NEW YORK (Fortune) — Very few of the esoteric funds touted during the last boom protected investors from the severe downdraft of 2008, but some stumbled far less than others.
Continue reading Permanent Portfolio Fund – A Secure Mutual Fund

Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis heads to Capitol Hill on Thursday, and he’s likely to be grilled by lawmakers about the government’s role in ensuring that the bank complete its controversial merger with Merrill Lynch.

According to emails released Wednesday that pull back the curtain on heated negotiations, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke had suggested to another Fed official that “management is gone,” if BofA managers tried to flee the deal and later on needed further government assistance.
Continue reading BofA CEO Ken Lewis pressured by Fed

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Oil ended just shy of $50 a barrel Thursday as investors weighed a glut in supply amid dour sentiment about the economy. Crude oil for June delivery added 77 cents to finish the day at $49.62 a barrel.
Continue reading Still thinking of investing in oil?

For the past three months, small stocks were the big story. Small-cap funds gained 21.5% on average in the quarter, led by small value’s 22.2% rise. Standouts included Aegis Value Fund /quotes/comstock/10r!avalx (AVALX 6.82, -0.23, -3.26%) , up 48.5%, and Wasatch Micro Cap Value Fund /quotes/comstock/10r!wamvx (WAMVX 1.72, -0.05, -2.82%) , up 40%.

Large- and midcap offerings followed with their own strong showings.

Large-cap funds collectively added 16.2%, with large-blend and large-value each up 16.4% and large-growth up 15.6%. Among the top performers were the hardest-hit funds of 2008, such as Vanguard Capital Value Fund /quotes/comstock/10r!vcvlx (VCVLX 6.62, -0.18, -2.65%) , up 39.1%, Yacktman Focused Fund /quotes/comstock/10r!yaffx (YAFFX 12.59, -0.36, -2.78%) , up 36.9%, Legg Mason Value Trust /quotes/comstock/10r!lmvtx (LMVTX 28.64, -1.05, -3.54%) , gaining 29.4%, and Longleaf Partners Fund /quotes/comstock/10r!llpfx (LLPFX 18.90, -0.52, -2.68%) , rising 26.6%.
Continue reading Low-Quality stocks with high gains

There are many misconceptions in investing; whether in stocks or bonds or in building an investment portfolio in general. Carl Richards at Behavior Gap has an interesting article in getrichslowly.org

Continue reading Basics in investing

This will be a very quick post. I am trying to see how fast I can churn out a quick 300 to 400 word post entry on Finance. Let’s see how fast I can do it.

Apparently, these days, stocks are getting to be a bad investment. This is true if you’ve put most of your money in stocks that are traded in the United States. This is because the market is not realyl very optimistic. People try to be optimistic because that is the culture that has been ingrained into this great country but in reality, you have party pooper economists who still think that the economy is about to crash again into a double dip recession or depression. Double-dip is the catch phrase of the moment and it is seriously starting to annoy me. Financial reports are starting to annoy me. Companies are reporting big profits and growth but a lot of those profits are coming from cost cutting. When you cut costs, you cut jobs and you cut consumption. You are taking money away from the market. This is seriously wrong and I don’t know what anyone can do to fix this. Even if I type up seventy words per minute, that will only mean I can take only 5 minutes to make a 350 word articleat full thoroughput. Ironic. Therefore, if I were to invest in stocks right now, I will think that I will be prudent to move the stocks to Asia. That’s right folks. The money is moving east to the countries with huge domestic markets, optimistic consumers, and people who are driving exports. This is the new world order. Asia is coming out. The best stocks are Asian stocks. People are getting rich overnight it’s insane. So people if you ask me, do what you should do and take your money out of Wall Street where profit is the bottom line. Move out of your parents’ house and got to Asia. The money is there. The people are there.

The first world order is going to be gone in a while. People don’t like to work there. Asian stocks powered by Asian workers who work 60 hours a week will be the new powerhouse. There is no such thing as rewarding laziness here.

Amazon.com (AMZN  83.00, -0.03, -0.04%) ended relationships with online affiliates in Rhode Island to avoid a new sales tax law in that state, The Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site. Recently, Rhode Island passed a law requiring companies to collect a sales tax on products sold through online-marketing affiliates. On Friday, Amazon reportedly ended affiliate programs in North Carolina as that state was seeking to adopt a similar tax

Apollo Group Inc. (APOL 69.35, +3.36, +5.09%) said that its fiscal third-quarter profit rose to $201.1 million, or $1.26 a share, from $139.1 million, or 85 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Revenue increased to $1.05 billion from $835.2 million last year. Analysts surveyed by FactSet Research estimated a quarterly profit of $1.12 a share on revenue of $1.04 billion.

Dell Inc. (DELL 13.87, +0.01, +0.07%) is reportedly developing a pocket-sized electronic device for accessing the Internet. The Wall Street Journal said that Dell is creating the device to run on Google Inc.’s Android software, which is currently used by T-Mobile in mobile phones and is expected to become widely deployed in other devices. The Dell device is said to be slightly larger that Apple Inc.’s /quotes/comstock/15*!aapl/quotes/nls/aapl (AAPL 141.90, -0.07, -0.05%) iPod touch and could go on sale in the second half of the year.

By definition a high-yield bonds is a high paying bond with a lower credit rating than investment-grade corporate bonds. It also has a lower credit rating than Treasury bonds and municipal bonds. The upside of this is that because of the higher risk of default, these bonds pay a higher yield than investment grade bonds.

Based on the two main credit rating agencies, high-yield bonds carry a rating of ‘BBB’ or lower from S&P, and ‘Baa’ or lower from Moody’s. Bonds with ratings above these levels are considered investment grade. Credit ratings can be as low as ‘D’ (currently in default), and most bonds with ‘C’ ratings or lower carry a high risk of default; to compensate for this risk, yields will typically be very high.

The permanent portfolio fund is a type of investment that is made to offer a solid performance whatever of what is going on in the market. Here are the basics of permanent portfolio funds and what they have to offer you as an investor.

Permanent Portfolio Fund

The idea for permanent portfolio funds that you have a mutual fund that could withstand any market conditions. This was accomplished by investing in many different types of securities. Putting emphasis on investing in things that you could find outside of the stock market.

A permanent portfolio school of thought was to invest in an equal proportion of stocks, bonds, cash, and gold. Therefore, the original investment mix was 25% of each type of investment. In today’s conditions the current composition of the fund is 25% precious metals, 10% Swiss franc bonds, 15% real estate and natural resource stocks, 15% aggressive growth stocks, and 35% in government securities such as T-bills. In this way investors funds regardless of what happened in the economy feel more secure. Although with this fund you have to expect a slow and steady growth curve. This type of fund has been proven to gain value steadily over time. We encourage you to try it, if you want to create a fund that is somewhat secure and has steady gains as time goes on. At best, you will have an asset that will have paid out some income at the same time have grown in value with a relatively low-risk investment approach that lets you keep your money over the long-term. It sounds very viable especially in these volatile times when the stock market tends to fluctuate and the stability and strength economy is somewhat unsure, the permanent portfolio may work for you.

KB Home (KBH 14.77, +1.13, +8.28%) is expected to report a second-quarter loss of 64 cents a share, according to analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters.

Shaw Communications (SJR 16.97, +0.31, +1.86%) is forecast to post earnings of 26 cents a share in the fiscal third quarter, according to analysts surveyed by FactSet Research.