It is encouraging citizens to put at least 5% of their savings into precious metals.
The Chinese government is telling people gold and silver are good investments that will safeguard their wealth. After last year’s meltdown in the stock market, people believe it. After all, Chinese citizens don’t receive government retirement money… and they don’t have company pension plans like people in many other countries do.

This is why folks in China are lining up outside of banks, post offices, and the new official mint stores to buy gold and silver (they especially like silver because it’s cheaper per ounce).

The Chinese attitude toward gold and silver is a striking contrast to the American attitude right now. I don’t recall a TV or radio ad from my congressman or President Obama encouraging me to buy gold or silver. Does your bank sell silver bars? Are gold mints popping up in your neighborhood? Are any of your friends, family, or coworkers scrambling to buy precious metals?

In spite of a few ads on television and satellite radio, buying gold and silver in the U.S. is still largely seen as a fringe-group activity. That’s not the case in China. And in the big picture, there are three distinct trends occurring in China today that many in the Occidental world are not paying attention to.

First, look where China stands as a gold-producing nation.

In 2008, China produced 9,070,000 ounces of gold, exceeding all other countries. Further, its production continues to rise, while many of the top-producing countries are in decline.

Second, China had the lowest per-capita gold consumption of any country over the past half-century. This year, it is widely expected that Chinese demand for gold will surpass that of India. In other words, they’ll also become the world’s No. 1 retail buyer.

Third, the Chinese government has been using its foreign exchange reserves to buy gold – a lot of it – and doing so on the sly. This past April, Chinese officials made a surprise announcement that they had been secretly buying gold since 2003, increasing their gold reserves by 76% to 33,886,000 ounces. The Chinese government now owns 30 times the gold it held in 1990. And China is believed to be a leading candidate to buy some or all of the 12.9 million ounces the International Monetary Fund says it will sell.

But all this production and all this buying isn’t enough…

Even though China is the world’s seventh-largest holder of gold, gold comprises but a tiny fraction of its reserves, as shown in the table below.

What would happen to the gold price if China increased its gold reserves to just 5%? What about 10%? To overtake the U.S. as king of the gold hill, it would have to buy all the gold held by the governments of France, Italy, and Germany combined. Can China really do any of that?

At $1,000 gold, to push China’s gold holdings to 5% of reserves would take $55.3 billion; to 10% would cost $144.4 billion; to be the world’s top gold dog would run $227.6 billion.

Chinese reserves are approaching $2.3 trillion, of which almost 70%, or $1.6 trillion, are denominated in U.S. dollars. The cost to become the world’s biggest holder of gold would be a pittance compared to the amount of money China has available. In other words, money is not a problem.

Combining the country’s massive holdings of dollars and the very real likelihood those dollars are going to lose much of their value, the motivation to buy tangible assets is urgent.

Further, keep this in mind: China’s reserves continue to grow. Therefore, the country must continue buying gold (or consuming its own production) just to maintain the small gold-to-reserves ratio it has, let alone increase it.

In addition to the government buying precious metals, Chinese citizens will continue gobbling them up, too. Demographics alone tell us why.

Government statistics show the average urban household in China has about US$1,300 in disposable income. Multiply that by the number of urban households in China and you come up with roughly $36 billion in available capital.

According to precious metals consultancy CPM Group, about 9.5 million ounces of gold will be turned into coins this year (including “rounds” and medallions). At $1,000 gold, that’s $9.5 billion, or only about one-third of the capital available in China.

The number is more striking for silver: Total coin production this year is expected to hit 35 million ounces, equaling $615 million or just 1.7% of the available capital in China. Of course, a lot of Chinese people want cars and refrigerators, etc., but it won’t take much of a shift of this capital into gold and silver to have a major impact on the global retail precious metals market. It may already be under way.

And long-term projections show the demographic trend won’t slow down: The middle class in China is expected to increase by 70% by 2020. So over these next 10 years, more Chinese and more money will be coming into the precious-metals markets, all at a time when inflation is almost certain to be high, adding to gold and silver’s appeal. Couple this with China’s long-standing cultural affinity for gold and you have the makings for a potentially life-changing gold rush.

If I were a crime detective, I’d say China has the motive, means, and opportunity to push gold and gold stocks much higher.
If you’re interested in taking a stake in China’s booming silver market, make sure to read the latest edition of Casey’s Gold & Resource Report. Jeff has turned up a small company poised to become one of the dominant mining companies in China. This company is sitting on an incredibly rich silver property… it’s heavily owned by its blue-chip management. It’s the one stock to own if China goes “silver crazy.” You can learn about this and all other stocks recommended in Casey’s Gold & Resource Report for just $39 per year. Try it risk-free for 3 months 

What would happen to the gold price if China increased its gold reserves to just 5%? What about 10%? To overtake the U.S. as king of the gold hill, it would have to buy all the gold held by the governments of France, Italy, and Germany combined. Can China really do any of that?

At $1,000 gold, to push China’s gold holdings to 5% of reserves would take $55.3 billion; to 10% would cost $144.4 billion; to be the world’s top gold dog would run $227.6 billion.

Chinese reserves are approaching $2.3 trillion, of which almost 70%, or $1.6 trillion, are denominated in U.S. dollars. The cost to become the world’s biggest holder of gold would be a pittance compared to the amount of money China has available. In other words, money is not a problem.

Combining the country’s massive holdings of dollars and the very real likelihood those dollars are going to lose much of their value, the motivation to buy tangible assets is urgent.

Further, keep this in mind: China’s reserves continue to grow. Therefore, the country must continue buying gold (or consuming its own production) just to maintain the small gold-to-reserves ratio it has, let alone increase it.

In addition to the government buying precious metals, Chinese citizens will continue gobbling them up, too. Demographics alone tell us why.

Government statistics show the average urban household in China has about US$1,300 in disposable income. Multiply that by the number of urban households in China and you come up with roughly $36 billion in available capital.

According to precious metals consultancy CPM Group, about 9.5 million ounces of gold will be turned into coins this year (including “rounds” and medallions). At $1,000 gold, that’s $9.5 billion, or only about one-third of the capital available in China.

The number is more striking for silver: Total coin production this year is expected to hit 35 million ounces, equaling $615 million or just 1.7% of the available capital in China. Of course, a lot of Chinese people want cars and refrigerators, etc., but it won’t take much of a shift of this capital into gold and silver to have a major impact on the global retail precious metals market. It may already be under way.

And long-term projections show the demographic trend won’t slow down: The middle class in China is expected to increase by 70% by 2020. So over these next 10 years, more Chinese and more money will be coming into the precious-metals markets, all at a time when inflation is almost certain to be high, adding to gold and silver’s appeal. Couple this with China’s long-standing cultural affinity for gold and you have the makings for a potentially life-changing gold rush.

If I were a crime detective, I’d say China has the motive, means, and opportunity to push gold and gold stocks much higher.

If you’re interested in taking a stake in China’s booming silver market, make sure to read the latest edition of Casey’s Gold & Resource Report. Jeff has turned up a small company poised to become one of the dominant mining companies in China. This company is sitting on an incredibly rich silver property… it’s heavily owned by its blue-chip management. It’s the one stock to own if China goes “silver crazy.” You can learn about this and all other stocks recommended in Casey’s Gold & Resource Report for just $39 per year. Try it risk-free for 3 months here.

Theo Casey (The Right Side, UK):
While you were sleeping, gold hit another record high.

At last count it was at $1179.

So, while my heart tells me it’s time to take some money off the table, my head tells me that’s not the right side of the trade.
The gravity-defying gold rush is still on. If you already own some, you’re golden so to speak. If you don’t own any, read on to learn a few ways to take part in the rally that everyone’s talking about.

But first, a confession…

Given the many twists and turns in the gold market, I must admit that I’ve taken my eye off the ball. It’s not often that one asset finds friends among so many different investors groups.

I’m used to investing in a stock with a strong retail following. Or a derivative contract popular among traders. Or a fund gathering a lot of IFA interest. With every investment I make, I try to identify its key demographic… and stalk it relentlessly.

I find the people that count and listen to them, quiz them and track their activity to get the inside scoop. By mixing detective work with good old fashioned fundamental analysis, I aim to get the story behind the figures.

This is what I’ve been trying to do with gold.

On top of the generic case for gold…

It’s the one currency that cannot be devalued, hence the most valuable in a time of competitive devaluation by the UK, US, etc.

…I have been looking for the leading lights on the gold market and following their cues.

The exhausted gold detective

As I say, there have been too many cues to follow…

Click here for the rest of Mr. Casey’s insights on the run-up and run-to Gold, at Fleet Street Invest, UK.

Bill Bonner (The Daily Reckoning, UK):

The ‘recession’ did more damage than they think

Claptrap! Nonsense! Balderdash!

Everywhere we look, someone is saying something ridiculous.

Which is good news to us. This Daily Reckoning was getting to be serious work…what with the world facing a total financial meltdown and all.

So, we’re pleased to be able to lighten up by, once again, telling you what an idiot Tom Friedman is. You already knew that? Well, it doesn’t hurt to repeat it…

We hadn’t seen much of the old Tom recently. His recent editorials in the New York Times were no smarter than before, but a bit subdued…as if some chemical trace of good sense had slipped into his system, perhaps from a paper cut. But now, he’s back, big as life and twice as stupid.

We’ll come back to Tom in a moment, but since this is a financial service, we should probably begin with the financial news.

The Financial Times is looking over its shoulder. The recession is over, it says; time to take stock of the damage.

“Beyond the Crisis… With most of the world’s economies officially out of recession, the FT launches a series examining the legacy of worst global economic crisis since the 1930s,” says the FT. But according to the figures below the headline, the crisis wasn’t so bad. The US economy walked backward only 3.5%. Now, it’s making progress again.

The FT editors should keep their eyes on the road. The ‘recession’ did more damage than they think. And it isn’t over… There’s more trouble ahead.

The ‘recession’ in the US has wiped out…

…ten years of stock market progress. Actually, stock prices are no higher than they were in 1998…

…ten years of employment progress. You have to go back to the ’90s to find a time when so few people were working in America…

…ten years of income gains. The typical household had less real, disposable income than it had 10 years ago.

In other words, a whole decade has been lost. Baby boomers are now ten years older, and less prepared for retirement than any previous generation in US history.

In Florida, joblessness has reached 11.2%. The jobless picture gets even grimmer when you consider the effect of long-term unemployment on the unemployed.

“It’s a killer disease,” says Thomas Cottle of Boston University. “People are going to be damaged and may not recover in their lifetimes.”

The FT elaborates: “The longer people are out of work the more their skills decline and the less appealing they become to employers.”

That puts the boomers in a bad spot. If they lose their jobs now they may never work again. Which means, they will face retirement with very little money…and a keen interest in making sure the feds keep the money flowing their way. They may not recover in their lifetimes…

Housing starts are at a 10-month low. Mortgage applications are at a 12-year low. As far as we can tell, both housing and employment figures are getting worse.

In short, the ‘recession’ is far from over, even if the feds are able to jive up the GDP figures from time to time.

Click here for the rest of Mr. Bonner’s insightful analysis at The Daily Reckoning, UK edition.

Karim Rahemtulla (Investment U):
Of all the great investments you could have made in 2009, gold is right up there among the best of them.

The price of gold has surged this year, taking gold shares upwards with it. Readers of my Xcelerated Profits Report have rung the register with 45% profits on Goldcorp (NYSE: GG) and a triple-digit winner on Golden Star Resources (NYSE: GSS). We’re also up big on Yamana Gold (NYSE: AUY) at the moment.

All is good, right?

On the surface, perhaps. But not if you believe what the options market is saying…

Yamana Options Signal a Share Price Drop

Using Yamana as an example, the options market is betting that over the next 12 months or so, Yamana may fall from current levels of around $13 back into the single digits again.

Just take a look at the January 2011 $7.50 put options (the right to sell Yamana shares at $7.50), currently trading at $0.70 cents per contract. This means the put buyer thinks Yamana’s price will fall to $6.80 – almost 50% below current levels – in order to be in the money. The $6.80 price is derived from subtracting the price of the option from the strike price ($7.50 minus $0.70 = $6.80). This tale is similar across other gold shares, too.

These put options are expensive relative to Yamana’s share price – the result of gold prices moving sharply in previous weeks and causing the volatility in gold stocks to increase.

As a quick refresher, the price of an option is based on four major factors:

The price of the underlying shares
The options strike price
The time to expiration
The volatility of the underlying shares
Two Ways to Play Gold Prices… But Only One Viable Option

So if you’re a gold investor looking to participate in the market, what can you do to protect your profits, or buy shares at a lower price? Here are two potential ways…

Click here for the rest of Mr. Rahemtulla’s Analysis at Investment U.

Rob Parenteau (The Daily Reckoning):
The U.S. consumer is bound to play only a lackluster role in this recovery. But this has not mattered to buyers of consumer discretionary stocks who are intent on using the typical business cycle recovery playbook in a recovery that is anything but typical.

The year-over-year growth rate of October retail sales ex-gas is nearly flat from a year ago, while the overall retail sales momentum is still just shy of closing that gap. With comparisons so easy against a year ago, when the global economy was in free fall, this is not a terribly inspiring result. Excluding autos, the sequential gain in October came up short of expectations, with only a 0.2% advance… Caution is still ruling, and for good reason.

Perhaps the dollar levels of retail sales tell the story more clearly. So far, we at best have a shallow recovery in overall retail sales, while furniture and electrical appliance stores are barely scraping out a trough.

Click here for the rest of Mr. Parenteau’s article at The Daily Reckoning.

An interview with Marin Katusa, Casey Research

In the past three years, Marin Katusa, senior energy analyst at Casey Research, has become one of the most respected and listened-to authorities in the investment advisory business. He spends the bulk of his time on airplanes and in far-off places studying the future of energy… and the best ways to make money from it.

Brian Hunt, editor in chief of Stansberry’s free online investment digest, The Daily Crux, interviewed Marin to get his take on where oil prices are headed for the long-term… the regions where investors and traders should focus their dollars… and some of his favorite energy companies with massive upside.

The Daily Crux: Marin… we noticed you guys at Casey Research are bullish on energy. Can you explain to us why?

Marin Katusa: Well, as we’ve mentioned in our Casey Energy letters, we’re short-term bears but long-term bulls.

I think there’s a very good chance oil will be knocked back down along with other markets in the short term, but I’d consider that a rare opportunity to buy the best companies at a steep discount. Long term, I’m very bullish on oil because I think the supply of cheap oil is running out.

The days of cheap and easy oil are over. Oil is getting harder and harder to extract because most of the easy-to-find deposits have already been found and extracted.

The best remaining deposits are deep underwater like in the Gulf of Mexico or offshore of Brazil, in state-controlled or politically unstable areas like Iran and Venezuela, or experiencing dramatically falling production like Mexico. There are also huge oil-sands deposits in Canada, but these are more expensive to extract – anywhere from $35-$40 per barrel for existing production, up to $65 or more for new production.

The simple fact is oil prices will eventually rise due to the increased costs involved in meeting existing demand.

On top of that, you’ve got developing countries beginning to significantly increase their own demand. Right now, you’ve got just 30 or so of the world’s most developed countries, known as the OECD, that consume about half of all the oil produced.

As emerging countries like China and India begin to increase their standard of living, they’ll start using a lot more oil. As you guys know, oil consumption per capita is tied very closely to GDP per capita of the country. So this means these emerging countries could be using multiples of the oil that they use now.

Today, China uses just under six barrels of oil per day for every thousand people. In India, it’s about two and a half barrels for every thousand. In the U.S., it’s just under 70 barrels for every thousand. Even if you figure just a 20% increase in China and India per person – those are huge, huge numbers. China alone has over a billion people. This is going to add tremendous upward pressure on prices.

And of course, I’m sure your readers are aware of the long-term threats to the U.S. dollar. Dollar depreciation will only make the problems I just mentioned that much worse.

That said, in the short term, I think oil is very vulnerable to pullbacks in the general stock market. So we’ve been telling our subscribers to be very cautious. In fact, a year ago, I decided to use $40 oil as the basis for all of our analyses for our newsletter. If a company we were looking at wouldn’t be profitable at $40 oil, then we wouldn’t go any further. The logic behind $40 was to provide a real margin of safety should we get the correction in oil I’m expecting.

But it also pushed me to look a lot deeper and be more selective, and it’s really paid off in our results – over 90% of my recommendations over the last year have delivered significant profits for our subscribers.

The funny thing is that by not using $70 or $80 oil, I started getting hate mail from people, saying, “Don’t you know oil’s at $73 and you’re using $40?” It was hilarious, but that’s exactly my point. If a company cannot be profitable at $40 per barrel of oil, it will underperform its peers even when oil is higher. When I use $40 oil and I like the financials – it’s gold.

A good example of this is what we did with Nexen. When I first wrote it up, it was trading at C$23 per share. After doing my analysis, I thought its intrinsic value was less. I said, “Buy under C$16 per share.” Of course, I got people writing in saying I was out of my mind for setting the buy price so low. Just over a month later, it was trading down below C$16 per share, and my subscribers ended up making about 50% within four months on a low-risk company.

So by using $40 oil, I get my true value, rather than the market value. There’s a difference between intrinsic value and the market value, and I go with intrinsic value. I don’t care what people are paying in the market right now. You might not get it today, you might not get it next week. You have to be patient. It’s what I call “stink bid investing.”

Crux: What else do you look for?

Katusa: Another factor I like to look at is what I call game changers. An example of a game changer is what has recently happened to the natural gas sector in the United States. Companies were victims of their own success, because they were so successful in using new technologies to retrieve gas from the shales, they drove the natural gas price down.

Using advanced technologies to discover big offshore deposits is an example of a game changer in oil. But what you’re going to see is a lot of the big finds are going to be drilled by the major oil companies – what I call the super majors – because it’s just so expensive to drill these targets.

Crux: Nobody else has the money.

Katusa: That’s right. So the only frontiers left for conventional oil production that can be extracted easily and cheaply, like I mentioned before, are in politically unstable countries like Iran, Iraq, Libya.

These countries are fully aware of the potential of their resources locked within their borders. They’re increasing the royalties they charge, including the gradual increase in the use of service fee contracts.

We spent a whole issue talking about this in our Casey Energy Report, in the October issue. In countries where the governments hold the ownership of the oil – such as south central Iraq, Kuwait, even potentially Mexico – these are places that you want to watch out for, because they are constitutionally barred from giving foreign oil companies ownership of the oil in the ground. They’re not as positive as people think they are.

A reliable and friendly oil source to the United States, such as the Alberta oil sands, is not cheap to produce. The oil sands require at least $35-$40 per barrel at the very minimum to extract, compared to less than $5 per barrel in places like Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Kuwait.

Proven reserves in politically stable parts of the world unfortunately will cost the U.S. consumer a lot more money per barrel. We spent a lot of time in our latest issue of Casey’s Energy Opportunities looking at all of the national oil companies. Of those, you’ve really only got three you can possibly invest in, if you dare.

Crux: How about your take on the likelihood of big takeovers and buyouts? Do you see oil-hungry nations like China coming in to buy up a lot of reserves?

Katusa: Absolutely, but it’s not just going to be the Chinese, it’s also going to be big oil companies who want to replace their production with proven reserves in the ground.

An advantage the Chinese companies will have over the Western oil companies is the Chinese ability to leverage their political and economic muscle in places such as Africa, Venezuela, and Bolivia.

These countries potentially hold world-class oil deposits, but it’s much riskier for a Western company to explore these regions than the powerful Chinese oil companies.

Crux: China is already in a bidding war with ExxonMobil for African oil…

Katusa: Right. What our angle is, if you’re looking to invest in Africa, you’re looking for elephant-size deposits – what they call “world class deposits.”

The company needs to go in with a crew able to maneuver in politically unstable parts of the world. We had a big and fast win on a company called Tanganyika Oil, using just that concept. They went in, they built up production, then sold the company to the Chinese.

We’re doing it again right now on a company called Africa Oil – ticker symbol is AOI on the Toronto Venture Exchange – that’s partnering with the Chinese.

The man behind AOI is the same person behind Tanganyika Oil, Lukas Lundin.

Lukas Lundin, like his father before him, has a long record of going into politically unstable parts of the world and succeeding in developing world-class deposits and selling them at huge gains for the investors. So you’re going to see a lot of this type of partnering going on where the Chinese want the North American expertise, and in return, the Chinese add value by political clout and financial clout, helping to pay the costs of development.

We wrote up Africa Oil as a buy under C$1, and when it popped up to about C$1.50, we told our subscribers to take a Casey Free Ride [a profit-taking strategy] when the stock was trading above C$1.30, and it subsequently went as high as C$1.70. Currently we have AOI as a buy under C$1, and it’s trading at C$0.87, which we view as a very cheap cost for this stock.

Crux: Are there any other countries you’re interested in right now? Are you interested in Iraq?

Katusa: In northern Iraq in the Kurdistan region, there are some good onshore blocks with decent royalty rates.

A company called ShaMaran (ticker symbol is SNM on the Venture Exchange) we think has huge potential. It’s totally cashed up. I wrote it up as a buy under C$0.20 and put two buy signals on it. It’s trading at C$0.57 now. It went as high as C$0.80.

And they’ve got about C$0.25 in cash per share. This was a company that was trading less than cash – they had more cash than the market cap. Our shareholders bought millions of shares, because we were the only ones writing it up. And it had zero interest – there was nothing going on with it. And they’re now in northern Iraq in the area of Kurdistan, which has huge, huge potential.

I’ve also been looking at Colombia. I think that’s a country that people have to pay attention to. In the last month, a lot of the smart money, the big, big players in Vancouver – Frank Giustra and Sam Magid – have been putting huge money, their own personal money, into a bunch of oil plays in Colombia. I would recommend your readers take a look at some Colombia plays. One that I really like is Petroamerica, symbol PTA on the Venture Exchange.

Crux: Great. Any parting thoughts?

Katusa: I think what you have to emphasize to people is to buy at a discount to intrinsic value when it’s unpopular, and sell at market value when it’s popular.

That’s not just being a contrarian. A contrarian is just buying something that’s unpopular. Buy something unpopular that has a great discount to its intrinsic value, and when you sell, sell when it’s popular and trading at the market value, not at its intrinsic value. So those are the two rules that I have.

Crux: Thanks for your time.

Katusa: My pleasure.

As mentioned above, Marin’s track record for profiting in resources like crude oil, natural gas, and uranium is unmatched in the industry.

If you’re interested in reading a monthly analysis on the trends and stocks Marin likes, you can get on board as a Casey Energy Opportunities subscriber for only $39 per year. It’s an incredible deal and completely risk-free, with our 3-month, 100% money-back guarantee. You can learn more about a subscription here.

Bill Bonner (The Daily Reckoning, UK Edition):
The Dow fell slightly on Friday. Oil ended the week at $77. The dollar went nowhere.

But gold rose to a new high – $1,146. Today it’s hitting more new highs above $1,160…

Whatever else may be going on, there’s a real bull market in gold. It’s a bull market that began ten years ago. If you’d bought stocks then, you’d have about what you have now… less inflation. If you’d bought gold… you have about 4 times what you had then.

Today, a quick glance at a chart shows gold looking a little toppy. Expect a correction. But remember, this is a bull market. In a bull market, you buy the dips.

Stocks, meanwhile, are in a bear market. In a bear market, you sell the rallies. This looks like a good time to sell – if you haven’t done so already.

“Take Your Gains,” says Forbes. And once you’re out of stocks, stay out until the bear market is over… probably at around 3,000 – 5,000 on the Dow. When the price of gold equals the price of the Dow, it will be time to switch.

We haven’t seen the last of this bull market in gold. It’s what you buy when you think government is making a mess of the monetary situation. You put your trust in gold as an antidote… as protection… as wealth insurance.

Are the feds making a mess of the monetary situation? Oh dear, dear reader… please ask us something harder. Trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see… Stimulus spending that turns the US into a Zombie Economy… Handouts to the bankers… gifts to the carry traders…

The feds are out-doing themselves… more below…

As for the bear market on Wall Street, investors are counting on a miracle… a ‘recovery’ that doubles corporate earnings in just a couple years. They think it’s “just like 1982”. Of course, it is just the opposite of 1982… see the table below.

Besides, there is no recovery… and profits will go down, as businesses compete for less spending.

The recovery may be all in your head, writes Robert Shiller, in the New York Times:

“Consider this possibility: after all these months, people start to think it’s time for the recession to end. The very thought begins to renew confidence, and some people start spending again — in turn, generating visible signs of recovery. This may seem absurd, and is rarely mentioned as an explanation for mass behavior late in a recession, but economic theorists have long been fascinated by such a possibility.

“Back in 1931, for example, The New York Times attributed the emerging economic cataclysm to a “mood of pessimism which had been carried to grotesque extremes.” In 1932, it compared reckless talk about “depression” to shouting “fire” in a crowded theater.”

It doesn’t matter what anyone says. It’s a depression. It’s nothing like the garden-variety recessions of the Post-War period.

It’s a depression because of the nature of the work it has to do. It has to clean up 3 decades’ worth of filthy balance sheets.

Click here for the rest of Mr. Bonner’s insightful commentary at The Daily Reckoning, UK Edition.

David Fessler (Investment U):

As the old saying goes, “You’re either a contrarian, or a victim.”

It just so happens that one of the savviest contrarians I know is my colleague, Louis Basenese.

And nobody takes that to heart more than Lou does. I’ve scratched my head in bewilderment on many occasions after reading one of Lou’s bold predictions – only to see his intuition prove uncanny time after time.

So today I’m stealing a page from the “Basenese Playbook” and taking a look at the severely battered transportation sector, one that pretty much everybody hates. However, I think, it’s not only about to come off life support, but perhaps become one of the hottest investments in 2010.

The Transportation Sector: The Market’s Most Important Domain

Airlines, railways, package carriers, even oil and gas pipelines are all industries that make up the transportation sector.

But why should you care about it?

Because transportation is actually the most important sector – and for good reason: growth or contraction here serves as a proxy for both U.S. and global economic growth.

It stands to reason that if more “stuff” is being shipped, it means companies are producing more goods to satisfy business and consumer demand. In turn, this is a good indication that the U.S. economy – and that of the rest of the globe – is in decent shape.

Right now, however, there’s a big change underway in U.S. freight transportation. Thing is though, it’s hardly received any attention. So let’s take a closer look…

And the World’s Most Efficient Transportation System Is…

Let me toss a few statistics your way…

Click here to read the rest of Mr. Fessler’s article at Investment U and uncover his three transportation sector picks.

Lord William Rees-Mogg (Fleet Street Invest UK):
In the last six months there has been a rebound of 50% in the great majority of world stock markets.

There has also been a comparable rebound in the price of oil, with West Texas oil rising very close to $80 a barrel. In the oil market there has been heavy two-way trading in options. There could be a sharp spike in the oil price if speculators have to cover their positions.

At the same time the US dollar has remained weak, and now stands at $1.4886 to the euro and $1.66628 to the pound. This is close to a 14-month low on a trade-weighted basis. The poor performance of the dollar reflects the low US interest rates and the twin US fiscal and trade deficits.

The demise of the dollar

The dollar nevertheless remains the world’s leading reserve currency, with the euro in second place. Investors are naturally anxious to protect themselves against markets, including currency markets, which have shown such a high degree of volatility.

The Chinese, who have the greatest number of dollars in their currency reserves, have already suffered substantial losses.

In what amounts to a crisis of the dollar, the euro is in second place as a reserve currency, but there are potential threats to the future of the euro, due to the weak productivity of the Mediterranean economies. There is a big stretch in productivity growth between the German and the Southern European regions.

The fall in the dollar against other currencies includes a devaluation of the dollar in terms of gold, which now seems to have stabilized at a dollar price of $1,050 an ounce.

The circumstances do indeed appear to be uniquely favourable to gold.

Interest rates and therefore carrying costs are exceptionally low. The dollar is exceptionally weak. The technical market position is strong, including good demand for gold in terms of jewellery. The oil price – which is often linked to gold – is rising. Those who believe that oil is due for a further rise to $100 a barrel are likely also to be confident about holding a proportion of their investment . . .
Click here to read the rest of Lord Rees-Mogg’s article at Fleet Street Invest UK.

Chuck Butler (The Daily Reckoning):
As I checked the currencies throughout the day yesterday, I noticed that as the day went on, the non-dollar currencies were stronger, led by the Big Dog, euro (EUR)… But then late last night, and I mean late last night, I checked them, and those gains had been wiped out.

So, when I arrived here this morning, I had one thing on the top of my list of things to do, and that was to find out what happened… Come on, I said to myself, it had to be more than the “risk on, risk off” stuff that’s been hanging over the markets like the Sword of Damocles! But, when you get right down to the nitty gritty, that’s all it was… For once again, there was some data, or story, or rumor, that spooked the markets into believing the global recovery isn’t going to happen, and the “risk off” came into play.

So what was it that spooked the markets… Well… The only thing I can find was the report yesterday about falling Housing Starts that Chris told you about… Did you know that about 14% of US homeowners were either delinquent on their mortgage or in some stage of foreclosure? That is the highest rate since the group started collecting the data in 1972!

But there was something else that was announced as the day went on, that I think probably spooked the markets more than anything else… And that is a key House panel approved two amendments to a sweeping financial-overhaul bill that would give federal watchdogs new authority to audit the Federal Reserve, and would establish a fund of as much as $200 billion to help dissolve large, troubled institutions. Rep. Ron Paul (R., Texas) offered the amendment seeking to subject the Fed to audits.

The House Financial Services Committee voted 41-28 to approve the amendments, wrapping up weeks of debate but postponing a final vote on the bill until after Thanksgiving.

OK… More deficit spending for sure, and I’m positive that this was “hung on this bill” to audit the Fed as the only way it would get through the gauntlet.
Click here to finish Mr. Butler’s article at The Daily Reckoning.