If you live in the United States, there is a good chance the crisis in California is going to affect you. And if you own municipal bonds — either directly or indirectly through other investments — what’s happening in California could have a major impact on your finances.For years, state government budgets have been expanding as the economy grew and the rising housing market swelled property tax coffers. But the severe recession that has brought rising unemployment and a collapse in property values has drastically cut revenues from income, property, sales and corporate taxes.

The most fundamental tenet of investing is that risk and reward go hand in hand. The greater the potential reward, the greater the risk. The lower the risk, the lower the reward you can expect.

“You’ve got to try the crab cakes,” I told Steve McDonald. “I live in Baltimore. Why the hell would I come to Florida for crab cakes?”  We had just concluded a full day of meetings for the Investor’s Daily Edge quarterly editors’ conference and were taking our seats around the table at Dada, one of the finer establishments in Delray Beach.

The mutual fund industry has done their best to convince investors that the long-term return of the stock market is just over 12%. That is their justification for “buy and hold.” But you can throw that number out the window.
The annualized return of the S&P 500 from 1929 through 2008 is actually 8.9%. And for most active investors the return would be significantly less.

Chinese business and social culture are generally very subdued and conservative… and above all, respectful. But students at Peking University in Beijing just couldn’t help themselves this week.

The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics has an “inflation calculator” on their website. It allows you to enter an amount of money and a previous year and then tells you how much money you would need to have today to match the same buying power.

We are in the midst of the worst economy in decades. Corporate earnings are falling. Unemployment is rising. And there looks to be no relief in sight. While the stock market is due for a bounce (probably a big one), there is no doubt that the general trend is still down.

Obama’s stimulus plan will only end up making a sick patient even sicker, says Jon Herring. But that won’t stop it happening. Jon says infrastructure firms stand to benefit in the short run. But the real long-term winners will be companies that benefit from rising inflation.

Stocks are whipsawing again today as Mr. Market digests a coordinated worldwide rate cut. After opening 200 points down, the Dow zoomed to a net gain of 150 points before sliding back into negative territory.

These violent swings can be devastating for the short-term investor. But Jon Herring says market volatility is handing long-term investors a once-in-a-generation chance to buy world-dominating companies at bargain prices.

Jon recommends seven stocks that are price leaders or have pricing power.

You don’t have to look to obscure charts to know that gold price manipulation is happening, says Jon Herring in Investor’s Daily Edge.

Alan Greenspan gave the game away before Congress when he said, “central banks stand ready to lease gold in increasing quantities should the price rise.” He was telling Congress that the leasing of central bank gold was to suppress the price of gold, not to earn money on a dead asset, as officially stated.

This manipulation, plus reported shortages in physical gold, means the yellow metal represents extreme value right now.