Earlier this year, I asked if e-cigarettes would relight Big Tobacco’s prospects. My answer was an unequivocal “no.” Rather than being a durable growth business for Altria (MO), Reynolds American (RAI) or Lorillard (LO), e-cigarettes seem to be yet another way to help people stop smoking—a trendier version of a nicotine patch or Nicorette gum,...Read More

If you manage money professionally–or write about it–then using social media has become part of your day job.  Think about Carl Icahn tweeting about his decision to buy Apple (AAPL) or of Twitter tweeting to announce its own IPO.  Though it hasn’t completely replaced traditional public relations and advertising (and it never fully will, at...Read More

I hate ObamaCare—but probably not for the reasons you might think. I’m not an Obama basher, and I consider the latest republican threats to shut down the government unless ObamaCare is defunded to be a carnival sideshow.  But nonetheless, I hate the program and I’d love to see it scrapped. Why? Because it is a...Read More

Last week, I spoke with Covestor’s Mike Tarsala to give my outlook for the rest of 2013. From Covestor’s Smarter Investing blog: “You can always talk your way out of investing,” Sizemore says. “The best antidote to that kind of thinking is to pick up a newspaper from a year ago. Look at the headlines...Read More

Europe has been calm of late.  Former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi is facing house arrest, and it barely makes the news.  A year ago, this would have caused a run on the euro and roiled the world’s capital markets. And Greece, the country that first comes to mind when the words “Europe” and “crisis”...Read More