TMFKopp (98.49)

To the Mafia Wars and FarmVille addicts...

February 25, 2010 – Comments (0)

My article up on Fool.com today revolves around Zynga, the young upstart that's behind Facebook games like Mafia Wars and FarmVille. Basically, my take is that Zynga lacks at least a few essential qualities that I look for when making an investment. Specifically, what I've heard about the company's management team isn't particularly encouraging and I don't think the business has a particularly strong competitive moat.  [more]

And now for some dividends...

February 17, 2010 – Comments (28) | RELATED TICKERS: BP , MO , PHI

Yesterday, I whined about a few companies that don't seem their shareholders worthy of dividends.  [more]

Shareholder money, wasting away

February 16, 2010 – Comments (17) | RELATED TICKERS: AAPL , GOOG , WLP

What's the point of owning part of a company? I always thought it was so that you could pocket part of the profits that the company made. Or, at the very least, have the hope that a growing company would someday start paying you part of its profits.  [more]

Gold is a hunk of metal that I'm OK without

February 15, 2010 – Comments (13) | RELATED TICKERS: KO , AUY , CHL

I see the data on the dollar and I'm concerned. But I'm just not into gold. So what do I do? Well, I wrote about three possible approaches that I believe deal with the problematic dollar, but are also better than gold.  [more]

Do you really care about investing?

February 15, 2010 – Comments (0) | RELATED TICKERS: ISRG , XOM , DUK

I kind of doubt that this applies to the folks that are consistently on CAPS and who are reading CAPS blogs. But the simple truth is that most people would rather be doing an endless number of things besides investing. Just take a gander at the most popular stories on Google News. Here are a few as I check right now:  [more]

Bears be gone!

February 10, 2010 – Comments (0) | RELATED TICKERS: JNJ , ORCL , PFE

Ah heck, I don't care if the bears stick around, they just make new purchases cheaper for me...  [more]

Investing and doing the right thing... can they live together?

February 09, 2010 – Comments (3) | RELATED TICKERS: MO , XOM , WFM

Well apparently I'm stuck on the topic of right and wrong in the world of economics and business. Today, an article of mine went up called "Is There Room for Morality in Capitalism?", asking whether investors focus on companies that "do the right thing."  [more]

Beating the Market in 2010

February 04, 2010 – Comments (2) | RELATED TICKERS: CTRP , SYY , UA

I grabbed a handful of the Hidden Gems advisors and beat them with baseball bats until they finally agreed to tell me how to beat the market this year. They mostly said my baseball bat method would probably work.   [more]

For my fellow dividend lovers...

February 01, 2010 – Comments (1) | RELATED TICKERS: MO , WMT , PEP

So I'm not done with extolling the virtues of dividends yet. Here's an article of mine from today singing some more dividend praises.

And thanks to the multiple people that recommended Josh Peters' "Dividend Playbook" -- just got it in the mail and about to crack it open.

Matt

More Housing Idiocy

February 01, 2010 – Comments (1)

Do I not know how to leave well enough alone? Or is there legitimate reason to continue mulling over the impact of more defaults on the housing market and economy?  [more]