For those familiar with Bethany McLean's The Smartest Guys In The Room, the forthcoming comparison will make sense; for those unfamiliar with her book, regarding Enron's executive leadership, the following analogy may fall on deaf ears. In any case, allow me to preface all further Enron remarks by first decrying the company's actions. While its employees were, for the most part, incredibly intelligent, Enron epitomizes all that was, and still is, wrong with corporate America.
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You're Not Smarter Than Markets
Valuing companies has become damn near impossible. America's volatile economic environment, currently fueled by low interest rates and a strengthening dollar, has left investors searching for "yield." Nowhere is this transition more evident than in fixed income markets. As investors sell bond and Treasury holdings for high dividend and growth stocks, valuations have soared to record levels.
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America's Most Powerful Female
What is quantitative easing, and why does it matter? Will a Fed interest rate hike derail global growth prospects? How will the stock market respond to lower inflation? Will investors panic and induce a global asset selloff? These are the questions that keep Janet Yellen, America's most powerful woman, awake at night.
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Why "Cult" Is A Dirty Four-Letter Word
What are the stock market’s most notorious “cult stocks,” and how do we identify them? While most investors consider “cult” to be a dirty four-letter word, the corporations that comprise this category have performed incredibly well over the past years. Whereas previously beloved companies like Yelp and Twitter (TWTR) have fallen 44.1% and 21.1% over the last two years, cult stocks like Ambarella (AMBA), Netflix (NFLX), Tesla (TSLA), Chipotle (CMG), and Amazon (AMZN) have experienced near triple-digit gains.
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You're Missing Out On $100,000s
Wealthfront, the Silicon Valley’s premier automated investing service, recently announced its decision to lower the minimum initial deposit requirement from $5,000 to $500, thereby giving younger individuals the ability to invest in an incredible product. For those unfamiliar with Wealthfront, it is a “robo-advisor” service that automatically allocates deposits into a diversified ETF (Exchange-Traded Fund) portfolio.
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Building America's Next Bomber
You can’t put a price on freedom; or maybe you can ($598 billion per year). In other words, there’s nothing wrong with spending tax dollars to maintain American exceptionalism. While we may allocate more money to defense each year than the next 13 countries combined, and develop technologies decades ahead of our enemies’ capabilities, the costs associated with a predominantly Russian or Chinese global sphere of influence are far higher.
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Google To Acquire Twitter?
Every so often, Wall Street financial firms and investment banks blindly announce acquisition rumors as if they are facts. This mainly occurs in the tech and biotech sectors, where M&A rumors run amuck. And while these claims are often unfounded, investors nonetheless pile into the alleged "buyer" and "seller" companies.
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