The Russian and the Frenchman First, let’s return to Mendeleev and his missing elements. Why were there gaps in his table? Did the Russian scientist make errors in arranging the elements? Or, based on the gaps, were these apparently “missing elements” key to another aspect of chemistry? Mendeleev was perplexed, but he ...read more

When you listen to military communications, a lot of words are slang, and actually have quite distinct meanings. For example, there was this time, long ago during my Navy days, when my squadron was working up out at NAS Fallon, Nevada. (“Working up” is Navy shorthand for getting everyone qualified ...read more

There’s a short phrase buried deep within the U.S. Constitution, at Article I, Section 8, Clause 13. It’s short. In fact, it’s only six words. But it practically guarantees us the chance to profit as investors. The Constitution doesn’t spell out many things in black and white. Heck, people litigate constitutional ...read more

For decades, digital computing has been on an exponential trend first described in Moore’s law. We’ve been able to pack more electronic components in a given space than ever before, and the trend will continue for many years. New technologies are emerging, however, that could eventually supersede the current computing paradigm ...read more

I’ve told you in the past that it can be good to be a loser in the stock market (if you missed it, click here to see why). Today, I want to show you three effective ways to set stop losses on your trades. First, a little more on why being ...read more

Here’s something you haven’t heard in the last 45 seconds: The Dow hit new highs last week. New all-time highs, at that… There’s been plenty of fanfare surrounding the milestone. That’s understandable. It has been a pitiful 13 years for the stock market. Two major busts -- one dot-com, one financial crisis ...read more

Well, it’s been something of a sad week for proponents of Bitcoin... Would-be buyers of the fringy cyber experiment have had to watch as the price of their beloved currency shot to within (as of this writing) just over $40 per coin. No buyer wants to see that kind of action...unless ...read more

“I give them two years before they’re turning out the lights on a very painful and expensive mistake...” That’s a quote from a pessimistic analyst in a Bloomberg Op-Ed dated May 20, 2001 — just one day after Apple opened its first retail locations. The arguments against brick-and-mortar retail are sound, for ...read more

Stocks are getting gut-punched this week -- the S&P 500 took its biggest loss of 2013 on Monday, and investors are starting to feel anxious about stocks again for the first time since January. The impending sequester is getting more media buzz than the red carpet at the Oscars, and ...read more

“The market anticipates, while the news exaggerates.” -- Bob Farrell You can’t trade the news. Well, you can. But you shouldn’t. In fact, I would go as far as to say there’s no strategy to successfully gauge how a news event or story will play out in the markets. Remember the fiscal cliff ...read more