Simply put, having a stock price below 100% of book value per share implies that the market believes your company is worth more dead than alive since liquidating the assets will pay off all liabilities with more than enough cash to pay off current market value per share. A 50% book value to share price ratio means you're worth twice as much dead as alive. Having the largest banks in the country worth more than dead than alive two times over was a bad situation. The U.S. Treasury stepped in

Recent public offerings for real estate web companies like HomeAway (AWAY) have fared much better than more headline hogging consumer facing IPO failures like Facebook (FB) and Zynga (ZNGA). The acquisition of the publicly traded Loopnet (LOOP) by CoStar Group (CSGP) for $860 million, a deal that closed earlier this year, also demonstrates that there is significant institutional demand and therefore sustainable value creation in this sector. Since that acquisition in April, CoStar stock has

Angelika Frangou is certainly not this typical shipping magnate. A recent interview with Ms. Frangou reveals that while current Greek shipping tycoons may not fit the stereotype, they still provide ample opportunities for acquiring wealth. For one thing, she is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Navios Maritime Holdings Inc. (NM), the Chairman and CEO of Navios Maritime Partners L.P. (NMM) and the Chairman and CEO of Navios Maritime Acquisition Corporation (NNA). She is also a member of many shipping trade and regulatory organizations.

Ms. Frangou has identified strong long-term economic trends

The beauty of the U.S. stock market is that there is a wide selection of similar companies that own valuable land in areas of prime real estate development opportunities. The monetization of these opportunities has uncertain timing but most have interesting operating businesses with upside and many pay significant dividends to their investors.

Often these companies are the result of America's agricultural heritage. Maui Land & Pineapple, mentioned above, is just one of them. A former collection of pineapple farms, the company has developed

Currently, expert research analysts focus on two long term growth trends so they can sleep at night. The accelerating conversion from desktop software to cloud computing and the endless consumer demand for greater mobility in computer form factors creates a "sweet spot" for growth in the semiconductor industry.

An investor can participate safely with a "do it yourself" semiconductor company that has both current income and access to both of these growth segments. This "synthetic" stable dividend payer is positioned for future growth with a select group of smaller cap semiconductor stocks that supply key components for the

Large-cap pharmaceutical corporations have been trading at a discount this year relative to broader market indices. Well publicized reports of impending "patent cliffs" -- when drugs lose their legal patent protection from competitors -- have scared investors with the possibility that many "big pharma" companies will not be able to replace sales of their current blockbuster products with new drugs from their own research & development labs. This drop in their future expected revenue has played out in stock prices that have lagged the overall S&P 500 Index so far in 2012.

The drop in large-cap pharma stock prices has a silver lining: some of these dividend payers are now yielding over 4% in current income. The

Therefore, it is worth understanding how the current PDLI valuation is justified as it

With a lot of hot air being generated in the months until the Presidential election, perhaps the wind power generation sector is a place to invest? On the contrary -- equity research analysts are warning that this sector is about to be…well, gone with the wind.

Christopher Blansett, the Senior Equity Analyst covering the alternative energy and semiconductor capital equipment sectors at JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), put it this way in an August 20 interview:

Unfortunately, we're looking at the end of federal subsidization for the wind sector at the end of the year. So we're seeing a lot of last-minute rush work

This current income strategy completely diversifies the investor from "birth to earth". Starting with companies that provide the raw material for diapers is the first step, no pun intended.

The Wall Street Journal reports in its August 13, 2012 edition that paper "fluff" has become the high margin mainstay of paper mills in the United States. As the Journal puts it, this growing

Particularly interesting are senior medical facility operators that are possibly preparing to spin off REIT subsidiaries, an innovation that is gaining acceptance.

The basic economics are now being supported by the approval of the Affordable Care Act by the Supreme Court of the United States. Over the next four years, this new law will lower budget pressures for medical facilities while long term care will benefit not only from that medium term trend, but also from long term demographic trends.

NIC MAP data provides a trends analysis for nursing home and assisted living facilities. Daniel Bernstein, an expert analyst with Stifel Nicolaus uses this data to make a positive call on the sector in a August 6, 2012

Richard X. Bove, the Dean of Banking analysts in the United States for the last 45 years had positive things to say about a California bank in the Wall Street Transcript Investor's Guide

The portfolio below is financially engineered to throw off that amount of cash on a monthly basis, although not all the securities pay monthly. To be tax efficient the stocks should be purchased in an IRA or other tax deferred account and the truck leased by your corporate entity. In this way the lease payments are expenses from your business income and your dividends are tax deferred.

The first indicator that natural gas liquids were going to drive increased profitability for mid stream MLPs began to appear last spring. In an April 18th 2011 interview, Ethan Bellamy of Robert W. Baird & Company saw the evidence show up on his radar:

We're seeing pretty elevated levels of effective rig utilization. Now most of that is being steered toward liquid plays, oil and natural gas liquids, but most areas that you drill for liquids you are also going to get gas as a by-product... In many places operators could sell the natural gas for zero and still have very positive returns on just

In Pennsylvania, small banks have been buoyed by a growing local economy. The expansion of the shale gas industry in the Marcellus Shale regions of the state including Indiana county provide banks in the region with new customers. Todd D. Brice, President and Chief Executive Officer at S&T Bancorp (STBA), discussed the influence of this bonanza with The Wall Street Transcript in a January 9, 2012 interview:

“It has been a tremendous boost to the region. Unemployment regionally is about

In an interview published January 9th, 2012 in the Wall Street Transcipt, Ray Reaves, a 24 year veteran in the oil and gas industry and CEO of Field Point Petroleum Corpoartion (FPP) puts it succinctly:

I must say we definitely are living in a global economy. And in terms of supply and demand, you've got a number of countries, in particular China, that are going to increase demand for hydrocarbons. India is going to have an increased demand for hydrocarbons, and in the United States alone, there is a big demand for hydrocarbons. As a matter of fact, the United States uses much more than it produces in terms of oil, and we have to import quite a bit of our oil to meet that demand.

Currently, the S&P 500 is yielding about 2.2%, while the BDC industry is yielding about 8.7%. The average relative multiple has been 4.6 times, and the group is currently trading at four times, within the normal range, which leads us to believe the group is currently fairly valued.

BDCs can invest in a wide variety of company security classes and make those investments available to the public. Steve Klinsky of New Mountain Finance Corporation put it this way in an October interview:

Debt is inherently less risky than the equity in the same company because it is senior to the equity, and we

“I think that's a clear signal that they want to make it very easy, very transparent for an investor to say, "Well, I have a view of where the gold price is going to be, therefore I can actually calculate what the dividend will be,” Preston said. “And the share price response for

Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs) control the main pipeline systems that distribute natural gas from source wells throughout United States to domestic utilities and provide a sheltered source of investment income for both corporations and investors.

The demand from new production areas for storage and distribution facilities is a principal driver for the increasing values for MLPs. An experienced analyst in the space, Darren Horowitz of Raymond James & Associates, details this growth aspect:

Shale plays are much more productive versus conventional resource plays, and are on pace to account for about 50% of overall natural gas production in the next five to seven years. That is a big number. Looking at the plays that represent the most opportunity to drive that trend, you have to consider the composition of production, or the breakdown between dry gas, natural gas liquids or NGLs, crude

Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs) are publicly traded and liquid investment vehicles created to encourage US investment in domestic infrastructure.

James J. Cunnane Jr., Chief Investment Officer of Fiduciary Asset Management (FAMCO) put it this way in a recent interview:

It probably makes sense to step back and look at infrastructure, and even infrastructure is a term that is defined differently by many investors out there.

Oil and Gas Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs), especially those with US pipeline assets, have attracted investor interest after several large acquisitions made headlines in 2011. Similarly, Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) continue to rebound from their 2009 and 2010 lows, and the prices of the larger REITs are now hitting two- and three-year highs. These specialized investment vehicles were created under special laws to encourage investment in US infrastructure, and distribute 90% of all qualified earnings to holders of the trust. Buyers of these exchange traded liquid securities are considered limited partners, not shareholders.

These investment vehicles have