Photo credit: Wikipedia Creative Commons By Jason Zweig Dec. 8, 2014 With the final three weeks of the year upon us, investors should be alert for signs of window-dressing – the practice through which professional money managers pump up the value of their holdings by buying a few shares at ridiculously high prices at year-end....
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By Jason Zweig | 3:18 pm ET Nov. 30, 2014Photo Credit: “The first oil well,” retouched version of 1859 photograph, Library of Congress Long before it referred to consumers storming through shopping malls, “Black Friday” stood for a dire day in the financial markets. On Friday, Sept. 24, 1869, an attempt by mogul Jay Gould and his cronies to...
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Image credit: Anna Hurst By Jason Zweig Dec. 3, 2014 Almost exactly a decade ago, I met perhaps the toughest and most disciplined investor I’ve ever encountered: a former Lt. Col. in the U.S. Army named Jack Hurst. When I interviewed him, in late 2004 and early 2005, Jack had already had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou...
Read MoreBy Jason Zweig | 12:15 pm ET Nov. 28, 2014Image Credit: Christophe Vorlet It’s been another turkey of a year for stock pickers. Among all mutual funds that invest in big U.S. stocks like those in the S&P 500, only 9.3% are beating the index through Sept. 30, according to Denys Glushkov, a senior researcher at Wharton Research Data Services at the...
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