UGMA/UTMA Accounts vs. 529 Plans for Children

If you are a parent or a grandparent, you're probably thinking about saving money and investing for your kids or grandkids' future. Maybe you want to save for their college education. Or maybe you just want to save now to give them a nest egg to start their independent life with when they graduate. You have two main options for the types of accounts to use for saving on behalf of a child.

UTMA / UGMA Accounts

A UTMA account is a "Uniform Transfer to Minors Act" account; a UGMA account is a "Uniform Gift to Minors Act" account. They are really the same thing, but different states call them one of those two names. When you create a UTMA or UGMA account, you name the child as the beneficiary and yourself as the custodian of the account. UTMA accounts convert to the child's control at age 21, UGMA accounts convert at age 18 (again, depending on the state). Contributing to these accounts is not reversable; you cannot take the money back out for your own use (or "ungift" it) later. Here's a more detailed explanation of the differences between these two closely-related account types:


Difference Between UGMA and UTMA

A downside of UTMA/UGMA accounts is that the income from the investments is taxable in the child's name. "Kiddie Tax" exemptions apply, so as long as the account doesn't earn too much income, it won't be a burden. But if the account generates a lot of income (dividends or capital gains), you will have to pay taxes on some of it.

What is the Kiddie Tax?

Here's more on the "Kiddie Tax" rules from the IRS:

Tax on a Child's Investment and Other Unearned Income (Kiddie Tax)

An upside of these accounts is that the child can use the account for anything they want when it converts to their control (like their first house), or can be used for anything for their benefit (like college) before that age, if you (the account custodian) approve it.

Another good thing about these accounts is that you can create a UTMA/UGMA with nearly any broker or mutual fund company. So if you want to buy individual stocks or create a portfolio of mutual funds for your grandchild, this is probably the way to go.

529 Plans

A 529 Plan account is similar to a UTMA/UGMA account, except it has the advantage of letting the money grow tax free (like a Roth IRA), but the disadvantage that it must be used only for education expenses. Here's a primer on the basics of 529 Plans:

What is a 529 plan?

Ameliorating the education-only requirement, the account's value can be transferred to anyone else in the family if the child doesn't need the money. Say they are brilliant and get a full scholarship to college, you could transfer the account balance to their sibling's 529 plan, or you could even use it to go back to school yourself.

Another downside to this kind of account is that they tend to have limited investment options within the account. You might only be able to invest in a single target date fund, for example (that's the way it works for me in Maryland).

These plans vary from state to state. Your own state might offer you a tax deduction for contributing to one. If your child (or grandchild) lives in a different state, there might be advantages to investing in his or her state's plan instead. This link will help you find plans for various states:

529 Plans by State

Conclusion

Whether to invest through a UTMA/UGMA account or a 529 Plan can be a complicated decision, given all the trade-offs. Here's a link summarizing and comparing UTMA/UGMA vs. 529 Plans:

Quick Guide: 529 vs UGMA/UTMA

If you're confused after researching all the options, you might want to talk to a financial planner or tax advisor to decide which one is best for your situation.

Paying or Avoiding Taxes on Dividends from Foreign Companies

When American companies pay you a dividend, your brokerage tracks them and sends you a 1099-DIV form at the end of the year adding them all up. If the dividends were paid in a regular brokerage account, you pay tax on them on your annual IRS tax return (anywhere from 0%-40% depending on your tax bracket and the type of company paying the dividend, but most average investors pay 15%). If your stock was held in a tax-advantaged account (like an IRA), you don't have to pay tax on it.

But when a foreign company pays you a dividend, often you will see on your brokerage statement that the tax was paid immediately to that country and debited from your account. But not always...

Some countries have tax treaties with the US to either not charge dividend tax to Americans or to at least respect the US's tax-free holding status in IRAs, but most countries don't. For example, A Canadian company will tax your dividends in a regular account, but will not charge you tax in an American IRA. As another example, Panamanian companies won't charge you tax at all in either kind of account thanks to their own treaty. But many other countries take their tax out either way.

Generally, I hold foreign dividend payers in my regular taxable account instead of my IRA, because then I can at least claim the foreign tax as a credit on my income taxes to reduce what I pay Uncle Sam. I make exceptions for companies from those tax-treaty countries like Canada, Panama, and the UK though, and hold those in my IRA.

More in-depth reading about foreign dividends and taxes:

• How to Avoid Foreign Dividend Withholding Tax
• Withholding Tax Rates By Country For Foreign Stock Dividends
• Stocks That Avoid Unrecoverable Foreign Dividend Withholding In Tax Deferred Accounts
• Foreign Tax Credit And Withholding Tax Rates

Some of those are a few years old, so the specific tax rates may be out of date, but the general explanation is there. Google the headquarters country on a case-by-case basis when thinking about buying a foreign company to decide which account to buy it in.

I'm not a tax advisor; you should talk to your own advisor for specific advice about your portfolios and the companies involved.

Sources for Learning to be a Great Investor

Learning to be a great investor is as much art as science, and can best be learned by reading and listening to as many diverse sources as possible over many years.

Books

My own favorite investing books are:

• "One Up on Wall Street" by Peter Lynch
• "The Little Book that Builds Wealth" by Pat Dorsey

Other related books that I found relevant to investing:

• "The Signal and the Noise" by Nate Silver
• "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman

Shareholder Letters

Another good way to learn is to read shareholder letters from some of the best investors out there. And fortunately, these are published for free on the internet.

• Warren Buffett's letters to shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway
• Howard Marks shareholder memos for Oaktree Capital

Blogs

These are some of my favorite blogs about investing:

• Reformed Broker
• Wealth of Common Sense
• Farnam Street
• Collaborative Fund
• Rational Walk
• The Vantage

Podcasts

There are tons of good podcasts out there that interview people from finance and business, if you have time to listen on commutes, at the gym, or folding laundry. My favorites are:

• "Invest Like the Best" by Patrick O’Shaughnessy
• "Masters in Business" by Barry Ritholtz
• Motley Fool Money by Chris Hill & Friends
• Rule Breaker Investing by David Gardner

Reddit

Do you use Reddit? There are several good investing subreddits:

• r/investing
• r/finance
• r/SecurityAnalysis
• r/ValueInvesting
• r/IntelligentInvesting

Investing in Stocks: How to Get Started?

I'm not a financial advisor, but here's what I tell people when they ask me how to get started investing.

1) Get your finances in shape otherwise. Low debt (except mortgages), no credit card debt, build an emergency savings account of a few thousand dollars (in case of short-term, unexpected money needs like your car dies or you get laid off).

2) Open an on-line, discount brokerage account with anywhere from $1k-$5k that you could afford to lose in the short run. Stocks don't always go on a straight upward line like interest on a bank account. Even great companies go up and down in the short term, though over 5-7 year spans, good companies go up overall.

If you can afford to put this money away for decades without withdrawing it, you can open your brokerage account as an IRA account (Roth or Traditional), giving you decades of tax-free growth until you reach retirement.

3) Buy stocks in dollar quantities. $500 per stock is a good starter amount where a $5 trade commission is only 1% of your total investment. Don't worry about the number of shares. If $500 buys you 3 shares of ABC, that's fine. If $500 buys you 20 shares of XYZ, that's fine too. Lots of people believe you have to buy 100 shares at a time or you have to be rich to have a brokerage account, and that's not true anymore (it was true 30 years ago, but the idea persists).

4) Strive to add money to your portfolio account over time, buying new companies or adding to the ones you already own, in those same moderate-sized increments. 10-15 stocks in a diverse range of industries is a good goal for a new investor to reach after the first few years of investing. Don't put all your eggs in one basket (or all your money in one stock).

5) If you're still unsure of what you're doing, a good way to start investing is with a low-cost index fund, like an S&P 500 index fund.

Want More Details?

Nerdwallet has a good guide to getting started. The Motley Fool also has a good guide to the basics. Both sites are credible sources for new investors.

Should You "Buy in Thirds"?

Let's say you want to invest in a company. Should you buy now? Should you wait for a correction? Will that correction ever come? What if the stock goes way up tomorrow and never comes back to today's price, even with a correction? I don't know the answers.

Buying in Thirds is a way to shift some risk around. If you want to invest $1500 in a company, buy $500 worth of shares today, $500 more a few months from now, and $500 a few more months after that.

Risk is not created or destroyed, but spread around differently. You avoid some of the risk of buying now, only to see the price go down. But you gain some risk of not buying it all now, only to see the price go up later. If the price does go down, you can buy your next batch at the lower price. If the price does go up, well at least you got your foot in the door at the lower price.

You are adding "time diversification" to your portfolio by buying the same company at different prices over time, sort of (but not exactly) like dollar cost averaging.

If you are wavering over whether to buy or not, buying in thirds also helps you ease into your ownership position instead of having to make an all-or-none decision today. In the long run, repeated over many stocks over many years and through full market cycles, the risk and luck should even out.

Arguably, things also even out at the big-picture portfolio level if you buy every stock all at once, and there's debate among investors about whether "time diversification" is a fallacy. Buying in thirds can still be useful, even if you view it as mostly an effort to control your emotions and manage cognitive biases.

Secondly and equally importantly, depending on how much cash you have on hand and whether you're regularly adding cash to your portfolio, buying in thirds is a good way to slowly establish larger positions in stocks when you don't have all the cash up front. It's useful as a way to get stock diversification in your portfolio earlier in the process of portfolio building. Keep your "third" purchases big enough that your commissions don't end up as a significant part of the cost of the stocks though. If your brokerage charges $4.95 commissions now, you could buy my hypothetical $500 worth of a stock and the commission would only be 1%, which is reasonable to me (many people say 2% is fine too).

Here's another longer discussion about "buying in thirds" from Stock Market School.

Berkshire Hathaway vs. Markel vs. the S&P 500

Someone asked me today whether I thought investing in Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A, NYSE: BRK-B) or the oft-compared "Baby Berkshire" Markel (NYSE: MKL) was a better investment than the S&P 500.

How do Berkshire Hathaway and Markel Differ?

Everyone calls Markel the "Baby Berkshire", but the two companies are quite different as investments today. Both are great companies to own, but for different reasons.

Berkshire Hathaway is a huge conglomerate, where the operating profits from the subsidiary companies (railroad, energy, trucking, chemicals, etc.) are now more important than the income from Berkshire's insurance companies' underwriting and stock investments. Berkshire wields the power to finance and profit from huge deals like they did with Kraft-Heinz.

Markel is in a much earlier stage. They have a few small subsidiary businesses, but Markel is still almost entirely dependent on insurance underwriting profits and portfolio investment profits. One hopes that they can grow to be as Berkshire over the next few decades, but it is not a sure thing. Markel, as a smaller company, has the advantage of the ability to buy meaningful stakes in a diverse assortment of companies without the complications of owning 10% or more of those company.

The Companies vs. the Index

Berkshire Hathaway and Markel are both one-part "active mutual fund". Berkshire's "fund" is managed by Warren Buffett (and to some extent these days, Ted Weschler and Todd Combs); Markel's "fund" is managed by the highly respected (though less well-known) Thomas Gayner. The investment portfolio is a more important part of Markel and a less important part of Berkshire, but because we're also talking about the business results/prospects of the insurance industry (for both) and the industrial and financial economy (for Berkshire), neither one is really comparable to a mutual fund or ETF.

So which one is "better" depends on what "better" means. If you want to try to beat the S&P and will still live a comfortable life if either Markel or Berkshire Hathaway strikes out, then the stocks are better. If you want to play it safer with that part of your portfolio and take risks elsewhere, the S&P 500 index might be better. Nobody but you can really say what's "best" for you.

What did I do?

I own both Berkshire Hathaway and Markel in my standard brokerage account. Neither one is more than 5% of that account. I pay a lot more attention to Berkshire Hathaway (I write a blog about it), so I personally feel comfortable owning a larger position in Berkshire Hathaway. I know less about Markel, but I know a lot of other very smart investors who have larger positions in Markel.

My much larger 401k account is 100% index funds (large cap, small cap, international, bonds). I automatically invest there with every paycheck and never think about it except when I get end-of-year reports. I love investing in stocks and talking about stocks, but in my total financial existence, index funds dwarf any single stock position that I might own. I am never buying any stock instead of index funds, always in addition to.

So Back to the Original Question...

Looking backwards, people have indeed gotten rich by putting huge portions of their fortunes in Buffett's hands. Maybe giving your money to Gayner today will play out the same way, maybe not. Can Weschler and Combs replace Buffett and continue his performance over the next few decades? Luck plays a bigger role than we like to admit in any investor's fortunes, and survivorship bias plays a big role in which investors we lionize.

Will Berkshire Hathaway in the future continue on its positive trajectory after Buffett leaves? Will Markel match or beat that trajectory or follow the path of a more average insurance company?

I don't know. I personally think Markel might have a higher potential upside, but also a higher potential downside. I think both have an above-average chance to do better than the S&P 500, but I can't say which will do better, so I hedge my bets and own them all.

Disclosure: I own positions in BRK.B, MKL, and an S&P 500 index fund. This post is my opinion and an explanation of how I invest. Your financial situation and investing goals may be different, so don't buy or sell any company mentioned here without further research or advice from an investment professional.

Michael Steele Lets His Kids Watch Netflix

Parents like Michael Steele have long fought the same battle with their children: how much (if any) TV to watch. At the center of the fight is the amount of commercials young children are exposed to. But now, companies like Netflix ($NFLX), Amazon.com ($AMZN), and Hulu have created a compromise solution for parents and their offspring: advertising-free streaming.

The battle for the hearts and minds of parents between the competitors has heated up this year, as I explained in this freelance story I wrote for The Motley Fool recently: Video Streaming Companies Fight to Win the Battle for Parents. Who will win in the end? Netflix, with its exclusive content deal with Disney? Amazon with its Viacom license? Or the newcomer to the fight, Hulu, with Jim Henson shows? The monetary size of these deals shows that parents are a lucrative market to win over in new age of streaming television.

Michael Steele Helps You Bet on "House Hunters"

Crown molding. Granite. Stainless steel. 

Around a year or two ago, we used to watch "House Hunters" and "House Hunters International" on HGTV a lot. Back when we were watching 2-3 episodes a week, we could pick the winning house 80% of the time with this simple formula:

Pick the house that's the most impractical for the couple involved. 

Oh, you're a young couple with a 6-month-old infant and two 16-year-old dogs? Odds are you'll pick the smallest house that's furthest from your jobs and is the most expensive, ignoring the toddler death-trap spiral staircase with no railings, because it has a fenced yard for your dogs. Besides, the house that was already child-proofed had that ugly paint color in the rec room and the house that was a half-mile from work didn't have stainless steel appliances or crown molding.

Corollary guide points to picking a winning house:

1. If a buyer bemoans the lack of granite counter-tops or stainless steel appliances in a particular house, they will not buy the house.  They will not factor in the cost of just replacing the counter-tops or appliances.
2. If a buyer has dogs, they will always favor any house with a fenced yard, regardless of all other factors.  They will not factor in the cost of putting up their own fence.
3. If a buyer initially says they want to be near their work, the beach, a nightlife district, etc., they will end up in the house furthest away.
4. On the International edition of the show, the house that is the least habitable and needs the most work has the best chance at being picked.  The buyers will see it as a blank slate for their remodeling dreams. Bonus points if it's so run-down that wild animals have taken up residence.

Investing Philosophy from "The Hobbit"

An interesting book on investing philosophy that I read recently was The Hobbit by JRR Tolkein.  It's an epic allegory for focusing on your potential human capital and taking a "Rule Breaker" approach to your retirement planning.

Rather than spending your days sitting in your little hole in the ground over-analyzing things, investors should set out with a company of dwarves and a wizard to focus their investing energy on liberating ancient dwarven treasure from an evil dragon's lair in a far away land.  Obviously, you'll have an opportunity for huge wealth accumulation -- and as far as I can tell from the book, untaxed wealth!  But don't overlook other smaller benefits like meeting powerful elves who can help you with retirement living arrangements later in life, conquering your fear of spiders, and possibly even picking up some fancy jewelry along the way.

Michael Steele is Hooked on Netflix's "Arrested Development"

I haven't watched any of Netflix's other original series before, but I have been excitedly watching Arrested Development. I'm up to episode 5 so far, and I'm loving it (I was a fan of the show in its original run too). I watched the first 3 episodes the first night, and one episode a night since then.

My non-spoiler observations so far:

1) The plots are indeed non-linear and intertwined, as all the pre-release media coverage said. You probably could watch the episodes (at least the ones I have seen so far) in nearly any order, and the plot would make sense. Maybe you'd need to watch episode 1 first for the set-up and episode 15 last for the wrap-up, and then watch the rest in any order. (I'm watching them in order.)

2) While the plot would work, not all of the jokes would work if you played them out of order (which creator Mitch Hurwitz has been saying as the release date got nearer). A lot of the jokes depend on dramatic irony, where the set-up for the irony comes from having seen an earlier episode. Also, some of the gags are very linear, and should be watched in order to maximize their effect; for example, when they show the same scene over and over again from slightly different perspectives, building and revealing a little more of the full picture each time.

3) Having said that, I keep noticing weird things that are clearly jokes that I won't get until a later episode. I remembered and retroactively laughed at several scenes from episode 3 (Lindsay's story) while watching episode 5 (Tobias's story). So maybe, after seeing all the episodes, you really could go back and re-watch in any order to pick up on other non-linear jokes.

4) If you had never seen seasons 1-3, you would be lost at the beginning. I think that by the time you got a few episodes in, it would start making sense. There are a lot of characters to get to know. The first episode included flashbacks to season 3 to fill you in (which is good for my memory, because I last watched seasons 1-3 when they were on the air originally years ago), and the narrator clues you in from time to time when you're supposed to remember a minor character or plot point from the original series.

5) I'm concerned that with the non-linear, intertwined plots and jokes, that I will lose something if I don't watch all the episodes close to each other. We will see how it goes when my wife leaves on a business trip tomorrow and I'm on the honor system to not watch without her for a week.

6) I like the single character focused episodes. It's a different way to tell the story. I have seen shows do this before to a more limited extent. Like on The Simpsons, sometimes there's a Marge or Lisa-centric episode. Actually, come to think of it, The Simpsons episode "Trilogy of Error" already did the intertwining non-linear plots thing too. So, once again, "Simpsons Already Did it".

I have been a long-time subscriber to Netflix, both the DVD-by-mail and Internet streaming varieties, but Arrested Development is the first of their original series to get me excited (I'm a comedy person). I also like Netflix enough that I'm also a $NFLX shareholder. So for many reasons, I'm happy for Netflix this week.

Michael Steele Invests Like a Ferengi

No race of aliens has taught us so much about finance, markets, and economics as Star Trek's Ferengi. The Ferengi Rules of Acquisition, a personal and financial code of ethics, offers a buffet of aphorisms on making money by any means necessary. Greed is the number one virtue for the Ferengi, and they use the word "ethics" only in its loosest form. But some of their rules may have some truth for investors on Earth.

Today, Michael Steele uses the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition to teach you about investing. (Follow the link for the full details.)

Paying attention to the the Ferengi Rule 45, "Expand or Die", shows you why Chipotle Mexican Grill ($CMG) saw its share price plunge last fall. Rule 89, "Ask not what your profits can do for you, but what you can do for your profit", teaches us about dividend reinvesting with dividend growing companies, like Coca-Cola ($KO) which has raised its dividend for 50 straight years. Rule 162, "Even in the worst of times, someone turns a profit", leads us to Costco ($COST), which increased its sales and retained its membership while the 2008-09 recession was hurting the rest of the retail sector.

But not everything the Ferengi say is wise. If you followed Rule 261, "A wealthy man can afford anything except a conscience", you might forego investing in socially responsible companies like Whole Foods Market ($WFM), whose CEO is a leader in the Conscious Capitalism movement. And if you listen to Rule 94, "Females and finances don't mix", you ignore investor psychology studies that say women generally make better investors than men here on Earth; Warren Buffett used "feminine" investing traits to increase the book value of Berkshire Hathaway ($BRK-A, $BRK-B) 586,817% since 1965.

Michael Steele Takes a Closer Look at Warren Buffett's Annual Shareholder Letter

With the 2013 installment of Warren Buffett's annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway ($BRK-A, $BRK-B) shareholders hitting the Internet recently, plenty of stories have been published highlighting the most quotable passages from the letter. News articles abounded with the best examples of Buffett's traditional wisdom and wit.  But Michael Steele delves deeper into the letter and finds six more notable passages that nobody else is talking about.

Why is nobody talking about Buffett's demand that we bow down before his lieutenant?  Or Buffett's false assertion that hamburgers and Chinese food cannot co-exist in one restaurant?  Or Buffett throwing down and trash talking one of his company's biggest rivals in the insurance industry?  Because most financial commentators do not analyze Buffett's writing with the skill and tenacity of Michael Steele.

Michael Steele Protects You From Vampires

You may have prepared for the upcoming vampire apocalypse by putting skylights on your house and stocking up on garlic and wooden stakes (all of which are recommended by Michael Steele), but have you prepared your portfolio for the coming reign of our new immortal, blood-sucking masters?

What's going to become the newest mass market commodity in our post-vampire economy? Blood. And I have several companies in mind that will benefit when pints of blood move from being a high-value medical need to a basic consumer staple, like Baxter ($BAX), CSL Ltd. ($CSL.AX, $CMXHY.PK), and Grifols ($GRFS).

Or, if you're a contrarian who foolishly thinks humanity has a fighting chance against the vampires, I've got stocks for you too, like the leading company in wooden stakes, Weyerhaeuser ($WY) or garlic (and other spices) distributor, McCormick & Company ($MKC)! Or maybe you want to bet on the people who will run for their lives: they will be buying lots of new running shoes from Nike ($NKE)!

Whichever way you think the coming fight for the survival of humanity will go, if you follow Michael Steele's advice, your portfolio can weather the red tides of chaos if you prepare today.

Michael Steele Wants You To Invest in Baltimore

Individual investors are most successful when they buy into the idea that they are owning a part of a business for the long-term, not short-term trading or speculating on stocks. A good way to build and maintain that mentality is to buy companies that you can root for through thick and thin, and adding a little civic pride to your portfolio can be a part of that. By owning a few of the local companies that make your community great and drive your local economy, you can keep your short-term emotions in check and become an owner for the long haul. And since Michael Steele is from Maryland, I illustrated this with a portfolio of five companies from Baltimore on my financial blog at the Motley Fool: Under Armour ($UA), T. Rowe Price ($TROW), Legg Mason ($LM), Jos. A. Bank ($JOSB), and McCormick & Company ($MKC). Think global, invest local!

Michael Steele Teaches Investors About Government Contracting

One of my areas of expertise is investing. In the course of following the news about the companies I own, I will sometimes come across a press release about a company winning a federal government contract. And while I understand perfectly what the company is saying about the contract they won, I worry that some of the details of the language might slip by most investors. Or be misunderstood. Or in some cases, that the wording of the press release makes the value of the contract sound puffed up and more valuable than it really is. Because, you see, one of my other areas of expertise is dealing with the technical side of federal IT contracts.

So, as a public service, I wrote a three part series for the Motley Fool Blog Network about understanding the vocabulary of government contracts for investors:

• Part 1: Fixed Price, Cost Reimbursement, and Time & Materials Contracts, including examples of recent contracts won by Lockheed Martin ($LMT), Booz-Allen Hamilton ($BAH), and SAIC ($SAI)
• Part 2: Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) Contracts and Modifications, with examples from Amazon.com ($AMZN) and Lockheed Martin ($LMT)
• Part 3: Multiple Awards, Schedules, and Government Wide Acquisition Contracts (GWACs), using examples from Cubic ($CUB), CACI ($CACI), and SAIC ($SAI)

It's a departure from my usual smart-assed financial blog postings, but I promise I will get back to writing those again soon.

Michael Steele is Afraid of Beanie Babies

While house shopping here in Maryland back in March, we went with our realtor to see one house that we still laugh about. We refer to it as "The Beanie Baby House" because of this one, upstairs bedroom:

It was even freakier in person, because the picture only shows you about half the room. Extrapolate out that the rest of the room was the same. About a third of the animals had little protective, heart-shaped, hard plastic covers on their tags, I assume to preserve their investment value.

Making it even weirder (yes, that's possible!), everything else in the house was perfectly staged: minimal furniture and no other personal effects visible anywhere else in the house. It was just this one room filled with Beanie Babies lined up like Terra Cotta warriors on every available furniture surface, staring at you in unison with their blank, beady eyes.

The house is still on the market, in case you were interested in the property; we were not interested, and bought something else. I believe the Beanie Babies do not convey.

Michael Steele Could Profit From a Near-Earth Supernova

A near-Earth Supernova could wipe out humanity, killing us with increased radiation and cosmic ray exposure, followed by a new ice age. But just because we die off doesn't mean your portfolio can't have a fighting chance. In a blog piece I wrote for the Motley Fool Blog Network, I explain what companies you can invest in to hedge against a near-Earth supernova and possibly profit from the ensuing disaster. Companies like lead-shielding manufacturer Metalico ($MEA), cancer drug maker Celgene ($CELG), and the company that could be called on to single-handedly rebuild our food chain, Archer Daniels Midland ($ADM). The Motley Fool's own Supernova investing service can't help you, but Michael Steele can. You and I might not live long enough to enjoy the portfolio gains, but your miserable, starving, cancer-ridden, mutant progeny will inherit your profits to buy the shelter, medicine, precious nutrients, and protection from the roving bands of nomads that they desperately need for their continued survival.

Michael Steele Shows Aspiring Supervillains How To Invest

Are you an aspiring Supervillain? In a blog story I wrote for the Motley Fool Blog Network, I explain how you, as an ordinary run-of-the-mill villain can grow the wealth you need for your wide-ranging world domination schemes by investing in the companies and industries that you, as a soon-to-be Supervillain, may already be familiar with. Invest in companies like Cemex ($CX) for building your underground lair, Titanium Metals ($TIE) for your armor, Illumina ($ILMN) for your genetics experiments, II-IV ($IIVI) for all your laser needs, and Discovery Communications ($DISCA, $DISCK) for their Shark Week expertise, because what good are your frickin' laser beams if you don't have sharks to mount them on? Whether you're a future Supervillain yourself, or just an ordinary investor who wants to ride the Supervillain industry's bull market to your own handsome profits, this is the investment guide for you!

Michael Steele Can Defeat the Robots... On Paper

A team at MIT and UPenn is working on technology to design and print your own paper robots. But as usual, Michael Steele is more concerned about the possibility of these cheap, mass-produced robots rising up in revolt against their human masters. From the story:

Imagine a time and place where building a robot for a specific need would be as easy as heading to your local Lowe’s or Home Depot, then have the robot you need designed, printed and programmed in as little as a day. Two prototypes have been built so far: an insect-like robot for exploring dangerous areas, and a gripper device for the handicapped. [...]

Here, MIT is promising a future where we choose what we want in a robot, and the possibilities sure do seem endless. Robot slaves, anyone? I don’t know about you, but I’m getting visions of SkyNet and Judgment Day, where robots become self-aware and kill us all.

At least when the robots rise up against humanity, we'll be easily able to put down the revolt with our own arsenal of scissors.

Unless the robots are able to use their own mastery over rocks as a weapon, because that would defeat our scissors.

Michael Steele Teaches You How to Profit from the Coming Robot Uprising

In a piece I wrote for the Motley Fool blog network, I will teach you how you can profit from the coming robot uprising by investing in the companies that will fuel the revolution and aid in the downfall of man. Companies like 3D Systems Corp. ($DDD), Intuitive Surgical ($ISRG), iRobot ($IRBT), Oceaneering International ($OII), and most surprisingly of all, Disney ($DIS). Don't be left behind in the middle class! You'll want to be in the 1% when it comes time to buy your ticket on one of the few evacuation spaceships!