The financial crisis interrupted an unmistakable trend. Worldwide demand for oil, which had been sharply on the rise in the past decade as a result of ever-increasing demand in China and India, plummeted in the past year. While worldwide oil consumption rose from 64.8… Read More

Large telecom providers have become some of the market’s strongest dividend-paying companies. Although they pay strong yields, most of the big U.S. telecoms don’t offer much in the way of growth. The problem is that fixed-line usage is slowly dying as more customers drop their wired phones… Read More

Last week marked the one-year anniversary of the market’s March 9 bottom. Since then, the S&P 500 has risen from 676.53 in the darkest days of the financial crises to a close of 1159.46 on Tuesday. That’s a whopping +71% gain in just over a year. Now… Read More

The trend toward increased worldwide industrialization is undeniable. The growth of China and other emerging markets has exponentially and permanently increased industrial production across the globe. In the past decade, world trade has exploded to a level far beyond what the… Read More

In a highly uncertain environment, one thing is clear. The demand for health care will not merely continue… It will dramatically increase in the years to come. Health care has always been a “defensive” industry, as people get sick no matter… Read More

Powerful factors are aligning. These forces clearly point to an increase in the price of oil. Consider: Worldwide petroleum use is increasing. A slight pullback caused by the recession notwithstanding, global demand for oil is on the rise as China and other emerging-market countries… Read More

Certain companies are always worth owning. Happily, short-term market anomalies can transform such companies from a good buy into a screaming buy. Now may be such a screaming-buy time for a certain company in the energy industry. The demand for crude oil fell in… Read More

The recession has been tough on companies that pay dividends. According to Standard and Poor’s, companies in the S&P 500 cut dividends -21% from 2008 levels. That’s the worst year for dividend cuts both on a dollar and percentage basis since 1938. Read More

A year ago, high-yield bonds were outcasts. The financial world braced for Armageddon, and investors fled riskier high-yield bonds in droves in anticipation of widespread defaults. Yield spreads — in this case, the difference between yields on high-yield bonds and yields on “AAA”-rated corporate bonds — soared to a record… Read More

The economy, at long last, has begun to recover. That’s not to say things are rosy. Unemployment is still 10%, and some suggest this means the nation’s recovery may be marked by less consumption and higher personal savings than in… Read More