In 1999, traders and everyone else seemed to believe that the Internet would change the world and any company with a website would be able to profit from that new reality. These stocks had so much potential that traditional valuation techniques didn’t… Read More

Income investors can find attractive high-yields in the pharmaceutical sector right now. Many major drug makers, including familiar names like Merck (NYSE: MRK), Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) and Bristol Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY), are yielding close to 4% or better. But with so many stocks in this segment, deciding… Read More

During the past half century, the financial media has tried to stay abreast of ever-changing investor interest. In the 1950s and 1960s, that meant a deep emphasis on value investing, as investors searched for stocks that looked like great bargains in relation to their… Read More

Although it has been more than a year since the United States lost its top-tier “AAA” credit rating from Standard & Poor’s, the significance of the event is still a bit hard to fathom.#-ad_banner-# Think about it — for so many decades, the… Read More

I just finished watching the first presidential debate, and like about 50 million other Americans, I’m left a little disappointed and wanting more details about the candidates’ plans. Each candidate talked a good game and promised to turn the struggling economy around,… Read More

It’s one of the most overlooked aspects of income investing. In fact, I’m willing to bet that the majority of income investors don’t even consider it when they’re buying a dividend stock. #-ad_banner-#That’s a shame because what I’m about to tell… Read More

If you’re a commercial real estate enthusiast, then you know the real estate investment trust (REIT) sector has been hot. Even with a simple index fund like Vanguard’s REIT Index ETF (NYSE: VNQ), you could’ve made nearly 23% annually on the sector during the past three years, including fund expenses.#-ad_banner-# Many individual REITS have done even better. General Growth Properties Inc. (NYSE: GGP), a large rental property… Read More

If you’re a commercial real estate enthusiast, then you know the real estate investment trust (REIT) sector has been hot. Even with a simple index fund like Vanguard’s REIT Index ETF (NYSE: VNQ), you could’ve made nearly 23% annually on the sector during the past three years, including fund expenses.#-ad_banner-# Many individual REITS have done even better. General Growth Properties Inc. (NYSE: GGP), a large rental property and shopping center owner, for instance, has delivered an astounding three-year annualized return of 64%. Extra Space Storage Inc. (NYSE: EXR), the nation’s second-largest owner and operator of storage facilities, has returned 51% a year for the past three years. That’s wonderful, and it’s exactly the sort of performance we all hope for. But it also means you should be extra careful about generally sky-high REIT valuations. The MSCI U.S. REIT Index, a commonly used proxy for the entire U.S. commercial real estate industry and the benchmark… Read More

With interest rates at historic lows, retirees and other income investors are more likely than ever to fall into a dangerous trap — chasing higher-risk dividend stocks to earn more income. This doesn’t only occur among do-it-yourself investors. I’ve seen professionals succumb… Read More

Over the course of 2010 and 2011, we at StreetAuthority.com ran a number of articles focusing on the ever-rising cash balances of corporate America. Companies took the crisis of 2008 and 2009 to heart and started to build up huge reserves of cash for the next rainy day. And in… Read More

Just this week renewed anxieties about Europe again weighed on stock prices in the United States. These concerns resulted in the longest market losing streak — five days — in two months. Even mighty Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) fell more than… Read More