Harvard Management Co. has 120 securities in its publicly disclosed portfolio. Its top four holdings, representing 55% of the portfolio’s $2.3 billion value, are internationally oriented exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that focus on generating income in emerging markets, China, Brazil and South Korea, respectively. Read More

With Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) going gangbusters and lifting many other tech firms with it, the S&P Global Technology Index Fund (NYSE: IXN) may be a great idea. IXN’s assets are weighted toward large-cap global tech companies. Other top holdings include Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), IBM (NYSE: IBM)… Read More

Companies focusing on steady growth face a real challenge: recent massive cost-cutting may have boosted bottom-line results, but as economic growth is likely to remain tepid in coming years, it will be hard to keep showing impressive year-over-year gains. At this point in previous economic cycles, management teams have historically… Read More

Personally, I’m not much of a racing fan. But I’m probably in the minority in my neck of the woods (Louisiana). Nationwide, there are millions of avid fans glued to every race — particularly the high-profile NASCAR Sprint Cup events. Last year, the Daytona 500 drew a… Read More

It certainly looked good on paper, but Citigroup’s (NYSE: C) ambition to acquire its way to global dominance as a one-stop shop for clients seeking banking, insurance, investment and just about any financial advice imaginable, has miserably failed. A corporate umbrella that spanned Travelers (NYSE: TRV) and its famous… Read More

The financial crisis interrupted an unmistakable trend. Worldwide demand for oil, which had been sharply on the rise in the past decade as a result of ever-increasing demand in China and India, plummeted in the past year. While worldwide oil consumption rose from 64.8… Read More

Thanks to the recent credit crisis, much of which was its own doing, the financial services industry has experienced one of the most volatile operating environments in its history. Fortunately, a heavy dose of government stimulus and calmer capital markets have brought the majority… Read More

When investors shift funds into a certain sector, they often go with the biggest, most liquid names in the group. These bigger firms offer direct exposure to the anticipated favorable trends without the volatility often found with smaller industry players. So it’s curious to… Read More

The iShares Dow Jones Transport Average ETF (NYSE: IYT) is flashing a big time buy signal in my propretiary systems. As such, I am selecting this ETF for my Trade of the Week. Keep in mind that I am… Read More

Large telecom providers have become some of the market’s strongest dividend-paying companies. Although they pay strong yields, most of the big U.S. telecoms don’t offer much in the way of growth. The problem is that fixed-line usage is slowly dying as more customers drop their wired phones… Read More