Aggressive investments should make up no more than, say, 30% of your portfolio. You can cut your risk all the more by taking a conservative approach to your aggressive holdings.

For instance, you should hold your aggressive investments within a portfolio that reflects our three-pronged Successful Investor wealth-building philosophy.

That is, invest mainly in well established companies; spread your money out across …read more »

Japan’s Nikkei 225 stock market index is now trading at 17,454, a level not seen since 2000. That’s despite the recent setback on global stock markets. The index bottomed out at around 8,000 in May, 2003, rose to 11,000 by the end of 2003, and then moved sideways until it started rising in mid-2005.

The Bank of Japan recently raised interest …read more »

It was great to see the Saturday, February 3, 2007  Globe & Mail Report on Business ranked Stock Pickers Digest as Canada’s top investor newsletter in 2006. (The Successful Investor, our flagship newsletter for less aggressive investors, was #3 in the Globe’s analysis.)

We achieved this ranking despite a couple of formidable obstacles that we faced this past year.

First, we advise …read more »

We always try to strike a balance in the information we provide — not too little and not too much.

One bit of information that doesn’t get the attention it deserves is a company’s market capitalization or “market cap”. This is the value of all common stock it has outstanding.

When analyzing a stock, we of course always look at its market …read more »

The U.S. economy grew at a rate of 3.5% in the fourth quarter of 2006, beating consensus forecasts of 3.0%. That’s down from growth of 5.6% in the first quarter of 2006, but up from 2.6% in the second quarter and 2% in the third quarter.

The growth in the latest quarter was led by a 4.4% increase in consumer spending, …read more »

Many studies show that one of the best ways for a company to unlock hidden value is to spin off a subsidiary as a separate company. Shares of the new company sometimes fall in the first few months, as many investors tend to sell their new stock. But over time, both the parent and the spin-off usually outperform comparable stocks.

In …read more »

We always try to strike a balance in the information we provide — not too little and not too much.

One bit of information that doesn’t get the attention it deserves is a company’s market capitalization or “market cap”. This is the value of all common stock it has outstanding.

When analyzing a stock, we of course always look at its market …read more »

Stocks that are low-priced in relation to earnings, book value or assets are sometimes called “value” stocks. But there may be reasons why these “value” stocks trade at such low prices. For example, the company may operate in a cyclical business. A low price earnings or price-book ratio may just reflect investors’ belief that earnings will fall or even disappear …read more »

When investing aggressively, it’s particularly crucial to downplay stocks that are getting a lot of highly favourable coverage by brokers and the media.

You may get the feeling that these high-profile stocks are can’t-miss investments safe to buy and forget. That’s exactly the wrong thing to do.

In fact, your in-the-limelight stocks are the ones most at risk of big losses in …read more »

Recently a friend asked, “What do you think of the idea that as the baby boomers retire, they will cut way back on their consumer spending and that this will usher in a lengthy recession?”

It seems to me that this is the kind of prediction you make when you take a narrow view of a wide topic.

The oldest boomers are …read more »