Why Mattress Stores Are Everywhere
The profit margins that mattress stores are able to achieve are absolutely staggering. If you want to earn obscene returns on capital in life, it seems that selling bottled water, operating a surgical...
View ArticleTotal SA: This Dividend Stock Could Be Your Own Personal Oil Well
For a couple reasons, I have never bought any stock in Total SA: -The French government is a taxing nightmare. Last year, Total SA had a 55% income tax rate, and there is pending bills in the French...
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An Important Investing Lesson From Benjamin Graham
I was recently going over some of Benjamin Graham’s old lectures at Columbia University when I came upon one gem of wisdom that I wanted to share with you. In my paraphrase, Graham said this:...
View ArticleMark Twain’s Failed Paige Compositor Investment
“Ah, if only he could die temporarily!” Mark Twain’s signature character Tom Sawyer thought after initial romantic rejection from neighbor girl Becky Thatcher. In real life in April 1894, in what is...
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Be Completely Honest About Your Investing Weakness
Warren Buffett once said, “I’ve never swung at a ball while it’s still in the pitcher’s glove.” Incidentally, that perfectly describes the category of investing mistakes that I am prone to make—I am...
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Why Dividend Stocks Are Great For Beginning Investors
I have recently been working my way through Howard Schilit’s book “Financial Shenanigans” which teaches intermediate investors the skills to identify companies possibly engaging in accounting behavior...
View ArticleThe Secret Health Care Plans Of The 1%
When you acquire a specialized skill of value, people will pay more for your services. As famed management writer Peter Drucker once said, “The economic and social gravity of America will increasingly...
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Some Investing Wisdom From The Roman Poet Horace
At about 2:30 in the afternoon, today, July 1st, I took a look at my Seeking Alpha screen of the stocks that I follow and noticed that every single company I follow is up 1% or 2%: Personally, I get...
View ArticleA Crazy Fact About Wal-Mart
Here is something I recently learned while reading Wal-Mart’s financial statements that I thought I would share with you: Over ¾ of Wal-Mart’s inventory gets sold before The Wal-Mart Corporation even...
View ArticleThe Search For The Next Coca-Cola
In the most recent article that I published on Patron, I covered the stock that I believe is the most likely to be the Coca-Cola of the next generation. When I describe something as the next Coca-Cola,...
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Another July 1st, Another Million Dollars For Bobby Bonilla
Thought you had a good day, today? Probably not as good as Bobby Bonilla. On January 3rd, 2000, the New York Mets bought out the final year of Bobby Bonilla’s $5.9 million salary with the team. The...
View ArticleCrayola’s Dominance Of The Art Supply Market
An underrated parenting technique is to have your child make a self-deprecating joke in response to light teasing. Nothing triggers the impulse to make fun of someone quite like discovering that the...
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Why You Should Only Buy High-Quality Dividend Stocks
If you ever read Phil Fisher’s “5 Points” on the questions to ask yourself when looking for a stock to buy, you may remember Mr. Fisher’s point number two that you should ask yourself “Does the...
View ArticleThe Disadvantage of Joint Spousal Wills
In traditional nuclear families especially, both spouses often have a desire to draft joint wills that give everything to their surviving spouse and then an equal distribution to their children. This...
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Three Quotes From Henry Ford About Overcoming Failure
Henry Ford had a lot of spunk. His famous quote, “Sir, you can have a Ford in any color you want, as long as it is black” is a great little encapsulation of his attitude towards business and life....
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Embrace The Thrill Of Long-Term Investing in America
If you have a minute, check out this article from The New York Times that came out sometime last month: Since many of us use the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index as a proxy for the market, let’s...
View ArticleThe Naivete About $100,000 Per Year Jobs
Welding trade schools frequently run late night TV advertisements that targets a demographic susceptible to the dream of a better life. Specifically, these commercials show guys having fun with a...
View ArticleA Nice Investing Tip From Warren Buffett in 1982
In the 1982 Letter to Shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett included spent a few paragraphs explaining the accounting realities that come into play based on whether or not you own at least...
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Dividends Really Are Like Snowballs
Our entire investing future is a product of three things: (1) The amount of money we invest. (2) The growth rate of our investment. (3) The amount of time we allow an investment to grow. The higher we...
View ArticleThe Next Procter & Gamble Due To Pop
As many of you saw, Procter & Gamble stock delivered nearly 9% returns on Friday, giving investors almost a year’s worth of returns in a single day. This performance provides a self-evident lesson...
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