As I write, the sun is just peeking over the horizon. It is dawn in Dubai. Out my hotel window, I can see two buildings with cranes over them and in the distance another building in scaffolding. For a city that was once booming and turned bust -- as with ...read more

Some of Wall Street’s most prominent bears are turning bullish right now. But that doesn’t mean that your small-cap portfolio is safe. Here’s why these brilliant minds think that we’re back on the path to recovery -- and why they’re wrong. I was in Manhattan last week attending Grant’s Fall Investment ...read more

Inflation can do tricky things to markets. It creates distortions. In those distortions, an intrepid investor can find some big moneymaking ideas. I think we've got one opening up in oil and gas, and it is not without precedent in financial markets. In fact, it's starting to look a little ...read more

It's become widely accepted when talking about emerging economies to focus on the so-called BRIC countries - Brazil, Russia, India and China. But there is a very important region that gets lost in that discussion. And it’s a region that holds the key to growth opportunities that could eclipse the growth ...read more

The oil price is stubborn, like a two-year-old who refuses to eat his mashed peas. Despite all evidence that the market is well supplied, oil is over $70 a barrel again as I write. Taking the view out to the horizon, though, I think it will go higher and will ...read more

“Planet Earth is probably the riskiest it has been since the day before the meteor landed in the Yucatan and wiped out most life.” -- Donald Coxe This is an eye-opener. Whenever I talk about the Great Depression and compare it with what is going on today, I get a lot ...read more

I was reading Marty Whitman’s new book Distress Investing. The book is about investing in distressed situations that will involve reorganization, possibly via the bankruptcy process. As the “Principles and Techniques” subhead implies, the book is mainly for practitioners. However, in the course of some rather technical discussions, Whitman makes ...read more

The EPA recently ruled that too much carbon dioxide is threatening the planet. What this does is make it a lot easier to regulate and tax emitters of this gas. So here we are in a shaky economy tottering on a ledge and along comes the EPA ready to shove it ...read more

Most investors like to put their money in something that has done well. Most don't put their money in something that has done poorly. The last 10 years gives us a stark portrait of what's done well and what hasn't. And we're starting to see a major psychological shift in ...read more

The Financial Times led off one headline column this week thundering: “The world economy will this year suffer its worst performance for more than 60 years with a serious risk that 50 million people will lose their jobs, international organizations warned yesterday.” The consensus has gelled. Now it’s just a matter of ...read more