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Benjamin Graham, the father of value investing, used these seven value stock criteria for selecting winning value stocks. Do you?

Stay defensive and hold off on new buying until things stop going down.

Traditionally, investors thinking about retirement have invested in a mix of stocks and bonds designed to balance safety and growth. The closer to retirement or more risk-averse they are, the more of their portfolio they hold in bonds for safety and regular income. The system has even been institutionalized in...

Most people wait too long to get back into the markets after a long correction or a period of up-and-down trading.

The International Energy Agency issued a report earlier this month predicting that a “golden age of gas” could be coming.

It’s been a crazy year, with bank failures, bailouts and a historic election behind us, 2008 will definitely be one to remember. In honor of the New Year, I’ve been looking back at 2008--all its ups and downs--and came up with a few investing New Year’s resolutions based on what’s happened. The most important thing to remember is to learn from your mistakes, but don’t dwell on them. They teach important lessons, but the most important thing is to move forward with those teachings in mind. Best of luck to you in 2009!

Traditionally, investors thinking about retirement have invested in a mix of stocks and bonds to balance safety and growth.

Over the past 79 years, small-cap stocks have outperformed large-cap stocks by 165%, and I think their prospects are especially terrific now; historically, they perform best following a bear market. My sense is that the old blue chips will continue to be hobbled (like Ford and General Motors) by their expensive old overhead, while their stocks will continue to be weighed down by institutional investors slowly easing out on rallies to invest in faster-growing small companies with greater potential.

Investors are entering one of the most challenging eras in the history of investing and I couldn’t think of a better time to invest in small-cap stocks.

Questions from our Subscribers From time to time, we’ll publish questions from our readers that may apply to many of your individual situations. Please don’t hesitate to write us for clarification on any of our recommendations or general investment questions. However, we are unable to give specific individual investment advice or...

Buying call options is a good way to play the surprising post-election rally in U.S. markets. Here’s what I’m telling my subscribers.

Financials are flourishing after Donald Trump’s surprise election, and there’s one undervalued stock in the banking sector that’s looking quite attractive.

Our Cabot Cannabis Investor portfolio is up 35% this year. That’s more than 10 times the 3% gain for the S&P 500.

The broader cannabis sector has done well too, but not quite as well as our Cabot Cannabis Investor portfolio of the 12 best names in the space.

The New Cannabis Ventures Global Cannabis Stock Index and the ETFMG Alternative Harvest exchange traded fund (MJ) are up 14.5%. We’re up more than twice as much.

Our Cannabis Plus Insider Portfolio is up 39.3% since I launched it on March 29 last year. Here we have outperformed the market by threefold. The 39.3% advance compares to gains of 12.7% for the Russell 2000 index, and 22.3% for the S&P 500 over the same time. The smid-cap Russell 2000 is a more appropriate comp than large-cap names in the S&P 500. This portfolio invests in cannabis related companies that have the right kind of insider buying, and do not touch the plant.

The rich get richer. Now, you can too.

Growing businesses with big ambitions need large amounts of money to grow and expand to the next level. But these enterprises can’t get the necessary capital from stodgy and risk-averse bankers. And they are still too small to access the capital markets by issuing stock or bonds. Thus, they are forced into the domain of wealthy individuals and institutions that have money and are itching to reap high returns.

These venture capitalists provide desperately needed money to up-and-coming businesses that can’t get it anywhere else. Thus, they are in a position to negotiate very favorable terms for themselves.

As financial markets have grown in sophistication, venture capital investing is no longer the exclusive domain of the wealthy. There is a little-known class of security that enables regular investors to mimic the very same moneymaking strategies employed by the rich and famous. These securities are called Business Development Companies (BDCs).

In this issue, I highlight one of the most successful BDCs on the market. It pays dividends every single month, has a long and consistent track of raising payouts, and has delivered fantastic total returns.

In today’s note, we discuss the recent earnings reports from Kohl’s (KSS), Kopin Corp (KOPN) and Volkswagen AG (VWAGY).

Stocks have finally hit a speed bump, retreating modestly in the last couple weeks. But pullbacks are both inevitable and healthy in the long run. And the latest one offers an opportunity to buy some great companies at more attractive prices. So today, we add perhaps February’s hottest stock – after it’s been knocked down more than 8% in the last two trading days. I’m betting it’ll bounce back, and so is Mike Cintolo, who recently recommended the stock to his Cabot Top Ten Trader readers.

Passive real estate investing is surging in popularity as it promises the wealth-building power of real estate without the headache of managing properties and tenants. This month’s issue features the pros and cons of passive real estate investing, the types of opportunities available to investors, and what you need to know before you get started.

According to credit rating agency Moody’s, debt obligations of the United States federal government are “judged to be of the highest quality, subject to the lowest level of credit risk” and thus are worthy of a “AAA” credit rating.

The other two major credit rating agencies, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch, disagree. These firms place an “AA+” rating on federal debt. For its part, Moody’s is not fully convinced of its AAA rating, as it recently added a “negative” label, implying that the rating is no longer “stable.”

With the completion of the Super Tuesday primaries, the final grid for the 2024 U.S. presidential election appears to be set. While it is always possible that some surprise will lead to a different lineup on one or both cards, our country is now on track for a rematch of Biden v. Trump. The election date of Tuesday, November 5, is less than eight months away.

Good gracious, last week was volatile for the market as the indexes moved violently day-to-day. Yet, by the close of trading on Friday the S&P 500 and Dow were only down marginally on the week, while the Nasdaq had declined by 1.5%.