Semiconductor device and equipment manufacturer Cree (CREE) leapt 9% on Wednesday after the company beat sales and profit estimates, continuing a bullish trend for semis we first noted last March.

Cree is a $3 billion company that trades over 1.5 million shares a day. My favorite semiconductor stock is also a $3 billion company, yet only trades a mere 8,000 shares on an average day.

Once You Pop

Advantest Corporation (ATE) 6 months

Advantest Corporation (ATE) is a dominant supplier of testing equipment for DRAM chips, automatic test equipment, and electron beam lithography systems. Based in Tokyo and halved over the past year, the $18 stock boasts a book value of nearly $10 a share and currently yields approximately 1.8%.

Most appealing is that, despite a year-to-date return nearing double digits, the herd appears nowhere to be found. In addition to the lethargic volume for a company this size, the firm s Yahoo message board has seen all of six postings the entire year.

An Income Stream That Spreads the Risk

Since I highlighted some of my favorite ideas for income last week, yields on government bonds have soared, pushing prices on many traditional bond and bond equivalents sharply lower. Thankfully, the floating rate, foreign currency and muni funds we mentioned have generally held up.

Even given the uncertainty over interest rates, the economy and continued government intervention in the economy, I ll add one more idea to the list. Cohen & Steers Closed-End Opportunity Fund (FOF), a unique closed-end fund-of-funds that holds stakes in no fewer than 95 different closed-end income-oriented funds, all of which pay regular dividends. To that end, the investor in FOF achieves two levels of diversification, owning one fund that owns literally dozens of funds, each with its own portfolio of investments.

Cohen & Steers Closed-End Opportunity Fund (FOF)

Covered-call funds, which sell options on a portfolio of stocks, account for its biggest allocation at approximately 15%, along with tax-advantaged equity funds, meaning the FOF tends to generally correlate with the broad stock market. The difference is the income an investment in the S&P 500 will yield less than 2.5% while at current levels FOF yields more than 11%, thanks to the fund s investment in high yield, convertible and preferred funds. Real estate, senior loan, utility and master-limited partnerships are a few of the other asset classes represented. It truly has a little bit of everything that throws off income.

Source: Cohen & Steers

Moreover, FOF itself trades at a 7% discount to its NAV a chasm likely to narrow should liquidity and market confidence stabilize.

Income investors are essentially bankers and thus should look to build bulletproof portfolios based around a range of various types of securities and risks. FOF offers a highly diversified portfolio consisting of a wide range of income-oriented ideas. This is by no means a bond equivalent and carries plenty of market risk. But for a total-return investor hunting for yield, this is certainly one to consider.

Big Government, Small Growth?

A prevailing attitude of the bailout culture we ve dutifully covered over the last 15 months is the belief that government management of autos, banks, insurance and other major sectors of the economy, will lead to less volatile productivity and wealth creation than would occur in private hands. We can t trust greedy, self-destructive capitalists to run the economy What s really needed is for government to allocate assets the right" way. With that justification, Washington has now become a dominant influence as to what types of cars are built, what loans are made and what interest rates are paid.

A recent Associated Press report sheds some light on the success of such large-scale government endeavors, namely within agriculture. Since 2004, socialist dictator Hugo Chavez has taken over more than 5.4 million acres of farmland from private owners, mostly in response to his complaints they are unproductive. Yet food imports into Venezuela have tripled over that same period, meaning the country is growing less of its own food despite government management of agriculture. Inflation sits near 30%.

The longer-term outlook of such programs is even bleaker. Fidel Castro expropriated more than 70% of private land in Cuba more than 50 years ago. Yet today the country relies heavily on food imports while only 29% of its arable land is actually productively used.

Will a government-run General Motors (GM), AIG (AIG) or Citigroup (C) lead to gains in wealth and productivity not possible in the private sector? Don t count on it.

Data Point: The (Un)Friendly Confines?

The United States corporate income tax is nearly the highest in the developed world.

Combined Corporate Tax Rate of 30 Developed Countries

Source: The Tax Foundation
Japan	39.50%
United States	39.30%
France	34.40%
Belgium	34.00%
Canada	33.50%
Luxembourg	30.40%
Germany	30.20%
Australia	30.00%
New Zealand	30.00%
Spain	30.00%
Mexico	28.00%
Norway	28.00%
Sweden	28.00%
United Kingdom	28.00%
Italy	27.50%
Korea	27.50%
Portugal	26.50%
Finland	26.00%
Netherlands	25.50%
Austria	25.00%
Denmark	25.00%
Greece	25.00%
Switzerland	21.20%
Czech Republic	21.00%
Hungary	20.00%
Turkey	20.00%
Poland	19.00%
Slovak Republic	19.00%
Ireland	12.00%

Esther s Secret

With all respect to

and

, the smartest investor I know is Esther Shlensky, my stubborn and sharp grandmother who, God willing, will celebrate her 105th birthday this summer. Born the year the Wright Brothers flew at Kitty Hawk, she was already in her mid-20s when the Great Depression hit. That era stuck with her: She s never had a credit card, a mortgage or carried consumer debt of any kind.

Warren Buffett John Bogle

Esther held stocks for many years, the old dividend-paying stalwarts like AT&T (T) and Commonwealth Edison (now Exelon (EXC)). As she s grown older, those stocks were sold with the proceeds parked into cash and short-term bonds.

Her secret? Thrift. Despite the fact that, when Grandma was in her early 30s the average annual income in this country was $1,388, she always stuck by her commitment to live within her means. Make a dollar, save a quarter, she s said, the basic common sense commonplace long before Suze Orman. In good markets and bad, it s the stuff that never goes out of style.