Avoiding Cigarette Butts

Too many investors hang their hat on investments that seem “cheap”. Unfortunately, too often something that looks like a bargain turns out to be a cigarette butt from which investors are hoping to take a last puff. As the old adage states, “you get what you pay for,” and that certainly applies to the world […]

Spring Has Sprung: Market Weather Turning

This article is an excerpt from a previously released Sidoxia Capital Management complimentary newsletter (April 1, 2016). Subscribe on the right side of the page for the complete text. It was a cold winter for stocks, but as we approached the spring season in March, the flowers have begun to bloom. More specifically, during the month […]

Chasing Headlines

It’s been an amazing start to the year. First the market cratered on slowing China economic concerns, domestic recessionary fears, deteriorating oil prices, and negative interest rates abroad. In response to all these worries (and others), stocks dove more than -11% (S&P 500 Index) in January, before settling down. Subsequently, the market has made a […]

Cutting Losses with Fisher’s 3 Golden Sell Rules

Returning readers to Investing Caffeine understand this is a location to cover a wide assortment of investing topics, ranging from electric cars and professional poker to taxes and globalization.  Investing Caffeine is also a location that profiles great investors and their associated investment lessons. Today we are going to revisit investing giant Phil Fisher, but rather than […]

The Traitorous 8 and Birth of Silicon Valley

Over my 25 year investment career, I’ve made quite a few technology investments and visited dozens of Silicon Valley companies. I heard bits and pieces about the story of the Traitorous 8, but I never fully comprehended the technology revolution they started. Out of intellectual curiosity, I decided to delve a little deeper into the […]

Dolphin or Shark…Time for Concern?

This article is an excerpt from a previously released Sidoxia Capital Management complimentary newsletter (March 1, 2016). Subscribe on the right side of the page for the complete text. Through the choppy stock market waters of February, investors nervously tried to stay afloat as they noticed a fin cutting through the water. The only problem is […]

Thank You Volatility

We’ve had some choppy markets and that’s fine by me. Great investors love uncertainty because volatility equates to opportunity. Selling or shorting into volatile euphoria and buying into panic is a time-tested, wealth creating strategy. On the other hand, when everything is consistently moving in one direction, either upwards or downwards, investing can be an […]

Shoot Now, Ask Later

Since the start of 2016, investor sentiment has led to a shoot now, ask questions later mentality. In the court of economic justice, all stocks have been convicted guilty of recession despite the evidence and defense that proves the economy innocent. Even the Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen did not prove to be a great […]

Invest with a Telescope…Not a Microscope

It was another bloody week in the stock market (S&P 500 index dropped -3.1%), and any half-glass full data was interpreted as half-empty. The week was epitomized by a Citigroup report entitled “World Economy Trapped in a Death Spiral.” A sluggish monthly jobs report on Friday, which registered a less than anticipated addition of 151,000 jobs, […]

Groundhog Day All Over Again

This article is an excerpt from a previously released Sidoxia Capital Management complementary newsletter (February 1, 2016). Subscribe on the right side of the page for the complete text. It’s that time of the year when the masses gather in eager anticipation of Groundhog Day to predict whether the furry rodent will see its shadow in […]

Don’t Do Something…Just Stand There!

Like a full plane hitting a rough patch of turbulence, investors have been shaken by the recent price volatility in the stock market over concerns of a slowing Chinese economy, plummeting oil prices, and a host of other alarming headlines. As a result, investors are left picking up the pieces of the S&P 500 decline, […]

Going Shopping: Chicken vs. Beef

The headlines haven’t been very rosy over the last week, but when is that ever not the case? Simply put, gloom and doom sells. The Chinese stock market is collapsing; the Yuan is plummeting; there are rising tensions in the Middle East; terrorism is rising to the fore; and commodity prices are falling apart at […]

Creating Your Investment Dashboard

Navigating the financial markets can be difficult in this volatile environment we’ve experienced in recent years, which is why it is more important than ever to have a financial dashboard to ensure you do not drive off a cliff. If investors do not have the time or focus to drive their financial future, then perhaps for […]

Sweating in the Doctor’s Waiting Room

My palms are clammy, heart-rate is elevated, and sweat has begun to drip down my brow. There I sit with my hands clenched in the doctor’s office waiting room. I’m trying to mentally prepare for the inevitable poking, prodding, and personal invasion, which will likely involve numerous compromising cavity searches from head to toe. The […]

10 Ways to Destroy Your Portfolio

With the increased frequency of heightened volatility, investing has never been as challenging as it is today. However, the importance of investing has never been more crucial either, due to rising life expectancies, corrosive effects of inflation, and the uncertainty surrounding the sustainability of  government programs like Social Security, Medicare, and pensions. If you are not wasting enough […]

Bargain Hunting for Doorbuster Discounts

This article is an excerpt from a previously released Sidoxia Capital Management complementary newsletter (December 1, 2015). Subscribe on the right side of the page for the complete text. It’s that time of year again when an estimated 135 million bargain shoppers set aside personal dignity and topple innocent children in the name of Black Friday holiday weekend, doorbuster […]

The 10 Investment Commandments

Moses ascended Mount Sinai to receive the powerful spiritual words of the Ten Commandments from God on two stone tablets and then went on to share the all-important, moral imperatives with his people. If Moses was alive today and was a professional investor, I’m sure he would have downloaded the “10 Investment Commandments” from Charles […]

Dying Unicorns

Historically, when people speak about unicorns they are referring to those magical white horses with long horns sprouting from their foreheads. Today, in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street, “unicorns” refer to those private companies valued at more than $1 billion. The current list of unicorns is extensive, including household names like money-losing Uber ($51.0 billion valuation), […]