition of true value in this sense. Whether it’s a great meal at a discount, a good deal on a luxury car or going on a first-class vacation at a fraction of the expected price, true value for one’s discretionary income has become a driving force in consumer culture.  Evidence of the consumer seeking his money’s worth is made clear in the success of discount coupon websites like Groupon (Nasdaq: GRPN) and Living Social as well as the proliferation of peer-to-peer deal/auction businesses like eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY). But nowhere is the pursuit of true value followed as strongly as in the leisure/travel business. Limited resources and uncertain economic times force consumers to seek out the most bang for their buck as possible.  And I think I smell an opportunity for investors in this space… The growth in the cruise line business is proof of this search for true value. Once reserved strictly for the wealthy, cruising has become the go-to vacation choice for the masses.  Not… Read More

We’re inching ever closer to an official “market correction.” The S&P 500 is down almost 10% from its recent peak, which means we’ll soon hear that phrase bandied about in the financial media.  These pullbacks are painful but bring a… Read More

As the market moved steadily higher throughout the fourth quarter of 2011 and the first quarter of 2012, insider buying slowed to a crawl and eventually ground to a halt. That’s just how… Read More