Stocks wrapped up the final day, as well as the final week, of the year with very little trading volume due in part to the holiday, and the horrendous weather we saw in New York City early in the week. Yet despite the low level of trading, the major indices managed to close out an über-volatile […]

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Stocks finished the holiday-shortened week in positive territory, with all three major indices adding to their bottom lines. The Dow gained 0.71% while the S&P 500 climbed 1.03%. The NASDAQ Composite closed out week with a 0.86% win. The week also was solid for our two current positions, the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets (EEM) and the ProShares […]

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“The proper behavior all through the holiday season is to be drunk. This drunkenness culminates on New Year’s Eve, when you get so drunk you kiss the person you’re married to.” — P. J. O’Rourke The great conservative commentator/humorist brings an off-color sense of levity to what sometimes can be a stressful season. Of course,

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Motorists driving to visit family and friends this holiday season may not like rising oil prices, but the trend does provide investors with another way to profit. Oil is among the commodities that have been boosted by encouraging reports about a budding economic recovery. One exchange-traded fund (ETF) that’s benefitting from this trend is the

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On Sunday, the CBS news show “60 Minutes” did a very interesting segment on the budget crisis facing so many state and local governments. What the segment essentially amounted to was truly an ominous outlook for the municipal bond market going forward. The program interviewed renowned Wall Street banking analyst Meredith Whitney, who repeatedly has

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About this time every year, the financial press is replete with predictions for what the market likely will do in the year ahead. This cavalcade of collective opinion was exemplified in last weekend’s edition of Barron’s, where the cover story, simply titled “Outlook 2011,” featured 10 prominent market strategists and investment managers making their calls

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It was another up week for stocks, with the major averages all continuing their holiday march to the upside. The weekly gains pushed stocks to their highest point of the year, and it certainly seems like the Santa Claus rally we traditionally see this time of year is in full swing. For the week, the Dow […]

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“Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.” –Aristotle The holiday season is time for friends and family, and the importance of this cannot be understated. You see, humans are social animals, and we need that sense of love and companionship in our lives in order to thrive. As Aristotle

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Hello and happy holidays! Now that we’ve entered the final month of what has been a very volatile, and extremely eventful, year in the financial markets, I thought it would be an appropriate time to start thinking about the best way to get ready for what I suspect will be both a challenging and a

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One of the best ways to turn a handsome profit through U.S. stocks during the past year has been through an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that invests in the Russell 2000. The iShares Russell 2000 Index Fund (IWM) has risen an impressive 22.15% this year through December 14, 2010. That powerful gain reflects the tendency for

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