When there’s no competition for your services, you can pretty much charge whatever you want, advertise as little as you want, and pay dividends to your investors for as long as you like. That’s how defense contractors and refiners have operated for many years, and that’s how… Read More

When Princess Diana died, all I really wanted was a movie rental.   I would have paid almost anything for it: I was in the hospital for an appendectomy, and, after 48 hours of nonstop Diana coverage, I was ready for the doc to remove my brain, too. Read More

Something’s got to give. At a time when the aging of the U.S. population is beginning to accelerate, the construction pace of new housing and care facilities for seniors is shrinking. Between 2010 and 2020, the number of Americans 65 and older will grow +36%, compared with a growth rate… Read More

Only 313 U.S. companies have increased sales every year for the past decade. These are companies that have improved every year since 1999 — growing through three presidents and two bear markets. Some of the biggest names that have pulled off this financial feat… Read More

Brazil has been one of the best places for U.S. investors for a long time. During the past five years, the Bovespa Index, Sao Paulo’s premier index, has gained +167.0%, or +21.7% compounded annually. The… Read More

In the study of physics, momentum is the product of the mass and velocity of an object. That’s not a bad way to define the term when descrialink_72192ng a company’s earnings, either. When a company’s per-share earnings grow, it means revenue is growing… Read More

Most people think competition is good, and it usually is — for consumers. For established companies, however, the story is different. Companies that must face competition — which is very nearly all of them — must constantly worry about the quality of their goods or services, changes in consumer preferences,… Read More

Cash is king. You’ve heard it before. So it makes sense that companies with growing free cash flow could thrive in just about any environment. This screen looks for the money — and the dividends. First, companies need to have cash on the… Read More

Free. There may be no better word in the English language. A new breed of exchange-traded fund offers accountholders at one of the world’s biggest discount brokerages free trades for life. Cheap, liquid, and diversified, ETFs are popular investment vehicles. They’ve seen a… Read More

Nearly 1,000 U.S.-listed companies offer Dividend Reinvestment Plans or “DRIPs” as a way for shareholders to accumulate shares without using a broker. These plans allow investors to automatically use their dividends to buy more shares of the company’s… Read More