Apple's Ron Johnson may be a retail visionary, but Jim doubts that his addition to JC Penney's management ranks is worth the $1.2 billion in market cap that JC Penney's stock added on the news. Read More

Emerging-market investors focusing on Chinese companies that export to the West are looking in the wrong place -- if outsized capital gains are the objective. Read More

This tale of two tanker markets offers opportunities for investors who focus on high-yielding names with little exposure to the spot market. Read More

Looking for a good stock broker? Which broker is "good" depends upon what type of investor or trader you are. Jim discusses his seven favorite brokerage features and provides names of those brokers that fit the bill. Read More

Conspiracy theories about the Fed’s intentions make for enjoyable reading, but they don’t help investors with the decisions that really matter. Read More

Stock market history provides a surprising answer to the question of whether the S&P 500 index will continue falling after five consecutive weeks of decline. But high-yield income investors shouldn't care what the answer is as long as they reinvest their dividends. Read More

What spans more than four soccer fields in length, weighs more than six times as much as the world's largest aircraft carrier and towers 17 stories above the water? Read More

After a disastrous regional election, Germany's Christian Democrats have decided to shut down all 17 of Germany's nuclear power plants by 2022. Jim doubts that it will ever actually happen. Read More

Crude oil prices have been very volatile so far in 2011, but the trend is now firmly up. Read More

Scale is an important factor in determining how utility companies fare following unexpected events. But planning--mainly keeping a clean balance sheet--also plays a role. Income investing for the long term is about finding the companies that plan for failures. Read More