Up until recently, U.S. oil production was in serious decline, falling from a peak of 9.6 million barrels a day in 1970 to just under 5 million by 2008.

China bulls have had a rough five years.

Historically, the first day of May kicks off a seasonally weak period for stock prices that lasts through October. This implies a shockingly simple strategy.

Almost a third of the way into the year, one thing is becoming clear: 2014 is not shaping up to be another monster year for the U.S. stock market.

Following August 1997, the height of the emerging markets boom, there will again come a time when emerging markets will attract the same manic attention of foreign investors.

I’ve just returned from a fascinating — and sobering — weekend in Estonia. If you’re like most Americans, you may not know that Estonia is one of the three Baltic States that until 1991 were part of the Soviet Union.

Russia is the market that investors love to hate. With Russian President Vladimir Putin annexing Crimea at his whim — and lining tens of thousands of troops along Ukraine’s border as a thinly veiled threat for a future invasion of Ukraine — chances are you feel the same way.

I believe that, because of its size, Berkshire has morphed into a surrogate for the S&P 500. If you invest in Berkshire, you can expect to generate S&P 500-like returns.

I don’t think Warren Buffett would be willing to bet that Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-B) would outperform a U.S. small-cap index over the next 10 years.

The idea of having an index-linked, mainstream market-beating strategy that does not rely on the brilliance of a Warren Buffett or a Carl Icahn — all for the relatively low fees of an ETF — has to be one the best deals in the world of investment.

I monitor 44 global stock markets on a daily basis; doing so allows me to shift money into the best-performing markets in the world — no matter where they may be.

Despite their reputation for their investment prowess, hedge funds haven’t exactly set the financial world on fire over the past five years.

For all of the hand wringing about the weak start to the stock market this year, initial public offerings (IPOs) haven’t been this hot since 1999.

A handful of income-generating investments — through a combination of income and capital gains — have already generated big gains barely a month and a half into the volatile New Year.

With the U.S. economy showing strength and Europe back from the precipice of collapse, today’s doom-and-gloom crowd has shifted its attention to that old standby, emerging markets.

The “Big Mac Index” provides a tongue-in-cheek but surprisingly useful way of measuring purchasing power parity, the relative over and undervaluation of the world’s currencies compared to the U.S. dollar.

In a world where “can’t-lose” investment themes get tossed out with remarkable regularity, the “small-cap effect” is one of the few that has stood the test of time.

For hedge fund managers raised on the mother’s milk of diversification and trend following, 2013 was one of the worst years on record, compared to simple “long-only” strategies.

When I try to divine short-term market movements, I have a distinct weakness for this fuzzy thing called “market sentiment.”

This column from January 2009 seems particularly relevant today, given the botched Obamacare rollout.