Walking through the halls of Netflix’s (Nasdaq: NFLX) headquarters in Los Gatos, Calif., during the holidays must have been a gloomy affair. Legions of employees that receive some of their compensation in company stock saw their holdings plunge in value as the video service company saw its… Read More

Although energy stocks have been hot as a group — already jumping nearly 13% so far in 2012 — individual performance is all over the board, ranging from double-digit gains to double-digit losses. And just because a stock is up a lot doesn’t mean it’s worth getting excited… Read More

Investors have been trained to keep one eye on the economy, even as they assess the prospects for their various stock, bond and fund investments. Yet it’s what they track that is crucial. Some economic… 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

I first uncovered this asset class years ago, when I started my High-Yield Investing advisory in 2004. In October of that year, I added one of these securities to my portfolio at $41.33. I sold it for $64.51 about two years later. Along with… 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

In the late 1990s, I was on the Board of Trustees for a nonprofit educational organization. The board’s primary responsibility was to oversee the investment of the organization’s trust funds, worth roughly $5 million. One of the trust funds was used to grant college scholarships. So it… Read More

It appears as if we’ve finally shaken the ghost of the dot-com bubble. The Nasdaq Index has been moving up sharply during the past few years and now trades at levels seen back in 2000, and a few recent dot-com IPOs are now… Read More

If you think the main impediment to solid long-term investment returns is lousy stock picking, then think again. Yes, there are many factors that can hinder investment returns — missing out on fast-growing IPOs, having an advisor who steers you wrong, high fund expenses or taxes, an uncertain… Read More