¨The oil price hike is not only generating chaos in countries due to food riots but has also created transport strikes in Europe. There are shortages and even one death, ¨ says Paola Pecora.

More than a million foreign nationals have crept into the costal regions of Mexico already… but that number is growing.

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

It is easy to think about the credit crunch in terms of banks. The banks made these weird structured products, the banks are responsible for the borrowing rate, the banks falling market cap is dragging on the FTSE, etc.

Everywhere I look, I see the word “bubble” – quickly followed by the word “burst” or “deflate”. So what exactly is a “bubble”? Well, it used to be the sort of thing that one had in a hot tub bath when there was a lot of soap.

Would-be first-time buyers have had a hard time of it. They want to buy a house, but time and again many are thwarted by the same problem. They can’t afford to buy a house. Not being able to afford something is a very common problem in markets.

With the housing market’s woes the latest obsession in the US, many Americans are desperately looking for housing market predictions for 2008. And the latest news is far from encouraging. This from CNNMoney:

Global Insight, the world’s leading company for economic and financial analysis and forecasting, today released the first quarter 2008 update of the U.S. housing valuation analysis, House Prices in America, showing that single-family home prices fell for the third straight period

It can often be quite a lonely place and the investment crowd may call you all kinds of derogatory names – but when it comes to stock picking, nothing beats the feeling of striking out on your own, going against conventional wisdom and being proved correct.

Another day, another round of bad news from the brokers and the banks.

A surprise to few, luxury homebuilder Toll Brothers Inc. (TOL) posted its second consecutive quarterly net loss today (Tuesday), though the results were better than Wall Street expected.