A look at the lives of the Forbes 400 implies that the most important attribute is the ability to sift through ambiguity. Contradictions abound, meaning that shades of gray hold the answer to your burning desire for riches. Should you go to a great school? Well, yes ... but only if you're going for an MBA and plan to work for a major financial firm. But, you can still go to an Ivy League school if you're not studying finance but join Skull and Bones. Of course, dropping out of Harvard can be a great way to launch a career in the technology field.

It's tricky. There are no easy answers. But, the road to billions is littered with the corpses of aspiring magnates who thought it wouldn't be difficult. So, don't just read the seven attributes after the jump. Understand them. Read them twice. Then, your future financial situation will be assured.

Or, you can just do one of those chain e-mails and wish for wealth.

[Thanks, Forbes and MSNBC]

Continue reading Seven characteristics of the rich and famous: A blueprint to uber-wealth

Seven characteristics of the rich and famous: A blueprint to uber-wealth originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 05 Oct 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

So, you think you had a rough year? Check out what happened to Warren Buffett, who is ranked the second-richest man in America despite a drop of $10 billion in his personal wealth during the past year. The culprit for Buffet's loss is the 20% decline in Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A) stock during the past 12 months.

As noted, the Oracle of Omaha maintained his second-place ranking on the list of the richest Americans. The first-place finisher is Bill Gates, who the article notes is "Buffett's friend and bridge partner." What a game of bridge that must be (I am not familiar with the game, but if there is betting involved I don't want to be sitting at that table). Gates maintained his top spot although he lost $7 billion.

Continue reading Warren Buffet loses crazy money, keeps second rank on Forbes 400

Warren Buffet loses crazy money, keeps second rank on Forbes 400 originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Forbes laid off almost 20 people to save money. It is putting its online newsroom and print writers together. Yesterday, McGraw-Hill (NYSE: MGP), the publisher of BusinessWeek, cut several hundred people. US News, which used to have a strong business and personal finance section, is going from weekly to monthly to save money. There are rumors in the market that SmartMoney, a joint venture between Dow Jones and Hearst, is losing money.

The horrible thing about all of this and the layoffs at business sections of newspapers, is that the reporters who work the business and financial beats are writing their own obituaries. As they chronicle the demise of print media, the slowing of Internet advertising, and deepening recession, they have to go to work every day hoping that they will not find a pink slips on their desks.

What happens to these people?. They will not find jobs in the traditional media, but there is a model in the newspaper industry that may given them some hope. In many cities where dailies are struggling to survive and layoffs are plentiful, out-of-work writers are banding together to start websites to compete with the local press. Setting up these websites is cheap. The reporters already know their subjects as well as anyone else. They only need very modest ad revenue to do relatively well.

Business reporters may go the same route. Look for a lot of new, smaller financial websites to open staffed by laid off writers and watch them give the traditional press a run for its money

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 24/7wallst.com.

The business press: The horror of writing your own obit originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 08 Jan 2009 10:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Four hundred financial blogs. Who knew there were so many? Perhaps they have come of age now, at least as commercial entities. According to The Wall Street Journal, "Forbes Inc., was set to announce Monday that it will start selling ads this spring for about 400 financial blogs."

It is an open question as to whether Forbes can make money. Some of the larger blogs in the network are still tiny. Take Xconomy, one of the blogs Forbes is pitching. According to measurement service Compete, only a little over 18,000 people visited the site last month. Another site in the network, Talking Biz News, is too small to be measured by Compete or Alexa, another audience measurement firm.

If Forbes can pull together 400 sites with 5,000 visitors a month, however, it can have a network with two million visitors. And that's a lot.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Forbes starts big financial blog ad effort originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 24 Mar 2008 13:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Among investment gurus, Ken Fisher is undoubtedly one of the best. The Only Three Questions that Count is one of the best investment books to come out in recent memory, he has put together an amazing track record with Fisher Investments, and he's even on the Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans.

So why, Ken, must you promote yourself with all the subtlety of a late-night no-money-down infomercial guru?

Just once, I would like to be able to log on to Forbes.com without having to smash my speakers to silence your pitch for your firm.

I feel like a lot of serious, smart investors skip Ken Fisher because they're so turned off by the incessant marketing... we associate that kind of relentless pitching with charlatans, which Ken Fisher is most certainly not.

So the purpose of this post is two-fold: if you haven't read Ken Fisher's book, you really ought to go buy it. It's 58% off on Amazon. And if you're Ken Fisher, please consider hiring a new, more nuanced marketing firm.

Memo to Ken Fisher: Please quit it with the obnoxious ads originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 28 Jan 2008 17:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Last week Forbes released its annual list of the fastest growing tech stocks, and it shouldn't be much of a surprise that Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) topped the list, with nearly $15 billion in sales, representing five-year sales growth of 155%, and 30% EPS growth. To make the list, companies had to have significant sales growth over the past year and five years, as well as a good earnings forecast for the next three to five years. Companies with significant legal problems or corporate governance issues were excluded.

Rounding out the top five were Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM), Ceradyne Inc. (NASDAQ: CRDN), Euronet Worldwide Inc. (NASDAQ: EEFT), and FalconStor Software Inc. (NASDAQ: FALC). Some other familiar names that made the list this year include Red Hat Inc. (NYSE: RHT), L-3 Communications (NYSE: LLL), Adobe Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: ADBE), and Cognizant Technology Solutions (NASDAQ: CTSH). Cognizant has been on Forbes list since its inauguration six years ago. For the full list, see the Forbes article.

Also of interest was the Forbes Fast 15, companies that didn't make the list mentioned above, but which Forbes thought were worth keeping an eye on for their potential. Engineering software maker Ansys Inc. (NASDAQ: ANSS), semiconductor maker Atheros Communications Inc. (NASDAQ: ATHR), Brubaker BioSciences Corp. (NASDAQ: BRKR), and scoreboard maker Daktronics Inc. (NASDAQ: DAKT) top that list. For the full list, see the Forbes article.

So if, like Aaron Katsman, Georges Yared, and Jim Cramer, you are bullish on tech stocks, then there's plenty on the Forbes lists worth taking a look at.

Google tops Forbes list of fastest growing tech stocks originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 27 Jan 2008 13:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

If you live in Philadelphia's Society Hill, Atlanta's Grant Park, or Dallas's University Park, (and if you're the type who doesn't pay much attention to what's going on in the world), you might be tempted to ask, "Housing slump? What housing slump?"

That's because you live in one of the most lucrative neighborhoods in the U.S., as listed by Forbes. Neighborhoods in 15 major metropolitan areas made the list because they experienced the greatest increase in home sales prices since 1990 -- between 300% and 4,000%. Many were downtrodden areas that benefited from an influx of development. A few others were already among the most upscale neighborhoods in the nation, and have thus far resisted the recent housing slump. For example:

• Bucking the Florida real estate downturn is Miami Beach's City Center, with its mega-mansions with built-on docks. The 2006 median home sales price was $1.64 million, up 1,532% since 1990.
• Chicago's Wicker Park benefited from an influx of young urban professionals and rehabbers. The 2006 median home sales price was $575,525, an increase of 1,870%.
• San Francisco's Western Addition neighborhood is among the fastest growing in U.S. The 2006 median home sales price was $1.38 million, an increase of 522% since 1990.
• New York's uptown neighborhood around 149th Street and Riverside drive features large brownstones and federal townhouses. Its 2006 median home sales price was $774,708, up 4,391%.

See the article at Forbes.com for the complete list.

Forbes: The most lucrative neighborhoods originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 20 Jan 2008 08:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Donald Trump is self-made? What?! originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 16 Oct 2007 18:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Forbes Media headed to the market? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 24 Sep 2007 12:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The richest ... rap mogul? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 17 Aug 2007 16:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Those of you who have been reading BloggingStocks regularly know that I'm a frequent critic of USANA Health Sciences Inc. (NASDAQ: USNA), the multi-level marketing company that has been under attack by critics led by ex-con turned fraud investigator Barry Minkow.

Now Forbes has joined the chorus of critics. With a story that has sent the stock down more than 7% today, Forbes raises questions about the viability and legality of Usana's business model. The author, Evelyn Rusli, reiterates New Zealand's National Business Review's report that the company is being investigated by the FBI.

Nothing much seems to have changed. Usana still has no idea why their auditor left but CFO Gil Fuller has become philosophical: "Life is too short to dwell too much on it."

In addition, the piece states that Usana may be in breach of the covenants on its credit facilities as a result of its extremely aggressive share buyback program.

Despite the fact that virtually all of Minkow's allegations have turned out to be true -- and the fact that Usana hasn't really rebuked a single one specifically -- the company keeps up the personal attacks and diversions: "We believe everything he says to be false," Usana spokesman Joseph Poulos told Forbes.com. "He's a liar; he's a criminal -- he can't be trusted."

Funny. I was just thinking the same thing about Usana.

Forbes slams Usana Health Sciences (USNA) originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 09 Aug 2007 10:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Forbes magazine needs a good map or two.

The business magazine's article "America's Wildest Weather Cities" lists two places that don't exist. Blue Hill, Mass, dubbed the windiest city, is incorrectly described as a Boston suburb. Actually, there is a place called Blue Hill, The Blue Hill Reservation, a 7,000-acre state park that seems lovely. The Web site lists its address in Milton, Mass. There is no town named Blue Hill in the Boston area, according to the Greater Boston Convention and Vistors Bureau.

More embarrassing is the description of Springfield, Mississippi. I could find no town by that name in Mississippi although there is a Springfield Plantation near Natchez which reviewers on Yahoo Travel seemed to like. Even odder, though, was that Forbes describes Springfield as "a slightly elevated city in the Ozarks at 1,266 feet." As this helpful map on Wikipedia shows, the Ozarks don't go into Mississippi. Interestingly, there is a city in Missouri named Springfield that happens to be located at an elevation of 1,266 feet and is known as Queen of the Ozarks. Perhaps, Forbes was thinking of that Springfield or the one where the Simpsons reside.

Though I hate to spoil today's company holiday at Forbes, there is a bigger issue at stake here. In today's age of instant communication, readers need to be more skeptical now than they ever have been. Wrong information can be spread with an alarming speed.

Should Forbes have caught these errors before the story was published? Of course. But the news gathering and writing process isn't fool proof. Mistakes, though unfortunate, are unavoidable. No one is perfect.

But what separates journalists from people who just post stuff is how they deal with errors when they are pointed out. I've contacted the reporter who wrote the story and will let you know if I get a response.

Update: Forbes has corrected the errors.

Media World: Why Forbes needs a geography lesson originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 03 Aug 2007 14:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

• Battle for the brands. Sears can spend to beef up its noted brands, in particular the Kenmore brand of home appliance and its Land's End brand of family apparel. "There's been an erosion of marketshare in appliance, says Hastings, with Big Box retailers like Best Buy cutting into the business. Can it do this in the face of the tanking housing market and attendant falling home appliance sales?
  

• Identify the best. Sears can provide increased investment in its best-performing stores, remodeling outdated look, improve staffing levels, and improving the all-important check-out procedure. It wants to lure customers in, but help them get out quickly and easily.

Continue reading Sears can save itself... if it wants to

Sears can save itself... if it wants to originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 11 Jul 2007 17:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The 2005 IPO of Crocs, Inc. (NASDAQ: CROX) was the "most successful ever in the footwear industry in terms of raising money," notes quantitative analyst Vahan Janjigian.

Indeed, says the editor of The Forbes Growth Investor, "The company has turned 'ugly' into a favorable feature that along with their reputation for comfort have helped boost sales by 236% in the latest quarter."

He notes that the company's tremendous success is due to the popularity of its clog-like sandals with their distinctive air holes and toe-box ventilation system. He explains, "Made from Croslite, a proprietary closed-cell resin that molds to the contours of the feet, these shoes offer an exceptionally comfortable fit."

Croslite, he points out, is lightweight, waterproof, and slip and odor resistant. The shoes became a hit with beachgoers and boaters despite their unusual look, he notes. Further, he adds, "Sales growth exploded as they gained popularity with the fashion conscious and then the mass market."

Janjigian notes, "Their unique appearance, which some call ugly, made them easily identifiable and probably added to their appeal." The shoes, he notes are now available at more than 10,000 locations in the U.S. and can be purchased in more than 8,000 locations in 80 other countries.

Continue reading Forbes quant steps up to Crocs

Forbes quant steps up to Crocs originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 01 May 2007 13:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

I was privileged to read an article in my latest Forbes newsletter which addresses honesty in business practice. Most especially, the article points out the inherent value that clear, honest book keeping and deliberate management transparency impart upon any business. To illustrate its point, Forbes utilized the analysis of Audit Integrity, an independent Los Angeles firm that does research on corporate governance best practice (and which is a data supplier to Forbes.com). Audit Integrity developed its first list of 100 companies which exhibit the highest degree of ethical and business standards when dealing with their investors.

What brings the value of Audit Integrity's analysis closer to home is the cross reference of stock performance as relates to inclusion on the integrity list. Forbes reports that the group of 100 companies that made Audit Integrity's list of good guys provided an overall return of 33% on shares, double the return of the market on average. Forbes cites higher equity growth, reduced litigation costs and a reduction in regulatory interference as some of the reasons why the wonderful one hundred out performed their peers.

So, if you want to simplify your hunt for stock value and reduce your research burden, you might want to give the Audit Integrity list of 100 do gooders a long hard look. In this game of stock picking there are a lot of angles to consider. If Audit Integrity is willing and able to provide a clear pre-assessment of business integrity in such a comprehensive and easy to understand format, I think you owe it to yourself to consider the data. Investment based on information devoid of even a cursory view of honesty in business practice is investment made blind.

Integrity still translates as "Money in the bank" originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 03 Apr 2007 15:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Today in Money & Finance - 3/13 - Top dividend-paying stocks, how to live like a billionaire & $2 billion in unclaimed refunds originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 13 Mar 2007 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Who wants to be a billionaire?

Who wants to be a billionaire? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 08 Mar 2007 21:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Businesswomen I envy: it's not always their money

Businesswomen I envy: it's not always their money originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 08 Mar 2007 04:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Memphis-based FedEx Corp. (NYSE:FDX) is not only the world's #1 express courier, but has been called a bellwether of the U.S. economy. So it will be interesting to see what happens when FedEx reports quarterly earnings on March 21.

• Did you know that FedEx once delivered a pair of giant pandas from Beijing, China, to Memphis, Tennessee?

According to Thomson Financial, the consensus estimate is for FedEx to announce Q3 2007 revenue of $8.7 billion, with earnings per share of $1.33. In the previous quarter, actual revenue was $8.9 billion, with EPS of $1.89. However, the early consensus estimate for Q4 2007 (the quarter ending in May) has EPS at $2.04.

The consensus recommendation for FedEx is buy (seven analysts say strong buy, six say buy, and seven say hold), with a price target of $125.15 (individual targets ranging from 100 to 144). Shares opened Wednesday at $112.20; the 52-week high was $121.42 in November, and the 52-week low was $97.79 in August.

• FedEx has the second largest fleet of planes in the world, and its planes are named after the children of employees.

On the minds of FedEx investors and watchers in these days leading up to the Q3 2007 report has to be the lackluster Q2 report back in December. Also, that FedEx announced recently a somewhat controversial plan to cap pensions, and that a judge has allowed a discrimination lawsuit brought by independent contractors to proceed.

Continue reading A trivial look at FedEx ahead of its Q3 earnings release

A trivial look at FedEx ahead of its Q3 earnings release originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 07 Mar 2007 16:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Seth Godin: bald is beautiful (and brilliant in modern marketing) originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 26 Jan 2007 15:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.