If you’re just joining us, we’re at the Renaissance Vinoy in St. Petersburg, Florida. We’re enjoying the sunny weather, the hospitality, and a small fleet of high performance cigar racing boats in the bay. Their crews have been all over the place in the last day or so.

And if you’ve been “tuning in” for the last few days, you know that I’ve been all over the place in the last few days as well. I’m your “eyes and ears” during our 11^th Annual meeting.

And today is no different. It’s why I’m listening to Louis Basenese break down our current situation, and what we can do about it…

Taking a Look Back on the Crash

In one of the best explanations I’ve heard so far, Louis Basenese broke down the crash of 2008, and why it broke so many “rules.” It’s important to understand because traditional “safe havens” surprised so many investors by not performing as expected, shaking confidence.

There were other things in play as well. Regulations like the ‘uptick rule’ changed. And it was made worse by the collapse of some key Wall Street institutions that ran segments of the credit market. Mortgage assets, which numerous institutions had on their books, took a nosedive as reckless risk evaluation collided with collapsing home values.

It was a confluence of events few could have predicted.

Louis, or ‘Lou’ as friends know him, made sense of these events before his talk turned to some of the companies that are on his radar.

On of them is Stonemor Partners L P (Nasdaq: STON). This company makes caskets and owns cemeteries. Stonemor also sells burial plots to people and has entered the pet cemetery market where the margins are much more significant.

And while this “recession-proof” business has cash and a steady demand – it’s trading at just over $10 a share – Lou cautioned against buying right now. Their quarterly report comes out on March 31. Wait and see how the financials look and if they maintain their dividend payment.

Market Threats And Offshore Opportunities

Thomas Fischer, Sr. Vice President of Jyske Global Asset Management is from Denmark – you know the country with the most wicked, killer, pastries on the planet. He started in foreign exchange as a trader for 22 years. He presented some valuable advice for “newbies” on Forex, cautioning that while currency trading is fun – you have to be careful on a trading platform that gives you 100:1 leverage (standard contract) or more.

He’s seen time and time again that people trading with $5,000 will make 2 or 3 trades that are good. Then they get overconfident and lose it all.

Thomas recommends starting in the EUR:USD, saying that 35% of all trades are in this currency.  This makes it the most liquid. He’s bearish on the Euro, because he believes the next thing to blow up is eastern Europe.

Like Alex Green he’s bullish on the stock market for the long term. He explains that cash holdings are at 1990 highs here in the US …that’s $8.85 trillion, earning less than 1%! That’s a ton of money waiting to flood into the market.

Thomas recommended some intriguing opportunities including a EUR bond BBB yielding 15%. Get the full details on his currency trading recommendations, as well as his European perspective on transferring your trading accounts offshore, here.

Thomas Fisher put it this way, ”The currency market doesn’t correlate with stock or bond markets. You can always find a currency that you can own outright that will outperform another currency. If you pick your currencies wisely.”

And as our friends from Everbank pointed out, for the beginning investor, there is plenty of good, easily accessible research out there on the fundamentals that can give us an idea of the potential direction and current yields for currencies. For example, here.

Another Great Suggestion

We’ve heard from dozens of experts and specialists over the past few days. In addition to their personal viewpoints and opinions on how to prosper in good times and bad, we’ve also been getting some great tips on asset protection.

One, from Byron King at Outstanding Investments, was about storing your assets in bank lock-boxes…

If you own gold, make sure you get an account co-signer at the bank for any lock-box. If you die and don’t have a co-signer, the bank will not open it without a revenue service representative present. It’s an easy way to keep the IRS from hassling your grieving family members.

If your interesting in getting the full conference audio files, and all of the little tips that we’ve heard, go here.

Natural Resource Prospecting

Rick Rule is always a popular speaker at our conferences, and I’m happy to say he doesn’t disappoint. In this session he talked about the risks and rewards involved with resource exploration.

I was surprised to learn that only 1 of 5,000 prospects becomes a mine. This is why exploration can be so costly. However, the upside potential can be huge. Returns on successful efforts are often as high as $1,000 in profit for every $1.00 invested.

According to Rick, the only statistically rational way of to speculate in mineral exploration is to develop a portfolio of exploration stocks called “prospect generators“.

Rick explains is better on the recording, but prospect generators are corporate assemblages of very high quality explorations and entrepreneurs. They employ specialized technical or commercial skills to generate exploration concepts. Rick emphasizes, “It’s important to recognize that exploration is a knowledge business like research & development in technology.“

He added that the best due diligence is done by mining companies – not by investors or brokerage firms who often have a conflict of interest in their recommendations.

Rick also talked about three companies he’s personally invested in.

Rick Rule is an expert on natural resource investing, and one of the most knowledgeable “prospectors” I know. He won’t give you a stock suggestion if he wouldn’t personally put money in it. The audio files will have more on the three he likes.

Questions Answered

Throughout the conference I’m often approached with questions on a session or two. One question in particular stuck out today.

Oxford Club Chairman Circle Member Harry J. comes up to me as I’m pouring a cup of tea.  He remarks, “What do I do if I’ve already got a million dollar stock portfolio?“  I looked at him and replied…”Well, you celebrate!“

Turns out Harry used the principles and portfolios we recommend in the Oxford Club…he showed me the numbers to prove it. I think the best thing he can do is to educate others…pass on the wealth of knowledge, as they say. That’s what we’re trying to do with our new Investment U course, “How to Create Your $1,000,000 Portfolio From Scratch.”

It teaches you, your kids, and your grandkids the nuts and bolts of the investment approach we use at the Oxford Club. It will allow you to do exactly what Harry did.

We’ll have more on that soon. In the meantime, I’m rushing back into another session now. Stay tuned for our closing day’s wrap-ups and panel discussions on Monday.

Source: “Looking Back, So We Can Move Forward”

U.S. stocks just capped off their strongest two-week performance since 1938. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index is surging toward its third straight week of gains, something it’s done only three times since the bear market in U.S. stocks started 78 weeks ago.

And the Nasdaq Composite Index has erased its year-to-date losses and is now is up for the year.

The path of least resistance is now higher,” Miller Tabak & Co. LLC equity strategist Peter Bookvar told MarketWatch.com, citing such factors as not-as-bad-as-feared economic reports, optimism over Obama administration economic fix-it plans, and a recent jump in commodity prices that “has done wonders for some of the emerging markets that depend on them, whether it was Russia or Brazil.”

As Money Morning has continued to report, U.S. stocks are smoking hot. But the question remains: Will they stay that way?

With an index, the S&P 500, that closed yesterday (Wednesday) at 832.86, most market bulls see an index that’s gained 167 points from its intra-day, bear-market low of 666, meaning it’s zoomed 25% in just three weeks. It also means that the closely watched U.S stock index is now only 13% below its intra-day high for the year of 943.85 – a mark set Jan. 6.

The journey from that low to that high would represent a move of 42%, but there are some experts – including Ed Yardeni, president of Yardeni Research, who believe that can happen.  And why not? After all, we’re watching the best monthly market gain since 1987.
“I wouldn’t be surprised to see this rally take the S&P [500 Index] up to 1,000,” Tom Wirth, senior investment officer at Chemung Canal Trust Co., which manages $1.5 billion in Elmira, NY, Bloomberg News. “It’s been one data point after another that’s come in better than expected.”

But the bears aren’t hibernating: Once you claw away the apparent good news, you’ll find some troubling numbers, they say. For instance, this is the fifth time the market has spiked more than 10% since peaking in 2007, and two of those spikes shot up more than than 21%. They also note that the S&P 500 Index is still down 8.0% this year after sinking 38% last year – the worst annual return since the Great Depression.

“We’re in a situation now where the market is a little ahead of itself, considering how murky the fundamentals still are,” Chris Johnson, chief executive of trading and analysis firm Johnson Research Group, told The Wall Street Journal.

Pointing to the financial sector, which has been the rally’s chief catalyst, Johnson said: “It’s like a kid in school who went from getting an ‘F’ in class to a ‘D.’ People are happy, but only to a certain extent.”

There’s also the possibility that analysts, at this point, simply aren’t sure what to believe.

“Welcome to the club. Many investment managers are (paralyzed) too,” writes MarketWatch’s Mark Hulbert. “That’s because, on the one hand, they’re scared of the bear market continuing, making fools of those who flash  ‘Buy’ signals now …Yet, on the other hand, these advisers are afraid of missing out on a new bull market, if indeed one has begun.”

The question is: Where does that leave the typical investor?

The opinion emanating from the U.S. Federal Reserve is that the U.S. economy will turn around by the end of this year or the start of 2010. And the majority of both bulls and bears agree that the stock market – typically a “leading” economic indicator – will rebound before the economy does.

But before you make up your mind as to whether or not you want to join in on this rally there are several factors you should consider.

Easy-to-Read Market Indicators

• Blue-chip earnings reports: Stock indices won’t begin to rebound in earnest until earnings expectations improve for the companies they list. When our financial fiasco started, companies were comparing their falling earnings to results the prior year, when business was markedly better. This was one of the factors that induced investors to sell their stocks, exacerbating a decline that was already under way. With the first quarter of the New Year coming to a close, and companies in most industries closing their books and getting ready to report their first-quarter earnings, two factors will be working in their favor: First, they will be reporting against the much-lower profit reports of last year, making improvements easier; and second, earnings expectations going forward are much lower, meaning that there’s a much-greater potential for stock-market-boosting upside earnings surprises. If expectations are met or exceeded, traders can see the company’s low stock price as a deal and buy.

• Advance/Decline Line (A/D line): The A/D line is one of the most popular tools for measuring the breadth of a market advance or decline – in other words, gauging its overall strength or weakness. For instance, when more stocks move up than move down, the A/D Line moves up, as well. It’s also useful to look for divergences between a major market index, such as the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and the A/D line, as a way of determining whether a market is really in a rising or falling trend. For instance, there’s an old Wall Street adage that holds that “trouble looms when the generals lead and the troops refuse to follow” – meaning that if the Dow advances and is making new highs, but the A/D fails to do so, expect the market’s apparent charge to fall apart. Yesterday, 441 S&P stocks advanced, 57 declined and two remain unchanged.

• Volatility Index (VIX): Fear and greed are the primary emotions that drive the market. And the Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index indicates the direction of the market by tracking the price of options for S&P 500 stocks – investments driven by fear and greed. When the VIX is low, option traders believe that the market will rise and get greedy with their bets. When the VIX is high, they are worried the market is going to tumble.

Green, Yellow or Red Light?

No matter how you interpret the indicators above, it’s best not to view the current rally as a green light or red light, but instead as a flashing yellow. Slow down, approach with caution, and be cognizant of everything coming at you from every other direction.

Applying that to your money and investments means cherry picking from both sides of the aisle in order to form a plan.

If you are looking for long-term gains, the bulls are more in the right than the bears. Every market downturn has rebounded. So the fact that the S&P 500 is more than 47% off its high is more of a reassuring statistic than a disconcerting one.

If you are trying to avoid short-term losses, the bears are more in the right than the bulls. This may be the most promising stock rally since the global financial world collapsed, but with unemployment high and suppressed consumer spending keeping the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) in the red, it could also be the biggest “head-fake” rally in a continued bear market.

“Despite the fact many investors feel like they missed the boat to get in, it’s still not time to be cavalier,” says Money MorningInvestment Director Keith Fitz-Gerald.

But it’s also not the time to stand completely on the sidelines, either.

Should a bear market continue, there are still plenty of conservative investments out there – from those that pay hefty dividends to gold – that offer better potential returns than an antique Ball (BLL) Mason canning jar hidden in the bottom of your sock drawer.

“In a market as unpredictable as this one … I am less concerned with short-term rallies than I am with long-term investing success,” said Fitz-Gerald. “That’s why – if you’re thinking about getting in right now – I urge you to first carefully review both sides of the argument.”

Source: Financial Crisis Investing: How to Profit Even if the Current Bull Market Rally is Really a Bear Market Fake

[This is the seventh installment of a new series that will explore ways for investors to recover from the U.S. financial crisis. To reach an archive of previous stories in the series, please just click on the series logo.]

This from Ted:

As you know, I’m a gold bug. I’m quite bullish on the yellow metal. I have been recommending gold since 2001 and I expect gold to run much higher. You should own some gold in your portfolio as an insurance policy, just in case the economy gets worse.

Gold is a safe haven in times of financial and geopolitical instability. Gold has often been nicknamed the “crisis commodity” since it tends to outperform other investments during periods of market distress and world tensions.

I mentioned in previous articles that a great way to own gold in your portfolio is to buy the SPDR Gold Shares (GLD).

You can even generate some income on your holdings in GLD by selling covered calls against it.

This simply means selling the right for someone else to buy your GLD shares at a specific price (strike price) until an exact date (expiration date).

Therefore, if GLD were to go up in price – exceeding the specific price (strike) and the buyer of the call exercises their option, you have to hand over your GLD, but you still make a nice profit.

The investor pays you money (premium) upfront no matter what happens with GLD.

If your GLD shares never trade for more than the strike price, then you keep the premium and your shares in GLD.

You want to get lots of cash (premium) upfront and still be able to profit if gold heads higher. So I suggest selling covered calls with a strike price about 15 to 20 percent above the current price of GLD. I also suggest options that expire 4 to 6 months out.

The drawbacks are that you cap the amount you can make in the position, but you can buy GLD back if your position is taken away from you, allowing you to maintain your exposure to gold. Also, if gold goes lower you will lose money but you will still keep the premium that you received by selling the covered calls. Please consult with your broker before acting on this strategy to see if it’s right for your financial situation. I want you to fully understand how covered calls work before you proceed.

Covered call selling can be a great way to reduce the average cost for your GLD position and boost your overall performance.

You can even earn more income using this strategy than from some of the highest dividend paying stocks around. This strategy is very attractive because option premiums are high right now.

Source: Earn Income on Your Gold