Kirk's Keyboard

• What's really driving the Dow

• Leading indicators point to slower growth

• Who is carrying the economy?

• Chinese stocks shed -4.5%

• Shanghai's bow-tie pattern

• Dollar weakness has deep roots and wide implications

• Those bullish insiders

• What the market is really worth according to Morningstar

• Trichet warns on complacent markets

• Credit derivatives doubles again

• Credit derivatives market optimism is misguided

• "When you have more leverage, it increases the chances of people blowing themselves up. For the undisciplined hedge fund, this is like giving the drug addict more access to drugs." - Randall Steinmeyer

• Market risk: what you don’t know can hurt you

• Savvy international investors know to follow the locals

• After BRIC, what will investors dream about next?

• Will coal ever make it to CNBC's ticker?

• Spotting the next energy all-stars

• Waterworld!

• Future wars will be fought over water, not oil

• Volatile gold markets demand nerves of steel

• Consensus Commodity Price Forecasts

• The Rich and the Rest

• $20 billion to help subprime owners

• The bears are focused on the housing bust meets equity withdrawal blues

• Rates on 30-year mortgages fall

• Last reminder - if you're still reading this page and you're a member, please update your bookmark to the new website!

• Here's one article you would have never seen a year ago

• Is satellite radio dead? You'd think so if you've looked at the charts of SIRI or XMSR lately

• Home Depot turns green

• Fly Delta, plant a tree

• Beware of these dogs!

• The world's best CEOs

• 10 top investment newsletter editors share their springtime buys

• Top Dividend Aristocrats

• "You must ignore what everyone else is doing and trade only when you feel the odds are in your favor. In short, trade only when you and you alone are comfortable that the expected return of your trades will be positive. That might mean you'll have to sit out a few parties, but it will also mean that you'll have more profits over the course of your trading career." - Gary B. Smith

• Accuracy versus risk/reward ratio

• The most common problem traders face and the most dangerous word in the trader's vocabulary

• Candlesticks? Fiddlesticks!

• Head-and-shoulders

• Word-of-mouth stock research

• Harry Domash's stock risk score sheet

• The secrets of picking great growth stocks

• An interesting phenomenon all of us have experienced at one time when developing new systems

• Ratios and Value Line

• Is it time to quite your day job to trade full-time? Investopedia offers some guidelines

• Some interesting websites (like TheBuyList.com) are coming out these days offering investors a lot more information than they had previously

• The hotter things get, the more important it is to keep your cool

• I just started reading "Beating the Financial Futures Market" by Art Collins and on page 8 he gives two lessons learned: "1) the trade we fear the most tends to pay off the most, and 2) our biggest problems are going to come out of the trades with which we're the most comfortable, complacent, and confident." Well said!

• Fixed-income ETFs shine

• Brazil ETF reflects both strengths and weaknesses

• Fresh troubles are emerging in a number of ETFs

• Equity-indexed annuities: long on sizzle, short on steak

• Investors are seeking more than just financial results from their investments

• Affluent investors open their portfolios to closed-end funds

• The 100-largest hedge funds now control about 70% of the money in the hedge-fund world

• The top 10 hedge fund managers

• Where's there is money, there is political influence

• T. Booone Pickens' new commoditiy: Giuliani

• Yet another big perk for hedge fund jocks

• Hedge funds have lost alpha

• Keep an eye on Apama

• Do computers understand risk?

• The reversal of fortune at Thomas Brown's Second Curve Capital hedge fund is stunning

• Everybody looks dumb from time to time in this business

• How Uncle Sam spends your tax money

• High CD yields are out there, but often come with catches

• How to organize all of your financial documents in a filing cabinet

• The end of a 1,400-year-old business

• Ben Stein offers conversation tips

• The World's Greenest Billionaires

• If you need a car to help you "feel special," then something is desperately wrong

• Are you successful TODAY?

• Money really can't buy happiness

• "Real optimism is aware of problems but recognizes solutions, knows about difficulties but believes they can be overcome, sees the negatives but accentuates the positives, is exposed to the worst but expects the best, has reason to complain but chooses to smile." - William Arthur Ward