When this stock underwent its IPO in 1986, four of the company’s employees became instant billionaires and 12 thousand of the firm’s employees were millionaires. The share price continued to soar. But the tech bubble of the early… Read More

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

Pop Quiz: This versatile metal, which is light enough to float on water and soft enough to be cut with a knife, has commercial applications ranging from pharmaceuticals to rocket fuel. If you said lithium, go to the head of the class — and bonus points… Read More

In my recent article, “5 Stocks That Could Win in the Digital Age,” I examined five large media companies that were poised to not only survive the onslaught of the Internet and the Digital Age, but thrive. A couple of my picks in that article have more than one class… Read More

As investors continually seek out new investment ideas, it can get very tiresome. Just when you’ve found certain appealing stocks, they move up to your price target or lose operating momentum, and you’re compelled to find the next idea. But what if you could hold a stock for the whole year, a whole decade or even a whole generation? Well, that’s how people used to invest. My grandmother bought shares of AT&T (NYSE: T) in the 1950s — and never sold them. The dividend income was surely appealing. And the capital appreciation helped… Read More

As investors continually seek out new investment ideas, it can get very tiresome. Just when you’ve found certain appealing stocks, they move up to your price target or lose operating momentum, and you’re compelled to find the next idea. But what if you could hold a stock for the whole year, a whole decade or even a whole generation? Well, that’s how people used to invest. My grandmother bought shares of AT&T (NYSE: T) in the 1950s — and never sold them. The dividend income was surely appealing. And the capital appreciation helped her stay well ahead of the forces of inflation. But if my Grandma were alive today, would she still be able to find a “forever stock?” After all, in recent years, even stalwarts such as AT&T have lost their luster: Ma Bell’s shares have fallen by half since 2002. You can still find “forever stocks” if you know where to look. The key ingredient is to seek out companies with long operating histories, that sell goods or services that won’t become obsolete, and routinely generate solid rates of return on their deployed capital. Read More

The world is undergoing massive changes at a torrid pace. The pace and magnitude of these changes is greater than humanity has ever known. With these changes come great opportunities and great challenges that will have to be confronted. Perhaps the greatest challenge of all is the… Read More

Like most value investors, I frequently find it difficult to justify “paying up” for growth. A challenging stock market during the past couple of years has provided ample opportunity to find stocks that are trading at ridiculously low levels. But now that the market has rallied strongly for nearly two… Read More

The S&P 500 pushed back above 1,100 in September 2010, past the 1,200 mark in early December and is already on the cusp of 1,300. With that kind of upward move, it’s reasonable to feel cautious. You want to participate in this impressive rally, but don’t want to give up… Read More

It’s not your imagination… it is getting more expensive to fill up at the gas pump. We had a reprieve for several months. Following the crash in oil, gas plunged well below $2 a gallon. Now it’s knocking down the $3 mark. As a… Read More