Gold broke through the psychologically important $1,000-an-ounce level for the first time in 18 months yesterday (Tuesday) as the U.S. dollar slumped against key foreign currencies, exacerbating investor fears that loose fiscal and monetary policies will spur inflation as the U.S. economy recovers.

The thinly traded September futures contract for gold traded as $1,006.90 an ounce on the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, or NYMEX (Nasdaq: CME), the highest level for a short-term futures contract since March 18, 2008, MarketWatch.com reported. The contract closed the day yesterday at $997.90, up $3, or 0.3% for the trading session.

The London gold fixing – a global benchmark – traded as high as $1,000.75 an ounce yesterday. Its previous high was also on March 18, 2008.

Now that gold has pierced that technical barrier, some analysts are looking for the yellow metal to return to its all-time-record high of $1,033.90 an ounce – a record set last March.

“The higher the price, the higher the volatility, but this market is so concerned with inflation possibilities and dollar weakness that momentum is bringing more investors to the ‘Buy’ side,” George Gero, a precious-metals trader for RBC Capital Markets (NYSE: RY), told MarketWatch.com.

Gold struggled to breach the $1,000 price level last week. Yesterday’s surge corresponded with a drop in the value of the U.S. dollar, which fell to its lowest point versus the euro this year.

“We had a good technical break higher last week and now the weaker dollar is helping gold progress higher,” Saxo Bank senior manager Ole Hansen told Reuters. “We are finally taking out some levels we haven’t seen for a while, especially in the currencies. On that basis, I would assume we will go up to test the highs from last year.”

The dollar fell as low as $1.45 per euro in morning trading yesterday, its weakest level since Dec 18, 2008, according to Bloomberg News. The euro has risen by about 15% against the dollar in the past six months.

Analysts have warned for months that the combination of a soaring budget deficit and expansive monetary policy could weaken the dollar and spur inflation.

The federal budget deficit for 2009 will reach a record $1.6 trillion, more than three times 2008’s record deficit of $455 billion, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said last month.

From 2010 to 2019, the deficit will balloon to $7.14 trillion, the CBO says, while the White House paints an even uglier, $9 trillion picture for the same period.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Federal Reserve has injected more than $2 trillion into the U.S. financial system and its benchmark lending rate remains at a record low range of 0.00%- 0.25%.

U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke has provided few clues about exactly what his so-called “exit strategy” will involve, or when it will be implemented. However, the Fed chairman has said that the Federal Funds rate will remain “exceptionally low” for “an extended period” of time, as the U.S. economy trudges toward recovery.

Few analysts believe Bernanke will even start to rein in the Fed’s fiscal stimulus before he’s absolutely certain an economic recovery is underway. Now, with the belief that inflation is hiding around the corner, investors are piling back into gold to hedge against the dollar’s decline.

“In the last year alone, the U.S. Federal Reserve has actually doubled the U.S. monetary base,” said Peter Krauth, a Money Morning contributing editor who is also the editor of the Global Resource Alert trading service. “That can only lead to serious inflation, perhaps even hyperinflation.  This will cause the value of the U.S. dollar – which has been eroding since 2001 – to decline at an even-more-frenetic pace.”

Krauth expects that gold prices will shoot even higher in the months and years to come, not just because of the dollar’s devaluation, but because demand is on the rise and global mining output is in decline. Global mine output has decreased at an annual compound rate of 0.8% from 1999 through 2008, according to GFMS Ltd.

In the meantime, demand for the yellow metal has skyrocketed. During the fourth quarter of 2008, for instance, North American and European purchases of gold coins and gold bars rose 811% over the same period the year before. And while demand for jewelry has flattened, new investment vehicles have made purchasing gold much easier for the average investor.

“Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have been a tremendous catalyst for swelling gold demand,” said Krauth, noting that the SPDR Gold Trust (NYSE: GLD) – the largest physically backed ETF on the planet – is now the sixth-biggest holder of gold bullion in the world.

The SPDR Gold Trust fund held 1,077.63 metric tons of gold totaling more than $34 billion in value as of yesterday, according to its Web site.

“Indeed, the fund’s influence on the market is such that it actually seems as if every year or so it moves up past year another nation in the global rankings of gold-bullion holders,” said Krauth.

Buying the SPDR Gold Shares is one way to get in on the gold rush. The fund’s price fluctuates in concert with the price of gold and it’s more convenient than buying gold bars directly.

For investors who are looking to hedge against the enormous inflationary pressures that are believed to be filtering through the U.S. economy, buying stakes in gold miners is another potential strategy to follow.

In this case, the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (NYSE: GDX) – composed chiefly of major gold miners – offers both company and geographic diversification, while including substantial leverage to the price of gold.  Market Vectors is based on the AMEX Gold BUGS Index (HUI), which represents a portfolio of 15 major gold mining companies that do not hedge their gold production beyond a year and a half.

Source: Gold Aims to Retest Record Highs After Breaking Through the $1,000 Mark

While the long-term outlook for oil prices remains bullish, don’t be surprised to see a near-term correction. After tumbling to a low of $33.98 a barrel on Feb. 12, crude oil more than doubled in price, soaring to $69.82 on the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nasdaq: CME) – before tumbling nearly 4% on Thursday on a worse-than-expected jobs report.

Indeed, Money Morning predicted precisely that kind of a run-up for crude oil, first in January and then again on April 16.

As a basis for those previous analyses of the oil market, we cited the declining value of the U.S. dollar, falling production, and the possibility that demand for oil would soar as the global economy emerges from the worst financial crisis since World War II. And those factors continue to suggest that the price of oil will rise over the long-term.

However, while we still believe the long-term outlook for oil prices is bullish, it’s important to note that the recent oil price rally is not supported by supply/demand fundamentals. It is the result of a shift in market sentiment and a corresponding reversal in U.S. stocks, not a material change in the global economy.

And because the five-month rally has proceeded at an exceptionally quick pace, it’s made prices more volatile. That means prices could experience a significant correction in the short-term.

So here’s what you need to know as we approach a major inflection point for one of the world’s most volatile commodities.

What to Make of Oil’s Recent Rally

Prior to Thursday’s stumble, oil prices had soared about 106% since sliding below $34 a barrel in February. The main reason for this jump has been the so-called “green shoots” of economic recovery led investors to believe oil was oversold and that the global economy will return to growth much sooner than originally predicted.

This is highlighted by the fact that the U.S. stock market has experienced an almost simultaneous recovery. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up about 5% from February, and 30% from mid-March. Meanwhile, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index has climbed about 11% since Feb. 12 and is up more than 30% from its March lows.

“Historically, equities have been a leading indicator of economic growth and commodities have been a coincident indicator,” Hussein Allidina, head of commodities research at Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS), toldCNNMoney.com. “Right now, you’re seeing commodities and equities move up together as money comes back in at the same time.”

However, there are other factors at work, including the declining value of the U.S. dollar and a shift in the futures market.

Because oil is priced in dollars, any decline in value of the U.S. currency drives crude oil prices higher.   During last year’s huge run-up in oil prices, the U.S. dollar fell to a record low of $1.59 against the euro, though it subsequently rebounded. Since oil began its current rally on Feb. 12, the dollar has fallen about 10%, declining to about $1.40 against the euro.

Additionally, many speculators reversed their positions on oil from short to long, and that can also pull prices higher.

“Prospects for equity markets and the global economy, backed up by exchange rate fluctuations, expectations about future oil market tightness, and, by inference, a shift of money into or out of futures markets can all influence short-term prices,” the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its June Oil Market Report. “Indeed, it is tempting to conclude that the shift in [New York Mercantile Exchange] WTI noncommercial positions from a net 11,000 short in early May to 40,000 net long a month later is sufficient explanation for the surge in prices” of more than 20% during May and into early June.

On top of that, some $3.8 billion has flowed into oil-and-gas exchange traded funds (ETFs) this year, compared with $1.4 billion in the first half of 2008, Goran Trapp, head of global oil trading at Morgan Stanley, toldBusinessWeek.

“Considering that supply seems ample and demand is weak, the fact that oil is going up looks kind of weird,” Adam Sieminski, chief energy economist at Deutsche Bank AG (NYSE: DB), told CNN. “But those factors are being overwhelmed by a huge sigh of relief that we’re not going to have the Great Depression. A lot of money is coming out of mattresses.”

But while investors’ perceptions of the economic recovery – and, by extension, the oil market – have changed, the underlying supply and demand fundamentals have not. There is still a glut of oil on the market and not enough demand to soak it up.
Investors seemed to undergo a min-epiphany of that reality on Thursday, when disappointing jobless numbers raised concern “about the strength and timing of a recovery,” James Williams, an economist at energy-research firm WTRG Economics, told MarketWatch.com.

August crude futures dropped $2.58 a barrel, or 3.7%, to settle at $66.73, the lowest closing level for a front-month contract since June 3,MarketWatch said.
That development supports the conclusions put forth in some recent research.

In its five-year forecast for the worldwide oil market, the IEA last week cut its five-year forecast for global crude demand and predicted that consumption won’t rebound to last year’s levels until 2012 – at the earliest.

“The deep economic recession that has spread worldwide in the past year has taken a severe toll on oil demand,” the IEA said in its Medium-Term Oil Market Report. “This marks a break after several years of strong oil demand growth.”

The IEA cut its oil demand estimates for every year through 2013 by about 3 million barrels per day (bpd). According to the agency, world oil demand would grow at an average annual rate of 0.6%, or 540,000 bpd, annually over the 2008 to 2014 period, reaching 89 million barrels a day by 2014.

Those estimates are based on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecast for global economic growth of about 5% a year between 2012 and 2014. In the IEA’s “lower GDP scenario,” in which the global economy expands by 3% a year, demand won’t reach 2008 levels until 2014.

With oil demand not expected to reach 2008 levels for another three years at least, the fact that oil prices are climbing more rapidly than they did in last year – when demand was high, supplies were tight, and the U.S. dollar was trading at significantly lower levels than it is today – is a red flag for many analysts.

“There may be enough momentum to carry us up to just $72.50 [a barrel], but then I think the correction is going to be just that dramatic,” Guy Gleichmann, president of the United Strategic Investors Group, told The Wall Street Journal.

Additionally, a continued rise in oil prices could threaten the economic recovery by raising production costs and hurting consumers at the pumps.

Oil prices between $30 and $40 per barrel were like an “additional stimulus package,” Fatih Birol, the IEA’s chief economist, said last month. “But now this stimulus package is losing its strength and it will be definitely a problem for the global economy if prices continue to rise.”

Prices at above $70 a barrel “may well strangle the economic recovery,” Birol said.

If that’s true, oil prices, should they continue to rise, would only be setting themselves up for a bigger tumble when the economy slips back into recession later in the year.

Still Bullish Long-Term

While the short-term outlook for oil remains murky, if not bearish, the long-term outlook for crude is still strong, thanks to the weakness of the U.S. dollar and the probability that demand will eventually return.

In fact, the IEA estimates that oil demand will strengthen in India and Saudi Arabia this year, despite a 3% decline in global consumption.

And China, which has been using low commodities prices to stock up on resources, plans to increase strategic crude oil reserves by 160% to 270 million barrels during the next five years. Citing an unidentified official from China’s National Energy Administration, Nikkei English News said that Beijing would spend $4.39 billion (30 billion yuan) on stockpiling facilities with a capacity to hold 169 million barrels of crude oil.

“The wild card is really the Chinese,” said Money Morning Investment Director Keith Fitz-Gerald. “Don’t forget the Chinese are trying todiversify away from the dollar, and there are only two ‘non-currency currencies’ on the planet: gold and oil.”

And with the expansive monetary policy being employed by the U.S. Federal Reserve, the value of the dollar seems destined to retest the lows it reached in 2008.

The U.S. Federal Reserve has cut its benchmark lending rate to a range of 0.0% to 0.25%, and the central bank plans to purchase up to $300 billion in long-term U.S. Treasury securities and $750 billion of mortgage-backed securities as it pursues a policy of quantitative easing.

“Our forecast has been that oil will be at $100 in 2015 and it could happen faster if the economy recovers,” Deutsche Bank’s Sieminski toldCNN.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) raised its 2009 oil price forecast to $85 a barrel from $65 and said prices would reach $95 a barrel in 2010. Other analysts agree.

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) lifted its forecast for the average price of oil in 2009 to $55.63 a barrel from $49.38, though the investment bank noted “global demand and inventory levels look horrendous.”

“We’re concerned about oil prices rising so rapidly in the near-term,” Hussein Allidina, head of commodities research at Morgan Stanley, toldCNN. “But the bet in the long-term is one way, and that’s just up.”

Source: Oil Prices Due for a Short-Term Setback, Although Long-Term Outlook Remains Bullish

Editor’s Note: This oil preview is the latest installment of a new Money Morning series that will make economic projections for key U.S. sectors for the last half of 2009. As part of that series, look for forecasts for housing, energy, U.S. stocks and the emerging markets. ]]> http://www.contrarianprofits.com/articles/oil-prices-due-for-a-short-term-setback-although-long-term-outlook-remains-bullish/18735/feed 0 http://www.contrarianprofits.com/articles/upstarts-have-big-bourses-feeling-the-urge-to-merge/11145 http://www.contrarianprofits.com/articles/upstarts-have-big-bourses-feeling-the-urge-to-merge/11145#comments Fri, 09 Jan 2009 18:40:01 +0000 Don Miller http://www.contrarianprofits.com/?p=11145 The days of shouted orders and crumpled trade tickets on vast floors jammed with frantic stock traders are numbered. Turns out the human faces of Wall Street are rapidly being replaced by nondescript computer technicians quietly monitoring speedy rack-mounted servers.  They execute billions of trades daily in placid data centers located in remote locations far from the high rises (and high rents) of Manhattan.

Based on technology known as electronic communications networks (ECN), these new trading platforms allow traders to bypass the big exchanges and match buy and sell orders online.

The trend has triggered a wave of consolidation among major stock exchanges around the world that is expected to gain momentum as they struggle to compete against a barrage of emboldened…

But what might the new administration mean for more traditional – and more reliable –energy sources?

Oil is always the first energy source to spring to mind. But it’s hardly a solo act – coal and nuclear make up the other two-thirds of the top fuel trio. Coal delivers 50% of U.S. electricity needs, and nuclear power brings another 20% to the table.

The cold truth is that demand for energy of all types – and especially electricity – is going to keep advancing, domestically and worldwide. And developing alternatives to coal and nuclear will take time. For instance, tying wind and solar into the existing power grid will be enormously expensive and is likely to pose massive technical and engineering problems.

In fact, according to the International Energy Agency, renewable energy isn’t likely to make a meaningful dent in meeting the world’s energy needs before 2030, if then.

And regardless where the power comes from, our appetite for electricity will continue to skyrocket. Across the planet, overall electricity consumption is expected to double by 2030, increasing by 17 trillion kilowatt hours. While electricity demand will “only” increase by 50% in the U.S. market by 2030, demand will increase 400% in China and six-fold in India.

Our research indicates that President Obama will have very little flexibility in solving our short-term energy problems once he’s sworn into office next month. While he may prefer the environmentally friendly alternatives, most of those replacements are far from fully developed.

The bottom line: Obama’s apparent preference for renewable energy aside, coal and nuclear power are fully deployed, and in widespread use, meaning they’ll remain the backbone of our energy sector in the New Year – and for years to come.

Even so, it’s well worth factoring in all the possible players as we examine energy-sector outlook – and the accompanying potential profit plays – for the next 12 months.

King Coal Reigns Supreme

When it comes to future energy profits for investors, coal and nuclear will continue to be the “dream team” for years to come. Coal will provide the answer to our short-term and intermediate energy needs.  It’s plentiful, it’s cheaper than other available alternatives, and a big percentage of the world’s power plants burn it.

Nuclear power offers a long-term solution to energy shortages and a clean solution to global warming, as well. Uranium-fueled nuclear plants are cheap to operate, can run for long periods without refueling, and cause little pollution.

While there is widespread distaste for coal-fired power plants that spew billions of tons of carbon dioxide and other pollutants into the air, there’s no doubt coal will continue to be the dominant player in the electricity game for some time to come.

A full 50% of the electricity U.S. consumers use is generated by coal, and coal is king in the rest of the world, as well. According to the IEA, coal accounted for 42% of all worldwide electricity consumption in 2005.
But get this – the agency predicts coal use will explode by 73% over the next 20 years. That’s the largest projected percentage increase of all energy sources.
As you might suspect, China and India use 45% of world’s coal and will be responsible for 80% of that increase. China, alone, uses more coal than the United States, Japan and Europe combined.  China is utterly dependent on coal to run its factories and assembly plants, with coal supplying 80% of its electricity. The Red Dragon also is the world’s top producer of steel, a process that’s also a big burner of coal.

But while China is coal’s largest consumer and producer, the United States controls 27% of the world’s proven reserves, the biggest-single percentage on the planet.  That puts this country front and center on the worldwide coal stage, and President-elect Obama’s energy policy in the spotlight.

The president plays a pivotal role in shaping the nation’s energy policy, naming top officials at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Obama has proposed an economy-wide cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon emissions by 80% by 2050.  His system – which would set an overall emissions limit, then require polluters to buy allowances at public auction – would increase electricity rates and discourage coal consumption in the U.S. market. President-elect Obama even has stated that any utilities building coal-fired plants could go bankrupt buying pollution allowances.

And on Capitol Hill, newly emboldened Democrats recently tackled global warming and other environmental problems by choosing Sen. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., to head the House of Representative’s Energy and Commerce panel.  Waxman has already signed onto legislation that would ban any new coal-fired power plants that aren’t built using new technologies that capture carbon dioxide and store it underground, a key part of the Obama energy plan.

Luke Popovich, a spokesman for the National Mining Association, said he believes Obama will be pragmatic about the need to keep coal in the nation’s energy mix.

“He presumably would be sensitive to the impacts of energy policies given the perilous state of the economy,” Popovich said.

But while U.S. utilities may eventually be forced to tighten emissions rules and increase rates, Obama’s renewable energy plans will have very little impact on U.S. coal producers in the near future.

The world needs coal. We have it. And we’re going to sell it.

In the first half of 2008, U.S. coal exports increased by 13 million short tons, or 50%, over first-half 2007 shipments, according to the IEA.  Strong global demand for coal, combined with supply disruptions in several key coal exporting countries (Australia, South Africa and China), were the primary factors behind the increase.

But lately, coal prices, along with the prices of other fossil fuels, have suffered from the global economic crisis, and from a resurgent U.S. dollar. An 80% decline in global shipping rates has also fostered competition from other exporters, like Australia, which can now ship farther and compete with U.S. exporters.

As a result, the price of Appalachian Coal on the New York Mercantile Exchange (CME) has fallen to less than $80 a ton from $143 in July.

This will have a negative impact on coal producers until the world economy is able to gather itself back up and build up a new head of steam.

But don’t expect the slump to last long.  China’s economy is getting a shot in the arm from a gigantic $586 billion stimulus package, cementing growth expectations for 2009.  Expect U.S.exports to accelerate when that kicks in, probably in the second half of 2009.

Since the stock market usually leads economic indicators by six-to-nine months, right now is a good time to be looking at candidates for your investing dollar. But you should be cautious about pulling the trigger.  Watch construction activity in China – especially steel demand in the late spring – for the first signs of a rebound in coal prices.

When you think things are ready to take off, Peabody Energy Corp. (BTU) and Arch Coal Inc. (ACI) – the largest U.S. producers – are worth a look. For those who like to play a basket of shares, the Market Vectors Coal exchange traded fund (KOL), or ETF, provides the desired diversification. All three securities are trading at discounts of at least 80% from their July highs, and currently trade at bargain basement multiples.

If you want a coal play that bets directly on China, Money Morning Investment Director Keith Fitz-Gerald likes Yanzhou Coal Mining Co. Ltd. (ADR: YZC), one of China’s biggest coal suppliers. It produces lots of high-grade, low-sulfur coal, which burns cleaner and therefore fetches a premium price. The company boasts profit margins of 22%, when the industry averages half that.  The company profits are up a blistering 364% in the year’s first three quarters, compared with a year ago.  The stock trades at only three times earnings and has a dividend yield of 4.3%.

Nuclear Power: It Struggles in the U.S., but Thrives Abroad

Nuclear power is attractive to the energy industry because it produces electricity on a predictable, 24-hour basis – earning it the industry sobriquet of “base load” power. Coal and hydroelectric plants are the only other power sources that also rate that label. Such alternatives as wind, solar or biofuels do not.

During its term, the Bush administration tried to spark a “renaissance” in the construction of nuclear power plants.  And during his presidential campaign, Sen. John McCain stood firmly behind the industry’s hopes of building 45 new reactors by 2030.

Interest in new types of reactors seemed to hint at least at the beginnings of a new start. But President-elect Obama has been lukewarm on nuclear.  He acknowledges that nuclear is one of several viable components of the nation’s energy portfolio – the current 104-plant fleet provides 20% of America’s electricity – but has questioned its safety while emphasizing a need to diversify the nation’s energy mix with more wind, solar and other renewable sources.

“That’s sort of like my wife saying she’d support divorce under certain situations,” says William Kovacs, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s vice president of environment, technology, and public affairs.

In fact, the Barack Obama/Joe Biden New Energy for America Plan, while recognizing that nukes provide 70% of our non-carbon-generated electricity, says that “before an expansion of nuclear power is considered, key issues must be addressed including: security of nuclear fuel and waste, waste storage and proliferation.”  It goes on to say that the team of President-elect Obama and incoming Vice President Joe Biden “do not believe that Yucca Mountain is a suitable site as a long-term repository for spent nuclear designed for long-term storage.  In any case, the earliest the storage site could open would be 2017, and that was before Republicans lost control of the Senate.

With Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., firmly opposed to nuclear waste storage in his home state – and with the Obama administration ready to hold the industry’s feet to the regulatory fire – any plans to expand the nuclear industry in the United States now face a high hurdle.

But nuclear proponents are hardly impotent.  The Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry’s most powerful lobbying group, helped craft the Energy Policy Act of 2005 with more than $12 billion in subsidies for nukes.

Maintaining nuclear energy’s current 20% share of generation would require building three reactors every two years starting in 2016, based on U.S. Department of Energy forecasts.  Right now, some 17 companies and consortia are pursuing licenses for more than 30 nuclear power plants with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

But the last operating license for a nuclear plant in the United States was issued in 1978, and the approval process takes a minimum of 24 months after site approval, which can take years.  Expect lots of public comment and infighting in Washington, as applications wind their way through the approval process at the NRC.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world is racing ahead with plans to up the ante in the nuclear power game. There are currently 440 nuclear reactors in 31 countries that generate about 16% of the world’s electricity.

Uranium-fueled nuclear energy is rapidly gaining global acceptance as a clean, reliable alternative to such dirty-burning fossil fuels as coal and oil. In a twin bid to combat global warming and keep up with soaring demand for electricity, countries are rushing to build nuclear power plants. Under current projections, 630 reactors will be operating in 55 countries by 2030.

It’s the new technologies those reactors are designed around that are aimed at allaying the public’s perception about the safety of nuclear power.  Toshiba Plant & System Services, which has built 112 plants in the past 12 years (more than any other company), is working on a “mininuke,” according to Forbes magazine. Called the “4S” (short for Super-Safe, Small and Simple), it uses a bath of molten sodium to produce steam twice as hot as steam from water-cooled reactors.  The 4S can crank out as much as 50 megawatts of power, easily enough to fire up a small factory, or to service an entire town that’s located off the main power grid.

On top of that, the mininuke can go 30 years without refueling, as opposed to typical reactors, which must be fed every 18 months. And the 4S will be safer, because the reactor core is deep underground, well protected against a terrorist attack or earthquakes.

China and South Africa are working on so-called “pebble-bed reactors,” one version of which is filled with 100,000 billiard-ball-sized spheres of coated uranium that are cooled by helium. That eliminates the need for enormous pressurized water-cooling systems and million-dollar containment domes, making them virtually meltdown-proof.

U.S. firms are also on the trail of smaller and safer designs. A Santa Fe, NM company called Hyperion Power Generation Inc., is working on a hot-tub sized design, which eliminates the need for the notoriously unstable uranium control rods. U.S. giant General Electric Co. (GE) is working on new, more efficient designs, as well.

No matter how you slice it, the fuel for the reactors in those plants all depend on a scarce commodity – uranium.  Flat out, there’s just not enough “yellow cake” to go around.  It takes seven to 10 years to transform a uranium discovery into a fully operational mine. With that kind of lag time, it’s clearly almost impossible for supply to keep up with demand.

Until recently, the market reflected the scarcity, rising as high as $137 a pound in 2007. But lately, despite the global shortages, uranium prices – in sympathy with other commodity prices – have nosedived.

Prices have fallen 40% this year, leading to a sharp decline in the share prices of mining companies, and eviscerating the financing for extraction projects. In the last month alone, six uranium mines in western Colorado and Utah were either put on hold or closed.

Some experts lay the blame for this current credit squeeze squarely at the feet of hedge funds – who they blame for buying up uranium – and banks no longer willing to lend money.

“Hedge funds were selling off their uranium to raise cash, and the prices just plunged,” said George E.L. Glasier, chief executive officer of Energy Fuels Inc., a Canadian junior miner that recently put a Colorado mine project on hold as part of a “capital preservation” strategy brought on by the credit crunch.

Uranium prices fell to $75 early this year, and fell as low as $44 this fall.  The spot price now is $55.

With the worldwide growth in the industry – and a classic supply/demand imbalance in the making – someone is eventually going to have to pay the price.  History shows when uranium prices move higher, uranium stocks almost always hitch a ride North. So when uranium prices advance – most likely to new highs – expect mining stocks to rise in virtual lock step.

But notwithstanding global growth – for now, at least – Obama’s energy plan and the mothballing of mines makes any uranium play a long-term proposition.

Besides Toshiba (PINK:TOSBF), the stocks to consider include Cameco Corp. (CCJ), the largest U.S. producer; and General Electric, which has a presence in the commercial nuclear power market here and overseas. Also, take a look at Rio Tinto PLC (RTP) and BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP), huge international mining firms with large uranium deposits.  Each of these firms would stand to reap substantial profits from a resurgent price in yellow cake.

Outlook 2009 – and Beyond

However, regardless of what uranium does, coal is still the 800-pound gorilla in the energy world. In the United States, no matter how lofty our environmental intentions may be, it’s unlikely coal will be regulated out of existence anytime soon. That’s especially true overseas, where coal is playing a crucial role, fueling the transformation of such countries as China and India from “emerging markets” into first-order powerhouse economies. Given that, the world market simply can’t replace coal anytime soon, either.

As for nuclear power, safety improvements and other technological solutions make nuclear energy a viable energy source for the long term, eventually grabbing a bigger piece of the energy pie – especially overseas.

The bottom line: The economic outlook for both coal and nuclear power is upbeat.  Investors might look at both energy plays when considering how to allocate their portfolio – for the New Year and beyond.

Source: Surprise! Coal & Nuclear Power are Keys to Obama’s Energy Plan

He says it is essential to guard against today’s downside risks with trailing stops, inverse ETFs, and put options.

And every investor should have a plan to re-engage with the markets when this financial storm passes.

This from Money Morning:

As the worst financial crisis in recorded market history rocks Wall Street, millions of investors on Main Street keep asking a single question.

When will this end?

The market volatility is unprecedented: Where professional traders once ranked a day as “wild” if we witnessed a 300-point swing, in recent months we’ve seen 600- and 700-point swings on a regular basis. On Oct. 9, a Thursday, we rode out a record-setting swing of 1,000 points.

That wild backdrop is bad enough. At the same time, however, the major market indices are heading lower – at times with a speed and ferocity never before seen. But the real killer is that there is seemingly nowhere to hide.

This is what Wall Street’s Armani Army doesn’t tell you about traditional diversification: It doesn’t work when everything goes down at once. (The one exception is the specialized inverse investment vehicles that we’ve repeatedly counseled you to employ precisely to prevent this kind of total freefall. Two examples that we’ve mentioned numerous times were the Rydex Inverse S&P 500 Strategy Fund (MUTF:RYURX) and the ultra-aggressive “2X” ProShares UltraShort Financials (AMEX:SKF) exchange-traded funds).

Most noticeably, of course, was last Friday’s trading, which began after an overnight bloodbath in the markets overseas. A notice from the CME Group Inc. (CME) that stock index futures contracts were “limit down” – meaning they’d achieved their maximum allowable downward move for U.S. stocks even started trading for the day – didn’t help much.

While much of this is commonly explained away as a panic reaction to the news, the reality is that it’s primarily a financial panic that’s driving this market action lately. And, just in case you recall my comments a few weeks ago about not having seen the hair on fire selling I thought lay ahead, this is exactly what I was referring to.

This time around, ironically, it’s not panic from normally flighty retail investors that’s causing the markets to go haywire. Instead, it’s the big boys that are apparently panicking.

My experience suggests that one or more hedge funds have imploded. Whether by margin call or redemption proceedings is a moot point. We won’t know for sure until much later next week when the newspapers finally catch up, but the massive swings we saw in currencies, gold and other commodities are certainly consistent with an unprecedented liquidation – and a forced one at that. Perhaps even more than one.

Long the domain of hedge funds and their uber rich clientele, many hedge funds were over-weighted in these categories in recent months in an attempt to chase performance. Overweighting, in case you’re not familiar with the term, means they’ve made excess investments in those areas. And chasing performance means they’re trying to create higher returns by making disproportionately larger bets than they would otherwise. Part of this could be from simply trying to generate larger performance fees, but it could just as easily be attributed to anxious managers placing ever-larger bets in an attempt to make up losses (most hedge funds are under water this year).

Where this gets fund managers in trouble is when they make these over-weighted bets by using leverage. You’ve probably heard this term a lot lately. In case you don’t understand what it really means, let me digress for a moment to explain it. Leveraging up (or simply “levering” to those in the industry) means using borrowed money to control a huge pile of assets that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to control.

In recent years, for instance, it wasn’t unusual for a hedge fund to lever up 30 to 1, meaning for every $1 dollar they invested they borrowed $29. As a result, a fund with $100 million under management could control $300 million or more of investable assets. I’ve heard of some funds running 50 to 1, while currency traders routinely run 100 to 1.

While using other people’s money dramatically enhances the potential for higher returns, it really enhances the potential for massive losses. Where this gets them into trouble is that a fund running 30 to 1 only has to lose 3% of the $30 worth of equity to get wiped out, as in kaput.

Somewhere along the way, as bad turns to worse and performance deteriorates, a hedge fund’s creditors will place a margin call, meaning they want the hedge fund to pony up more collateral or return the money it was loaned. Or, investors will place redemption requests meaning they want out. Either way, this forces the operator of a hedge fund to raise money any way it can.

If a given hedge fund does not have enough cash to meet the margin calls or redemption requests, they have to raise cash by selling assets. And they typically start with the most liquid stuff like gold, currencies and commodities. At first, the sales progression will be orderly, but as I suspect was the case last Friday (and on many big down days recently where chaos ruled), it will rapidly deteriorate into a fire sale where the hedge funds involved dump everything they can at any price just to get out.

And that’s where their problems affect you and me.

As scores of highly leveraged hedge funds dump billions of dollars worth of holdings at once, they effectively “flood” the markets with whatever the asset is that they are trying to sell. In doing so, they push the values down for the rest of us.

For an example, imagine a house in your neighborhood selling for 50% of its appraised value. Upon completion of the sale, all “comparables” in the area, including your own home, will likely take a hit as a result. So it’s in everybody’s interest to keep prices as high as possible.

But nobody can do that when there are more homes than buyers – even in the best neighborhoods.
So when is it going to stop?

We don’t know. No one does. Hedge funds are notoriously secretive in their reporting, so even though there are estimates as to how much they own and (by implication) how much they owe, it’s hard to gain perspective on how much leverage is actually being used. Nor do we really know who holds what asset – especially as it relates to potential liquidations.

Over the weekend, rumors were flying that U.S. Federal Reserve examiners are hounding Citadel Investment Group LLC regarding “counterparty risk” and its exposure to debt. Citadel, naturally, vehemently denies this, but lately where there’s smoke, there’s certainly been the potential for fire.

[...] The bottom line is this: What should we do for now?

That’s actually the easy part even though it may not feel like it.

1. If you’re retired, take a good hard look at how much money you really need for the next five to 10 years. Talk to your financial advisor and, if needed, take some risk off the table. Move what you need into cash, or such safety-first choices like the American Century Capital Preservation Fund (MUTF:CPFXX). Do not own anything you would not want to have in your portfolio if the stock markets were to be shut down for a short time.

2. If you’re not retired – but are close – and have properly diversified your money to something akin to the 50-40-10 structure we advocate (50% base-builders, 40% global growth and income, 10% speculative), hang in there. And remember, this is exactly why we diversified our holdings in the first place – to get through the rough spots. It’s just that this is perhaps the roughest most of us have ever seen.

3. Stick to your plan. Hopefully that includes the disciplined use of trailing stops to capture gains and minimize losses, as well as specialized inverse holdings that profit with each further decline. And don’t forget options to hedge existing risks.

4. Above all else, make sure you have a plan – as we do – for re-engaging the markets when the coast is all clear. It may be awhile before we reach that point, but it’s important to maintain your upside potential in a down market. When the train leaves the station, the one place you don’t want to be is left behind on the platform. Studies like those from Standard & Poor’s show that investors can typically make up 80% or more of bear market losses within the first year of a recovery, once that recovery actually arrives.

Source: Four Ways to Sidestep the Damage Wall Street’s Big Money Movers are Inflicting on Main Street

After two straight days of sharp selling, U.S. stocks whipsawed their way to major gains yesterday on investor hopes that federal government moves will halt a global credit crisis so severe that some leading market experts are talking about a depression-like downturn. The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 617 points from its low of the day after U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-NY, proposed plans for a new agency that would function during the current financial crisis much like the Resolution Trust Corp. did during the Savings and Loan Crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Institutional investors and regulators both here and overseas are taking steps to curtail speculative short selling.

For the day, the Dow rocketed 410.03 points, or 3.86%, to close at 11,019.69. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index – which tumbled 4.7% twice this week – rebounded from its lowest level since May 2005 to zoom 50.12 points, or 4.33%. With its close at 1,206.51, the broad U.S. stock index recovered most of Wednesday’s 4.7% drop.

Both the Dow and the S&P 500 posted their biggest percentage gains since October 2002, Bloomberg News reported.

The tech-laden Nasdaq Composite Index roared ahead by 4.8%, rising 100.25 points, and closing at 2,199.10.

Seven stocks climbed for each that fell on the New York Stock Exchange, the Big Board’s broadest rally since April.

Wachovia Corp. (WB) soared 59%, Citigroup Inc. (C) added 19% and Bank of America Corp. (BAC) advanced 12%, which caused the KBW Bank Index to post its biggest gain since July. Morgan Stanley (MS) rose 3.68% for the day – erasing an earlier 46% loss – while Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) closed down 5.68%, almost fully reversing a 25% decline after three of the top U.S. pension funds stopped loaning shares of U.S. brokerages to speculators who wanted to sell the institutions “short.”

“Any actions regulators or other entities or players take to try to slow down the bear raids will be received positively,” David Katz, the chief investment officer of Matrix Asset Advisors in New York, told Bloomberg. “There’s no reason a Goldman Sachs or a Morgan Stanley should be forced to sell themselves in a shotgun wedding if they’ve got economic models that work, and they do.”

Gold futures surged for a second straight day yesterday, with the benchmark contract eclipsing the $900-an-ounce mark for the first time in six weeks, as investor anxiousness over the fate of the global financial system sent them scurrying into hard assets.

Gold jumped $70 an ounce on Wednesday – its largest one-day gain ever – to reach $846.60 an ounce. The yellow metal yesterday tacked on an additional $46.50 an ounce, a jump of 5.5%, to end the day at $897 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange (CME). At one point, the contract traded as high as $926.

In electronic trading, however, gold last fell back $40 to $857 and U.S. stocks staged a massive late-afternoon rally, amid signs that investors are starting to gain confidence in measures to provide capital to troubled financial firms.

The recent jump in gold prices “can be attributed to large amounts of money fleeing to the yellow metal as a safe haven in these troubled times,” Sam Kirtley, editor of Gold-Prices.biz, told MarketWatch.com.

Kirtley noted that the financial crisis “will probably worsen over the coming months,” meaning the money that the central banks are pumping into the system is adding to inflationary pressures – a reality that is “certainly showing in gold [prices].” [For a related story on the actions of the global central banks elsewhere in today’s issue of Money Morning, please click here].

Another expert agrees that the financial crisis “will probably worsen,” but was far less sanguine about any benefits.

Jeffrey E. Gundlach, chief investment officer at The TCW Group Inc., a Los Angeles-based mutual-fund firm, told clients on a conference call late Wednesday that the crisis in credit and housing is actually getting worse – and could last for years, if not decades. In the deteriorating climate he sees unfolding, Gundlach said, the S&P 500 could fall another 30%, Citigroup could become an “AIG-sized debacle,” default rates could soar even on prime mortgages and a banking crisis will emerge in Europe.

According to Gundlach, financial institutions may suffer write-offs that could surpass $1 trillion before conditions improve. That means there’s still a long way to go. As of late August, credit losses and write-downs at the world’s 100-largest banks and brokerages topped $506 billion, Gundlach said.

“This is no market for old men,” Gundlach, who also manages TCW’s flagship Total Return Bond Fund (TGLMX), told MarketWatch. “This is no market for old-school thinking.”

Gundlach said housing prices would decline for several more years, the kind of slump not seen since the Great Depression. Indeed, it’s possible that home prices will be sluggish until 2022.

“If it’s like the Depression experience – and it sure is shaping up that way – it could take several years,” he said. “Maybe we won’t see a bottom in home prices until 2014.”

By Jennifer Yousfi, William Patalon III and Jason Simpkins
Money Morning Editors

Source: The Government’s Financial Crisis Fix-it Plan Sends Stocks Soaring, Though Some Argue There’s no Quick Fix for this Disaster

(Part 1)

• The National Association of Home Builders /Wells Fargo Housing Market index held at 16 in August for a second straight month, the group said yesterday (Monday) in a statement. Despite the weak reading, the NAHB said its members hope a recently enacted homebuyer tax credit would help the housing market regain some traction. “Builders are anticipating the stimulative effects of this legislation and are optimistic that the tax credit will give those buyers who’ve been sitting on the fence the reason they need to jump back into the market,” NAHB President Sandy Dunn said in a statement.

• Copper sales surged 8.8% in the first seven months of the year over the same period a year prior, in Chile – the world’s largest copper producer. Chile’s central bank said copper sales totaled $25.06 billion through the end of July. Total exports reached $45.62 billion through July, The Associated Press reported.

• Lowe’s Cos. Inc. (LOW) reported fourth straight quarterly profit decline yesterday (Monday) as earnings fell 8% to $938 million. However, total sales actually rose 2.4% to $14.5 billion. The company said it now expects a full-year profit of $1.48 to $1.56 a share, compared to the $1.45 to $1.55 a share it forecast in May.

• BHP Billiton Ltd. (ADR: BHP), the world’s largest mining company, yesterday (Monday) reported record annual profit and said it expects demand for commodities to remain strong. Net profit for the year ended June 30 climbed 14.7% to $15.39 billion, from $13.42 billion in the previous year. Earnings before interest and tax, was $24.28 billion, up 21%.

• Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (ADR: MTU) yesterday (Monday) announced it had raised its bid for UnionBanCal Corp. (UB) to $73.50 per share, a total of $3.5 billion for the remaining minority stake. The sweetened offer represents a 17% increase from the initial $63 per share bid, which UnionBanCal advisors dismissed as too low, Reuters reported.

• The Air Transport Association of America predicted yesterday (Monday) that a combination of high rates and schedule cutbacks will combine to keep more travelers at home over the coming Labor Day holiday, BusinessWeek reported. The airline trade group estimates a 5.7% decline in airline passengers from Aug. 23 – Sept. 3 for the same period a year ago.

• The New York Mercantile Exchange, owned by Nymex Holdings Inc. (NMX), declared a temporary halt in the sale of seats (or trading rights) as its members meet to vote on a proposed merger with CME Group Inc. (CME). Sale of seats will be suspended between 3 p.m. EDT yesterday (Monday) and 9 a.m. EDT tomorrow (Wednesday), MarketWatch reported.

• Brinker International Inc. (EAT), parent company of Romano’s Macaroni Grill announced it would sell a majority stake to private-equity firm Golden Gate Capital Inc., The Phoenix Business Journal reported. “Golden Gate is well-known for partnering with corporations to help grow established consumer and retail brands,” Brinker Chairman and CEO Doug Brooks said in a release.

Source: Global Investing Roundups Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Indeed, the interest-rate reduction could set in motion a series of diverse global events that will impact such seemingly unrelated areas as European inflation, global food prices, the U.S. dollar, American exports, and the already chilly relationship between the European Central Bank (ECB) and the government of France.

For any of this to happen, however, the Fed first has to act. Most observers believe the U.S. central bank’s policymaking Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) will reduce the Federal Funds rate for the seventh time since mid-September, dropping the benchmark borrowing cost from 2.25% to 2.0%.

According to many experts, the Fed’s timing will be excellent. Economists have increasingly come to believe that the U.S. economy is probably in a recession already, although most await more-certain evidence before actually making the pronouncement.

Some of that evidence could come out today. U.S. stocks traded in a narrow range yesterday (Tuesday) as the market awaited two important announcements: The advance estimate of U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the central bank’s rate-reduction decision – both due out today.

“Another large batch of companies has reported quarterly earnings results, but overall, they have failed to move the needle that much as the market is in a wait-and-see mode ahead of the GDP data and the FOMC decision on Wednesday,” Patrick O’Hare at Briefing.com Inc. told the AFP news service.

There are some strong dissenters.

“There is no reason why the Fed should be cutting rates right now,” Richard Yamarone, director of economic research at Argus Research Corp., told MarketWatch.com.

What Tales GDP Doth Tell

Although GDP is a lagging indicator, analysts anxiously await the report since it will demonstrate whether the U.S. economy is as weak as many believe. According to a Reuters‘ poll, first quarter GDP is expected to clock in at a sluggish 0.2%, down from a 0.6% growth rate in the fourth quarter. Reuters developed the consensus estimate by averaging 89 predictions, which ranged from contraction of 0.8% to growth of 1.5%.

Most analysts, including those at UBS AG (UBS) and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (LEH), felt March’s surprisingly strong durable goods orders and an increase in inventories would tip the balance in favor of slim growth in the first quarter. However, analysts did note that inventory increase could signal weakness ahead, especially if not supported by the accompanying increase in sales needed to create the “sell through” that would keep additional inventories from piling up.

“A $5 billion accumulation of [inventories] would add almost a full percentage point to GDP growth and, in our forecast, constitutes the difference between a positive and a negative result,” RBS Greenwich Capital said in a note to clients.

A positive GDP estimate, however slight, could mean the U.S. economy is poised to skirt a true recession. The textbook definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth.

But the weak GDP estimate, which will be announced early this morning, could prove the justification the FOMC needs to recommend another rate reduction this afternoon.

CME Group Inc.’s (CME) Chicago Board of Trade futures are pricing in an 82% chance that the FOMC will recommend the U.S. Federal Reserve make a quarter point cut, bringing its key interest rate down to 2.0%. When the Ben S. Bernanke-led central bank started its rate-cutting campaign last year, the Fed Funds rate stood at 5.75%.

And if policymakers do order the rate-reduction, most analysts believe it will be the last one for awhile; those same CBOT futures indicate a 71% chance that the Fed will hold the line on interest rates when the committee meets again in June.

“The direction of Fed policy hangs in the balance, and there are people like me that hope the central bank quits sooner rather then later,” Jack A. Ablin, chief investment officer at Harris Private Bank, told The New York Times.

But here’s where the global wild cards come into play.

When Everything’s Wild

With its ambitious rate-cutting strategy, the Fed has stoked domestic inflationary pressures and helped accelerate the decline of an already-sinking dollar.

Officially, the U.S. inflation rate stands at about 4%, though many experts – including Money Morning Contributing Editor Martin Hutchinson – believe the actual U.S. inflation rate is much higher. In fact, anyone who studies the sharp increases in energy, food prices, commodities, healthcare, and a university-level education may find it tough to argue that prices aren’t headed higher.

Even with a bit of a rebound, of late, the dollar is down more than 7.3% against the euro in the past six months, 12.35% in the past 12 months and nearly 28% in the last 54 months. The greenback is down substantially against other key currencies, too, and that’s helped fuel a massive run-up in the cost of energy and food-related imports – all highly inflationary for U.S. consumers.

At the same time, however, the cheap dollar has made U.S. exports very competitive abroad. Indeed, for foreign buyers of such big-ticket products as Boeing Co. (BA) jetliners, the plunging dollar has served as a global blue-light special. Boeing’s bureaucratic arch-rival, Airbus SAS, hasn’t been able to compete, and a week ago was actually forced to raise prices on two of its commercial jets – citing rising steel prices and a falling dollar as the two key causes.

On Sunday, French Economy Minister Christine Lagarde said the gap between the U.S. and Eurozone interest rates was way too large, and called for a change in interest-rate policies – either by the Fed or the European Central Bank (ECB).

The U.S. Fed has been slashing rates to jump-start economic growth while also keeping a horrid housing market from putting the entire economy to sleep. The ECB, by contrast, has kept rates high to combat inflation – even though that strategy is pushing Europe into an undesirable slowdown.

“We are in a delicate situation where we have, on the one hand, an American Federal (Reserve) which has a policy of very low rates and a European Central Bank which has maintained high interest rates,” Lagarde told LCI Television and RTL Radio, the global wire service Reuters reported. “The differential in interest between the two, it seems to me, is a little too big at the moment.”

Paris has long been a vocal critic of what French President Nicolas Sarkozy has termed the ECB’s overly narrow focus on fighting inflation. But Sarkozy and Co. have been criticized by both Germany and the ECB for attempting to meddle in the business of a supposedly “independent” central bank.

Just a few days ago I was joined by Eric Roseman, Jack Crooks, Erika Nolan, and David Newman for a special conference call. We all jumped on the phone to share investment ideas that we’re discussing in Panama.

I heard the most compelling case yet why you MUST take the escalating global food crisis seriously. This could have a major impact on your wealth!

In just a moment, I’ll tell you how you can eavesdrop on this call to hear more details from our private conversation. But first, let me tell you some of the most interesting topics we discussed on the call.

We’ll cover all these points in much greater detail in just a few more weeks at the Total Wealth Symposium in Panama. However, I feel compelled to share the intriguing highlights of our conference call with you right away…

World War Food

Eric Roseman has discussed the growing global food crisis in the A-Letter recently, but it’s quickly escalating into agricultural Armageddon.

Just last week Kazakhstan, one of the world’s largest grain exporters, imposed a TOTAL ban on wheat exports. In other words, wheat can NOT leave the country. This is just the latest of many desperate attempts to hold down soaring local prices.

Wheat has skyrocketed 92% higher in the past year, but may soar even higher, as export restrictions in Russia, Ukraine and Argentina have closed one-third of the global wheat market.

Meanwhile panic is gripping Asia as rice prices have more than tripled in the past year. Rice is a staple food source for three billion people in developing nations of Asia and Africa. It’s easy to see why there is panic and rioting in the streets. The price of benchmark Thai rice broke through the US$1,000 a ton mark for the first time ever last week, up from just US$300 this time last year.

The escalating food crisis is easily the biggest problem facing Asia and other emerging markets – much more troubling than the credit crunch. After all, people in these nations can do without bank loans or new credit cards, but they can’t stop eating!

Corn, wheat and rice have already made big moves, however Eric is very bullish on other “soft” agriculture commodities that haven’t skyrocketed in price yet. With this market, it’s only a matter of time before they do. In fact, soft commodities have quickly become the best-performing sub-set of the commodity bull market.

The “softs” are stealing the show from gold and crude oil.

The best part is you don’t have to trade futures or options contracts to cash in on this boom in agricultural commodities.

In fact, Eric will be recommending some ultra-specific ways to tap into this bull market without trading on margin or making risky leveraged bets. He will be providing all the details, and naming names in Panama.

Warming Up to the Comdols…
and Has the Dollar Finally Bottomed?

Currency expert Jack Crooks confirmed Eric’s bullish stance on ag-commodities. Jack just returned from a trip to Chicago, where he says, the grain traders at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) are working overtime to keep up with skyrocketing futures prices and surging demand for commodities.

Closely related to this, Jack is also seeing some interesting trading opportunities set up in the so-called “comdols.” These are the currencies of commodity-rich exporters like Australia, New Zealand and Canada. At the upcoming Total Wealth Symposium, Jack will be talking about specific strategies to play the comdols for maximum upside, with strictly limited risk.

Jack also believes there could be some major surprises in store for currency traders this year. Everyone knows the dollar has been beaten down to all-time lows against the euro. The Japanese yen has also rallied mightily against the beleaguered buck this year. Jack makes a convincing argument however, for why the buck may see a reversal of fortune ahead. For instance, did you know that the dollar has actually risen in value during four of the past five U.S. recessions?

While the U.S. is most likely already in recession, Jack believes that Europe probably isn’t very far behind. There’s been plenty of recent evidence of slowing growth in the U.K. and the Eurozone, yet the European Central Bank (ECB) has yet to cut rates.

Unlike the Federal Reserve, the ECB is more concerned about signs of inflation and has opted to keep interest rates tight. So far, that’s supported the euro, but if those cracks in Europe’s growth spread to recessionary proportions, they’ll be forced to start cutting over there too. That would knock out a big pillar of support for the euro.

Jack plans to discuss all of these scenarios, complete with his awesome array of charts and graphs, in Panama. I’m looking forward to it!

When Will This Bear Market Ever End?

Investors in global stock markets have been bruised by this unrelenting bear market since last October. Eric has his own list of signs to tell you the credit crunch is over, and I can tell you, we’re not there yet. Just last week big financial firms including J.P. Morgan, Merrill Lynch, and Citigroup collectively reported about US$30 billion in additional losses and asset write-offs thanks to the ongoing credit crunch.

But a funny thing happened on Wall Street last week amid all this negative news flow… shares actually rallied about 4% higher – the biggest gain in months. Financial shares also surged on this bad news. While the credit crunch itself is far from over, the market has already anticipated and discounted a lot of this bad news. So we may be in store for a powerful (and far overdue) rally in stocks that should give you lots of short-term profit opportunities.