Stocks & Mutual Funds Articles

Reach in your pocket and take out that big roll of bills. Depending on how many of them you have you feel pretty good. BUT did you know they are not worth the paper they are printed on? Huh? Let me explain. Yes, those bills are legal tender because t...

I receive emails from Morningstar. This company provides statistics and analysis of just about every publicly traded stock company you can think of as well as voluminous information on mutual funds around the world. You can ask them about a company's...

In November of 2000 when the NASDAQ was trading at 3000 I wrote in this column that the NASDAQ Index would fall to 1500 and I got lots of heat for saying it. Microsoft had fallen from $129 to $60 per share. You know where they are today. The talking ...

One of the big advertising kicks today from mutual funds is to tell how low their expense ratio is and that you will make a great deal more money if you buy and hold with them. Partly true, but that is not the whole story. What is the expense ratio? ...

Every day I hear from the "experts" on CNBC-TV and the radio gurus that the way to buy stocks is find value. One man's Rembrandt is another man's connect-the-dots and fill in the spaces. Valuation is like beauty. It is in the mind of the beholder. I...

When it comes to buying a stock or mutual fund most people act pretty quickly. There are some who will take the time to get a report from Morningstar (it is worthless) or get reports from their broker (also worthless) or even do a search on the Inter...

Having lived aboard a sailboat for 2 years I was stricken when I saw the movie "PERFECT STORM". I know these are things you want to avoid at all costs. Even little storms can play havoc with your life style on a boat. From a world view it looks like ...

If you haven't heard of the technical indicator with the stock market symbol VIX it is now time to pay some attention to it. When the number is running low, as it is now, around 15 to 18 it means everyone is happy and thinks the stock market is going...

At some time in your life you have been on a river in a canoe and hopefully you had a paddle. You know about being up the creek without one. You quickly learned that paddling up stream is much harder than paddling down stream. The lesson of going wit...

Mutual funds and brokers are always preaching not to buy any fund with a high expense ratio. That is the annual costs of the fund to pay for trading of stocks within their portfolio, salaries, rent, telephone, analysts, etc. Most of them tell you not...

First let's see what protectionism is. According to Mr. Webster it is the advocacy, system, or theory of protecting domestic producers by impeding or limiting, as by tariffs or quotas, the importation of foreign goods and services. That sounds pretty...

I continually hear from economists, talking heads, other market letter writers, analysts and assorted "experts" that I need to know all kinds of "stuff" about the stocks and mutual funds I am going to buy and I should keep up with them on a regular b...

One of the great "secrets" of successful people is discipline and it doesn't make any difference whether it is manufacturing, processing, servicing or investing in the stock market. Before you can have that discipline you must have a successful plan ...

Do you own any mutual funds? In an IRA or 401K or wherever. Privately or at work. Have you called your fund manager to find out what is going on with your fund? Are they under investigation for late trading, improper pricing, deviation from length of...

Mutual funds are doing more and more to discourage investors from leaving them and taking their money to a better performing fund. What does better performing mean? It has nothing to do with who the manager is, what the expense ratio is or how well t...

The big bad bear is stirring again. So far he has stretched, yawned and peaked out of his cave. After his almost year-long nap he is hungry. A nice big steak would hit the spot. That steak comes from cattle and not too far from his den there is a fat...

I am hearing predictions by brokers, financial planners, talk show hosts and the talking heads on TV that the market is going back to its old highs - DOW 11,700 and NASDAQ 5000 here we come. It seems to me that in 2000 I heard these same people sayin...

The stock market has been going up for more than 7 months and many investors who held on through the big crash of 2000 are seeing their portfolios get back some of what had disappeared. Is now the time to sell those equities that are 'even' with what...

If you go to Haiti or other places in the Caribbean you may run into the Voodoo tradition of magic. There are long and mostly noisy rituals with the medicine man spouting words that bring great power and conjure up whatever it is the supplicant desir...

(1) CHK stock price $16.74, NAV $32.5 CHK is my favorite oil or natural gas stock. Here is updated Net Asset Value (NAV) table from CHK July 2004 earning release: Table CHK PV-10 per share NAV vs Natural gas price N Gas price NAV per share $4....

For some "long term" would mean holding a stock position over the weekend. For others, it may mean holding a security for at least 1 year for the purpose of declaring a long-term capital gain, thus saving on taxes. The rigid definition of a long-term...

After some forty years of banking and investments, I retired in 2001. But since I do not golf, I soon found retirement to be very boring. So I decided to return to the investment world after ten months. However, those ten months were not a complet...

Among the largest forces that affect stock prices are inflation, interest rates, bonds, commodities and currencies. At times the stock market suddenly reverses itself followed typically by published explanations phrased to suggest that the writer's ...

The World Bank claims that some two billion of the world's citizens live on $1 per day or less! That fact absolutely shocked me. With this statistic in mind it becomes important to focus on all of the things that have served as money over the histor...

A colleague of mine just returned from a scuba diving trip in Cozumel, which just happens to be one of my favorite places to dive. Anyway, she was telling me about an unexpected difficulty she encountered while swimming around the corral reef down ab...

I made my very first investment in the stock market when I was ten years old. Ever since then I have been hooked! Now I check out hundreds of trades each year with the same excitement andenthusiasm, and each time try to find that one market at the ri...

Financial markets provide their participants with the most favorable conditions for purchase/sale of financial instruments they have inside. Their major functions are: guaranteeing liquidity, forming assets prices within establishing proposition ...

Carefully thinking through your goal as a trader is of prime importance, when picking the best stock market price. It is very difficult if not impossible to meet a goal that is ill defined. Is your goal to trade frequently, irrespective of market con...

In his wonderful book, 'Multiple Streams of Income', best selling author Robert Allen advises Investors to divide their Stock Market investment and trading capital into three portions -50% invested long term (forever) in an Index Fund, 30% invested i...

Starbucks earnings are up again and so is their stock slightly. It appears they are exporting America's weakness to caffeine and sugar around the world. This seems to serve the company's profits well and nations like China have quite an emerging popu...