In investing, it can be difficult to distinguish between investing and speculating. Both investors and speculators aim to make a profit by putting money to work in the financial markets. In the seminal work Security Analysis (1934), legendary value investor Benjamin Graham and co-author David Dodd attempted to more precisely define the difference between investing […]
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Tax Inversions on the Rise
Corporate transactions with the purpose – at least in part – to lower U.S. corporate taxes have been on the rise. The latest announcement came on June 15, as Medtronic Inc. announced plans to acquire Covidien, PLC. Under the deal’s terms, the combined company will be domiciled in Ireland, where Covidien is based, rather than […]
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The Changing Oil Markets
Historically, when it comes to generating long-term gains, refining has been one of the energy sector’s least profitable industries for investors. At its most basic level, refining involves boiling crude oil in order to produce petroleum products such as gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel, home heating oil and even asphalt. However, over the past few […]
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Jobs Return to Peak Level, But…
While this week’s report shows continued improvement in the job’s data, the types of jobs that people are securing is changing. In May, the U.S. finally recovered all the jobs that were lost since the recession that commenced in late 2007. May concluded the first consecutive four-month stretch since the late 1990s in which job […]
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Impact of Millennials on the Housing Recovery
The combination of a sluggish economy and its related impact on individuals is hurting the housing market. The ability of individuals, particularly millennials, to buy homes has been limited by such factors as lack of earnings, less-than-perfect credit and over burdensome debt levels (including student loans). (Millennials – also known as the Millennial Generation or Generation Y – are young […]