Here is a headline that should come as no surprise to anyone: “JCPenney (NYSE:$JCP) Turnaround in Doubt as Sales Plummet,” CNBC, November 9, 2012. Big shock.  JCPenney has been a company struggling to find direction for the past twenty years.  The company is a “tweener” that had a hard enough time competing with the likes...Read More

The single most important lesson I’ve learned about being a successful investor is the need to maintain emotional detachment.  Any feelings you may have towards a stock are unrequited.  If you love a stock, it will not love you back.  And if you hate a stock, it will not give you the satisfaction of responding...Read More

In the whiskey swilling days of my youth, I always preferred Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey to Jim Beam Kentucky Bourbon. I was far from a whiskey connoisseur, but it just seemed to go down smoother. Regrettably, I’m not as young as I used to be and, to quote Hank Williams, Jr., “corn bread and iced...Read More

Last week, I suggested that Microsoft ($MSFT) would be the ultimate winner in the long war for dominance of the smartphone and tablet markets. Though Apple ($AAPL) dominates today, it has no real defensible “moats” that would prevent an aggressive competitor from muscling in on its turf.  Consumers are notoriously fickle, and there is little...Read More

The New York Stock Exchange and other major U.S. markets are scheduled to reopen Wednesday after a two day hiatus—the first multi-day weather-related closure since the blizzard of 1888 and the first unscheduled closure since the September 11, 2011 terror attacks. With much of the East Coast a wreck, what should we expect when trading...Read More