Investing in Options Speculation

Sensible Speculation and Super Leverage

I was very fortunate to join my dad, Steve Sarnoff, as co-editor of Options Hotline in 1995, and I worked closely with him for four years. If you aren’t familiar with my dad, he’s an author of more than 60 books, editor of several newsletters, and what the New York Times called the “Dean of Commodities Analysts.”

I laugh when I think back about those times because my dad — he really loved Options Hotline, and he would say to me, “Sonny, they’re the only one’s that have super leverage and it’s the only sensible way to…

Prepping for Penny Stock Investing

Researching Penny Stocks

The phrase “penny stock” tends to scare many investors away. But, those are the companies you read about that returned triple and even quadruple-digit returns.

Penny stocks are usually small and newly created companies. While still trying to get established, penny stocks are analogically infants and toddlers compared to large-cap adult companies. With great parental guidance from a superb managing team, penny stocks can hold a promising future.

But, as with all children, they occasionally run amok. Some fall into the financial hole and can’t get out. Others have great balance sheets but no growth strategy. So, how do you…

Looking for the Innovators

The “I” Cycle

While in Vienna last month, I grabbed hold of the international edition of The Wall Street Journal. Over a classic Viennese breakfast of coffee, a boiled egg and pastry, I stumbled across an interview with Ted Forstmann, titled, “The Credit Crisis Is Going to Get Worse.”

I hadn’t seen Forstmann’s name in years. He once lorded over one of the world’s most famous private equity firms, Forstmann Little. For a time, it was, as the Journal notes, “the most successful private equity firm in the world, renowned for both its outsized returns and its caution.” When things got a…

Investing in Africa

African Profits

Zanzibar, Dar es Salaam, Mombasa, Mogadishu, Mumbai, Mangalore…all trading cities along the fabled rim of the Indian Ocean. These eastern African cities thrived between the 12th and 18th centuries, with ships sailing in and out on monsoon winds. They will thrive again on the tailwind of a long-term bull market in commodities.

“From here in Africa, we sailed with ivory, mangrove, coconuts, tortoise and cowrie shells,” says an old sailor named Bwama Shafi in a dusty, old issue of National Geographic. “From Arabia, we brought dates, whale oil, carpets and incense. From India, pots, glassware and cloth. Trade was our…

Investing in Microturbines

On-Site and Self-Contained Electricity

Imagine a municipal bus that’s powered by an electric motor, crawling along the crowded streets of Beijing. What does this bus have in common with the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California?

Or imagine offshore oil production platforms in the Gulf of Alaska or the North Sea. What do these offshore platforms have in common with a luxury ski resort near St. Petersburg, Russia?

When you first think of it, there’s not much commonality between a city bus in China and a large presidential library in the U.S. And how do you begin to compare an austere…