James Glassman

Byron Wien, the veteran Morgan Stanley strategist, is one of my favorite market seers. Annually since 1986 he has sent clients a list of “ten surprises” he expects for the year ahead. The list for 2004, released this morning, is wonderfully optimistic, and...

Last month, The Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation severely repudiated a board which, a year ago, had judged The Skeptical Environmentalist , the best-selling book by Bjorn Lomborg, “objectively dishonest” and “clearly contrary to...

The problem with investing is that, done right, it’s not all that much fun. It requires virtues for which you will probably be rewarded in heaven but that won’t provide you and your friends with much entertainment on earth: equanimity, restraint,...

The cover of the latest Business 2.0, one of the few surviving techie-financial magazines of the go-go 1990s, issues a dire warning: “Why This Tech Bubble Is About to Blow,” screams the headline. And the subhead: “Wall Street Is Doing It Again . . ....

The late Benjamin Graham — erudite classicist, mentor to Warren Buffett, highly successful investor and probably the greatest financial mind of the 20th century — said it best: “The investor’s chief problem — and even his worst enemy...

Time, as I exhort young investors, is the single most important factor in stock market success. But you can own a stock for 100 years and, if it doesn’t increase its profits at a nice annual clip, you’ve got a depleting asset on your hands. The winning...

A month ago, Eliot L. Spitzer, New York’s attorney general and the scourge of Wall Street, announced that his office had “obtained evidence of widespread illegal trading schemes that potentially cost mutual fund shareholders billions of dollars...

Earlier this year, Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), which is roughly tied with General Electric (GE) as the most valuable company measured by market cap in the world, declared the first dividend in its 28-year history. On Sept. 12, it doubled that dividend from 8 cents a year...

If you’re skeptical of what businesses report as “earnings” — their official profits — you have a right to be. Earnings are an artifice of what are called generally accepted accounting principles, and, while GAAP earnings are universally...

CANCUN, Mexico – As the “extremely dangerous” Hurricane Isabel advances toward the Yucatan from the Western Atlantic, delegates from 146 countries are racing to finish work at this resort town on a once-in-a-generation opportunity to slash subsidies...

Poland, the fifth-largest country in Europe, is not one of the first places most investors look for opportunities. But maybe it should be. I returned full of enthusiasm a few weeks ago from my first trip to Poland in 40 years. Poland’s stock market is small...

To invest is to defer. When you buy a company’s stock or a government agency’s bonds, you decide not to consume your cash today but to entrust it to an institution that, you hope, will produce rewards for you in the future. History shows that, if you make...

Is high tech really back, or are we headed for Dubble Bubble? Whitney Tilson, venerable and circumspect columnist for the Motley Fool, has no doubts: “Times like these make me sigh, hold my head in my hands, and groan, ‘How is it possible that, in less...

The stock market has been rising impressively, but practically all I hear these days are complaints about low interest rates. Readers lament that they can make only three-quarters of a point in a money-market fund such as Merrill Lynch Ready Assets, or just 1.3...

Over the past few months, the stock market has put on one of those frequent demonstrations that show exactly why smart investors buy stocks and hold on to them — or, better yet, why they consistently buy more. The economic news has not been good, with...

Our story thus far. . . . After rising from 777 in the summer of 1982 to more than 11,000 in the spring of 2000, the Dow Jones industrial average declined for three years in a row, descending to 7524 on March 11, just before the start of the Iraq war. Then stocks...

“All happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,” wrote Tolstoy in “Anna Karenina.” You could say the same for stocks. All happy stocks are pretty much alike, while unhappy stocks lose their value for...

Six years ago, after tobacco companies agreed to settle lawsuits filed by the states, the Wall Street Journal published what seemed at the time to be a hilarious parody by Mark Bernstein. It was titled “A Big Fat Target.” The parody claimed that junk food...

The war is over, the hummingbirds are back, the dogwood’s blooming white and pink. It’s spring, and, after a long, hard winter, it’s a refreshing and comforting change. So it’s time to give your investment portfolio a thorough spring cleaning....

“Have They No Shame?” screamed the headline of the cover story of one of the magazines, adorned with a picture of five ravenous pigs eating cake amid piles of money. The subhead: “Their performance stank last year, yet most CEOs got paid more than...

“Have They No Shame?” screamed the headline of the cover story of one of the magazines, adorned with a picture of five ravenous pigs eating cake amid piles of money. The subhead: “Their performance stank last year, yet most CEOs got paid more than...