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Economy

A Tale of Two Coffee Companies

October 17, 2011
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By now, you’re probably sick and tired of hearing about how the U.S. economy is still lagging, how financial troubles in Europe are roiling stock markets around the world and how we’re all going to you-know-where in a hand basket! So I’m not going to discuss that at all today. Despite all the negativity that’s in the news right now, there are some bright spots among stocks in certain industries. Take coffee for instance, people like to drink it whether we’re in a recession or business is booming. And that’s why I want to discuss two stocks in the...

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A Stock for Bargain Shoppers

October 11, 2011
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As to today’s recommended stock, it begins with a story. Last Wednesday just before noon, as I was packing my car for the drive to the forum in Vermont, I was also fixing a door for my wife, grabbing a bite to eat, and packing some supplies to take to our son, the last child of the three still in college. In short, I was multi-tasking, which is not always the best way to get things done. And for the first time in my life, I left on a trip while leaving something big behind. But I didn’t know...

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What the Experts are Saying

October 10, 2011
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“Tim Geithner should be put in jail with Bernie Madoff.” “The United States is Canada’s Mexico.” “You should register your stocks in your own name, as protection against the time when the Internet crashes, and stock ownership records are lost. ” Those are just three of the unusual–and unusually candid–remarks I heard last week at the 49th annual Contrary Opinion Forum in Vergennes, Vermont. It was my 23rd year of attendance at the forum, and I was fortunate to meet many old and new friends there. But the heart of the forum is the talks by some of the...

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What Happened to Solar?

October 7, 2011
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You’ve probably heard something about three well-known solar firms that declared bankruptcy this year. Here in Massachusetts, where I live, Evergreen Solar declared bankruptcy in August after finding itself nearly half a billion dollars in debt, less than three years after its stock traded over 100 a share. In Oregon and New York, recent Intel spin-off SpectraWatt also went under and its assets were auctioned off last week. Most infamously, California’s Solyndra shut down two years after receiving $528 million in Department of Energy loans for its California manufacturing facilities. So what happened to solar? In short: China. In...

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The Stock Market is Not the Economy

October 6, 2011
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The Stock Market is Not the Economy

Last week, we conducted a short survey of our Dick Davis Investment Digest subscribers. One of the questions asked them to identify the biggest concern or challenge they face as investors right now. The top two answers were market volatility and the economy. Several respondents used the phrase “economic uncertainty.” Obviously, our subscribers’ concerns are valid: the economy’s direction is, indeed, uncertain. However, the obvious level of concern over this makes me think I should revisit a point I wrote about here a few months ago. Simply, the stock market is not the economy. The market can, and frequently...

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