Joe Eqcome submits:
Outlook: To paraphrase “The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner”, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge: “Water, water everywhere and not much of it to drink.”
While it is generally noted that ¾’s of the earth’s surface is water, less than 3% is fresh water; the rest is salty. All living matter on earth is made up of 2/3’s water—including ourselves.
Michael Johnston submits:
Friday saw a flurry of activity ahead of the extended holiday weekend, as a highly-anticipated jobs report boosted investor confidence as the summer draws to a close. The U.S. economy lost 54,000 jobs in August but the private sector added 67,000 jobs, beating analyst estimates and giving Wall Street hope that a number of positive reports in recent weeks may reflect that the tide is finally turning in the U.S. Elsewhere, Bernanke told a panel that he had no options to prevent the failure of Lehman in 2008 while Samsung rolled out a tablet computer to rival the iPad.
In commodity markets, gold eased back from near-record levels and crude slid lower after a report showing that growth in the U.S. service sector slowed last month.
Investment U submits:
By Mark Skousen
Are you managing your investment portfolio properly?
If it doesn’t include some counter-cyclical stocks – or what the pros call “non-correlated investing” – then you should ensure that it does.
We are always searching the globe for markets that are completely out of favor with the investment "community" and also off the radar with the average fund manager. Furthermore, we try to find out-of-favor markets where the underlying fundamentals, or at least the drivers of those fundamentals, are favorable.
We are concerned about inflation and rising commodity prices, we are diametrically opposed to the in-vogue "deflation and double-dip" school of thought/camp (call it what you will), and we have made no secret of that in previous Seeking Alpha posts. With this central view in mind we have been trying to find a market which offers a very cheap entry into a leveraged play on commodity markets. Whilst many emerging markets look very attractive they have attracted the attention of the investment community and accordingly valuations have been bid up to reasonable levels (i.e. they are hardly bargains anymore especially when you compare them to developed market equities).
Investment U submits:
By Martin Denholm
So much for that global financial crisis. The currency market has shrugged off the world’s woes over the past three years and blasted into the stratosphere.
Hickey and Walters (Bespoke) submit:
Below we highlight the key ETFs that we follow that are currently trading the farthest above their 50-day moving averages. As shown, the Internet stock ETF (HHH) is currently on top of the list at 10.31% above its 50-day. Malaysia (EWM) ranks second at 9.29%, followed by Base Metals (DBB), Australia (EWA), and then REITs (IYR). A lot of times we’ll see ETFs from one asset class clustered at the top of the most overbought list, but it is currently pretty diverse.
optionMONSTER submits:
By Chris McKhann
Emerging Markets have followed our markets higher over the last four days, but the big options volume in one important exchange-traded fund is positioning for the downside.
Andrew Wilkinson submits:
The shortfall in the loss of U.S. jobs created a risk-on environment spurring immediate gains for equity index futures, while sinking the dollar and bonds. Yields surged as the 10-year U.S. note sank by three-quarters of a point.
Andrew Wilkinson submits:
The euro is pushing its luck with the dollar even ahead of the critical employment report due out later this morning. Having touched $1.2854 already this morning, the euro is teetering on a surge to perhaps $1.2925 if today’s jobs report softens the perceived need to hold dollars on safety grounds. That aside, the euro seems to have several other tailwinds boosting its appeal at the moment.
Hard Assets Investor submits:
by Brad Zigler
Real-time Monetary Inflation (last 12 months): -2.1%
This week, gold turned in another mixed performance against the world’s reserve currencies. In addition to its appreciation against the U.S. dollar, bullion gained 0.3 percent against the yen and 0.6 percent vs. sterling. Gold gave up 0.5 percent to the euro and 0.9 percent to the Swiss franc.
2010 (1924)