First off, I hope you had a fantastic Thanksgiving celebration! I love this holiday, and I hope it was good for you and your family and friends. We have a lot to be thankful for in America. Despite the downbeat headlines around the world lately, we always must remember that we enjoy a standard of

This week, the markets continued to stare down the elevated levels of global terrorism and geopolitical unrest by exhibiting the kind of bullish resilience we all should be proud of. Despite the aftermath of the Paris attacks, the Mali attacks, the Beirut attacks, a hostage situation in Belgium and the downing of a Russian fighter […]

Last week, the markets hit an air pocket with 3%-plus declines nearly across the board. The selling actually pushed our Domestic Fund Composite, or DFC, below its 39-week moving average. In fact, even our confirming indicator, the Wilshire 5000, broke down below its long-term trend line. Now, my readers are very smart, so it didn’t […]

Although we have about another six weeks left in 2015, it’s never too early to start thinking about what is on the horizon for next year. Today, I want to present to you the best exchange-traded fund (ETF) ideas for 2016 if your primary goal is growth investing. Next week, we’ll cover the best ETF

After the huge month of gains we saw in October, where the major U.S. indices surged nearly 9%, we were actually overdue for at least a little bit of “digestion” in the equity markets. This week, that digestion was on full display, as the major averages all headed decidedly south. For the week, the Dow […]

Stocks were markedly lower this week, as fear is now brewing on Wall Street about the growing likelihood of the first interest rate hike in nearly a decade as soon as next month. The major indices all were down more than 3% for the week, but I think this has a lot to do with

This week’s big news was the way-better-than-expected October jobs report, which showed that the U.S. economy added 271,000 net new jobs during the month. The report also showed that the unemployment rate had fallen to 5% from 5.1%. Maybe even more important than those positive headline numbers was the average hourly earnings metric, which rose […]

I woke up this morning to news that the U.S. economy added 271,000 jobs in October, and that the unemployment rate had fallen to 5%. Maybe even more important than those positive headline numbers was the average hourly earnings metric, which rose to 2.4% during the month. I say that with some uncertainty, because this

We’re Back in Fabian Plan Black The market winds never cease to blow. Indeed, they blew in a heavy dose of bullish action during October. The major indices finished what historically has been the worst month of the year for stocks in unequivocally bullish fashion, with the Dow surging 8.47%, its best monthly performance in

While I was preparing to write this issue of Intelligence Report, I came across one of the last interviews I gave to the financial media. The Providence Journal Bulletin did a feature on me headed, “Dividends The Key Element to Investing”. In that July 1989 interview, I advised a number of things that the smart individual investor would do, including focusing on yield first over capital gain; betting on stocks that have dividend momentum and eschewing companies that don’t; riding out core positions through thick and thin; and lastly, assembling a portfolio of stocks that has a yield higher than the Dow’s yield and a growth rate in dividends that outstrips the Dow’s growth rate.

Even though that interview is over 25 years old, my concentration on dividends is even older than that, and to this day, my focus is on blue-chip, stable, old-line companies that pay dividends and have a solid record of increasing dividends. In this month’s issue of Intelligence Report, you’ll find my Top Ten recommendations, which as always is full of dividend-paying blue chips—one of my picks this month has been paying shareholders a dividend each year since 1941. I’ll also delve into some timely insight from John Allison, former CEO of the Cato Institute, and former Texas congressman Ron Paul about the Fed, and why we need to end it. Finally, I highlight two health care funds. Both of these funds own medical device and consumer health care companies that are at the forefront of medicine, and both will stand to benefit from two secular trends that will drive healthcare spending for decades to come: aging markets and population growth.