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Apple sold for a pittance prior to the 2001 launch of the iPod, which sent its stock skyrocketing. Research In Motion traded for a measly $1.50/share before the BlackBerry tapped the market for cell phones with email capability. Then it marched 8,160% higher.

One small company just perfected an incredibly durable, flexible “wonder-material” that weighs just ounces but is a strong as many types of steel. It could revolutionize its industry. And it trades for just $7. We have strong reason to believe the price to double in the next 6 months.

With that said, a stock breaking above its 200-day moving average should be viewed as a bullish thing.

Take a look at the chart below of Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL).

As you can see, Apple first plummeted under its 200-day moving average back in September. And it went on to drop nearly 50% within three months.

But just recently, in mid-April, Apple popped back above its 200-day moving average. That was almost ten bucks ago.

The lesson should be clear, buying into a stock that’s crossing its 200-day moving average it typically a good idea (pending a little research on your part).

Some stocks recently crossing their 200-day moving averages are BHP Billiton (NYSE:BHP), Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE:AMD), Micron (NYSE:MU), Toyota Motors (NYSE:TM), and Sony (NYSE:SNE).

That’s because in this market, cheap is king.

Considering Apple sells laptop and desktop computers at a $500 – $1,000 price premium, consumers feeling the pinch of the recession are likely to shy away from buying an Apple computer in the short to medium term.

And this kind of pull back would undoubtedly hurt AAPL’s share price.

This is a chart AAPL that goes back to the end of September.

As you can see, AAPL has formed a nice consolidation pattern (I talked about these here) that has held since last November.

Basically, every time Apple hits $100 a share it drops. And any time it hits $83 a share, it climbs.

Here’s my big, bold prediction: AAPL is heading south. Short AAPL (or buy a put option if you’re feeling saucy) and ride the sucker down to $83 a share.

That’s a nearly 20% profit.

Always remember to play it safe by having a stop-loss before jumping into the play.

Tonight, after nearly four months of competition and thousands of possible contestants, the winner of American Idol will be announced on live television. This year’s contest, seen by hundreds of millions of viewers who accounted for even more votes via phone calls and text messages, has been one of the most popular of the show’s successful seven-season run.

So after all that, America will choose between 17-year-old wide-eyed wunderkind David Archuleta and 25-year-old Kansas City rocker David Cook. While the chance to win the competition looms large for both contestants, both will undoubtedly enjoy lucrative careers.

Over the past seven seasons, American Idol contestants have posted as many as 71 singles on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The show has produced successful recording artists, multiple Grammy winners, and even an Academy Award winner. There is no denying the overwhelming achievement of what some consider nothing more than a glorified karaoke contest.

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Why Has Oil Surged?

Dwindling value in the dollar, a crisis in U.S. credit, rising demand from overseas. These are all explanations for the recent surge in oil prices. But that’s not the whole story.

There are more dangerous and deadly reasons for the rise in oil prices, and the real truth explains why we can expect this surge to last for a long time to come. Click here to read about the “bloody backlash.”

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Since becoming one of the most successful reality television shows of all time and the flagship program of the Fox network, American Idol has established itself as a marketing monster and moneymaking machine. With lucrative sponsorships from companies like Coca-Cola and AT&T, along with millions of dollars pouring in from other miscellaneous sponsors, American Idol has made many people very rich.

One of the ways Idol has been able to generate viewership and buzz is through the songs the contestants are able to perform. Over the years, performances on the show have evolved from classic standby numbers your grandmother may even strain to recall to many of today’s chart-topping hits. Even the elusive Lennon-McCartney songbook was opened for this season’s show.

The success of the show has opened up a dual incentive and revenue stream between the show’s producers and the owners of the songs they sing. The simple reason for this is royalties. Each time a song is performed on American Idol, the show’s producers pay the owner of that song’s rights a royalty fee. This creates a mutually beneficial, symbiotic relationship between Idol and the songwriters and recording artists who lend their work to the show.

The concept of royalty fees is simple, while the application is quite complex. But for our uses, simply imagine already incredibly wealthy musicians and writers sitting back and collecting checks for seemingly doing nothing. On last night’s finale performance show, popular songs by artists such as U2, Elton John, and John Lennon were performed. These performers have (or had) an unimaginable amount of wealth and fame, and last night’s performances simply added to that. Not only that, but recordings of the Idol contestants performing the songs are then sold as downloads in the Apple iTunes music store. You can bet that Bono, Elton, and Yoko will be picking up checks for those sales, as well.

The relatively new relationship between American Idol and Apple has generated even more money in royalty fees and more exposure for the original artists. This season, popular performances of Leonard Cohen’s biblical ballad “Hallelujah” and Lee Greenwood’s patriotic anthem “Proud to Be an American” boosted the sales of the original recordings on iTunes, as well as millions of downloads of the Idol versions.

For doing nothing, Cohen and Greenwood collected handsome royalty checks thanks to the popularity of American Idol.

For many people, the concept of royalty fees is exclusive to the entertainment field. We’ve all heard the story of Michael Jackson outbidding Paul McCartney for the rights to The Beatles recordings and the amount of money he has been able to make from the royalty rights alone.

But did you know that regular, everyday investors like yourself could also get in on the royalty game? It may not be as glamorous or public as sales of your song on iTunes, but you can still mint a pretty penny from collecting royalty fees.

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Double Your Money — While Wall Street Is Tanking

While others are losing their shirts as the stock market crashes, you have the chance to come out ahead.

There’s one service that will help you during the turbulent markets 2008-2009 markets ahead…

Find out how to stay safe and profitable while others sweat out the recession here.

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The royalty fees I’m talking about are not in the entertainment sector at all, but rather from the same oil and natural gas, gold, silver, and resource stocks we discuss all the time. These fees are paid by royalty trusts companies, and many investors have made a lot of money by, in essence, doing nothing.

With a royalty trust, you, essentially, own a piece of land that is rich in oil, gas, or any of these resources if you become a shareholder. These companies then rent that land to developers and miners who do all the dirty work of extracting the resource from the ground. The royalty fee is paid back to the trust, and a share of that money is then passed on to you.

While driving would have offered more freedom and the chance to crank up the CD player, I didn’t fancy paying the equivalent of $9.75 a gallon for gasoline, in addition to rental charges. So although the train was hardly cheap – £90 ($176) for the return trip from Southampton to Liverpool – it was much easier on the wallet. Particularly a wallet already getting hammered because of the awful dollar-pound exchange rate.

Yes, Britain is still in the same shape as the last time I went: Bloody expensive! But although it’s enduring several similar economic problems as the US, that hasn’t stopped a significant Anglo-American corporate merger…

Fine With 5… For Now

Having cut interest rates three times since December – from 5.75% to 5% – the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee decided to hold fire this time around.

But with more bad economic data this week, many don’t expect the status quo to last long. In fact, the bankers could chop again as soon as next month. Consider this:

• The Chartered Institute for Purchasing and Supply said the British service sector grew at the slowest rate in five years in April.
• The Office for National Statistics reported that Britain’s manufacturing sector output dropped 0.5% in March – the worst performance in six months.
• The number of mortgage lending approvals has halved over the past year, leaving many homebuyers unable to get financing at an affordable price. In addition, the number of first-quarter home repossession orders shot up by 17% over Q1 2007.
• First quarter GDP growth crawled in at 0.4%, compared with the 0.6% rate over the final three months of 2007. It was the weakest quarter-over-quarter growth rate since the first quarter of 2005.

Like the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England is trying to balance poor economic data against high inflation. The current UK inflation rate is 2.5% – 0.5% higher than the government’s 2% target.

And with the British Retail Consortium reporting that food costs are up 4.7% over this time last year, British households are now spending almost one-third of their income on food and bills. One possible reason why the bank left rates unchanged is because it fears a poor inflation number next week and another cut would make it look irresponsible.

Britain Following In America’s Footsteps… And The Bankers Are Divided

Many economists agree that the UK economy is mirroring the US – and with its performance just a few quarters behind the US, the current situation could get worse.

That’s a view shared by Bank of England’s most dovish monetary policy board member, David Blanchflower, who favors low interest rates over a potential inflationary spike. He says the risk of not being more aggressive with rate cuts could send the UK economy down the same rocky path as America, triggering a sharp economic downturn.

But at least the Bank of England has one advantage. Having seen how the Fed has handled the crisis, it has a better idea of what steps to take to avoid a similar blow-up.

However, the April meeting showed the bankers are split. While six of the nine members favored the interest rate cut, two voted for no change and one (Blanchflower) wanted a larger chop to 4.75%.

While they debate, though, Britain’s stock market has actually performed well over the past few months. In fact, since the Bear Stearns mess caused global turmoil on March 17, the FTSE-100 index has risen around 800 points – as you can see on this chart.

And eager to tap into that strength, one of America’s big boys just came knocking…

The “Best Buy” For America’s Biggest Electronics Retailer

With a 20% market share, Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) is already winning the battle against the likes of Circuit City (NYSE: CC). But the world’s largest consumer electronics retailer just strengthened further by beefing up its international presence.

The firm announced on Thursday that it will spend $2.1 billion to acquire half of British mobile telecommunications company Carphone Warehouse (CPW.L). Having already worked with Carphone Warehouse for two years and bought a 2.9% stake in the firm last year, this deal will now see Best Buy add to Carphone’s existing 2,400 stores and take its large, superstore-style US shops to the UK and Europe under the Best Buy brand name in 2009.

For Best Buy, it’s a lucrative opportunity to tap into Europe’s annual $175 billion consumer electronics market. And rather than trying to crack the European retail market by itself – a move that has proved tricky for other US retailers – it’s teaming up with an already dominant, well-established company (Carphone was founded in 1989) that has the experience, expertise, and strong brand. In addition, Best Buy will take its successful Geek Squad in-home technical support team to Britain.

Moreover, with the high profit margins in the mobile phone market, the partnership will add $5 billion to Best Buy’s fiscal 2009 revenues and 5-9 cents in earnings per share.

That’s on top of the 11.4% sales jump to $40 billion in Best Buy’s last fiscal year, which produced earnings of $1.4 billion, up 2.2%. The firm also offers a $0.52 annual dividend per share (1.2% yield) to shareholders.

So what about the other side of the merger? And how are investors reacting to the deal?

Investors Are Non-Plussed Now… But This Deal Should Pay Off Later

Judging by the share price action of both Best Buy and Carphone Warehouse, you’d think it’s a bad deal. Investors have bailed on the shares over the past couple of days.

Obviously, there are risks – not least of which being the fact that consumer spending is currently slowing as inflation rises and demand for high-end electronics has cooled

But ultimately, I believe it’s actually a good move for both sides. In Carphone’s case, the firm gains access to Best Buy’s hugely successful, proven model, which should give it a healthy boost in the ultra-competitive UK telecommunications and electronics market.