My in-box is flooded. The other applications on my desktop are lining up two by two. It’s been a deluge. I have 40 pages — 40 single-spaced pages — of questions from readers about how they can benefit from government action. This topic has engendered more feedback… Read More

This closed-end fund mimics the tech-rich Nasdaq 100 Index. The fund’s holdings include tech giants Apple, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Cisco, Google and Intel. While the tech sector is not known for its generous dividends, QQQX boosts income… Read More

If you believe Latin America is undergoing a secular period of sustained, long-term economic expansion, then the Latin American Discovery Fund (NYSE: LDF) is a fund you need to consider. Coming out of the last bear market in 2003, these markets enjoyed five straight… Read More

The last time U.S. federal government spending topped 28% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Franklin Delano Roosevelt was in the White House and the nation was fighting all-out war on two major fronts. As the chart shows, total federal government outlays have hovered around 18% to 22% since the early 1980s. But based on projections from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) President Barack Obama’s proposed Budget would push total federal spending to near 29% of GDP in… Read More

The last time U.S. federal government spending topped 28% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Franklin Delano Roosevelt was in the White House and the nation was fighting all-out war on two major fronts. As the chart shows, total federal government outlays have hovered around 18% to 22% since the early 1980s. But based on projections from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) President Barack Obama’s proposed Budget would push total federal spending to near 29% of GDP in fiscal year 2009; the U.S. federal deficit is projected to be more than 13% of GDP in 2009 and close to 10% in 2010. And there’s a catch: both the CBO and the White House are assuming the U.S. economy grows by an average rate of more than +4% over the coming decade, a generous assumption given current economic conditions. This skews the numbers in terms of percent of GDP — actual federal spending is projected to rise from a… Read More

Working for StreetAuthority, I do a lot of different things. In the course of a day, I may be writing an article… editing a newsletter… discussing potential picks with our staff… researching the next investing hotspot… even working with a development team on our new StreetAuthority website… Read More

 The average stock in the S&P 500 Index sports a dividend yield of just 4%. But in many countries around the world, the average stock offers a significantly higher yield. In… Read More

There are only eight of these securities in the world. They carry an astronomical average dividend yield of 17.2%. Read More

Terra Nitrogen (NYSE: TNH) produces ammonia and nitrates used in agricultural crop fertilizers. Its assets consist of a nitrogen plant in Oklahoma and storage terminals in Nebraska and Illinois. Products are sold wholesale to chemical firms, farm dealers, and national retail chains in the central and southern US. Structured as… Read More

Let’s face it. When it comes to treasure, few of us picture stock certificates and bond coupons. Instead, we usually conjure up images of gold bars stacked high in Fort Knox or glittering gold coins strewn about sunken galleons. Over… Read More

Back in October 2007, when the Dow was sitting at record highs above 14,000, there weren’t too many bargains out there. A furious multi-year advance was winding down, and valuations had become overly stretched. Most stocks at the time were trading well above… Read More