The market for initial public offerings (IPOs) is one I like to watch. Not because I like to buy IPOs, but because what’s hot in the IPO market can give you some clues about what you might not want to buy. I wrote to my Capital and Crisis readers a couple ...read more

Investors in common stocks tend to ignore warning signs coming from the credit markets, often at their peril. Right now, the credit markets are broadcasting the following warning: The equity of overleveraged REITs is at risk of elimination or permanent impairment. Yet the stocks of real estate investment trusts (REITs), which ...read more

The engine of the great American Economy is, and always will be, the consumer. You and your neighbors and all of your buying power will determine how well the market performs. Right now, it seems as though everyone is hurting — so it’s the right time to capitalize on the ...read more

While I wouldn’t be popping the champagne on a recovery in the dismal U.S. real estate market yet, the latest news does point to some improving trends. And as I’ve said here time and time again, a lousy real estate market got us into this mess and an improving one ...read more

“There's as much risk in doing nothing as in doing something.” — Trammell Crow, real estate mogul Cycles are an inseparable part of the landscape of markets. Fortunes are often made in the valleys. I was thinking of this after I read several obituaries of Trammel Crow, who died this month. He ...read more

Perhaps the biggest reason the stock market is a leading indicator of where the economy is headed is what's called the "wealth effect."  It goes something like this… When our portfolios are headed higher, we usually go out and spend like the dickens.  After all, with nice fat investments we feel ...read more

With yesterday’s rate cut, and with the bailout money in excess of $1 trillion by most estimates, it appears as if the government is setting the stage for massive inflation in 2009. So, what’s in it for you? Inflation is the silent predator that’s constantly stalking your retirement savings.  Normally, you ...read more

Last Friday was the 75th anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition. It seems we can’t escape looking back over our shoulders at the 1930s. We teeter closer to the sequel no one wants to see: Great Depression II. We got horrible news on the job front last week. Unemployment climbed to ...read more

The battle between credit contraction and government-sponsored inflation rages on. For several weeks, the forces of credit contraction have been winning. There are fears that banks will never expand lending again, and that everyone with debt wants to pay it down as fast as possible. I think these fears are excessive. They ...read more

While most investors look for industries they expect to boom in the future, there’s a solid investment case to be made for buying stocks in bad industries. Jeremy Siegel, one of Wall Street’s best investment minds, said that, “Some of the most successful investments of the last thirty years have come ...read more