While I believe that stock picking is less important these days than in the past since you can simply trade the broad market up and down, when looking at long term returns, individual companies and their fundamentals actually do matter.  So, what fundamentals should one look for when picking sound investments for the coming decade?  Let’s look at a few…
Balance Sheet
You should definitely look at companies with sound balance sheets.  While some debt is acceptable, companies burdened with insane debt (i.e. General Electric (GE)) should probably be avoided as long …

Many people don’t.  Thankfully, I do.  Today’s jobs numbers just reveal what everyone already knows: the economy sucks.  It doesn’t matter if the Dow hits 20,000 and the S&P hits 5,000, mainstream is still struggling big time.  We are increasing becoming an economy with two different worlds.  In one world, Wall St. and other large corporations are making huge profits due to lowered costs (lay offs), cheap money, government backing and global revenues.  Meanwhile small businesses are still in survival mode with no hirings on the horizon, business owners taking …

I would guess that most people, especially young people, don’t care to pay attention to the overall economy.  If they have a job, then who cares.  If they don’t have a job, then the economy sucks.  That’s about as deep as it gets.  Well, I’m here to tell you that you should pay attention to the economy.  Yes, employment is part of that but its bigger than that.
Your Career Direction
You should understand the economy so that you can make better career decisions.  If you’re fortunate enough to have the ability …

This image is from David Rosenberg of Glusken+Sheff:

The guys over at Money Crashers have a great new contest with more prizes than I’ve ever seen for a single contest.  You can find the actual contest post by clicking here.  The contest is giving away over $5,900 in total prizes including the following:

$1,720 in cash prizes
Apple iPods
Amazon Kindles
Gift cards
Books
Much more

The dates for the contest are January 4 – 31, 2010, so be sure and get over there quickly.  Also, there will be over 100 winners so your chances of taking something home are great.
I’m usually not one to …

Another year has passed.  Are you talking about the same things you are talking about at the end of 2008?  Have you acted on any of your goals or ideas in the past year?  The key to reaching goals is to break them up into smaller goals, and just act on them.
Your resolution for 2010 should be to just act on one of your ideas.  When it comes to additional income, why not just give it a shot?  Put down the steps necessary and get to work on them.  If …

Google’s Adsense product is the main money making for millions of website operators.  I’m attempting to grow my online income and Adsense revenue is a big part of this.  While I document my Adsense revenue each month with my monthly blog updates, I have found the easiest way to boost your monthly numbers.
Four days into January, I’m already at 40% of my total Adsense revenue from December.  The main reason is that I had a huge day yesterday where my daily total was about 5x the normal daily revenue total. …

The stock market was a wild ride in 2009.  We started the year with the continued “crisis” from 2008 and reached the ultimate lows in March.  Since then, however, it has been a skyrocketing missile upward.  The Nasdaq is up 80% from the lows and other major indices over 60%.  As we cross into 2010, it looks as if the trend will continue.
For me personally, I have 2 accounts with 2 different strategies and as a result, 2 very different outcomes this year.  My long term account is a long …