Like spring, all the indexes—from commodity measures to stock market gauges—have been busting out all over.   For instance, in early March, the CRB index, which tracks an array of agricultural, metal, and energy commodities, traded at just a whisker below its all-time 1980 high. Other… Read More

Dominators of the information age   THE OUTLOOK: If you thought technology was dead, forget it. The digital revolution is still going strong, and if you focus on the best companies in the hottest segments, you’ll be dialing into some of the fastest-growing stocks around. Read More

Buy UnitedHealth, take profits in Genzyme; love those generics   When it comes to pulling together the best growth stocks, you can’t ignore health care, one of the biggest growth areas around. But in this industry in particular, continued careful monitoring is key. This issue we’re… Read More

The best utilities have big stakes in non-regulated businesses   With interest rates heading up, we’re taking a good hard look at our utilities to see which still make sense as income plays. Our criteria for holding on: the ability to raise dividends, which hedges against… Read More

A top-rated T. Rowe Price fund keeps volatility low and costs in line   Remember the good old days, when investing in tech was easy? Whether you bought an individual Internet stock or invested in a tech fund, you’d plunk your money down one day and… Read More

Arch Coal soars, HSBC targets Chindia™; sell Glaxo   With earnings recently in for many of our FundFinds holdings, we’re devoting this issue to a review and update.   On the heels of fourth-quarter earnings 17 percent above expectations, and propelled by surging commodity prices,… Read More

Tech stock SanDisk also is a buy, but sell Novell, Learning Tree   Stock-picking generally involves two separate things—identifying the compelling trends and then finding the companies best positioned to benefit from them.   For two of our tech stocks, we’ve gotten the trend right:… Read More

They’ve been outperforming, and the best of them still look good   Middle children, according to those who study such things, tend to get overlooked. A similar dynamic seems to play out in the stock market as well. Investors tend to focus on the safe big… Read More

Warren Buffett: The Prescience of Patience   When the definitive history of capitalism is written, one name will almost surely stand out: Warren Buffett. The head of Berkshire Hathaway (Growth Portfolio), Buffett clearly is the best investor of our time and any other time. Read More

A new book says it’s the only side   As a practicing psychoanalyst, I know that much of the information I get from my patients is likely to be inaccurate, distorted or even wholly false, as reality becomes reshaped by the agenda of the subconscious mind. Read More