We all know that Congress is only too happy to “invest” our money. But how are they when it comes to managing their own? Not so great, as it turns out. A review of the personal financial disclosures filed by members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives gives some insight into just how bad these politicians are at managing money. The table below shows the 15 most popular stocks held by members of Congress, with the number of owners to the right: If $1,000 had been invested in… Read More

We all know that Congress is only too happy to “invest” our money. But how are they when it comes to managing their own? Not so great, as it turns out. A review of the personal financial disclosures filed by members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives gives some insight into just how bad these politicians are at managing money. The table below shows the 15 most popular stocks held by members of Congress, with the number of owners to the right: If $1,000 had been invested in each of the 15 most popular stocks held by Congress on Jan. 1, 2008, the entire portfolio would be worth $10,148 today, a loss of -32.3%. This exceeds the total loss of the S&P 500 index, which has fallen -31.7% in the same period. In fact, only one of the companies, IBM, has shown a positive return, though nine companies posted smaller losses than the benchmark, losses that could have been made smaller still with reinvested dividends. As you… Read More

We all know that Congress is only too happy to “invest” our money. But how are they when it comes to managing their own? Not so great, as it turns out. A review of the personal financial disclosures filed by members of the… Read More

At the beginning of the year, panic-stricken municipal bond investors were fleeing for the exits. The muni market was roi fears that issuers would default and bond insurers couldn’t make… Read More

Wall Street bets on companies by buying their stock. It bets against them by shorting their shares. A short seller borrows shares, sells them and waits for the price to go down. When it does, the shares are repurchased at a… Read More

Warren Buffett may well be the most-watched man in the world. No paparazzi are camped outside his house, but there’s a huge cult of investors that hangs on the famed Oracle of Omaha’s every word. So news that Richard Santulli had stepped down as the head of Berkshire Hathaway’s (NYSE:… Read More

The recession has it on life support, but it won’t last forever. Trillion-dollar deficits, low interest rates and weak growth are all going to spell trouble for the dollar once risk-averse investors get some confidence back in the markets and start moving out of ultra-safe, low-yielding treasuries. But before we… Read More

Benjamin Graham, the father of value investing, once described his strategy as “buying dollars for 50 cents.” He would have loved this market. Graham had several tricks to determine whether a company was undervalued. One of them was assessing its book value, a figure… Read More

Whether dividends are safe is on most income investors’ minds, and for good reason. The final quarter of 2008 was the worst for dividends in a half-century, according to Standard & Poor’s. The first half of 2009 has seen even more cuts: 367 companies have reduced dividends since Jan. 1. Read More

In a bid to protect investors from an often misunderstood financial instrument, UBS, Edward Jones and Ameriprise Financial banned clients from purchasing leveraged ETFs this week. Company Available Broker Sales Merrill… Read More

The Dow recently crossed the 9,000 mark on the back of a solid start to the second-quarter earnings season, while the S&P is up +10% for the year. The market couldn’t have made it to this point without a few stocks seeing substantial gains. Here are three stocks that have posted triple-digit gains this year. After analyzing how they did it, I’ll tell you three more companies that will follow suit. OshKosh (NYSE: OSK) YTD Gain: +191.5% Industrial equipment maker OshKosh faced major headwinds due to the economic downturn,… Read More

The Dow recently crossed the 9,000 mark on the back of a solid start to the second-quarter earnings season, while the S&P is up +10% for the year. The market couldn’t have made it to this point without a few stocks seeing substantial gains. Here are three stocks that have posted triple-digit gains this year. After analyzing how they did it, I’ll tell you three more companies that will follow suit. OshKosh (NYSE: OSK) YTD Gain: +191.5% Industrial equipment maker OshKosh faced major headwinds due to the economic downturn, and its shares sank as low as $4.95 in March. But just when things seemed to be at their worst, OSK posted strong growth, and the shares began to climb. The catalyst was a $1.05 billion contract to build military vehicles for use in Afghanistan that protect against roadside bombs. The contract, initially for 2,000 vehicles, could lead to as many as 10,000 vehicles and $4 billion to $5 billion in revenue. The shares are now trading near $27. How it Got There: A major catalyst thanks to Uncle Sam. General Cable (NYSE: BGC)… Read More