Lou Gutheil

I like to scan the headlines before I do any real reading or in-depth research. There are times when this practice can be anything from humorous to downright confusing. That’s especially true when comparing operational performance to share price performance, and even more so when comparing the share price and the operational results of two […]

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the Chinese economy grew at a rate of 7.7% in 2013. Its GDP grew at exactly the same rate. Hey, a 7.7% growth in either of those categories is considered enviable by many. On the other hand, I think that I recall hearing about certain Western governments (and […]

If there was an albatross around the neck of the FTSE during 2013, it had to have been the entire mining sector. If the sector had performed better as a hole – er, I mean as a whole – who knows what heights the FTSE could have hit during the year. But, as was the […]

It would be a bit of “Johnny come lately” if I were to tell you that Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) is acquiring Nest Labs. Unless you have been living under a rock and been fracked out of house and home today, you already know that the search engine monster has paid $3.2 billion for a caviar that […]

We haven’t even had time to fully digest the significance of the news of Ben van Beurden assuming the role of CEO at Royal Dutch Shell (LSE:RDSA); (LSE:RDSB) and we are already hearing that RDS intends to divest $15 billion in assets, beginning immediately and continuing through 2015. Investor response thus far has been restrained, with […]

I’m not one to beat a dead horse, but I do believe that one should stay on topic until at least some people ”get it” before moving on. My article, “Retail Wearing the Emperor’s New Clothes,” was published by ADVFN just a few days ago, on Friday, 10 January. In it I pointed out that […]

If the holiday season did anything for investors, it highlighted an issue that most really prefer to ignore. The retail sector is in trouble. UK stalwarts, like Morrisons (LSE:MRW), Tesco (LSE:TSCO) and Sainsbury (LSE:SBRY) share prices have pulled the London Exchange lower as each reported dismal sales during the season. Because we all see the […]

“When historians write this story 10 or 20 years from now, they are going to look at a very different U.S. Everything has changed.” That was the forecast of Philip Verleger, energy sector guru and former director of energy policy at the U.S. Treasury Department, in an article published this week. Energy Investors, Beware! Your […]

In my humble opinion, I believe that investors sometimes spend so much time analyzing numbers on a page that they miss news that has the potential to make or break a company. Don’t get me wrong, I strongly suggest thorough analysis when investing, it’s just that there is a danger in burying one’s head in […]

The quiet community of Kirkland Lake is located in northern Ontario adjacent to the Quebec border, in an area where the forests are far more dense than the population and where the temperatures at this time of year average a high of -10.7° Celsius and a low of -23.4°C. It also sits strategically within what […]