During the 1980 Presidential campaign Ronald Reagan asked voters one simple question for which the answer catapulted him into the White House. He asked people: "Are you better off today than you were 4 years ago?" I believe there is a similar, vital question that investors can ask themselves after this tumultuous bear market. And that is... "Are you happy with your mutual fund ranking system?" On the surface I know it doesn’t seem quite as profound. Nor will it help my chances of becoming President. But think about it this way. You probably have the majority of your life’s savings invested in mutual funds. And you most likely selected those funds based upon just one firm’s rating system. So, if you believe that rating system is helping you successfully grow your wealth, then there is no need

Obama's Healthcare Plan Is Big Bark, Small Bite by Jason Napodano, CFA

When President Obama's administration released the proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year, drug stocks quickly dropped. Fears of socialized medicine, or "Hillary-Care 2.0" turned investors away from the sector.

Was the drop warranted?

There are 6 key components to healthcare reform that could have a meaningful impact on pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in the near future.Four of these are potentially negative, whereas the other 2 are potentially positive.

First Potential Negative: Increasing Pricing Rebates

The new proposal calls for an increase in Medicaid rebates from the current level of 15% to 21%. This equates to a 6% decrease in pricing power by all the companies in our universe into the Medicaid market. If we delve deeper into the ramification of this

The economy is in awful shape right now, but it is not in a terminal decline from which it will never recover. We have faced hard times before and always managed to come out stronger on the other side. While I do believe in happy endings, I do not look for one right around the corner.

Waiting for the recovery does not mean sitting on your hands and doing nothing. There are things that you can be doing today to help yourself prosper for the long run. Indeed, now may be the best time in your life to make moves that will help you have greater wealth later in life.

The stock market almost always turns up before the economy does. Trying to pick the absolute bottom is a fool's game. We are far enough along in the process that it is time to start tiptoeing back