It goes against the grain, but free stock market recommendations are often the best stock market recommendations.

Investment writers and stock pickers, like everybody else, have to build a reputation. They have to grab your attention, make you sit up and think. And they do this buy giving out free stock market recommendations — often the best recommendations they have.

Here at ContrarianProfits.com, you’ll find a wealth of recommendations and investment ideas that cost you nothing except the time it takes you to read them.

I love Barron’s “Big Money” poll. Most people read Barron’s looking for investment ideas. So twice a year, Barron’s gives readers what they think they want. The magazine conducts a poll of money managers, asking them about their favorite investments. I look forward to the Big Money poll… but for different reasons than you might think.

The huge run-up in commodity prices between January and mid-March has been a welcome boost for listed producers in the falling Aussie equities market. Oil, sugar, coal, gold, wheat… all these things have gained voraciously. Australian companies drilling, harvesting and mining them have weathered the storm of equity-selling better than other stocks.