Brian Hunt (The Right Side):
In the past three months, there’s been a very popular – and very wrong – thing to say about owning gold.

I hear it a lot from inexperienced Wall Street analysts, bloggers, and money managers who spend little time living in the “real world”.

The FDIC is considering tapping its emergency line of credit with the Treasury. FDIC Chair Sheila Bair recently hinted after a speech at Georgetown University that all options are on the table when it comes time to replenish the dwindling Deposit Insurance Fund. We’ll find out more in the next few weeks after the FDIC board of directors meets.

Resource exploration stocks are notoriously volatile. Fear and greed play out in this sector like few others. Stocks tend to go irrationally high and stupidly low. And therein lies the opportunity.

The higher this rally goes the more you’ll hear that another bull market has started, says underground investor Chris Weber. But Chris is warning investors not to be fooled.

Another sure sign that inflation is a clear and present danger is the recent rise in oil prices. Wednesday, crude oil set its 2009 high at $54.83 in New York intraday trading.

In the gold business, there are two kinds of companies, says mining guru Doug Casey. First, there are the companies that dig gold out of the ground after it has been discovered. These are the “producers.” These companies have done well during the current gold bull market – up as much as 200% during that period.

Naturally, most investors are hoping that the current stock market rally will hold and we’ll embark on another bull run. But what if it doesn’t?

If you save for retirement through a 401(k) plan, or have large IRA or Keogh Plan assets, you probably hurled your last statement in the bin. If you’d been making contributions consistently over the last decade, your last annual or monthly statement probably showed that the current value of your plan was well below the amount you had actually invested.

At this point, the temptation to work as long as possible, and then blow what remains of your savings on a round-the-world cruise and a suicide pill is considerable.

However, such despair is unwarranted.

Unless you have already given up all paid employment, or absolutely have to retire in the next year or two, the current bear market may have made your eventual…

As you read this, huge supertankers filled with oil are moored off the coast of Scotland and the Gulf of Mexico. The question is why… and what it could mean for oil-related profit opportunities in 2009. I came across a great line in Barron’s the other day. You know all about bull markets and bear markets… what we have now is a “Jim Morrison market.”

For the past several years, the Pilbara Region of Western Australia has witnessed a boom like few mining districts have ever seen.