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Monthly Archives: October 2009

A Very Green News Week

October 31, 2009
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A Very Green News Week

Before I get into the investing portion of this post, I want to wish you a very happy Halloween! We’ve been gearing up for weeks here in the Halloween capital of the world, Salem, Massachusetts. The town is packed with revelers from all over the country and tonight is sure to bring lots of bewitching fun. I hope you have a fun and safe holiday! — This week has brought several news items on the Green front … Earlier this week, Fisker revealed its plans to convert a defunct General Motors plant in Delaware into a facility to build...

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Health Care: My Analysis

October 30, 2009
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Health Care: My Analysis

I am a numbers person–especially when it comes to stock analysis. Every month, I fill up a spreadsheet with 1,000 stocks and 244 columns of data and formulas. I then turn my computer loose, and it goes wild performing two million calculations. Why so many calculations? I want the computer to tell me which companies have produced steady sales, earnings and dividend growth during the past 10 years. I also want to find companies that will continue to grow during the next year, two years, or even the next five years. In addition, I want to find companies that...

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A Famous Stock You Should Avoid

October 29, 2009
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A Famous Stock You Should Avoid

I have two main thoughts on the market today. The first is that the bull market is healthy as a horse, and it will remain healthy until enough people stop arguing with it, questioning it and simply denying it. The second is that market leadership is probably beginning to narrow, as the identity of the greatest growth stories becomes clearer. Last Friday, for example, brought an awesome 23% jump in Amazon.com (AMZN), the result of a crackerjack earnings report.  In short, Amazon.com is selling an enormous (but secret) umber of Kindle e-book readers, and they’re very profitable. What gets...

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The Economics of Legal Marijuana

October 28, 2009
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The Economics of Legal Marijuana

On Saturday, Sunday and Monday, one week ago, here’s what happened. On Saturday, the New York Times ran a story on the drug wars in Mexico, describing how the power of the criminal gangs often outweighs the power of the law enforcers. It’s a big problem, and the violence has increased since President Felipe Calderon launched an army-led assault on the cartels soon after taking office in late 2006.  More than 14,000 people have died in drug-related violence in Mexico since. The Mexican gangs, of course, are just trying to make a living by serving the demands of a...

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What’s in a Stock Symbol?

October 27, 2009
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What’s in a Stock Symbol?

Kurt Vonnegut, the late, great (and fairly cynical) fiction writer, actually incorporated a unique stock-picking system in his early book The Sirens of Titan.  In the book, a character named Noel Constant builds a huge fortune by investing in stocks that he picks because their ticker symbols match the letters that form words in the Bible.  His first investment was a stock called International Nitrate.  His last was Sonnyboy Oil, which he chose because “SO” formed the last word of Genesis 1:16. International Nitrate and Sonnyboy Oil don’t exist, of course.  IN is the symbol for Intermec, a tech...

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