I grew up in a diner. My parents have owned and operated Edelweiss restaurant in Auburn, Calif., for the better part of 30 years. I’m not a restaurant analyst, but I know first-hand how tough the business can be. Studies show one in four restaurants close in… Read More

Twenty million dollars’ worth of poker chips sat on the table.  I watched as bets went into the pot — $100,000 at a time. A single hand could cost upward of a $1 million.     The game was winner-take-all, and it had already gone on… Read More

We all watched in anguish as the S&P 500 dropped -40% from October 2008 to March 2009. Even the most diversified portfolios weren’t immune. For all the talk about foreign economies being “decoupled” from the U.S. economy, foreign stocks tumbled in lock step… Read More

If anyone ever tells you that you must choose between dividends and capital gains, it’s now safe to laugh. A full 135 companies have increased their dividends AND decreased their shares outstanding through buybacks in each of the past five years. Stock buybacks… Read More

I doubt you’ve ever heard of John Wightkin. He’s the Director of Equity Research Applications of the Schwab Center for Financial Research. Sure that’s a fancy title, but John is doing some very important work in the field of income investing. In fact, John Wightkin just confirmed what I’ve been… Read More

A year ago the sky was falling. At least, that’s what some people thought. When pandemonium was at its height in September of last year, Warren Buffett encouraged investors to buy U.S. stocks in an op-ed for The New York Times. Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A), Buffett’s holding company, arranged multibillion-dollar… Read More

They say what’s past is prologue. So when history starts repeating itself like this, it’s wise to take notice. Mergers and acquisitions are picking up after a drought in activity for much of the past year. On Monday, Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) said it would buy computer-services provider Perot Systems (NYSE:… Read More

Just how influential is Warren Buffett? He was in China last week and went to a store called Dalian Dayang. Buffett told the store owner the suits were wonderful, and three days later the store’s shares had risen +23%. Buffett’s endorsement should count, too,… Read More

Companies are clinging to their cash these days. It’s not hard to see why. Cash is harder to come by in a recession. And this new mindset toward cash reverses a trend. Shareholders, fed up with a long period of stingy dividends, put pressure… Read More

It’s amazing what a simple metric can tell you about a company. Especially an unflappably accurate metric. This yardstick cuts to the chase and tells you exactly how well a company performs. It’s in every company’s SEC filings. It’s on nearly… Read More