Who among us hasn’t wished for the stock-picking savvy of Warren Buffett? The stock portfolio of the legendary investor has significantly outperformed the market during his 60- year investing career. Buffett’s advice is so highly regarded that an wealthy avid follower recently paid $2.6 million just to have lunch with… Read More
Results
In the fall of 2008, the global economy headed into freefall, helping to push the stock market down to such an extent that a second Great Depression appeared quite possible. Few would have guessed the global economy would be on the… Read More
If you’re an income investor, you’ll want to see this one. This investment… Pays no corporate taxes Is required by law to pass through the bulk of earnings to investors Acts as a “toll operator” for the transport of America’s most-needed commodities… Read More
If you had a spare $300 billion lying around, then you could acquire Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO) and Nokia (NYSE: NOK). Good thing you resisted the urge to do so back in 2000. Back then, it would have cost you nearly $1.2 trillion to buy the three tech giants. Who has that kind of money lying around? Microsoft looks like the relative hero of this group, having only fallen 55% since the end of the dot-com boom. Cisco has lost more than 80% of its value and Nokia nearly 90%. But if every dog… Read More
If you had a spare $300 billion lying around, then you could acquire Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO) and Nokia (NYSE: NOK). Good thing you resisted the urge to do so back in 2000. Back then, it would have cost you nearly $1.2 trillion to buy the three tech giants. Who has that kind of money lying around? Microsoft looks like the relative hero of this group, having only fallen 55% since the end of the dot-com boom. Cisco has lost more than 80% of its value and Nokia nearly 90%. But if every dog has its day, then which of these dogs can regain some of the former luster? #-ad_banner-#Nokia and Microsoft: permanent casualties of Apple? Apple’s (Nasdaq: AAPL) stunning growth (its market value has risen from $5 billion in 2003 to a recent $300 billion) has come at the expense of so many other tech companies, though perhaps none have felt the pain as much as Microsoft and Nokia, which were themselves once a favorite brand of tech consumers. These days, the two humbled giants are working together in hopes that their… Read More
In Scarcity & Real Wealth last month, I urged readers to be mindful of China’s ongoing fight to contain inflation. If I were forced to pick a single barometer that could predict the weather for all types of real assets, it would be China’s… Read More
The yield on a 10-year Treasury bond is hovering just below 3%. This means investors earn less than 3% for locking up their money in this security for a decade. Shorter-term rates are even stingier — a three-year Treasury yields only 0.70%, while… Read More
George Soros is a world-renowned former billionaire hedge-fund manager and philanthropist. He co-founded the Quantum Fund in the 1970s with Jim Rogers, another world-famous investor. Soros’ fame grew in 1992 when he made $1 billion by short-selling the pound sterling, speculating that the British government would be forced to devalue the currency. He became known as “The Man Who Broke the Bank of England.” Unlike his former partner Jim Rogers, who is credited with anticipating the commodity boom that started in… Read More
George Soros is a world-renowned former billionaire hedge-fund manager and philanthropist. He co-founded the Quantum Fund in the 1970s with Jim Rogers, another world-famous investor. Soros’ fame grew in 1992 when he made $1 billion by short-selling the pound sterling, speculating that the British government would be forced to devalue the currency. He became known as “The Man Who Broke the Bank of England.” Unlike his former partner Jim Rogers, who is credited with anticipating the commodity boom that started in the late 1990s and who is keeping his gold, Soros has been selling a lot of gold. The moves speak volumes. He believes gold is in a bubble and he’d rather sell before everybody else catches on. #-ad_banner-#In September of 2010 Soros said “Gold is the ultimate bubble, it is certainly not safe.” In the first quarter of 2011, he sold nearly $800 million worth of gold exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and stocks. After that sale, his company, Soros Fund Management, owned less than 50,000 shares of the SPDR Gold Trust (NYSE:… Read More
There is a current raging debate about the merits of government support for Big Oil compared with support for clean-energy technologies such as wind and solar power. The clean-energy crowd is adjusting to a world of fewer government subsidies, but these “green” advocates insist that wind, solar and other technologies… Read More
This tech stock tells of a classic “dot bomb” recovery story. But unlike most of its peers that recovered in the early years of the past decade, this stock is just now blooming, thanks to a recent surge in demand for its cloud-based communications services. This late recovery gives savvy… Read More
It’s an open secret that Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) can’t seem to find meaningful growth opportunities. The massive retailer’s sales grew just 1% in fiscal (January) 2010, 3% in fiscal 2011 and will be hard-pressed to grow much more in fiscal 2011 and 2012. Tepid growth explains why shares have… Read More