Throughout the 1990s tech boom, Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) made life miserable for any other firm trying to sell computers. Its lean operations enabled it to generate solid profits even as price wars kept most rivals’ bottom lines in the red. First Solar (Nasdaq: FSLR) has taken a page from Dell’s… Read More

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently cut the nation’s biofuel output quota for 2010. It wasn’t a token cut, either. It was a -94% reduction in cellulosic ethanol, to 6.5 million gallons, from 100 million gallons. (Cellulosic ethanol… Read More

Uganda, the East African nation sandwiched between the Congo and Kenya, is blessed with significant mineral resources. Its rich, fertile land is not prone to drought, and although agriculture has long encompassed a majority of the country’s economy — coffee is its most significant… Read More

This week brought a significant bit of news in the ethanol world. Industry-watchers might assume I’m talking about President Obama’s Wednesday announcement with the Energy and Agriculture secretaries that a federal biofuel output quota schedule had been finalized, a move that… Read More

The President’s health care initiative rests on a shelf with little talk in Congress about what’s next for the sweeping overhaul. At the same time, Mr. Obama has re-positioned the chessboard for his climate-control bill, suggesting at a town-hall meeting in Nashua on Tuesday that the legislation might need to… Read More

Certain companies are always worth owning. Happily, short-term market anomalies can transform such companies from a good buy into a screaming buy. Now may be such a screaming-buy time for a certain company in the energy industry. The demand for crude oil fell in… Read More

When procrastinating husbands open their wallets to pay for decadent Valentine’s Day chocolate, they’re likely to wind up paying a little more than usual this year. They can thank the growing worldwide sugar shortage for that. Read More

It’s become an annual tradition among the research staff of Market Advisor — StreetAuthority’s longest-running publication.   Every December, through phone calls, emails, and meetings — heck, everything short of smoke signals — the office is abuzz with chatter.   You see, December is when… Read More

Future historians may well define our current time on Earth as the “oil age.” It is estimated that the world consumes 80-85 million barrels of oil per day. And as industrialization expands across the globe on an unprecedented scale, long-term demand is on the rise. Read More

The clock is ticking. We don’t have much time. That’s not just the opening line of the upcoming season of “24,” it’s the statistical reality of the world’s petroleum reserves. Fact: The world consumes 80 million barrels of oil every day. Read More