Washington has a mess on its hands. To close the budget gap and start paying down the nearly $15 trillion in debt we’ve already incurred, legislators will have to make some very tough choices regarding which programs to cut. Defense, education, transportation, social security, homeland security —… Read More

The markets, which had looked to be edging back toward historical valuation levels, closed down nearly 2.5% across the board Friday, Sept. 2 on poor jobs data, and I don’t mean Steve. The Labor Department… Read More

Following the stock market in August was simply exhausting. The S&P 500 entered the month with a six-session losing streak at 1,293 and then managed to fall another 14% by August 8 to 1,119. A few more neck-snapping moves after that, and we’re now back up above the 1,200 mark… Read More

For nearly two years, economists have warned that China’s economy may soon be hit with a jolt — a jolt that will be felt round the world. Although their concerns have proven unfounded so far, the day of reckoning may finally be at hand. Why now?… Read More

Over the decades, companies have sought to find the right amount of debt to carry on their balance sheet. Just enough debt is a good thing — it can boost earnings per share (since fewer shares… Read More

Every two weeks, investors have a chance to parse the level of short interest among all stocks on the major exchanges. It’s helpful to glance at these lists, which can be found on The Wall Street Journal’s website, Nasdaq.com and elsewhere to see which companies are increasingly in the targets… Read More

Back in early October of last year, I said individual investors would be well-served to follow the trading activity of shareholder activist and hedge-fund titan Carl Icahn. Icahn’s success as an investor has pushed his net worth to an estimated $12.5 billion and to… Read More

Benjamin Graham and David Dodd, widely considered to be the fathers of modern investing philosophy, had a deep affinity for value stocks. They taught disciples such as Warren Buffett to assess companies in the most pessimistic possible scenarios. This makes sense. These men wrote their famous book, Security Analysis, in… Read More

The stock market is a lot like high school. You have the super popular group (tech stocks, social media IPOs, commodity stocks) that runs the place for the time being. Then you have groups in the middle who really don’t make any waves (like a Wells Fargo (NYSE:… Read More

I’ve been in the investing business a long time. I’ve witnessed two nasty bear markets and three bull markets, including the massive one from the 1990s. I’ve seen a technology boom then bust, a collapse of the… Read More