Oil, technology, minerals and banking. Those are the industries that are host to the world’s most richly-valued companies. In fact, with a market cap of more than $250 billion, these companies are larger than the gross domestic product (GDP) of countries such Portugal, Egypt or Chile. Read More

Signs have emerged in the past two weeks that China is paving the way for its currency to start... Read More

Signs have emerged in the past two weeks that China is paving the way for its currency to start appreciating. It may take a year or two to see even a 10% or 20% rise, and practically nobody else is... Read More

Emerging market investing focuses largely on Brazil, Russia, India and China, or namely the BRIC countries. As it turns out, an entire continent also has quite a bit of growth appeal. And the fact that it is still in the early growth stages means that smart investors still have time… Read More

A growing chorus of investors has started to talk of a China bubble. These folks think the Chinese government will be unable to glide the economy onto a slower plane of growth without unexpected stumbles. And they expect Chinese stocks to move sharply lower if this rising giant loses… Read More

China denied it for years. And it wasn’t until April of last year that the communist nation finally came clean. Finally, in the spring of 2010 — only after satellite images had been released of construction taking place — China officially told its Indian neighbor that it… Read More

This New Year, income investors like me will likely be finding some of the richest dividend yields overseas. As a general rule of thumb, foreign stocks often have higher dividend payouts than their U.S. counterparts, and pay a much larger dividend as well. While lately there’s… Read More

Although you have probably never heard of this company, chances are you use its technology every single day. Do you watch television, or use a computer? Have you bought an iPad or iPhone? Do you use a cell phone, digital camera or a GPS navigation system in… Read More

As we enter 2011, investing abroad has become awfully tricky. Emerging market economies have been the shining stars of the past few years, and many of their stock markets have been on a tear. As I noted a few weeks ago,  some of them have seen their markets double in… 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

It’s been a roller-coaster year for stocks, but one that will ultimately end well. Barring any unforeseen events, the S&P 500 will end the year with a gain of about 15.0%. This year brought with it a myriad of opportunities for profits and losses, from the commodities boom and M&A… Read More