Renault saved Nissan in 1999. The partnership now boasts the highest profit margins in the industry. GM took a $10.6 billion plunge last year. Can the powerhouse French / Japanese duo rescue the US’s largest auto maker?
Devaluation of currency is not uncommon in other countries, but so far has been moderate in the U.S (in part because the dollar is the world’s currency). I recently discussed this in an article titled Speculating on the Future of the Dollar. But given our massive debt, budget deficit and trade deficit, a significant drop of the dollar against other world currencies (and corresponding increase in inflation as all types of imports become more expensive) becomes a possibility.
How can you protect your portfolio from a significant slide in the dollar?
WebWord has a good write up about Professor Feng Li who data mined the annual reports of 34,180 companies with some interesting results. Li counted the number of times words like “risk” and “uncertain” showed up in the reports and compared the data to previous years. Professor Li discovered that a “big jump in words (more…)
Ah, the tenbagger. That mythical creature from stock trading lore that grows 10 times in price. This is what dreams are made of. I like a quote from Jason Kelly’s book, The Neatest Little Guide to Stock Market Investing. “It takes only $10,000 and two tenbaggers to become a millionaire.” It’s simple in concept really. Find a fast growing company, hold on to it for 5 or 6 years, and sell it for a long-term windfall. The equivalent of 50-60% annually. It’s every investor-boy’s fantasy but mysteriously elusive. In fact there may only be a few stocks a year that turn out to be tenbaggers. So the question is how do you find them? Maybe I can help.
“Is now the time to jump into MSFT now that it is trading above its 30 day MA?” That was the question presented to me recently.
Before I go into the answer I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself. I am a regular poster over at HipEgg. On that site I post under the pen name Jym Khana. My real name is Kevin Hamrick and I have been involved in investing for, well, many years. I even spent a very little time working for a couple of the big brokerage facilities. Regardless of that fact, everything I am presenting is only my opinion. I am no longer working with or for any financial institution and if I post on a stock that I own I will make that clear. In this case, I don’t own any MSFT stock.
Last week the Federal Reserve raised interest rates for the 17th time in a row. This is dire news for the Homebuilder Industry because with every interest rate hike, it gets that much tougher for new home buyers to afford to buy a home. It also introduces an additional negative factor into the equation, in that existing homeowners become worried as to whether they are losing equity in their homes. This may induce them to panic and to put their homes up for sale. These same homeowners, many of whom took out ARMs (Adjustable Rate Mortgages) or “Interest Only” mortgages a few years back, will soon see reality knocking at the door.
The best way to learn is to teach – or so they say. I believe it, which is why I’m delighted to join InvesterGeeks as a contributer. While it could hardly make me geekier (as a long time software developer, my geek credentials are as solid as they come), I do hope to become a better investor as I share what I’ve learned (and am learning) here as well as my home site www.ThinkingAboutMoney.com.
And now, for my first tale….
Once upon a time, people would work for 40 years or so then retire. But nowadays for many there will be no happily ever afters. For those of you who have not or are not saving enough, there are other options which I’ll get to later.
Some people are saying that you can track the real estate market by how many new realtors there are signing up. “When everyone thinks they will get rich selling real estate,” they say, “that is when the market will fall.” Charles Turbiville has some advice for people wanting to get into the real estate game (more…)
So what do you do with all of your billions? If you’re Warren Buffet, you give it all away. Warren Buffet has announced that 85% of his holdings in Berkshire Hathaway will be donated to charity in the coming years. With the lion’s share going to The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. More can be (more…)
I was recently disappointed because I couldn’t purchase the Mairs & Power Growth Fund (MPGFX) or Artisan International Fund (ARTIX) through my T. Rowe Price Roth IRA. After doing some sleuthing on Morningstar I discovered I could purchase both of these funds through TD Ameritrade, from whom I have a standard brokerage account.
I was ready to transfer all my assets over from TRP to TD Ameritrade and it turned out that transferring a Roth IRA was extremely bothersome. So instead of jumping into anything I thought I had better check to see if there was another discount broker that offered more funds, because I didn’t want to have to do this again. I spent some time at it, and put together a screen using the Morningstar Premium Fund Screener (more info) that would show the number of funds each major discount broker had available, and which funds were covered by all of them. The results were fascinating.