KKR

KKR & Co. LP

Stocks

The “Smart Money” Loves This Stock – and Now It’s About to Break Out

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This week, I'm attending one of the most exclusive hedge fund conferences on the planet: the SALT Conference in Las Vegas.

My mission is to find out where Wall Street's top analysts and fund managers are putting their money to work over the next year.

It's a very luxurious event – five-star accommodations at the Bellagio.

The speaker list includes prominent names like Dr. Nouriel Roubini, Sam Zell, Mark Cuban, Valerie Jarrett, and Brad Katsuyama.

The annual gathering centers on global investments, finance, social impact, and politics.

Topics range from how to extend human life to cybersecurity challenges in the 21st century.

They have an outstanding cocktail reception where the more than 1,700 attendees can talk best investment ideas, raise capital, and pitch fund strategies.

Fortunately for Money Morning readers like yourself, you don't need to pay $8,000 just to walk in the door at SALT...

Stocks

How to Play the Private Equity Game Without a Million Bucks

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Last week, we looked at how financial companies are feeling the pain of lower fees.

But I hinted at one group of financial companies that is not feeling the pain.

It's one of my favorite groups to own. So when the market sold off last month and these stocks began falling towards a Cost of WAR of less than 1, I was pretty excited and ready to break open some bubbly.

Unfortunately, the decline halted and stocks have rallied back, so I did not get a new opportunity to buy them. The numbers are getting there, and I hope that before too much longer I can send Heatseekers members the call to arms with buy recommendations of these powerhouse firms.

These financial companies are private equity firms.

It's hard for most of us to invest directly in a private equity fund, since most require you to be an accredited investor and have minimum investment levels of millions of dollars. However, we can buy shares of private equity firms and reap the benefits of the high returns they earn.

Let's take a look at exactly how to do so...

Stocks

How to Get Your Piece of the $69 Billion Pet Industry

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You know how you can tell you live in a pretty wealthy country?

When you spend a cumulative $69 billion on your pets as a nation.

According to the American Pet Products Association, that's what Americans spent on Fido and Fluffy last year.

Bob Vetere, president and CEO of the Association, told the Global Pet Expo earlier this year that it's incredible not only to see growth for the pet industry in general, but to experience growth across all categories of the pet industry – with the exception of "live animal purchases," which remained the same.

Talk to any pet owner, and they'll tell you how difficult it is to put a dollar limit on what they'd spend to give their loyal companion a happy life, and it's this outlook that continues to drive growth.

When I first heard that $69 billion number, I was skeptical. But when I mentioned it to my wife, she showed me how much we spent on our cat and dog. And let me tell you! It was a healthy number, and that doesn't even include the occasional cheeseburger I buy the dog.

When I thought about it, I realized my son has a hefty investment in his two pythons, considering the specialized cages and lighting required. And my daughter has a dog with some health issues, and she is constantly complaining about the costs associated with doggie healthcare.

So it turns out that it's not just crazy cat ladies spending all this money! It's regular people too.

Given all this money spent on pets, there's bound to be a few profit opportunities.

And that's exactly what I want to explore here today...

Trading Strategies

Why I Think One of America's Greatest Investors May Be Digging Through My Mail

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Howard Marks, one of the wealthiest investors in the United States, just released his newest investor letter, and in it, I find a few ideas that are eerily similar to what you and I have been talking about for months: Index investing is a dangerous, expensive Wall Street con. 

If you're not familiar with this battle-scarred (and unreasonably wealthy) veteran of the markets, Marks fought his way through both the equity and bond markets for over 40 years.

He also happens to be an extremely incisive writer, with his book, "The Most Important Thing," considered a must-read for anyone looking to achieve success as an independent investor.

In his latest letter, he takes on index investing, an approach that I frequently call a silly waste of time if you're beyond middle age and don't have four or five decades to build your wealth.

Ironically, it was Marks' University of Chicago professors who birthed the idea of index investing in the late 1960s. They saw it as a way to ensure you never underperform the Dow Jones Industrials or S&P 500, as well as never pay ridiculous management fees. (So much for that idea…)

But what most investors don't understand about indexes – and what I want to show you today – is that indexes didn't become popular because the returns are phenomenally good…

… rather, it's because the active managers have phenomenally good salesmen working for them night and day to sell the pipe dream of low-risk, high-return indexing to regular, unsuspecting investors…

In other words, the active managers are phenomenally bad...

Stocks

A New Housing Crisis Is Coming; These 5 Companies Could Make a Killing from It

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One of the most shocking pieces of news to hit my desk recently is that millennials are finally starting to think about that whole getting married, having a family, and building a home thing.

But they may be arriving a little late to the party. They're entering the market at a time when a new supply crisis could make finding a home nearly impossible.

And it’s a crisis that could lead five companies on my radar to stream us steady, long-term profits...