Multi currency investments can reap rich rewards right now. Take, for example, this multi currency Brazilian investment. The recent drop in U.S. dollar interest rates means you can now borrow dollars at between 4.175% and 4.875%.

Soft commodities are now the best-performing sub-set of the commodity bull market. It’s easy to see why. The world’s supply is withering.

So today I thought for sure that the market would continue along its well-beaten illogical path.  The Dow was up over 100 points at one time. And then ten minutes before the close, the Dow was fighting just to stay in the green!

The real problem with the inflation/deflation battle…when your farthings aren’t worth what you thought… Which way will this tug-of-war go?…the end of a 28-year long road…the trouble with food…Dismembering the financial sector…the loose financial mores of the U.S. financial system…and more!

Hey it’s not all bad news. At least the footy season starts in eight days. Go the Saints! Go the Demons! We can’t decide on which team to barrack for. So we’re hedging our bets for now, betting on both extremes.

Last week was as depressing and alarming as any we’ve seen in the financial markets in the last ten years. Let’s hope this week isn’t an encore. But we’re not betting on it.

Inflation hasn’t been much of a problem in the United States since Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker jacked up the Fed Funds rate to 20% in order to combat rising prices.

The Oracle of Omaha — aka Warren Buffett — says stocks in the US still aren’t cheap. Instead, he continues to focus on the credit markets where bargains rule in early 2008.

Buffett’s company, Berkshire Hathaway, released fourth quarter results last week and showed a decline in year-over-year earnings. Although Buffett holds very little derivatives exposure (only for currency hedging), his insurance holdings are facing stiffer headwinds since last fall, along with the rest of the industry.

If a shift from low volatility to high volatility signals a change for the worse in the macroeconomic outlook, then the collapse in the yield of short term US Treasury securities is a symptom of the current credit crisis, which has infected all the sectors of the credit market save the highest quality credits.

Both the United States and the European governments are pushing for global codes that will make sure that sovereign wealth funds aren’t transforming the billions they’re investing in Western companies into positions of influence for the foreign governments that operate the funds.