Fossil fuels are out, alternative energy is in and dozens of companies are likely to benefit from the transition. Investors can use one security to capture these imminent gains. Leaders of 192 countries are meeting at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen to… Read More

Exactly 250 U.S. companies are valued at more than $10 billion, but only 18 of them — the top 7.2% — have no long-term debt on their balance sheets. It’s an impressive statistic, but perhaps more notable to investors is that… Read More

With the weak economy, drug makers have been scaling back their drug development plans. The slowdown has trickled down to the so-called contract research organizations (CRO), which help pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms manage the necessary clinical trials for a drug to be licensed… Read More

I’m always on the lookout for the right combination of fundamental and technical factors to get a trader’s edge. Look carefully at the following two charts — the first covering the last three months of 2008 and the first three of 2009, and the second covering the… Read More

When Princess Diana died, all I really wanted was a movie rental.   I would have paid almost anything for it: I was in the hospital for an appendectomy, and, after 48 hours of nonstop Diana coverage, I was ready for the doc to remove my brain, too. Read More

What’s the first thing that pops into your mind when you hear “Standard & Poor’s”? It’s likely the benchmark S&P 500 Index. But there’s so much more that Standard and Poor’s has to offer. Read More

Looking at the yields on junk bonds today, I’m reminded of a Joanie Mitchell lyric many years ago: “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got till its gone.” In October 2008, the dividend yields for speculative-grade (junk) bonds were averaging 2,182 basis points above… Read More

I bought a pair of noise-canceling headphones from an airport vending machine. When I put them on and turned the switch, the dim from the airport disappeared. After my flight took off, I put the headphones back on. The hum of the jet engines evaporated. Every investor ought to own… Read More

We all watched in anguish as the S&P 500 dropped -40% from October 2008 to March 2009. Even the most diversified portfolios weren’t immune. For all the talk about foreign economies being “decoupled” from the U.S. economy, foreign stocks tumbled in lock step… Read More

They say what’s past is prologue. So when history starts repeating itself like this, it’s wise to take notice. Mergers and acquisitions are picking up after a drought in activity for much of the past year. On Monday, Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) said it would buy computer-services provider Perot Systems (NYSE:… Read More