The Globe and Mail's Smart Money

The Globe and Mail's Smart Money section is dedicated to giving you what you need to manage your personal finances successfully. Smart Money appears every Saturday in The Globe and Mail and on globeinvestor.com.

Searching for lost treasures in the Street's trash

By ROB CARRICK

Picking through the trash may be frowned upon on the street where you live, but it's accepted behaviour on Bay Street.The venerable school of value investing is based on the idea of buying stocks that others are throwing out. The Dogs of the Dow theory, long touted as a safe way to buy stock market bargains, is certainly a garbage picker's strategy. Now, there's a third way to find diamonds in the stock market dross. Let's call it the SOUP strategy, for sell or underperform.

Best of the blogs

The popularity of investment blogging continues to grow. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of bloggers pumping out timely financial analysis and opinion. So who's worth reading? Our Globe bloggers, columnists and hedge fund manager/blogger Howard Lindzon share their five favourites.

By ROB CARRICK, MATHEW INGRAM, HOWARD LINDZON, BOYD ERMAN, DAVID BERMAN, ANDREW WILLIS

ROB CARRICKRCARRICK@GLOBEANDMAIL.COMCanadian Capitalistcanadiancapitalist.comThe king of Canadian personal finance blogs. Maintained by an anonymous thirtysomething Ottawa software developer, it has produced a regular flow of comment since November, 2004. Content shows a curious and eclectic mind at work.

Keeping two homes may lead to financial peril

By ANDREW ALLENTUCK

In Toronto, a couple we'll call Peter, who is 59, and Cynthia, who is 47, want to figure out a way to pay for the university educations of their children and still be able to afford to retire. One, age 20, is in the second year of university at a cost of $7,000 a year. Another, 18, will start the first year of university this fall.

How PEG discounts compare with the composite

By SCOTT ADAMS

WHAT ARE WE LOOKING FOR?Today, let's look at the stocks trading at the greatest price-to-earnings growth, or PEG, discounts. We'll stick to companies in the SandP/TSX composite for the screen and we'll use Thomson ONE's Stock Reports Plus. This is the stock ideas feature we've been using all week that is inside Thomson Reuters' portfolio management tool used by institutional investors.

'There's going to be a flood of money'

Brazil's credit status raised to investment grade, opening the doors to major international institutional investors

By DAVID PARKINSON

Some of the Brazilian equity market's weakest links could prove the biggest beneficiaries of the country's new investment-grade credit status, market watchers say.Experts believe Standard and Poor's decision last week to upgrade Brazil's long-term foreign-currency rating to triple-B minus, lifting the country into investment grade for the first time, will lower domestic interest rates and attract increased investment into Brazil - adding fresh fuel to a market that has already enjoyed a meteoric rise in recent years. But they said the traditional drivers of the market - the country's big resource sectors - will probably take a back seat.

Throwing discounts into our P/E analysis

By SCOTT ADAMS

WHAT ARE WE LOOKING FOR?Today, let's look at the stocks trading at the greatest price-to-earnings discounts. We'll stick to companies in the SandP/TSX composite and we'll use Thomson ONE's Stock Reports Plus, which is a stock ideas feature inside Thomson Reuters' portfolio management tool used by institutional investors.

A case for recession-proof amusement: the Disney formula

By NOREEN RASBACH

In Billion-Dollar Kiss, one of my favourite books about television, Jeffrey Stepakoff tells about writing for TV's Dawson's Creek, which had started out strong but after a few seasons was beginning to drop in the ratings. One of the show's writers had a suggestion - have Pacey and Joey, two antagonistic characters, kiss. That kiss created such a stir that people started watching again, and the show did well enough for long enough to become syndicated. It may not have meant $1-billion - only shows like Seinfeld do that well - but syndication is the cash cow for any TV show.

THREE STATS YOU JUST CAN'T BE WITHOUT ON A SATURDAY: THE WEEK IN ECONOMICS

By Heather Scoffield

GRUMPY CONSUMERS DON'T HELP ECONOMIC RECOVERYDespite Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's recent declaration that ''these are happy times,'' there is growing evidence that consumers in Canada and the United States actually aren't very happy these days. And grumpy consumers make for a difficult economic recovery.

When tech elephants mate, step aside

By AVNER MANDELMAN

For those who like their stocks with drama, Microsoft's bid for Yahoo fits the bill. In fact, several of my Silicon Valley informants can speak of little else. And what do I think about it?

Technology funds upbeat in past month

By SHIRLEY WON

WHAT ARE WE LOOKING FOR?Technology funds that are showing signs of life again.These were high-flying funds a decade ago before the tech bubble burst in 2000.Tech then became a ''four letter word,'' RBC Dominion Securities Inc. chief strategist Myles Zyblock recalled in a report this week.

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