With inflation rearing its ugly head and commodity prices on a tear, gold-oriented mutual funds are doing well these days. If you’re looking to add some shine to your fund portfolio, American Century Global Gold is the best pure-play on gold..

I’ve always been growth-oriented, swinging for the fences by investing in fast-growing companies. My ideal investment has fast-growing sales and earnings; triple-digit revenue growth is wonderful. That generally means the company tends to be small, though there are exceptions.

I use a method called "The Internal Strength System" that encompasses four steps. First, I establish my ‘stock market posture’ by identifying the market’s current long-term and intermediate-term trend and condition (which may be heading in different directions). Condition refers to the risk in the market—how overbought or oversold it may be…

"Buy the manager, not the fund." At Vanguard there are a host of excellent, institutional-quality managers available to individual investors at a very low cost.  "My second fundamental belief is that a good manager running a fund with low operating expenses has a very strong…

I look for high-quality companies that are undervalued, and companies with strong balance sheets and low price to earnings (P/E) ratios. I use the criteria spelled out by the father of value investing, Benjamin Graham. Volatility is my ally. I buy when a good company is down in price and sell when…

One of the companies powering the global expansion, according to Marquez, is Zurich-based ABB Ltd. (NYSE: ABB), a leading global provider of electrical-system services and components. With 120 years in business under its belt, ABB leads the world market in power-transmission,…

Explain your investment process and criteria for investments.

For our first "Stock of the Week" we turn to Tobin Smith, founder and chairman of ChangeWave Research. The best-selling author of ChangeWave Investing: Picking the Next Monster Stocks of the New Economy, is also a market analyst for FOX News. As Smith points out in his June 9 issue of The Wavewire Hotsheet, "With the economy still in a slump, consumers and companies alike are cutting back on unnecessary purchases. Corporate IT spending has

If you’re thinking that tax-efficiency and small-cap funds are mutually exclusive, you haven’t checked out Vanguard Tax- Managed Small Cap lately. The fund, which seeks to track the S&P SmallCap 600 on a tax-managed basis, has delivered solid results…

There’s a silver lining in the recent stock market turbulence: Royce Micro-Cap and many of its peers are seeing new opportunities in the carnage and re-opening to new investors. Its bottom-up, risk-averse approach has led to the best long-term track record of any…

With the bond market in unprecedented turmoil, more investors are turning to the nation’s largest bond fund, PIMCO Total Return. Steered by Bill Gross, a three-time Morningstar Fixed Income Manager of the Year, the fund has avoided the sub-prime mortgage…

Janus Mid Cap Value isn’t your typical Janus fund. Janus flew high based on its growth stock investing strategy during the go-go tech bubble of the late 1990s, but then fell hard in 2001 and 2002, issues which were compounded by its involvement in the…

If you’re up for a defensive allocation, Fidelity Select Consumer Staples may be the fund for you. Formerly named Fidelity Select Food and Agriculture, the fund focuses on companies engaged in the manufacture, sale or…

Dodge and Cox Stock Fund is open to new investors, giving fund investors seeking long-term growth with low volatility another investing option. During the past 10 years, the fund has only lost shareholder’s money in one year, although it is…

If you’re looking for a broadly diversified fund with strong returns to tap into rapidly expanding economies overseas, American Funds EuroPacific Growth A may be for you. The fund, which has benefited from the falling dollar, invests in large companies in developed and emerging markets…

JennisonDryden is a captive mutual fund company for Prudential Investments. The Jennison Natural Resources Fund invests in natural resources broadly defined, including precious and industrial metals, oil and natural gas, and timber and agriculture. Right now, 39.4% of the fund is…

In an attempt to head off a recession and help people with adjustable-rate mortgages, the Federal Reserve Bank has been cutting the discount rate. That’s great for people who owe money, but not such a good deal for those who…

Recessions tend to negatively affect the dinosaurs the longest. The biggest companies are too big to adapt to big market changes; instead, they hunker down and shed personnel. They give up market share in dribs and drabs because…