The Iconoclast Investor

With the economy bad and likely to get a lot worse (the leading economic indicators are all shouting severe recession), retail stocks have been crushed, especially those that offer discretionary (read: expensive) items.  Any company selling HDTVs or fancy jewelry or expensive apparel has seen its stocks crushed in recent months.
However, the pain being felt [...]

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I hope that you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and that you’re recovering well from your turkey hangover. Thanksgiving is a holiday where we celebrate all that we are grateful for, our friends and family, a long weekend and our health, among others. But it’s also a holiday of retail deals, holiday sales and shopping. Many [...]

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I’ve written in the past that dividend investments can be a solid piece of your portfolio.  I prefer growth stocks, and in that realm, dividends are basically meaningless.  However, with more and more stocks, trusts, exchange-traded funds and the like, there are definitely intelligent ways to invest for yield.
Today, however, many investors are looking for [...]

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Happy Thanksgiving!  It’s my favorite holiday of the year, partially because I get to see so many of my old friends (who are usually in town), partially because of the food (who doesn’t love a holiday that centers around pigging out?) and partially because of football, which goes hand in hand with Thanksgiving.
New England is [...]

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As for the market, it stinks.  Still.  Every expectation I’ve had in recent months that the downtrend would end has been wrong.  Happily, we don’t provide advice based on my expectations, instead using proven investing systems that allow subscribers to earn great money in the long run.
Our value-based systems simply ride through it, knowing that [...]

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Recently, I ranted about overspending by American consumers and I received many interesting responses through email and the blog. I’ve included some of the best rants below, but if you haven’t sent yours in, feel free to do so at any time. Enjoy!
“My father who was a “roughneck” (oilfield) with very little cash always told [...]

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Good morning! If you’re looking for even more perspectives on investing, stocks and wealth-building, the Investing Carnival is up today. It includes one of our articles and some other educational posts.
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I recently wrote about my home energy audit and I received a great question from a reader of the blog. I’ve included it and my response below:
“I’m happy to hear your house is more then ready for the winter. Luckily I don’t have to worry too much about the freezing cold living out here in [...]

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My investing idea today won’t be a surprise to anyone who follows Chinese stocks even slightly.  It’s a company called Sohu.com (SOHU), a Web portal that’s often called the Yahoo! of China.
For many Chinese, Sohu.com is their window to the world.  The Sohu.com portal offers an enormous range of information and activities, including search, news, [...]

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Back in my university professor days, I used to speak to community and professional groups on communication topics. Inevitably, these talks often got around to putting communication into action. One image I used to explore the plight of a small business trying to decide on a communication strategy is “The Four Things You [...]

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