Defense Budget Winners and Losers
How Defense Companies Boeing (NYSE:BA), Northrop Grumman (NYSE:NOC), General Dynamics (NYSE:GD), Optex Systems Holdings, Inc. (OTCBB: OPXS) and others are Impacted
POINT ROBERTS, Wash., DELTA, B.C. - May 6, 2009 – www.HomelandDefenseStocks.com, a leading global investor and industry portal for the defense and security sector, within Investorideas.com, presents a sector close-up on defense stocks following recently announced changes in the Defense Budget.
Defense Budget Winners and Losers
Lisa Springer CFA, Equity research analyst and financial writer

Point Roberts, WA, Delta, BC - March 23, 2009 - www.InvestorIdeas.com, a leading global investor and industry research portal covering water, environment and oil and gas sectors, announces a new featured showcase company, Wescorp Energy Inc.(OTCBB:WSCE ),a company providing technology based solutions for the treatment of contaminated ‘produced water’ for the oil and gas industry.

Oil and gas production worldwide generates a tremendous amount unwanted waste water - water that has been contaminated with hydrocarbons, sand, drill cuttings, organic and inorganic salts. The produced water is contaminated naturally from the formation and artificially through oil and gas processing. The handling, treatment and disposal of the produced water are some of the most controversial and environmentally challenging issues oil and gas producers face today. Produced water from hydrocarbon operations creates massive volumes of waste that requires remediation.

Investors Tools to Become Educated in Solar, Wind and Green Stocks

POINT ROBERTS, WA and DELTA, BC –February 24, 2009 - www.RenewableEnergyStocks.com, a leading global investor and industry portal for the renewable energy sector within Investorideas.com, provides investors with tools and resources to participate and invest in the green technology revolution.

Investor Ideas has created a global directory of publicly traded green and renewable energy stocks in wind, solar, biofuel and other green sectors. Investor Ideas stock directories are one of several tools for independent investors to complete due diligence and research.

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Solar, Wind, Water, Green Building, Green Automotive, Organics, Technology Companies Featured

POINT ROBERTS, Wash., Delta B.C., February 19, 2009 - www.InvestorIdeas.com, a leading online global investor resource, updates the Investor Ideas Global Marketplace and the Global Green Marketplace for green and renewable energy companies

Accredited Investors and Companies seeking funding can register and request info online. Approved accredited investors can view the secure marketplace pages featuring executive summaries of each company. Approved companies can be added to the growing list of companies.

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Directory Features Gold Stocks, Silver Stocks, Uranium Stocks, Copper Stocks, Zinc Stocks and Precious Metals TSX, TSX Venture, OTC, NASDAQ, AMEX, NYSE, ASX, AIM and other leading Stock Exchanges

POINT ROBERTS, WA and DELTA, BC – February 17, 2009, www.InvestorIdeas.com, and its mining stocks portals update the free stock directory for independent investors to research stocks in the sector. The directory features Gold Stocks, Silver Stocks, Uranium Stocks, Copper Stocks, Zinc Stocks and Precious Metals TSX, TSX Venture, OTC, NASDAQ, AMEX, NYSE, ASX, AIM and other leading Stock Exchanges.

Investor Ideas provides research tools and investing tools for global investors in multiple sectors.

About our Mining Portals:

The Telegraph is reporting that a second wave of bailouts is coming down the pike:
"Dominique Strauss-Kahn's warning comes amid growing concern that at some point in the next year a major economy could have to seek support from the Fund. Mr Strauss-Kahn, who was yesterday attending the Group of Seven leading finance ministers' meeting in Rome, said: "I expect a second wave of countries to come knocking."

Markets are motivated by fear and greed.

Who would dare to question this axiom of received wisdom? When markets go up, they are motivated by greed. When markets go down, they are motivated by fear. Presidential rhetoric established this truth in our cultural lexicon three quarters of a century ago:

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Fear and greed are certainly potent factors in the investor's psychology. It's easy enough to spot the frenzied euphoria of greed in people who suddenly make a decision to buy when a stock is peaking. It's just as easy to spot the hysterical flight mentality of fear in people who sell at the bottom. These irrational behaviors would be amusing if they weren't so destructive.

One of my favorite newspapers is the British rag - Financial Times. It tends to be unbiased and it will paint an interesting picture of what is happening around the world.
Here are some tidbits I picked up from a recent issue...

Italian industry has slashed its power consumption by 30% in the past 2 months as Italy has slipped into the grips of recession. Italy has issued a modest stimulus package but it hamstrung by its already large debt load. Over the next 2 years, 900,000 jobs could disappear in Italy.

Japan’s Central Bank has its key lending rate at 0.3% and really can’t lower it much more. To ensure banks remain solvent, the Central Bank will accept as collateral bonds rated BBB. Plans are to accept up to $32 billion of these bonds. Previous Bank policy was to accept only bonds rated A and better (how's that for a dramatic change of policy ?)

I am so mad I think my eyeballs are going to squirt blood and my hair catch on fire....

Canada, like so many other nations, is not immune to the global crisis unfolding right now. While other Governments are stepping up to the plate and taking action, what is Canada doing? Zero. Nadda. Nicht. Squat. Canada as of a few hours ago finds itself in a state of Constitutional crisis that is reminiscent of places like Bolivia and Mongolia and Russia.

Stephen Harper, the Canadian Prime Minister, on the surface appears to be a likeable sort. Well mannered, well dressed, educated....I think you get the image. But beneath it all lurks a neo-conservative student who is determined to steer Canada towards a right wing goal that really has not yet been made clear to Canadians. Canadians have been unsure of this man for some time now and that is why he has been unable to win a clear majority in an election.

The Cobalt Mining Race of the Century:

Supply Destruction vs. Demand Destruction

And they’re off! It’s a steep downhill race, and it looks like Demand Destruction has the early lead. Yes, yes, consumption is down in the US! What speed it has! He could be slowing as Europe looks strong…nope! Wrong on that count, Germany is in recession now…look at Demand Destruction go!

Supply is slow out of the gate today folks, but he always starts that way. 10 years ago, after Bre-X, Demand Destruction blew him away – but he did narrow the gap at the end.

Supply’s trainers, Lower Metal Prices and Rising Inventories, are yelling at him from the sidelines.

There’s a record crowd of Investors watching the race on TV screens around the world. But they don’t look happy. There was clearly some big betting on Supply Destruction.

If you are looking for some good, serious, hard-hitting advice I invite you to visit www.murenbeeld.com to read the most recent writings of Dr. Martin Murenbeeld.

I listened to a brief interview with him today and what he had to say was quite intriguing.

He was talking about the current situation and contrasting it to what we went through in the 1980's. He noted that in the late 1970's what we experienced was a demand driven round of inflation. Fed Chairman Paul Volcker was left with little choice but to ramp up interest rates to squelch this demand. He did it and successfully cooled off the economy and within 5 or so years, the economy was back in fighting form.

Whoa !!! what is happening here ??

6 weeks ago Canadians went to the polls and elected yet another minority Government. Nothing wrong with that I say....history shows that minority Governments can be quite functional indeed.

But this election has left the Opposition Liberal Party scrambling in that its leader Stephan Dione has now agreed to step down in light of his poor performace in the recent election.

Another good leading indicator is Coal. In January, President Obama is going to unveil a stimulus program. I have already written a previous blog on this subject where I voiced my opinion that he best not engage in a program of building schools and fixing potholes in roads. What is needed is projects to grapple with the gaping trade deficit.

One way to meet this trade deficit head on is to take steps to make America more energy self sufficient. With America sitting on a massive supply of Coal, one brilliant strategy for Mr. Obama would be to spend money building new coal fired generating plants and money on plants that can use existing technology ( originally developed in the 1920's !!) to convert coal into synthetic fuel.

One stock to keep a close eye on is KOL which is the Van Eck Global Market Vectors Coal ETF.

Right now RSI and DMI technical indicators are NOT giving a buy signal. I suspect it will take a move over the 50 day moving average to deliver this signal.

Have we seen the bottom? Is the worst over yet? If I were to stop 10 people on the street and pose that question, 5 would say yes, 5 would say no. I am not much for stopping people on the street, so I prefer to let the markets tell me what the status of things is.

One good leading indicator that is worthy of watching is the steel market. The demand for steel will tell us if the global economy is pulling itself out of its deflationary, de-leveraging slump.

One stock you should add to your screen is SLX which trades in the USA. SLX is the Market Vectors Steel Index, a basket of steel related stocks.

This past weekend I could not help but think about the price of Oil and its recent plunge from $147 all the way down to $50. True, global economic events have created some demand destruction which has been a negative for Oil, but what if there is another theme at work here?

In previous blogs I have made reference to Russia's Vladimir Putin and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez - both sources of agitation to the USA.

We all know that commodity futures markets can be manipulated. We have seen ample evidence of this in the Gold market. So if Gold can be manipulated, why can't Oil ?

Here's my wild and crazy theory. I invite feedback from readers on this idea.....

Oil is being artificially depressed through Futures manipulation.

This crimps revenues for places like Russia, Iran, Venezuela.

The media has been abuzz these past few days over statements made by Barrack Obama that he will soon unveil a plan that will result in the creation of 2.5 million jobs.

A recent article in my favourite of publications, The Economist, has given a nasty hint of what is to come.

Here in North America we don't really have a good feel for what is happening in the shipping world. My recent cruise on the HMS Queen Victoria terminated in the Greek port of Piraeus ( outside of Athens ). This is one of the world's biggest shipping ports and right now beneath the seemingly busy surroundings a crisis is unfolding. It turns out that Greece owns 1/5th (20%) of the global shipping fleet. The ongoing financial crisis has taken a serious bite out of the transport of commodity goods to Asia. Cargo vessels that several months ago demanded day rates of $50,000 are now fetching a paltry $7000 a day. In a classic case of misreading the markets, global shipping firms have a total of some 10,000 new ships in the final stages of building that will be ready to go into service in 2009. This should keep day rates under severe pressure as these new ships flood the markets with excess capacity.

As a former Investment Advisor, I was immediately drawn to an article in today's paper here in Paris that addressed the woes of the wealth management industry. Sadly, when I was in the "biz", the focus was all on the commission to be earned on a deal. All too often, the client came second and my monthly commission "run" came first. It looks like things in Europe were the same. As one member of firm Morgan Stanley recently noted, if the client expressed a desire to invest in apples, the wealth management industry would try to sell the client something that had apple flavor in it.

This approach obviously has now come crashing down around the ears of clients as global markets have imploded. A recent survey conducted by the Boston Consulting Group suggests that assets under management have grown 4% in 2008 versus 20% in 2006. Clearly investor confidence has been hit.

The media has been blathering on for months now about the banking and credit crisis, but seemingly has chosen to ignore trying to explain some of the underlying components.

At issue is an entity called the Bank for International Settlements ( or BIS). Think of BIS as the banker to the world's Central Bankers. In 2004 , after several years of wrangling, BIS unveiled Basel II, an accord designed to pave the way for state of the art risk management in the financial industry. Basel II was all about a new improved way of assessing loans, securities and other assets on a bank's balance sheet. The end result would be the calculation of a capital to assets ratio that would speak directly to the strength of a bank.