stocks

Based on the aggregated intelligence of 160,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, Chinese biotech company 3SBio (Nasdaq: SSRX) has earned a respected four-star ranking.

In October of 2008, as fears of all-out Financial Armageddonled hundreds of great businesses to shed billions in value, Austin and I were doing what every other investor on Earth wished they could be doing at that moment.

The amazing thing about this market is that there are still plenty of cheap stocks. The problem with this market is that there are so many companies that could still really blow up.

Warren Buffett's first rule of investing is: "Never lose money." To this, he often adds rule No. 2: "Never forget rule No. 1." Of course, following these rules is easier said than done. But Buffett's done pretty well, so it seems unwise to simply dismiss his advice as the semicoherent ramblings of a man who's read way too many 10-Ks.

It took a special kind of incompetence to get to where we are today. After years of "producing" billions of dollars using sophisticated financial instruments, investment banks and nominal retail banks alike got crushed by the consequences of excessive leverage and convoluted investments.

Most people believe that investors with different time horizons should be investing in different types of stocks.

"As stock markets slid in March, Judy Brady lay awake at night thinking about her portfolio. 'My retired friends who had all CDs and gold, and they were still making money, and my investments just kept going and going,' she said. 'I thought: I can't afford to lose all this.' So the 70-year-old retiree in Schaumburg, Ill., sold most of her stocks."  -- The Wall Street Journal, May 18, 2009

In this crazy world, it's hard to find things you can count on. Death and taxes, sure. Jobs, marriages, even your favorite breakfast cereal? Not so much. But there's another, more positive element you usually can rely on: Dividends.

Veteran Global Gainsmembers know what we love about China. There's tremendouspotential upside there, with many cheap stocksready to explode in value -- especially among smaller companies.

You know those signs on the highway, "We buy ugly houses"? The signposting buyers know they can turn something ugly today into beautiful profits tomorrow, all while paying the low, low ugly house price today.