Business

Kensington,Australia -- A 1954 work by Pablo Picasso could set an Australian record for a painting when it goes on the auction block, officials say.

Microsoft-Yahoo deal would reshape the search engine marketing arena and pave the way for the formation of a very viable competitor to Google. The result will be the creation of a more credible alternative to an increasingly dominant player.

The Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffett, turned an initial bankroll of $10,000 into a multibillion-dollar conglomerate. Shelby Davis began with $50,000, and he amassed a $900 million fortune. These inspiring stories give us all hope that we'll be able to achieve our own financial dreams. But what if you don't have $50,000, or $10,000, or even $5,000 to get started?

By Tim Hanson and Brian Richards :

We're trotting out the gloomy numbers again:

outperform the S&P 500 over the long haul.

And?
Even stock investors searching for the 10 best stocks should pay attention, because more than 90 million Americans own mutual funds. (Just think of what's stuffed in your 401(k).) So the news that most funds lag lazy indices should be taken sitting down.

At The Motley Fool, we poke plenty of fun at Wall Street analysts and their endless cycle of upgrades, downgrades, and "initiating coverage at neutral." So you might think we'd be the last people to give virtual ink to such "news." And we would be -- if that were all we were doing.

Countrywide Financial (NYSE: CFC) was one of the first stocks that had investors holding their noses when the housing market started crumbling. The company is not only the largest mortgage lender in the U.S., but it also did more than its share of subprime lending. Making matters worse was that Countrywide's CEO, Angelo Mozilo, was cashing in while the company's stock was plummeting. At this point, though, the company is just counting down the days until it becomes a piece of Bank of America (NYSE: BAC), which bought Countrywide for a song.

Virtually every stock primer includes one of those quizzes designed to help investors figure out how rough the market's waters can get before they'll toss their cookies, sell everything, and hide out under the bed with a bag of cash.

I love cash. Don't we all? But in particular, I love free cash flow. Measured as the cash a company generates from its operating activities, minus the cash it spends on new property and equipment, free cash flow represents the money that can be used to fuel growth opportunities or to repay shareholders via dividends or share buybacks.

Welcome back to another Foolish review of the hottest stocks as ranked by Motley Fool CAPS. We're looking at the three best-performing industries over the past 30 days and your favorite long and short candidates in each.

"The bigger they are, the harder they fall." It's the worst nightmare of every investor in today's market -- buying a hot stock just before it takes a nosedive.

"Don't catch a falling knife," as the old saw commands. (Pardon my mixing a cutlery metaphor.) The idea of buying a former superstar stock at a discount price certainly has its attractions, but you've got to make sure you catch the haft -- not the blade. That's where Motley Fool CAPS comes in.

Recession. It's a word that strikes fear into the heart of chief executives, economists, and everyday Americans alike.

There need to be more "sell" and "strong sell" ratings on stocks for the ratings to have any meaning. For the most part, if you look over how the Wall Street analyst community rates stocks, the ratings completely inhabit the narrow range of "neutral" to "strong buy."