We don’t often offer stock market and stock picking advice — that’s better left to the experts.

But sometimes we see read about opportunities we’re just aching to take advantage of — or, more accurately, wish we already had.  Just to make a point.
One example is something called the Vice Fund.

Back in September 2004 Business Week ran an article on the Vice Fund:

The Wages of Sin Stocks: The Vice Fund’s Dan Ahrens says shares in alcohol, tobacco, gaming, and defense outfits have many virtues for investors’ portfolios

Are “sin stocks” a good bet for risk-free investing? Dan Ahrens thinks so — and he launched the Vice Fund (VICEX ) two years ago to focus on stocks in alcohol, tobacco, gaming, and defense. The strategy has worked: In the year ended Aug. 31, the fund was up 21.06%, against 11.45% for the Standard & Poor’s 500 index.

No matter what the market’s doing, no matter who wins the election, people continue to drink, people continue to gamble, continue to smoke,” says Ahrens. He first noticed the relatively better showings of stocks in those areas during the downturn of 2001 and 2002, and that led to establishing the fund.

The stock market, of course, has been throwing temper tantrums nonstop for the last several years.

So it was fascinating to see in the brand new issue of Business Week (April 1, 2008) another mention of the Vice Fund.  How’s it doing?  Here’s what the magazine reports:

Vice vs. Virtue

The Vice Fund, specializing in “sin” sectors such as tobacco and alcohol, is outpacing a leading socially responsible investing fund.

Business Week compares the Vice Fund (blue) with the Neuberger Berman Socially Responsible Fund (orange) and S&P 500 Index (black).   Looks like a solid investment — and a great cause.

Check out the Presidential Stock Exchange.

Investing in Obama in early February has already more than doubled (a roughly 600% annualized return).

Inversely, an early 2008 Clinton investment ranks up there with Enron, MCI and Bear Stearns.

What’s a tangible improvement for Iraq that John McCain might want to trumpet during the campaign?  It’s got nothing to do with troop levels or timetables — but everything to do with Iraq’s economy.  McCain should work on ways to improve Iraq’s stock market.

I was struck by how clunky and backward Iraq’s stock exchange is after this item in the February issue of Money:

Question: A friend told me the Iraq Stock Exchange is open for business. How do I buy shares that trade there? Also, how safe and secure is it? - Bryce Frederickson, Lawton, Okla.

Answer: Investing in Iraq takes some effort. Given the risks and costs, though, maybe that’s just as well. The ISX didn’t respond to e-mails, so Answer Guy consulted with Björn Englund, manager of the British Virgin Islands-based Babylon Fund - not open to individuals in the U.S. - which invests in Iraqi securities.

You’ll have to open an account with an Iraqi brokerage (Englund uses Commercial Bank of Iraq). And to do that, you’ll first need to get a copy of your passport notarized, then certified by Iraq’s U.S. embassy. (For more information go to isx-iq.net, where you can try to decipher the exchange’s baffling instructions.)

Once you’ve got an account, well, you’re not in Oklahoma anymore - and not just because you’re investing in a war zone. Only a minority of the 90-odd listed stocks trade even once a week. Commissions and spreads between bid and ask prices are large; company news, says Englund, “is late or absent.”

The fund manager figures the ISX should get a boost once telecom and oil service companies start trading. Still, he warns, you should invest money in Iraq only if you won’t mind losing it.

Helping Iraq improve its stock market — now there’s a way for John McCain to combine strong Iraq and growth-oriented economic policies.

Wall Street woes giving you the blues?

Why not put your money elsewhere — like, the Iraq stock exchange?

Here’s Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Chris Cox last week:

… the nations of the world have increasingly embraced capitalism over the past decade and a half. Securities exchanges, which used to be restricted to countries with golf courses, have proliferated around the world so that today more than 112 nations have active securities markets.

Even in Baghdad, the Iraq Stock Exchange now operates under the oversight of the Iraq Securities Commission, an independent agency modeled after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. And the Iraq exchange was just recently opened to foreign investors this past summer. So today, you can diversify your portfolio to include issues such as the Bank of Baghdad, or the Baghdad Soft Drinks Company, or the Iraqi Tufted Carpets Company.

Politicians and activists talk about the need for shared sacrifice.  How about the need for shared investment?  The Iraq stock market can only go up.

Fans and boosters of Israel have long had one sore point — the country’s old-country style socialist economy.  For decades the government-heavy labor-driven style has smothered capitalist, entrepreneurial growth.

Those days may fortunately be coming to an end.

We read this in Kiplinger’s Personal Finance Magazine:

The Israeli stock market is on a roll. Over the past five years to October 15, the Tel Aviv 100-stock index gained a healthy 29% annualized.

Now comes word that Israel’s market is being called up to the big leagues, which should result in yet a higher profile for Israeli stocks. The FTSE Group, keeper of more than 100,000 stock, bond and hedge-fund indexes, says it will promote Israel from emerging-market to developed-nation status next June.  Because more investors buy into developed markets than emerging nations, the change will pump an additional $3 billion into Israeli stocks, estimates Merrill Lynch strategist Michael Hartnett.

A happy development for the war on socialism, adding to Israel’s many successes in the war on terrorism.

Earlier this week we were toasting with Jack Daniels.  Today, well ….

Let’s raise a glass to celebrate.  Jack Daniels anyone?

Where does Warren Buffett’s brilliance come from?

Would you believe his one-time neighbor Richard Nixon?
Extreme Mortman’s intrepid real estate reporter sends us this map of Northwest Washington, DC.  Note the proximity of the houses that at one time belonged to these two legendary Americans.

Pity, please, the poor folks who run the New Alternatives mutual fund.

We learn this from Kiplinger:

Ethanol, biofuels, and solar, wind and ocean power. With oil prices in the stratosphere, everyone, it seems, is suddenly interested in alternative energy. But Maurice Schoenwald and his son, David, have been exploring the best investment opportunities in this rapidly growing industry for more than a quarter-century…. The Schoenwalds are passionate liberals who employ social screens to pick stocks. Several years ago, they sold their position in Chesapeake Energy after learning that its chief executive was involved in Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group that opposed Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry in 2004. Chesapeake’s stock subsequently turned out to be a big winner.

Yeessshh.  Remind me not to entrust my family’s financial security with those earnest folks.  Heck, why not just let it all ride on Ben & Jerry’s stock?

Google earned $1.07 billion in profit last quarter.  What should the company do with all that cash?

Here’s a proposal: Offer a dividend to stockholders.

Imagine the boost it would give to the economy.  Google arguably has more power to move markets than the Federal Reserve and Ben Bernanke.  Google’s influence on the stock market is more than the holdings individual stock owners, of whom precious few were able to get in at the $85 offering price.  By now its stock is a main component of many mutual funds, spreading its impact to many more people.  Maybe not of the level of GE or Exxon stock, but check out your mutual funds in your retirement account.  You’re likely to see Google stock everywhere.

Nowadays, when Google does well in the market, we all do well.  So why offer a dividend?  Simple.  It would be a symbol that it’s a maturing company that recognizing its importance to many investing Americans.  That would boost the stock even further over the long term.  And frankly, what else can you spend one billion dollars on?