Estacio Participacoes SA: Brazilian For-Profit Education Provider

In the U.S. for-profit college operators such as Apollo Group Inc fell heavily last year after the Federal government clamped down on the sector. Most of these operators had become diplomas mills handing out degrees that carried very little value. Abusing the Federal student loan program the companies in this sector signed up thousands of …

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Knowledge is Power: Oil Chart, Best Developed Market Banks, Phoney-Money Edition

What I learned about investing from Gandhi (MoneyWeek) Are U.S. companies ‘state-owned enterprises’ ? (Canadian Business) Colonisation, the phoney-money way (Business Line) Brazil’s Middle-Class Anxiety (Bloomberg) Chart of the week: a picture of world oil (beyondbrics) World’s Best Developed Markets Banks 2013 (Global Finance) Sector Distortions Can Be Costly in Passive Investing (Alliance Bernstein)   Niagara Falls, …

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A Review of TSX Composite vs. S&P 500 Returns

The composition of U.S. and Canadian equity markets vary widely. As a natural resources-based economy the Canadian market is concentrated by energy, mining and financial companies. The U.S. on the other hand has a very diversified economy with companies operating in pretty much every sector from manufacturing to defense technology. Hence the U.S. equity market …

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Long-Term Returns Should Be Used With Caution

Long-term returns quoted for an investment based on decades should not be taken at face value. This is because such returns can be skewed over many years due to various reasons including bull and bear markets, economic expansion and contraction, geo-political events and so forth. Hence when reviewing a long-term return investors have to take …

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Why Wal-Mart Failed in Germany

The American retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT) is the largest employer not only in the U.S. but in the world. In the U.S. the company’s thousands of huge stores can be called as the “Cathedrals of Capitalism” where millions of people shop every day.The lowest-prices offered by Wal-Mart is the key that keeps Americans …

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