Investors focused on larger companies saw their ups and downs in 2011. Rather than focus on the usual suspects, perhaps they should have been focused on antimony. It’s an obscure — and toxic — element that has some appealing industrial applications such as flame retardants and in solder and ball… Read More

The appeal of finding the right biotech stock is self-evident. If you get it right, and a cutting-edge biotech scores a major win with a breakthrough drug treatment, then you can score huge gains. Last month, I reviewed my performance over the course of 2011 in hopes… Read More

We humans are pretty predictable. We live our lives in certain patterns and according to certain preferences. There was a time when no one knew what those preferences were. The guy taking my order at a restaurant might remember I like Diet Coke, or the mechanic might… Read More

It’s a sure sign of optimism when investors finally respond to obvious deep-value plays. In early December, I lamented that the herd was ignoring a favorable legal verdict and robust balance sheet in support of memory chip maker Micron Technology (NYSE: MU). Read More

With such a slow economic recovery in the United States, many states are getting creative in how to increase their tax bases. Politicians read the news headlines and are well aware that gambling has taken off in parts of Asia, including Macau and Singapore. Current estimates are that Macau’s gaming… Read More

The stock market has been insane the past few years, so many financial advisors are understandably steering clients toward safer blue-chip stocks. It’s a sound strategy. Because of their dividends, blue chips are often a lot less volatile than the overall market and… Read More

Billionaire corporate raider Carl Icahn is no fool. When he makes his multimillion dollar investments in companies, he’s done a lot of homework and has a high degree of confidence that he stands to profit. During the summer of 2011,… Read More

It’s so hard for new companies to gain traction in a mature industry. A few big players typically control most of the market share, so when upstarts come along with a better set of products or services,… Read More

Want to know what separates a mid-level financial advisor from a major Wall Street hedge-fund manager? The ability to discern opportunity before the rest of the pack… It’s something not many can do, especially when it comes to investing… It takes a curious alchemy… Read More

In light of all of the headwinds buffeting the global economy in 2011, it was a bad year to own richly-valued stocks. High-flying names such as Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) fell 79.5% before a recent rebound, while Open Table (Nasdaq: OPEN) fell about 73% its… Read More