The prevailing Wall Street wisdom – and I use that term loosely – thinks there’s a better chance that some other “boom” is going to get under way. And over $8 trillion is parked on the sidelines waiting for it.

I guess the thought is that this economic resurrection will come seemingly out of nowhere. And that will lead us out of the deepening morass we’re mired in. Right…

But we’re not the closed-minded type around here. We don’t judge, and we don’t turn down a chance for above average profits.

So in the interest of fairness, let’s look at the probability of “booms” in other sectors, in the hopes they could fuel a global economic recovery.

4 “Boom” Possibilities

• A Housing/Building Boom?

Sure, maybe in my kid’s lifetime, but not in yours or mine. Let’s face it – we’re still in the process of busting. Just look at this sobering statistic:

In “normal” real estate markets, the inventory of bank-owned foreclosed properties is usually around 160,000 or so. Last November, completed foreclosures hit 900,000. Another 72,694 were added in January. February tacked on another 121,756.

But it gets even worse. According to RealtyTrac, nearly 75% of the property in foreclosures have yet to be listed for sale. That means another 300,000 or so homes already in the foreclosure process will be added to the total.

And there’s more coming behind them… lots more. Foreclosure filings for February alone hit 207,703, up 24% from January. Sales of foreclosed homes rose 4.4% in 2008, but availability of homes for sale doubled.

All this has the effect of keeping home supply much greater than demand. Bottom-line: You can forget a housing/building boom anytime soon.

• A Consumer Spending Boom?

Spending with what? Most consumers who used their home’s equity as an ATM are finding it out of cash. And now they’re strapped with big payments they can’t afford.

With home values cut in half in some parts of the country, most couldn’t squeeze more out even if they wanted to. Some will lose their jobs and will have to give up their homes (adding to the foreclosure situation).

Another nail on the consumer spending boom coffin is that Americans are saving more than they have in over 14 years. After years of dismal savings, consumers have started to get the message of “saving for a rainy day.” Unfortunately, only because it’s raining.

• An Export Boom?

The last time this country had a trade surplus was in 1991. As Warren Buffett likes to quip, “Right now, the world owns $3 trillion more of us than we own of them.”

And that’s not going to get better anytime soon.

While imports are certainly down (see consumer spending boom), many of the industries that contribute to exports are being decimated, too. Take the recyclables industry for example: It exported $22 billion worth of recyclables in 2007, mostly to China. 2008’s numbers, while not finalized, are expected to be down 50% to 75%.

And that’s just one example. We aren’t even touching on the fact that the world’s economies are in worse shape than ours is. So you can forget about an export boom.

• A Manufacturing Boom?

Every day, we read about another company laying off workers, in response to a drop in its business. It’s not too surprising, given the slowdown in consumer spending, the virtual shutdown of automobile sales, and the lack of consumers and businesses buying “stuff.”

We can expect that to continue.

It’s very likely that unemployment percentages will reach double digits later this year nationally. In some regions it’s there already. And it’s not hard to see why. (See the last three boom reasons above.)

So where does that leave us? Well, we could talk about a health care boom, or a biotech boom or some other mini boom that might have an uplifting effect on some small area of the country or the population.

But none of them will have the desired effect. They can’t cast a wide net over the entire economy to pull the country up from the depths of the deep recession we’re stuck in. None of them are the economic panacea, if you will, that we need.

Except two…

Energy and Infrastructure – 2 More Boom Possibilities

History has repeatedly shown that cheap energy and modern, efficient infrastructure are the key building blocks of sustainable economic growth. The World Bank estimates that for every 1% increase in a country’s infrastructure equates to a 1% increase in its GDP.

And I can think of no other initiative that can match the wide-ranging boost that energy and infrastructure projects will give to an ailing economy:

• Employment: Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of jobs would be created both in the United States and around the world. When people have jobs, they have income, and they’ll spend it on things like houses, cars and trucks, consumables and “toys.”

• Construction: nothing jumpstarts an economy better than huge, labor-intensive energy and infrastructure projects. Jobs, heavy and light equipment purchases, and material purchases will boost companies in those sectors, many of whom are hurting right now.

• Manufacturing: Many things will have to be made and entirely new industries will spring up to support solar, wind, geothermal and infrastructure initiatives.

I believe that this administration – similar to that of FDR’s – likes the idea. Bank balance sheets are well on their way to being stabilized enough to lend and extend credit to both individuals and businesses. Government-induced catalysts in the form of monetary stimulus and tax incentives are slowly being put into place.

They need to happen quickly though – and be large enough – to kickoff the energy and infrastructure build-out… the “EIBO Boom” as I like to call it.

It’s an acronym I’ve coined to describe what I believe will be the single best place to focus your investment dollars for the next 20 years.

I’ll be writing about those opportunities here, and speaking about them at the Investment U Conference in St. Petersburg, Florida in just a few weeks. I hope to see you there.

Source: Energy & Infrastructure: The Cure For Our Economy

According to The Guardian newspaper, there’s growing confidence that so-called “grid parity”, the holy grail of the industry — whereby solar power can be produced as cheaply as it bought from the grid — is close at hand.

“The [US]  government recently incentivized production of ethanol, biofuel, and solar technology,” says Charles Delvalle in Investor’s Daily Edge.

If a Democrat gets into office, these incentives should grow. Congress even pushed up the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFÉ) guidelines for the first time since 1975. And the idea of carbon credits is beginning to gain traction in Congress.

So the government is helping fuel the creation of cleaner energy. Step one is complete.

What about step two?

If I talk to any of my friends and tell them I love the things oil does to the earth, they’ll slap me (yes, I know oil is bad for the earth). If I told them that I didn’t recycle, they’d yell at me (yes, I recycle). My friends are already convinced that the green movement is the way to go.

If you type in the word ‘green’ in Google, you’ll see thousands of new websites that all talk about how great it is to be green.

Look at corporate trends, and you see more commercials with companies talking about going green. Wal-Mart, IBM, Intel, Google, and even ExxonMobil is getting into the act. The idea of going green is spreading like wildfire. And it will only increase as gas prices move higher.

The green market is definitely seeing the second step. But how about the third?

Have you seen solar stocks lately? In the past two years, these companies have popped by 100% – 300%. And it seems like a new solar company pops up every other day touting a ‘breakthrough’ technology that allows amazing conversion of light to electricity. Many have no profits to speak of and don’t plan on entering production for years.

Ethanol stocks were moving higher for a while, but have gone down since the middle of last year (maybe investors are catching on to how ‘not green’ ethanol really is). Geothermal producers are shooting higher. And those who sell wind turbines are making great money on increasing orders.

By 2030, Morgan Stanley expects green sales across the globe to total over $1 trillion (that’s bigger than the Gross Domestic Product of 169 of the 181 member countries of the International Monetary Fund!).

Most people I speak to see green technology as the wave of the future. It’ll only be a matter of time until they think that investing in green companies is a no-brainer.

In the end, this whole green movement we see today could very well be the start of yet another massive bubble. And considering the riches that were made during the two previous bubbles, catching the green investment mania early on would be a great way to make a lot of coin in the next few years.

“The richest investment opportunities can be found in the fast-emerging alternative energy sector,” says Mike Burnick in The Offshore A-Letter.

That’s where oilman T. Boone Pickens is putting his money – his company Mesa Power just placed an order for US$2 billion in wind turbines. And there’s much more profit potential in other parts of the alternative energy sector too – especially alternative fuel.

The market for ALL alternative energy sources grew 40% last year alone to US$77.3 billion and will explode into a US$250 billion industry within 10 years.

Bio-fuel grew to a US$25.4 billion market last with more than 15 billion gallons of ethanol and biodiesel produced globally – more than double the output of just four years ago. The worldwide Bio-fuel industry will continue to enjoy explosive growth for years to come – expanding into a US$81 billion business within the next 10-years!

The European Union has set a target date of 2020 for 20% of its energy to come from renewable sources. The British Wind Energy Association said Britain will contribute 15%, meaning up to 40% of the country’s power will come from wind energy by the target date.

“The richest investment opportunities can be found in the fast-emerging alternative energy sector,” says Mike Burnick in The Offshore A-Letter.

That’s where oilman T. Boone Pickens is putting his money – his company Mesa Power just placed an order for US$2 billion in wind turbines. And there’s much more profit potential in other parts of the alternative energy sector too – especially alternative fuel.

• The market for ALL alternative energy sources grew 40% last year alone to US$77.3 billion and will explode into a US$250 billion industry within 10 years.
• Bio-fuel grew to a US$25.4 billion market last with more than 15 billion gallons of ethanol and biodiesel produced globally – more than double the output of just four years ago.
• The worldwide Bio-fuel industry will continue to enjoy explosive growth for years to come – expanding into a US$81 billion business within the next 10-years!

But you don’t have to wait two decades or even two years to start making serious money from this energy-sector market shock…

Fossil fuels are dead – the future belongs to alternative energy. Vast fortunes will be made in the “great fuel revolution!”

Investing in established wind energy stocks stocks is a great way to profit, says Charles Delvalle in Investor’s Daily Edge:

It seems to me that investing in green stocks is a great thing to do. What you want to do is avoid the companies that have no profits… the ones that are using very experimental technologies that haven’t been proven yet. These companies may do well in the future, but you take a huge risk by putting your money on them now.

If you think investing in clean energy is a bad idea, just take a look at the Market Vectors Global Alternative Energy Fund (GEX) and you’ll see that the sector’s been clearly moving higher. And the PowerShares Global Clean Energy Portfolio (PBD) has been doing the same.

Thomson Reuters reports that, according to the National Venture Capital Association, the alternative energy investments sector boasts the highest growth in venture capital investments in the last five years.

Big bucks are also flowing in from US pension funds into an array of alternative energy investments, stoking concerns of a possible bubble. Reuters says that the “exposure of pension funds and other institutional investors to alternative energy projects is small but growing with investments in geothermal to hydro, wind, solar, biomass, tidal energy and landfill gas.”

Charles Delvalle in Investor’s Daily Edge says it’s a great time for alternative energy investments…

The government recently incentivized production of ethanol, biofuel, and solar technology. If a Democrat gets into office, these incentives should grow. Congress even pushed up the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFÉ) guidelines for the first time since 1975. And the idea of carbon credits is beginning to gain traction in Congress.

So the government is helping fuel the creation of cleaner energy. Step one is complete.

What about step two?

If I talk to any of my friends and tell them I love the things oil does to the earth, they’ll slap me (yes, I know oil is bad for the earth). If I told them that I didn’t recycle, they’d yell at me (yes, I recycle). My friends are already convinced that the green movement is the way to go.

If you type in the word ‘green’ in Google, you’ll see thousands of new websites that all talk about how great it is to be green.

Look at corporate trends, and you see more commercials with companies talking about going green. Wal-Mart, IBM, Intel, Google, and even ExxonMobil is getting into the act. The idea of going green is spreading like wildfire. And it will only increase as gas prices move higher.

The green market is definitely seeing the second step. But how about the third?

Have you seen solar stocks lately? In the past two years, these companies have popped by 100% – 300%. And it seems like a new solar company pops up every other day touting a ‘breakthrough’ technology that allows amazing conversion of light to electricity. Many have no profits to speak of and don’t plan on entering production for years.

Ethanol stocks were moving higher for a while, but have gone down since the middle of last year (maybe investors are catching on to how ‘not green’ ethanol really is). Geothermal producers are shooting higher. And those who sell wind turbines are making great money on increasing orders.

By 2030, Morgan Stanley expects green sales across the globe to total over $1 trillion (that’s bigger than the Gross Domestic Product of 169 of the 181 member countries of the International Monetary Fund!).

Most people I speak to see green technology as the wave of the future. It’ll only be a matter of time until they think that investing in green companies is a no-brainer.

In the end, this whole green movement we see today could very well be the start of yet another massive bubble. And considering the riches that were made during the two previous bubbles, catching the green investment mania early on would be a great way to make a lot of coin in the next few years.

Jason Simpkins in Money Morning reckons one of the best alternative energy investments is in uranium and uranium mining stocks:

Uranium has become one of the most coveted and volatile commodities on the planet. Overall, uranium gained 28% in 2007, but that seemingly simple statistic masks a much-more-complex story.

At one point in June, uranium prices were up 84% for the year. But then a mass sell-off – accelerated by the U.S. Department of Energy’s decision to auction off as much as 200 tons of uranium from its own inventory – drove prices from $138 a pound down to $75 a pound in just three months.

So far this year uranium has skidded even more, reaching its current trading price of about $65 a pound. Despite the dip, however, the underlying fundamentals remain strong, meaning it’s probably the perfect time to start stocking back up on the yellow cake providers.

In a recent research note, analysts with the RBC Capital Markets Group of the Royal Bank of Canada (RY) said that the current spot price of uranium has been “driven to excessively low levels due to intense selling pressure and lack of buying demand, coupled with the typical illiquidity of the spot market.”

The RBC analysts also said that “the long-term price, on the other hand, has not changed since May 2007 and we think this better reflects the market’s view of longer-term supply-demand fundamentals.”

So where should you look for profit opportunities? If you look at the charts, some uranium mining company stocks appear to move up and down in virtual lockstep with spot prices.
If you want a pure play on an increase in the price of uranium itself, Cameco Corp. (CCJ) is your best shot. It’s the largest producer of uranium in North America and – despite flooding at its Cigar Lake site last year – Cameco remains the world’s largest and most liquid uranium miner, making it vital to the global supply.

The company’s profit more than doubled in the first three months of 2008, surging 125% on its uranium and gold mining operations. RBC also likes Cameco’s potential.

Read more here for Jason’s tips on maximising profit from blue-chip uranium mining stocks.