How many times have you walked through the aisles of your local grocery store and mindlessly grabbed items off the shelf that are staples of your home? Things like spaghetti sauce, dish soap, shampoo, paper towels… the little necessities life requires. How many times have you plucked… Read More

How low can you go? That’s the question many investors are asking about China Security & Surveillance Technology (NYSE: CSR). Shares keep on dropping, and the forward P/E ratio, which had been a paltry six, then drifted to… Read More

Don’t look now, but radio frequency identification (RFID) chips are all around you. They’re used in toll booths, at the gas pump, in retail stores and on the farm to keep track of animals. They even allow store managers to change the price of a product on the shelf with… Read More

For many years, Hasbro (NYSE: HAS) and Mattel (NYSE: MAT) turned in lackluster annual results, as sales and profits grew at a snail’s pace. Both of these toymakers only recently learned how to boost sales, cut costs and reduce the share count, but only one also took a page from… Read More

Market volatility has recently moved to multi-year lows, leading to investor complacency. But it’s time to sit up and pay attention again: the Dow Jones is registering its third straight session of 150-point swings. That’s great for day traders and options players, but nerve-wracking for the buy-and-hold crowd. Read More

The exchange-traded fund (ETF) world remains abuzz with activity on the new launch and product development fronts. Money managers like Pimco that have recently dipped their toes into the ETF waters with… Read More

If you’re anything like the average dividend investor, you want one thing: safe, reliable income. Sure, a large payout is nice, but at what cost? A high yield means nothing if it’s here today, gone tomorrow. Read More

Most of the time, there’s a trade-off between yields and capital gains. Want a stock that could rapidly rise? You’ll have to give up a high dividend yield. Want a stock that pays double-digit income? The share price is unlikely to rise too… Read More

If you thought Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s announcement Wednesday of an offshore wind farm was big news for alternative-energy investing, then you must have missed the far bigger news from his Cabinet colleague, Energy Secretary Steven Chu. While Salazar was standing behind a rostrum touting a 130-turbine… Read More

The Senate officially brought financial reform to the floor today after a deal was reached to end a three-day Republican filibuster on the bill, which seeks to overhaul the nation’s financial regulatory system. “The Wall Street Transparency and Accountability Act of 2010,” Democrats say, aims to set… Read More