A perfect storm was brewing for the coal industry in 2008: carbon-capping climate legislation looked increasingly likely to be approved, demand for electricity began to fall sharply and natural gas — which can also replace coal in many power plants — saw a sharp price drop. In addition, the incoming… Read More

I was running through my colleague Brad Briggs’ recent look back at the silver crisis of the... Read More

I was running through my colleague Brad Briggs’ recent look back at the silver crisis of the 1970s. He described a cautionary tale about investors chasing the commodity when its price was no longer... Read More

[This is a continuation of “10 Bold Predictions for 2011: Part 1”] 6. Individual investors finally start to re-enter U.S. equities in a major way in 2011 as the need to build savings in the face of looming retirements becomes a major consumer concern, and rising savings levels… Read More

As an income investor, I occasionally feel forced to choose between growth and a hefty dividend. Finding a high yielding stock that also has good growth potential is a rarity. One reason for that may be that fast-growing companies often don’t pay a dividend. Instead, these companies re-invest… Read More

Carl Icahn has a pretty simple formula for investing: Find a company with unappreciated assets and... Read More

Carl Icahn has a pretty simple formula for investing: Find a company with unappreciated assets and a sleepy management team, rattle a few cages, and wait for shares to finally appreciate.... Read More

As gold flirts with all-time (non inflation-adjusted) highs, many investors wonder whether gold can... Read More

As gold flirts with all-time (non inflation-adjusted) highs, many investors wonder whether gold can surge yet higher, or if we’re merely in a bubble. Although we lack a crystal ball on that... Read More

The remarkable run in gold and silver prices this year has had me thinking lately — particularly silver’s run. Recently, gold’s poorer cousin reached 30 year highs, with prices reaching $30 per ounce on the futures market. It reminded me of a story… Read More

One of the curious aspects of the recent rebound in the IPO market is the heavy slate of China-based companies in the mix. It remains pretty hard for U.S.-based companies to line up a deal, but investment bankers have had little trouble if the… Read More

The recent agreement in Washington to resolve the tax impasse has led many economists to re-check their assumptions about the economy in 2011. Their conclusion: the outlook for 2011 just got a little better. Let’s look at the specific economic indicators, and where most think they will be by… Read More

If you started the year with three wishes and one of them was for more consistency from the energy sector, you wasted a wish. Although many energy stocks are up this year, by double-digits in some cases, others are flat and still others are down (also by double-digits in some… Read More