Most people simply hate stocks. According to a June 2012 survey conducted by the University of Chicago and Northwestern University, 84% of respondents say the stock market is untrustworthy and that it’s foolish to put your money into stocks. Read More

As one of the world’s most successful and prolific investors, it’s no wonder Warren Buffett is closely watched by the stock market. After all, the “Oracle of Omaha” has been able to beat the S&P 500 37 out of the 45 years… Read More

Readers of my articles know I spend little time focusing on biotech stocks. The science behind these companies is often so arcane that analyzing these firms to find the best stocks to invest in is best left to people with a serious grounding in medicine. Even if a biotechnology company’s… Read More

Being the premier name in a business category doesn’t necessarily make it the ideal investment opportunity in that particular sector. Take McDonald’s (NYSE: MCD) for example. While it’s the undisputed king of fast food restaurants, its competitor-crushing edge five years ago led to a dangerous complacency, opening… Read More

It’s wise to be very suspicious of richly-valued IPOs. History has shown us time and again that many will end up stumbling badly once they must prove themselves on a quarterly basis. Yet in the early days of trading, these stocks are often accorded valuations that lead you to think… Read More

Cybercrime is a global epidemic that is costing individuals and companies billions of dollars. Cyber-attacks are causing “the greatest transfer of wealth in history,” according to Gen. Keith Alexander, director of the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command. #-ad_banner-# In the past year alone, industry-leading companies… Read More

As we start to close the books on the second-quarter earnings season, a clear trend is now official: companies have struggled to boost sales and profit margins appear to have peaked, which has led to a higher-than-usual amount… Read More

Warren Buffett is currently earning a 39% dividend yield on his shares of Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO). It seems impossible. If you or I were to buy the shares today, we’d… Read More

When it comes to investing in high-tech stocks, you need to catch companies at the right phase of their growth spurt. Major profits were made in companies like Dell (Nasdaq: DELL), Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO) and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) while they were still being introduced to fresh new waves of… Read More

When industry veterans are asked to join a company’s board of directors, they are expected to stick around for many years. That gives them the accumulated knowledge of a company’s operations, industry positioning and economic sensitivity to help guide forward-looking investment planning decisions. And right now, many of these directors… Read More