Over the past year, multiple Silicon Valley “unicorns” — companies privately valued in the billions, or even tens of billions — came to market via initial public offerings (IPOs). Investors seemed enthusiastic, scooping up the shares of these loss-making companies no matter how much cash they burned. WeWork appeared to be the worst of them … Continued

The zero-commission brokerage war is a wild development for investors. There is real danger here, but real opportunity, too — for those who know what to do. To put it another way, some investors will benefit greatly from the zero-commission brokerage war. Others will look back and wish it never happened. This “May Day Part … Continued

Clean energy stocks are having a fantastic year in 2019. The best-performing non-leveraged ETF in the United States is the Invesco Solar ETF (symbol TAN), up 54% on the year as of this writing. Other renewable plays, like the Invesco Clean Energy ETF (PBW), and the iShares Global Clean Energy ETF (ICLN), have also done … Continued

There was another rogue trader in the news recently. This creates an opportunity to dissect the rogue trader’s mindset, and to extract a valuable lesson for investors. A rogue trader is someone who makes a bad trade, covers it up with deception, and winds up costing their employer a huge amount of money when they … Continued

Did California just crush the “gig economy?” It’s a real possibility, and you should stay away from Uber (NYSE: UBER) and Lyft (Nasdaq: LYFT). It was already an easy call to avoid UBER and LYFT. Both names had an initial public offering (IPO) earlier this year. As of this writing, they are down about 30% … Continued

In recent weeks, short-term U.S. lending markets have been in turmoil, requiring emergency shore-up actions from the Federal Reserve. The nickname for it on Wall Street is “repo madness,” because the problems involve the “repo market” and the overnight repurchasing rate. On Sept. 17, a crucial lending rate briefly spiked above 10%, more than four … Continued

How crazy were the drone and missile attacks on Saudi Arabia last weekend? So crazy that the Saudis are becoming oil importers. Seriously. A Sept. 19 Wall Street Journal headline read, “To Keep Exports Flowing, Saudi Arabia Looks to Import Oil.” Of all the wild scenarios a market strategist could dream up, if someone had … Continued

Is passive investing the greatest thing ever for investors? Or is the passive investing “bubble,” as some would dub it, a looming disaster that threatens to bring down markets and trigger a new financial crisis? This is a real debate, and it’s been going strong for years. Those in favor of passive investing make a … Continued

The states are coming hard for “big tech,” the nickname for Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and Google. On Friday, Sept. 6, the attorneys general (AGs) for multiple states and Washington, D.C., announced an antitrust investigation of Facebook. On Monday, Sept. 9, more states did the same for Google. The effort is impressively bipartisan. A Democrat AG … Continued

Wall Street analysts are known more for being cheerleaders than having real trading skills. This is demonstrated in the cynical investor saying: “Analysts — don’t need ’em in a bull market, can’t use ’em in a bear market.” But a July 2019 research paper from Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business could change that … Continued