In late January, Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM), the world’s most ubiquitous oil giant, capped off a whipsaw year in the global oil markets by reporting net income of $45.2 billion, an all-time record for corporate profits that shattered the former record it had set a year before.

At Casey Research, they have been watching the actions of foreign holders of U.S. dollars as closely as a Las Vegas pit boss watches a card player on a $1 million winning streak. Many of those in the deflation camp largely, or entirely, ignore the potential role these foreign holders may play in the drama now unfolding.

Is high-tech stalwart Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) bucking the worst downturn since the Great Depression? It sure looks that way. Despite a cautious veneer during Apple’s quarterly conference call Tuesday, company executives ended up painting a picture of a company that continues to elbow aside recessionary pressures…

Goldman earned more than $1 billion a month in the second quarter – much of it from scavenging on fixed income, currency and commodities deals created by the credit crisis.

We are now in June 1930, according to trader/author Ron Coby, a friend and neighbor of one of our favorite underground investors Dan Ferris. (Ferris is a member of the Stansberry & Associates Investment Research team and editor of Extreme Value. ) Ron believes stocks are going to plunge – just as they did from June 1930 to July 1932 when the crash that began on October 24 1929 finally bottomed.