Category: News Wire

Four years ago, while on my honeymoon in Bali, I caught the wave of my life.The Padang Padang surf break is a world-class spot for surfers. It’s about a half-mile paddle from the shore around a rocky cliff.Bali was having one of the best swells of the decade that week. I was incredibly lucky to be there at just the right time.I saw it coming as I paddled out, spun around … and was soon looking down a steep face of sheer ocean blue two-stories high, with a rushing torrent at my back.In surfing, you have to commit. Once you’re[…]

Think you’re “too late” to the bull market in oil?Think again!Naysayers will point out that crude oil futures fell from $118 a barrel in March to as low as $70 a few weeks ago.That’s a 40% drop. And the Johnny-come-latelys will say it’s a sign that oil lost its tailwind.But I know better…Oil is simply catching its breath after a monster rally. And that’s a gift to you and me.It’s setting up for another monster rally … which I project could add at least another $100 a barrel to the price of crude in 2023 alone.And that’ll be just the start.One of the great things about catching a brand-new bull market early[…]

It was a time when stock prices were through the roof.And people were buying for one reason … because they were heading higher.This was despite the business not having a snowball’s chance in hell of making money.Who cared? Nobody.What difference did it make? None.Because for the “innovative disruptors” — the companies that were going to change the world — price didn’t matter.The biggest risk was not investing into the world of tomorrow.You may think I’m talking about the stock market of the past few years. Right?Well, no.Mark Twain once said: “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”And there was a time, not too long ago, where we saw this same “buy at any price” market action of the last few[…]

Value investing is hard to define.Not that the meaning of “value” is elusive. It’s not. More because defining what’s actually valuable in the market is difficult.This might surprise anyone who thinks they’re a value investor because they buy stocks with a low price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio. That’s a popular — but inadequate — way to look for value.The problem with buying “low-P/E stocks” is what “low” actually means. Some investors say a P/E of 15 is low. Others want 12, or … some other number.But a simple number won’t ever beat the market. To do that, you need to analyze value in context. You need to understand a stock’s relative[…]

At long last, 2022 will soon come to a close.It’s almost hard to believe how much happened in these 247 trading days … and hopefully, not much more will happen in the final four ahead this week. The start of the first bear market since the Great Financial Crisis… Both the highest inflation, and the sharpest increase in interest rates, in 40 years… A cascade of dominoes falling in crypto-land, where corrupt exchanges and bankrupt lenders went belly-up… The dawn of the new energy bull market… All of it has turned the financial world inside-out and upside-down.And yet, at the same time, it feels as if we’re just setting the stage for 2023.A colleague of mine shared this chart from Bloomberg[…]

Man, it’s been a wild couple of years for oil…Remember back in 2020, during the peak of the coronavirus? A barrel of oil actually traded below $0.It makes sense. With everyone hunkering down at home, no one was driving, and the entire world had an oversupply of oil. Sellers were put in the awkward position of paying to take oil off their hands!Nearly three years later, the opposite is true. Stocks of Big Oil companies are up like crazy.Take a look: Experts expect oil to continue climbing, too.With the likelihood of easier money policies next year, the continuing Russian-Ukrainian conflict and the U.S.’s need to replenish its petroleum reserves, it’s a perfect storm for higher oil prices.(In fact, my colleague[…]

I worked with a psychologist once who taught me the concept of “my future self.” She had me close my eyes and envision how I might feel 10 years in the future based on a decision I made that day. Ideally, my “future self” looks back and thinks, “Wow, I did myself a huge favor with that move…” It can be a little thing… Like how I prep my espresso-maker each evening, so when I’m barely awake and juggling my 2-year-old son the next morning, all I have to do is switch the stove on and my coffee starts brewing.[…]

I went all-in on renewable energy a couple years back. And not as an investor.This past October I traded in my second gas-powered Volvo for another Tesla.I installed an electric charger in my carport. I felt I was doing my part to save the planet.Still, hooking up my Tesla at home each day got me thinking…When I charged my battery each night, how was the “clean” electricity being generated?It turns out, to generate electricity you need fossil fuel … specifically coal and natural gas.Over the past two decades, more than $5 trillion has been spent by governments around the world[…]

Last week was another typical 2022 bear market week.Major stock market indexes were down. Almost all stocks within those indexes were down. So was almost every sector.But there was one lone winner that outshined everything else…That was the energy sector, and it’s a pattern we’ve seen again and again. Energy stocks are this year’s biggest winners.That leaves many long-term investors scared to buy energy … because they’ve been taught to love buying stocks that are going down.They smugly quote the Oracle of Omaha, saying: “I buy my socks and my stocks when they’re on sale.”I get it. It can feel[…]

“Welcome to Survivor: Crypto Winter!”That’s how I opened my speech at the “Fintech on the Block” crypto conference in San Francisco in 2019.The crowd laughed, but it was true. Those who hadn’t been shaken out of the crypto market were “survivors.”It was fitting at the time. We’d just seen the first crypto mania go bust the year before. And we were in the middle of a brutal bear market. (Sound familiar?)But while that crypto winter was harsh, it didn’t last. A year later, bitcoin and Ethereum had more than doubled off their lows. Two years later, investors saw gains of 100X in[…]