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  1. Capital & Crisis Hotline — Earnings! Earnings! Earnings! • February 27, 2009

    “The safety sought in investment is not absolute or complete; the word means, rather, protection against loss under all normal or reasonably likely conditions or variations…. A safe stock is one which holds every prospect of being worth the price paid except under quite unlikely contingencies.” — Benjamin Graham, Security Analysis Updates: ASTE, NWPX, IAG, NBR Dear [...]

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  2. It Pays to Be Contrary: The 5-and-50 Promise • February 24, 2009

    “There is a built-in lid on the contrarian population…It is akin to the old riddle that asks how far a dog can run into the woods. The answer is halfway. After that, he’s running out.” – Steven Mintz, Five Eminent Contrarians: Careers, Perspectives and Investment Tactics Dear Capital & Crisis Reader, Most investors like to put their money [...]

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  3. Feels Like a Funeral • February 20, 2009

    “In life as in investing, what kills you is what you don’t know about and what you’re not thinking about. Today, investors are focused more on the ways in which you can die, which is a great signal for the future… It has always paid to be very greedy when everyone else is fearful… What [...]

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  4. Another Red Day: Buy Gold Stocks • February 18, 2009

    We live in menacing times. As the economic data roll in, it’s becoming clear that my comparisons with the Great Depression are increasingly relevant. I wish it were not so. But as with most things in life, there are good things and bad things all rolled into one big enchilada that you either eat whole [...]

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  5. Remember Just One Thing • February 13, 2009

    “Our advice: Stay in investments that you will not want to sell in the next 10 years…Forests. Down-market retailers. Apartment houses with good tenants. Farms, ranches providing foodstuffs at good prices. Basic service industries with decent revenues. Nothing fancy. The world is moving away from fancy. You want to be the low-cost provider of whatever [...]

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  6. New Issue & Buy Recommendation! • February 6, 2009

    “The idea is to keep costs down, and one way to do that is to borrow to the hilt for the longest time period possible. A 20-year loan is preferable to one that runs for 10 years, and a 30-year loan to a 20-year one. The best kind, of course, would be one you never [...]

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  7. Great Depression Survival Guide • February 1, 2009

    Download PDF The crash of 2008 may not look like the crash of 1929 any more than a dachshund looks like a Pekingese. And the aftermath of 2008 may also not look much like the aftermath of 1929, which was, as we know, the start of the Great Depression. Nonetheless, the greatest financial crisis the U.S. has ever [...]

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