For Japan, the hits keep on coming. Just last week, China knocked the country off its perch as the world’s second-largest economy, dealing a sharp blow to national pride. But this week’s news is even more sobering. The Japanese Yen is surging to a 15-year high of around 85 yen to the U.S. Dollar. Why the sharp recent move? Because the U.S. Federal Reserve has recently hinted that it may start to resume “quantitative easing,” whereby it prints money to inject funds into the financial system and spur banks to lend at greater… Read More

For Japan, the hits keep on coming. Just last week, China knocked the country off its perch as the world’s second-largest economy, dealing a sharp blow to national pride. But this week’s news is even more sobering. The Japanese Yen is surging to a 15-year high of around 85 yen to the U.S. Dollar. Why the sharp recent move? Because the U.S. Federal Reserve has recently hinted that it may start to resume “quantitative easing,” whereby it prints money to inject funds into the financial system and spur banks to lend at greater volumes. As that move potentially pushes up inflationary pressures down the road, the dollar weakens. For a country like Japan that perennially struggles to boost domestic consumption and instead relies on its major exporters, this could lead to real pain. First, its exports are quickly becoming less competitive. Second, any profits that are associated with exports will shrink at the rate that the currency is strengthening. This could not come at a worse time — Japan is wrestling with a rapidly aging workforce and surging government debt (which is far higher… Read More

My mother’s side of the family owns large tracts of land along the Louisiana and Mississippi border. The area is teeming with wildlife and has been an outdoor paradise for at least five generations. But the real value of this fertile region is the soil itself, where… Read More

U.S. debt is skyrocketing with no end in sight. And while the dollar has recently functioned as a short-term safe haven, its long-term fundamentals are deteriorating. #-ad_banner-#To put it in perspective, U.S. public debt in 2000 was $3.4 trillion. That has now more than doubled to $8.6… Read More

Soon after taking office, U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner made U.S. banks undergo a stress test to see how they would fare in ever more dire economic scenarios. Almost all U.S. banks passed the test with flying colors. And as investors breathed a sigh of relief, they called their brokers… Read More

Love is a fickle thing. When oil prices surged past $100 a barrel in 2008, investors fell madly in love with alternative energy stocks. But when oil prices crashed, and when signs emerged that government budget problems would curtail the industry-friendly subsidies, so did investor ardor for this young industry. Read More

I believe the odds of a double-dip recession in 2011 are high — very high. The U.S. and global economies are struggling. You might think that good earnings reports here in the United States are indicative of an… Read More

It just might be one of the biggest, far-reaching pacts of the decade — and I’m betting you’ve never heard of it. It will govern business in more than a dozen countries, influence the shopping patterns of 1.9 billion consumers and facilitate trade in a region whose annual… Read More

Stock market volatility has caused many investors to question their commitment to buying individual stocks. This combined with a decade of flat to slightly negative stock market returns has stoked a debate over whether buy-and-hold investing makes any sense going forward. Defensive-minded investors looking to lower equity… Read More

After surging to a new all-time high of $1,258.58 an ounce on Friday, the yellow metal certainly could come under pressure from profit-taking or some other yet unknown exogenous event. However, for lots and lots of reasons, I like gold in this market. Here’s why: To begin… Read More

Stock analysts have taken their fair share of criticism in recent years. Some so-called experts are consistently off-the-mark and issue earnings projections that seem to be little more than guesstimates. Others simply follow the herd and are reluctant to raise… Read More