A few months ago the nation was locked in the throes of the financial crisis. Markets were crashing. Experts spoke of financial calamity and depression. Hope evaporated. This was to be a financial disaster for the ages. Look what’s happened. The Dow Jones… Read More

The gambling business is a license to print money. Everyone knows that. But for investors who want the cash flow without casino’s real-estate risk and their potentially crushing debt, there’s an alternative: Online gambling. The first Internet gambling… Read More

Not sure how to best judge the dividend safety of an investment? Let Standard & Poor’s do it for you. “AAA” credit ratings are hard to come by. The S&P sets the bar extraordinarily high for its top tier. These are the elite of… Read More

I just found one of the safest 13.0% yields I’ve ever seen — and it’s in a place practically no income investor dreams of looking right now. In addition, I’ve found securities few American investors even know exist that are offering incredible dividend growth… Read More

Bill Gates owns about 700 million shares of Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) — 713.1 million to be exact. His cache of Microsoft stock is worth a tidy $18.7 billion. Every time the price of Microsoft moves up a penny, Gates’ wealth grows by $7.1 million. Read More

Income investors are exposed. The U.S. government has racked up $10 trillion in debt and Washington continues to spend more money we don’t have. No one’s talking about balancing the budget: The Obama Administration estimates budget deficits will soar to $1.8 trillion this year and $1.3 trillion… Read More

I have a game I like to play. A little con. It generally involves two pigeons. One is a friend, the other is Bill Gates. It never fails. I’m always amazed at how little people know about financial information. When I show someone the SEC’s site, for instance, he or… Read More

It’s the classic Cinderella story. Rags to riches. From nothing to something. The big dance begins with a single step — the initial offering of a company’s shares to the public. Thousands of investors try to “get in on the ground floor.” Take… Read More

“Stupid.” That’s what Buffett’s right-hand man Charlie Munger had to say about not investing in railroads sooner. That was two years ago. Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-B) now has a stake in three of the four major railroads in the United States. But he is so fond of one, he owns… Read More

Most income investors ignore small companies. Conventional wisdom says that large, mature companies pay dividends and small companies don’t. That’s hardly the case. Nearly 10,000 small caps trade on U.S. exchanges. Of those, 3.3% carry a yield of 6% or more. Believe it… Read More