WSJ: When Will Investors Stop Dumping Japanese Stocks?

By SIMON CONSTABLE

What a difference a year makes. 

Individual investors have soured on Japan in a big way since December 2015, pulling $12.7 billion from mutual funds and exchange-traded funds that specialize in Japanese stocks, according to research firm Morningstar Inc. Only one month, January, saw an inflow in the period through October.

The outflow might not seem to be much in dollar terms, but it amounts to more than a quarter of the total $44.3 billion of assets held in such funds a year ago. Read more here.

WSJ: What Is a ‘Moat’ and Why Does It Matter?

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Medieval castles were surrounded by moats to keep attackers at bay. 

Now comes the 21st-century version. 

Today, the term “moat” is used in the business world to describe companies with a sustainable competitive advantage that allows them to keep competitors at bay. Read more here.

Caerphilly Castle and Moat 

by David Dixon, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Forbes Video: What's Wrong With Canada?

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Photo by chris robert on Unsplash

During the election campaign some celebrities promised to flee the Untied States if Donald Trump won. Now that he has, some of those people seem not to have fulfilled their promise. Still, that might be explainable.

The day after the election I sat down with Canadian documentary maker Michael McKinley. Despite the awful weather, and the fact that many people in New York weren't happy with the election result, Mckinley says he's staying in the U.S..

Why? He lays out why the United States is a whole lot better for people in the creative business, such as film making. In short, the free market in the U.S. beats how the Canadian's do things. He explains in this video.

    

TheStreet: 5 Financially Themed Gifts for the Holidays

By SIMON CONSTABLE

It's that time of the year again when thoughts invariably turn to holiday gifts. In what has become an annual tradition, I have compiled a list of financially-themed items to suit all budgets, from less than $10 to more than $8,000. Read more here.

U.S. News: Why Fund Investors Are Dumping Junk Debt

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Junk bonds took a little tumble recently. Should investors be worried?

There's no immediate cause for concern, but longer term a lot rests on how the oil market performs.

Here's the skinny:

TheStreet: Cuba Fund Surges 17% on Castro's Death

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Cuba's longstanding dictator Fidel Castro barely got one foot in the grave and already investors are getting excited.

The Herzfeld Caribbean Basin Fund  (CUBA), a closed-end fund known as the "Cuba Fund" because of its ticker, surged as much as 17% intraday on Monday following the Cuban dictator's death on Friday. More than 1.8 million shares of the fund had changed hands by Monday afternoon compared with normal daily volume of about 22,000. Read more here.

Photo by Mr. Söbau on Unsplash

RealMoney: Cuba Fund Surges as Fidel Castro's Death Spurs Speculation

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Cuba's longstanding dictator Fidel Castro barely got one foot in the grave and already investors are getting excited.

The Herzfeld Caribbean Basin Fund Inc., a closed-end fund known as  (CUBA) that holds stocks poised to benefit from a normalization of U.S. relations with the island nation, surged 11% Monday, the most in almost two years. Less than an hour into the session 1.4 million shares of the fund had changed hands, compared with normal daily volume of about 22,000. 

The news of Castro's death broke Friday, fueling speculation that relations between the former Soviet ally and the U.S. might continue to thaw under his brother, Raul Castro. President Barack Obama announced plans in December 2014 to chart a new course of policy toward Cuba, and he visited Havana in March of this year. The country has suffered under one-party socialist rule and a brutal economic embargo by the U.S. Read more here.