If you like the car, will you love the company?

When it comes to Ford Motor Co. (F), a Canadian car dealer bet a month’s sales on that premise.

Rose City Ford dealership owner John Chisholm offered 100 shares of Ford stock to anyone who bought a new or used vehicle from the dealership during the month of November, the Windsor Star newspaper reported. Chisholm, the president and general manager of Rose City, said he got the idea from a General Motors Co. (GM) dealership in Texas that offered GM shares for each vehicle sold. So Chisholm opted to try it in Windsor, the Ontario, Canada city where Ford has both a long history and deep community roots.

“What a great way to show…

There’s nothing like a roaring gold price to bring out the forecasters! Investors are scuttling for a refuge from the slumping dollar and surging energy costs. And low and behold, Citibank, Gold Fields and leading US coin dealer Blanchard, to name a few, all see $1,200 gold on the horizon!

“Bank stocks are getting extremely cheap,” my friend Andrew told me over breakfast yesterday.

Is the economy poised for a recovery, as the stock market seems to expect? Or are we in for another few more quarters of recession and/or slow growth?

The Cartel showed up on Globex trading shortly after London opened for business. Someone was offering physical in size and they were successful in driving down the gold price below $900 briefly before it recovered somewhat to slightly over $900. Silver had the same chart pattern.

In the currency market, the dollar gave up last week’s gains against the euro. Late Monday, the euro was trading at $1.5913 vs. $1.5804 on Friday.