Stock futures extend gains on retail sales rise

Stock futures are extending their gains after retail sales unexpectedly rose in February, a positive sign for the economy.
The government said retail sales rose 0.3 percent last month. Analysts had expected sales had declined by 0.2 percent.
The news raises hopes that the economy is gaining momentum.
Ahead of the opening bell in New York, Dow Jones industrial average futures are up 39, or 0.4 percent, at 10,649. Standard & Poor's 500 index futures are up 4.00, or 0.4 percent, at 1,149.90, while Nasdaq 100 index futures are up 1.50, or 0.1 percent, at 1,924.00.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
Stock futures are trading higher Friday as investors look to consumers for guidance on the economic recovery.
A handful of reports could detail the U.S. economy's strength by shedding more light on consumers' spending appetites during a time of high unemployment.
The government plans to report on February retail sales and January business inventories. A report on March consumer sentiment is also due.
Any inkling of positive news may be exactly what the market needs. A rally in financial stocks Thursday helped the market extend their weekly gains. The Dow and S&P 500 have been hovering near 15-month highs, but investors haven't been in a rush to send those indexes any higher.
Overseas markets were mostly higher on Friday. European markets got a lift from strong industrial production figures for January in the 16-nation region that shares the euro.
Ahead of the opening bell in New York, Dow Jones industrial average futures rose 23, or 0.2 percent, to 10,633. Standard & Poor's 500 index futures rose 2.70, or 0.2 percent, to 1,148.60, while Nasdaq 100 index futures rose 2.75, or 0.1 percent, to 1,925.25.
Before the U.S. market opens, the Commerce Department reports on retail sales for February. Economists predict retail sales likely slipped slightly last month, reflecting weakness in demand for autos and the severe winter storms that hit much of the country.
Economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters are forecasting that sales dipped 0.2 percent in February following a gain of 0.5 percent in January.
Earlier this month, the International Council of Shopping Centers reported that sales jumped 3.7 percent in February compared to a year ago, the biggest gain since November 2007, the month before the recession began.
The new report is due out at 8:30 a.m. EST.
Data from the Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment index for March on consumer sentiment will also provide more evidence on consumers' current spending appetites.
Higher consumer spending is vital because it accounts for about 70 percent of economic activity. Economists have cautioned, though, that any spending increases could falter as unemployment weighs on a sustained recovery.
The nation's unemployment rate was 9.7 percent in February.
Investors will receive additional guidance about the economy's health when the Commerce Department report on January business inventories. The data is likely to show a tick up in business inventories even though wholesalers cut their stockpiles during the month. Economists expect total business inventories posted a slight rise of 0.2 percent in January following a 0.2 percent fall in December.
The report is due at 10 a.m. EST.
Meanwhile, bond prices were mostly down Friday. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its price, rose to 3.74 percent from 3.73 percent late Thursday.
The dollar fell against other major currencies, while gold prices rose.
Overseas, Japan's Nikkei stock average rose 0.8 percent. Britain's FTSE 100 rose 0.3 percent, Germany's DAX index rose 0.8 percent, and France's CAC-40 rose 0.6 percent

Retail Sales Post Strong Gain

U.S. retail sales posted a surprising gain in February despite falling car demand amid trouble at auto maker Toyota Motor Corp. and fierce blizzards that crippled the East Coast for days.
Retail sales rose last month by 0.3%, the Commerce Department said Friday. With the Super Bowl football championship game early in the month, electronic store sales soared.
Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had forecast a 0.3% decrease.
January retail sales were adjusted downward, to a 0.1% increase from a previously reported 0.5% gain.
Excluding the car sector, all other retail sales rose 0.8%. Economists had forecast a 0.1% increase. Ex-auto sales in January rose 0.5%, revised from a previously estimated 0.6% gain.
Retail sales data are an important indicator of consumer spending. Consumer spending makes up 70% of gross domestic product, which is the broad measure of U.S. economic activity.
The retail sales report showed U.S. car and parts sales dived by 2.0% last month. Toyota suffered because of fallout from recalls and quality problems. Its sales fell 8.7% to 100,027 vehicles, previously issued industry data showed.
Filling station sales in February rose 0.3%.
Excluding sales of gasoline and cars, other retailers' sales jumped 0.9% last month, the biggest gain in three months.
Merchants reported sales increases included restaurants and bars, 0.9%; electronic and appliance stores, 3.7%; food and beverage stores, 1.3%; clothing stores, 0.6%; general merchandise stores, 1.0%; sporting goods, hobby, book and music stores, 1.2%; building material and garden supplies dealers, 0.5% and furniture retailers, 0.7%.
Non-store retailers, oddly, were flat last month despite the snow that paralyzed the East and kept many consumers housebound. The non-store category includes mail-order and Internet retailers.
Health and personal care store sales fell 0.7%, the only category aside from autos to report declining sales in February.

The wrong way to pick funds

 

(Money Magazine) -- Photographer friends tell me that if you're picking out a point-and-shoot camera you shouldn't focus much on the megapixels. That measure of a camera's resolution is hyped by manufacturers, but most cameras on the market give you all the pixels you'll need.
So when I was buying a new camera recently, I chose ... the model with more megapixels.
Call it the data dazzle. Your mind tends to hook on to any number that helps you compare various choices, even when you know the information isn't actually helpful.
I thought of this after reading a proposal to fix the retirement system from the Squam Lake Working Group, made up of some of the nation's top economists. One of their ideas is to create a simple one-page disclosure label for the mutual funds in 401(k) plans.
You'd see data such as the fund's costs and its likely risk. What you wouldn't see: its performance record.
"We don't think it's very informative," says Dartmouth economist Kenneth French, who worked on the proposal. French is also a director of a firm that runs low-cost funds, which would tend to look good in this light. But I think he also has the evidence on his side here.
The past is past: At least when I paid for extra megapixels I got them. But performance numbers represent returns that have already been earned. Your returns are in the future, and it's notoriously hard to pick tomorrow's winners and losers. Ask anyone who bought Bill Miller's Legg Mason Capital Management Value fund in 2006 (see below) -- or sold it in 2008.
Returns push your emotional buttons: Performance stats can be worse than uninformative. They can actually de-inform, making you forget about data that matter. Although low expenses add up to a big performance edge over time, nobody ever fantasized about paying just 0.25% for a fund.
But when you see a fund that has earned 15% annualized returns over a decade -- as some emerging-markets funds have -- it's hard not to imagine how cool it would be to own a piece of that.
Managers know the game: Returns drive fund sales. That gives managers an incentive to seek short-term glory at the expense of long-term strategy.
One way for a fund to look good, says Santa Clara University finance professor Meir Statman, is to invest outside its category. A fund that focuses on large U.S. companies might add shares of small tech companies when they turn hot. That will score good relative numbers for a while but expose investors to unexpected risks.
If you just can't ignore performance numbers, make it a rule to look at them last, after you've made a short list of funds with low expenses and experienced managers. You'll be two steps ahead of the game.

US Stocks Edge Higher, Led By Telecom Sector

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--U.S. stocks rose slightly Tuesday, led by such telecommunications companies as AT&T and Verizon Communications following the unveiling of a faster router from Cisco Systems.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 11.86 points, or 0.11%, to 10564.38. AT&T climbed 28 cents, or 1.1%, to 25.56, and Verizon Communications advanced 28 cents, or 0.9%, to 29.91, as Cisco unveiled a smarter, faster router following weeks of building hype over the networking titan's promise to "forever change the Internet." AT&T, a key Cisco customer, said it completed a test with the new router, named CRS-3, which allowed its long-distance Internet backbone to carry data traffic at 100 gigabits per second, roughly 10,000 times faster than the average household cable or DSL connection. Cisco (Nasdaq) ended flat at 26.13.
Boeing was also strong. The stock climbed 55 cents, or 0.8%, to 67.79, after Northrop Grumman said it would drop out of a protracted quest to win a $40 billion contract to build the U.S. Air Force's next generation of aerial-refueling planes, leaving Boeing as the only competitor left standing. Northrop, which is not a Dow component, fell 16 cents, or 0.2%, to 64.
The Nasdaq Composite advanced 8.47, or 0.36%, to 2340.68, a six-month closing high. The Standard & Poor's 500 added 1.95, or 0.17%, to 1140.45, led by its telecom sector. Tuesday's gains were limited as the materials sector fell on declines in metal futures, while consumer stocks and the health-care sector also fell.
"To me, the sentiment is getting a little tired," said David Chalupnik, head of equities at First American Funds. "The market has rebounded and is close to its high for this recovery, so the market is running into technical resistance, and 1150 would be a big number to break through for the S&P 500."
Still, Chalupnik added, "the trend for the market does remain positive. You do have good economic numbers coming out overall, and we expect continued improvement in the numbers although they are kind of muted for a recovery."
General Growth Properties climbed 47 cents, or 3.3%, to 14.55, after the shopping-center operator said it received a proposal from Fairholme Capital Management, one of its largest unsecured creditors, and Pershing Square Capital Management, one of General Growth's largest equity holders and a significant unsecured creditor, to help it emerge from bankruptcy.
Kroger fell 55 cents, or 2.4%, to 22.35. The supermarket operator's fiscal fourth-quarter earnings fell 27% on higher costs, better than analysts expected, although it issued cautious guidance amid an uncertain pace of economic recovery.
Texas Instruments declined 50 cents, or 2%, to 24.19, as the chip maker's first-quarter guidance just wasn't enough to impress investors. Although the company boosted the bottom end of its first-quarter forecast, investors had been hoping for more, such as the company raising the top end of its view.
Invesco reported that assets under management edged up $300 million in February to $412.9 billion from the prior month, but dropped from the end of 2009. Its shares fell 1.09, or 5.2%, to 19.99.
UBS raised its investment rating on Yum Brands to buy from neutral, saying the restaurant company, which owns brands including KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, is turning the corner. Taco Bell U.S. seems to have better momentum, Pizza Hut's U.S. trends are improving and China's fast-food sales seem to be stabilizing, the firm said. Yum Brands climbed 1.19, or 3.4%, to 36.60.
WebMD Health (Nasdaq) announced plans to buy back another 11% of its shares outstanding, saying doing so represents "a superior alternative" to other uses of the funds. Shares rose 1.50, or 3.4%, to 45.28, approaching the $45.80 offer price.
Navistar International climbed 83 cents, or 1.9%, to 44.25, as its financial unit reached an expanded U.S. financing agreement with GE Capital Corp., boosting the ability of the maker of trucks and engines to extend credit to customers for truck purchases. The accord is expected to take effect in 90 days.
UAL Corp. (Nasdaq) jumped 64 cents, or 3.7%, to 18.16 after its United Airlines said February unit revenue--the amount taken in for each passenger flown a mile on its planes and those of its affiliates--jumped 17% to 19% over the same month a year ago. The No. 3 U.S. airline by traffic also said its February traffic increased 2.1% on a decline of 5.3% in seats offered.

Stock investors ask: What's the next big thing

On 1-year anniversary of stock market bottom, investors ask: What's the next big thing?
NEW YORK (AP) -- A year after the stock market began its comeback from 12-year lows, investors are looking for the next big thing.
Stocks have lost some of the momentum that propelled the Dow Jones industrial average up 4,017 points, or 61.4 percent, from its close of 6,547 on March 9, 2009. That's natural -- bull markets tend to slow down as they head into their second year. But the lethargic pace of the economic recovery has also been a drag on stocks. And so investors are waiting for signs that the economy is ready to put up some solid, sustainable growth numbers.
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Tuesday, March 9, 2010.(AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
The most likely trigger: job growth. Investors need to see a Labor Department report that says employers are creating more jobs than they're cutting.
Until then, investors are going to stay cautious. Analysts say the market is likely to move sideways or drift higher, as it's been doing over the past few weeks. Tuesday's trading fit the pattern of modest moves. The Dow rose just under 12 points. The index is up 1.3 percent so far this year.
But that doesn't mean the market isn't going to have its fitful moments. And it certainly has volatile industries that are expected to move the rest of the market. On Tuesday, the financial companies that led stocks higher in the past year again drove trading. Analysts said financial shares rallied as investors reacted to rumors that the government might prohibit the trades known as short sales in stocks of companies it owns. The government has large stakes in Citigroup Inc., American International Group Inc. and mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac after bailing them out during the 2008 financial crisis.
The market began its ascent last March 10 after Citigroup, the big bank most wounded by the credit crisis and recession, said it had turned a profit. Signs that the housing market was starting to turn around added to the momentum.
At the time, such news, which amounted to glimmers of hope, was enough for investors. With stock prices so much higher now, they want proof.
"A lot of the gains we already enjoyed have been in anticipation of economic progress which has not yet occurred," said Lawrence Creatura, portfolio manager at Federated Clover Investment Advisors.
Besides jobs, investors need to see more strength in the housing market. Traders have been tolerant of recent declines in home sales, but if those numbers don't pick up, investors are likely to become uneasy.
First-quarter earnings reports that will be issued next month need to show continued sales growth. Companies' results for the last three months of 2009 were better than expected. Now investors want to know that demand, starting with consumers, is rising.
Adam Gould, senior portfolio manager at Direxion Funds in New York, said he will be looking for at least two months of back-to-back gains in job growth and for the unemployment rate to fall below 9 percent to feel more comfortable about the pace of recovery. Unemployment stands at 9.7 percent.
Even if the news improves, just holding the gains of the last year could be tough. Some of the market's big rallies in past years were followed by slumps. In the first year of the 1982-87 bull market, the Standard & Poor's 500 index jumped 58 percent. In the second year, the index fell 14.4 percent.
Still, that doesn't mean that's what will happen this time. In 2003, the S&P 500 index rose 26.4 percent. Then, in 2004, it peaked early and fizzled, until a 10.7 percent surge late in the year lifted stocks.
The Dow on Tuesday rose 11.86, or 0.1 percent, to 10,564.38. The Dow remains 25 percent below its peak of 14,164.53, reached in October 2007.
The S&P 500 index, the barometer favored by professional investors, rose 1.95, or 0.2 percent, to 1,140.45. The index is up 68.6 percent in the past year. Including dividends, it's up about 72 percent. It is still down 27 percent from its high of 1,565.15, also reached in October 2007.
And the Nasdaq composite index rose 8.47, or 0.4 percent, to 2,340.68. The Nasdaq is at an 18-month high but still down by more than half from its peak reached 10 years ago Wednesday. On March 10, 2000, it rose to 5,048.62 at the height of the dot-com bubble.
Advancing stocks narrowly outpaced those that fell on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to 5.2 billion shares, compared with 3.9 billion Monday.
Even after the U-turn of the past year, the market has given investors back only about half of what they have lost. The rebound has created $5.7 trillion in shareholder wealth. But the total value of U.S. stocks is still down by about $5.5 trillion from the market's 2007 peak, as measured by the Dow Jones U.S. Total Stock Market Index, which tracks nearly all U.S.-based companies.
Investors are going to make much smaller bets than they made a year ago as they look for clues about the economy. They'll also be trying to anticipate when the Federal Reserve will start raising interest rates from their current record low levels. Policymakers have kept rates low to stimulate lending and help the economy. And Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has predicted rates will stay where they are for some time.
Still, the Fed eventually will have to raise borrowing costs to help keep inflation in check. Investors' fear is that rates might rise too quickly and could choke off the recovery.
Although stocks have only been creeping higher so far this year, some analysts still see some worrisome signs that investors could become overenthusiastic.
Jeffrey Frankel, president of Stuart Frankel & Co. in New York, believes investors are becoming too complacent.
Frankel points to the movement in a stock like Apple Inc. as a sign that investors are letting greed take over. Apple been setting new highs in recent weeks and is up 5.8 percent in 2010. In the past year, it jumped 168.3 percent.
"You're having wild moves in stocks again. You're having a herd mentality chasing stocks," he said.

TradingMarkets 7 Stocks You Need to Know for Wednesday

Wholesale Trade and the Treasury Budget hit the wires midweek. Several important earnings announcements will also take place prior to the trading day. Bulls celebrated their one year of dominance by closing higher on the session. Bearish pressure was placed on the United States by the European Union to rein in short trading euro speculators and Credit Swap Default traders. This pressure resulted in a topsy turvy day with a positive overall close. The DJIA climbed 11.86, the tech heavy Nasdaq index advanced 8.47, and the broad based S&P 500 eased higher by 1.94.
Here are 7 stocks you need to know for Wednesday.
A hefty $4.65 per share is expected prior to trading for Bon Ton Stores Inc. The Stock PowerRating for BONT is 2.
Candy maker, Cadbury plc, announces before the open with a forecast EPS not revealed.
Children's Place Retail Stores has traders awaiting $1.03/share prior to the opening bell. The Stock PowerRating for PLCE is 2.
Ski resort operator, Vail Resorts, hopes its EPS beats the consensus estimate of $1.13. The Stock PowerRating for MTN is 5.
An overhyped Cisco router failed to energize tech bulls upon release. The Stock PowerRating for CSCO is 4.
Rumors are sweeping the street that American International Group will soon divest more divisions. The Stock PowerRating for AIG is 2.
Exxon is digging deeper to locate unconventional assets to get an edge over their competitors. The Stock PowerRating for XOM is 4.
New Features! With over 80% accuracy in the model ETF trading portfolio, now get the highest and lowest rated ETFs from ETF PowerRatings, Leveraged ETF setups, and limit orders in Larry Connors' Daily Battle Plan.

China Stocks

China's economy is growing at an annualized rate of 9-10 percent while the US economy is at 3-5 percent "normally". The huge economic growth created a lot of opportunities for investors around the world. Wall Street analysts are paying increasing attention to well-run Chinese companies. Even though the stock market in China is young (started since early 1990), and it has a total market capitalization of only less than $2 trillion, the prospect for growth can not be overstated. For comparison, the United States has a total market capitalization of about $20 trillion while the GDP of USA is roughly 5 times that of China.
While many people believe in China's stock market's growth potential, there are huge ups and downs in the Chinese stock market prices, just like any stock markets around the world. Tremendous price gains was witnessed in China stock market in 2006. The year of 2007 for China stock market saw the peak for all major Chinese stock index. 2008 is a year that witnessed a continued slide in Chinese stock prices that leads to the notion of China stock market crash 2008.
Chinese capital markets are still evolving constantly. In Oct 2009, ChiNext was launched as the market platform for innovative enterprises in China to list their shares.
Featured Stock
Industrial and Commercial Bank of China or ICBC in short, is the latest state owned bank to go public in China. The ICBC IPO, raising $21.1 billion, is the biggest in the world as of Nov. 2006. It surpassed a previous record held by NTT DoCoMo of its $18 billion IPO in 1998. It is the hot China stock in 2006.
China Life Insurance Corp is another stellar performer among large China stocks ADR in 2006. China life stock was up by more than 100% after stock split.
In 2007, Chinese IPO stocks in US market continued to perform pretty well. One of the new Chinese IPO stock, WuXi PharmaTech (Cayman) Inc. (WuXi), has more than doubled its IPO price after raising over $160 million by selling ADR on the NYSE.

Showa Shell Solar Establishes European Base in Germany

Berlin – Japanese solar company Showa Shell Solar has announced a new investment in Germany. Along with the company's renaming to Solar Frontier, the CIS (copper-indium-selenium) photovoltaic module manufacturer will open its first European office in Munich in 2010. Germany Trade & Invest supported the company with its investment plans.

 

Aiming to ramp up production to reach a sales goal of 1 million kilowatts worldwide in 2012, the Munich office, alongside a new American counterpart in California, will play an integral role in achieving this mark. The company's production figures will increase by more than ten times its current level, strengthened by an additional plant that will begin production in mid-2011.

 

Solar Frontier CEO Shigeaki Kameda: "The German priority on both economic and ecological criteria precisely matches Solar Frontier's top design and production mandates. Germany is also the world's largest market, so we have three very critical reasons to invest here: the German priority on economy, the German priority on ecology, and the German market size. We therefore expect to fulfill very strong demand."

 

Solar Frontier's decision to invest in Germany also serves it well for access to growing photovoltaic markets across Europe. Germany is home to approximately half the solar modules in operation worldwide, based on recent industry estimates. This market continues to grow as 2009 installations exceeded expectations, likely surpassing 3.0 GW.

 

Germany is home to the largest solar cluster in the world that encompasses a wide range of manufacturers, suppliers, and research institutes. Together, these innovators create a synergy that has added photovoltaics to the long tradition of the "Made in Germany" label, a symbol for high quality and innovation.

 

Solar Frontier manufactures proprietary thin-film modules that substitute silicon with the key ingredients copper, indium, and selenium. The company benefits from competitive material prices compared to conventional silicon wafer-based modules. The thin-film modules are expected to reach a 14.2 percent efficiency level by 2011. Solar Frontier was assisted by Germany Trade & Invest and Invest in Bavaria, the economic development agency for the federal state of Bavaria. Germany Trade & Invest is currently showcasing the latest opportunities available in the world's largest solar market at this year's PV Expo (East Hall 4, Stand no. 26-22), taking place March 3 – 5 in Tokyo, Japan.

Borrowing Money to Buy Shares and Marging Lending

The rich rule over the poor and the borrower is the servant to the lender!

Borrowing money to invest in shares is not for the faint hearted. While it may seem a smart way to build a share portfolio, using someone else's money to invest, or margin lending, has its pitfalls for the unwary.

And, if you don't have a healthy stable income, or you are heavily in debt elsewhere, it is one area which you should not even try to understand. That is because margin lending, like any investment which offers high returns, carries high risks.

Investors are drawn to it because there is the chance of multiplying any sharemarket rises and increasing diversification.

Investors need to be wary because not only could the value of their investment deteriorate, but also because their obligation to maintain the loan level increases if the sharemarket takes a tumble.

Using someone else's money to make profits is a great idea but if those investments incur losses, the problems compound!

What Is Margin Lending?

Margin lending involves borrowing money against shares you own - in order to purchase more shares. In effect it enables you to build a portfolio where, depending on your specifications and the financial institution, your borrowing level can range between 30 - 80 per cent of the portfolio's value.

Once the investor specifies how much of the portfolio they want to leverage, a loan level is set to buy shares up to that leverage level, and interest is payable on that sum. Financial institutions set minimum loan levels for margin lending.

 

The Benefits!

Of course the more money you have invested, the more you stand to gain if shares in your portfolio go up in value.

Any rise in the value of your portfolio also means that your leverage level goes down, giving you the capacity to borrow even more, using the increased value of your shares as security.

Another plus of margin lending, is by having more money to invest in shares, you can afford to diversify more - reducing your downside risk.

 

The Dangers!

The danger, just like the attractiveness of this investment, is sharemarket volatility. If the sharemarket falls, not only will the capital value of your shares drop, but you could be forced to maintain the level of security for the loan if your gearing level breaches a preset level.

This is known as a margin call, and would involve an up-front cash payment, a sell-off of shares at a loss, or the purchase of additional shares ( if you have the luxury of spare cash).

A margin call usually has to be met within 24 hours. In the event the investor can't be contacted, the broker has the right to sell down the portfolio.

If your share portfolio is worth 75 percent of the loan and the sharemarket falls, you have to kick in more money to make sure that 75 percent is maintained.

In effect, any drop in the paper value of your investment increases your obligation to the lender. For this reason, any margin lending investment needs to be constantly monitored.

New BEA Report Shows Recession Zapping Profits

They fear the economic contraction that began December 2007 will become a vengeful Son of Frankenstein, better known as the Great Depression of the 1930s.

The current downturn is now in its 20th month; and, while showing signs of abating, it is emitting enough gasps and screeches to keep the nation - if not the world - guessing about the long-term outcome.

Economic Expansion of 1990s Was Longest Since WWII
When the American business expansion topped out in December 2007, and the recession commenced, the economy had grown for 73 consecutive months. While that was one of the strongest expansions since WWII, it is only in fifth place. The expansion during the 1990s was the champion, lasting 120 months, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research NBER.

The combination of those two expansions represents almost 16 years of near-continuous growth. Consumer credit juiced the spending of Americans, during those times. The Federal Reserve Bank reports in both 2002 and 2003, consumer loans- including credit card borrowing- jumped from 5.36% of personal disposable income to 6.84%.

Corporate Profits Not a Pretty Picture - Wholesaler Performance Best
The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) recently released corporate profits for the first quarter of 2009. Only three industrial sectors finished the five quarters with higher profits. No Manufacturers had profit gains

Best results were Wholesalers' profits of $94.0 billion, which showed a 23.7% increase. They sell to Retailers and their activity usually leads retail activity, as store inventories are depleted and restocked. Retailers' profits dropped from $102.4 billion to $83.1 billion, a decrement of 18.8 percent. Evidently, their slowdown has not backed up to Wholesalers yet.

Largest stock capitalizations among Wholesaler stocks, with stock symbols in parentheses, are:

SIMS METAL MGMT LTD (SMS)
VINA CONCHA Y TORO (VCO)
United Stationers Inc. (USTR)
Central Garden & Pet Company([CENT)
School Specialty, Inc. (SCHS)
Foods, Beverages and Food Were Next
Corporate profits for Foods, Beverages and Tobacco products climbed from $29.8 to $34.9 billion, an increment of 16.6 percent. It was a performance suggesting that consumers might be having their last fling.

Food companies having the largest market capitalizations are:

KRAFT FOODS INC (KFT)
HEINZ H J CO (HNZ)
Lancaster Colony Corporation (LANC)
AFC Enterprises, Inc. AFCE]
AMERICAN HOME FOOD (AHFP.OB)
Utilities Manage 4.7% Increase
Net profits of Utilities edged upward, from $51.2 to $53.6 billion, a 4.7% gain in the five quarters. The largest diversified Utilities, ranked by market caps are listed below:

SOUTHERN CO (SO)
F P L GROUP INC (FPL)
DOMINION RES NEW (D)
DUKE ENERGY CP HL CO (DUK)
CENTRAIS ELC BRAS SP (EBR)
Automobiles and Financial Industries Are Special Situations
There are two special cases in the perilous passage of the American economy through the shoals of recession: (1) the reformed and retooling Automobile sector, including Bodies, Trailers and Parts; and (2) the federally-rescued Goliaths and rapacious financial industries, led by executives who thought bonuses were rewards for nearly wrecking the financial system.

Dismal news of the Big Three auto makers- General Motors, Ford and Chrysler- has dominated their group since the recession began. Chrysler filed a government-mandated bankruptcy April 30, 2009 and GM emerged from a government-ordered bankruptcy on July 10. The future is uncertain for them as well as Ford, so far free of a bailout and government intervention.

Could New "Big Three" Be Forming Among Auto Makers ?

Largest market caps among major auto makers - perhaps signaling the forming of a new Big Three- with bankruptcy courts wringing out the assets of General Motors and Chrysler, are:

TOYOTA MTR CP ADS (TM)
HONDA MOTOR CO ADR(HMC)
DAIMLER AG (DAI)
FORD MOTOR CO (F)
TATA MOTORS INC (TTM)
Bank Profits Fall Less Than Insurance
From the fourth quarter of 2007 to the first quarter of 2009, Bank profits dropped from $38.2 billion to $28.8 billion, or 24.6%; other Financial service vendors, like insurance companies and brokerages, slid from $346 billion to $225.1 billion, or 35.0%.

Largest market caps and stock symbols among Banks are:

BK OF AMERICA CP (bac)
SUNTRUST BANKS (sti)
KEYCORP (key)
P N C FIN SVCS GR (pnc)
WELLS FARGO & CO NEW (wfc)
The giants among Life Insurance stock market caps are:

AXA ADS (AXA)
CHINA LIFE INS CO (LFC)
PRUDENTIAL PLC SC (PUK)
MANULIFE FIN CORP (MFC)
METLIFE INC (MET)
Divergent Opinions on What Happens Next
Some FED officials believe the recession will end this year, with inflation then becoming the problem. Others disagree, and financier George Soros says the recession could last forever. The billionaire was talking about never returning to the good old days, in an article by Joe Weisenthal, in Business Insider's "Clusterstock" zine of March 29.

How's that for a difference of opinion?

Investments, Money and Ethics

"The higher the buildings, the lower the morals."
Noel Coward (1899 - 1973)

 

Money is a symbol of energy and sometimes power. As such it has no real intrinsic value. It is neither good nor bad, positive nor negative ...

 

It is 100% impartial!

 

In life we are always on a constant quest and we have built a complexity of myths around investments and money. We have given it characteristics as if it were a savior.

 

How many times have we said, "If only I had enough money!" In this way we end up both desiring and fearing money.

The basis for understanding and being comfortable with money is just one more aspect of our self-awareness.

We know that one of the factors by which we judge ourselves and others is money -- how much we made, how we made it, how we spent it and etc.

This judgement constitutes part of our market value and speaking of money is sometimes reflecting our value in society.

Although everyone wants more money, the idea of having wealth is sometimes tainted. On one side of the coin, money is thought to be highly desirable; on the other side, it is considered bad and almost dirty!

Most of the cultural arguments that make prosperity a moral issue are never made out loud. The ideas that we can't or shouldn't be financially prosperous are projected subliminally in the form of myths, ethics or beliefs.

 

Whether we believe it or not, one of our strongest beliefs is that hard work is a reward by itself. It is also part of our tradition that poverty is a virtue and certain religious teachings from the Bible have even been interpreted as confirming that poverty is somehow holy!

It has been remarked that the best thing we can do for the poor is not to be one of them!

Well, by all means, this is not being unloving!

It is a statement of not accepting poverty as inevitable.

Poverty helps no one!

Some Thoughts on Index Fund Investment

During the week, Monday through Friday, you may expect to find me immersed in financial matters, be it real estate, corporate securities, mortgage lending, or similar enterprises. This is how my time is spent. But of course, what else? Investment is my business. So when the weekend arrives, I can then devote myself to the things I truly enjoy. And what is my diversion? Well, a good bit of my relaxation time is devoted to—perhaps you guessed it—financial matters. Actually, it's not unusual for a person's free time to be spent in following or observing one's usual occupation. This is a common practice, long referred to as a busman's holiday. In any event, this explains why I tune in regularly to financial radio programs. You can never tell when an important concept will be analyzed, or a useful tidbit thrown out.

That brings us to a recent Sunday. Before my wife and I joined friends for dinner, I spent a couple of hours hiking the hills nearby my home—with the earplugs of my Sony Walkman inserted securely. Tuning in to my favorite financial call-in show always makes the walk more brisk and the hills less steep. Though I'm often dismayed by the problems presented by callers, and sometimes take issue with the advice given, I consider the hours well spent. This time proved no exception. One call in particular made an impact, though its significance took a while to sink in.

The dilemma faced by this clearly middle-aged caller seemed basic. He possessed a few hundred thousand dollars in soon-to-mature certificates of deposit, and wanted to know where the proceeds should be invested until his scheduled retirement in fifteen years. The question symbolizes the quandary that clearly bedevils many Americans. I can think of no more fundamental problem: what to do with a sizeable chunk of money when retirement is a defined number of years in the future. I awaited the talk show host's response as eagerly as did the caller.

 

The advice, though circuitous in its delivery, ended up pretty clear-cut. Place all or most in no-load index funds, with minimal maintenance fees, comprising a mix of securities similar to the S&P 500 or Wilshire 5000 Total Market Index. He went on to explain that equity investments of this sort avoid serious risk. His argument ran like this: The unpredictability of individually selected stocks, the uncompetitiveness of interest-bearing obligations, and the perils of an uncertain economy dictate the tying of financial future to the nation's corporate dynamism. While acknowledging that such a program surely reflects the vagaries of the market, he maintained that over the long haul, no other strategy proved as effective.

 

My immediate reaction was one of incredulity. This is certainly not what I would have recommended, particularly during the early years of what appears to be a secular bear market. As such, it's not unreasonable to anticipate a decade or more with little, if any, stock appreciation. This caller might well find himself, fifteen years hence, with no discernable increase in net worth—definitely not the way to plan for retirement.

 

My thoughts then drifted to the plethora of investment opportunities available. Careful selection of corporate stock in sound industries paying reasonable dividends seemed a better option. Another ignored possibility: astutely chosen corporate bonds with generous returns of interest. Better yet, soundly backed mortgage investments to generate attractive yields. Or why didn't the host mention rental real estate to provide an attractive cash return and future appreciation? As I continued my trek, I tuned out the flow of words as I focused more on my dissatisfaction. By God, if that call had come to me, I would've handled it differently. That caller would have gotten the straight dope. Total market index funds . . . humph!

 

It's a few days later and I've taken time to reflect. My initial certainties don't seem quite so certain now. Though I hate to admit it, the talk show host's advice probably came closer to the intended mark than my ruminations. And why? Because of my grievous omission. I failed to consider the source.

 

Take a closer look at the question and from whom it came. It constituted a plea for guidance from a citizen who managed to accumulate several hundred thousand dollars in certificates of deposit over a half century. Nothing in his tone suggested an intimacy with securities or their selection. Neither did he display any familiarity with mortgage loans or display an interest in rental property. The odds are that, had he developed any such expertise over the past three decades, he would now be pursuing exactly those programs. The mere fact that he solicited advice on a call-in talk show confirmed that neither careful selection nor astute analysis entered into his investment pattern. The host, understanding this instinctively, provided exactly the correct advice: something to cause this fellow as little uncertainty as possible. It's no doubt preferable that his assets simply drift around at the convenience of the market over the next fifteen years, than that he follow a more aggressive agenda and get into real trouble.

 

A final word: Successful investment is an endeavor that requires direction and persistence. Many people will never put forth the effort to pull it off. It is for these persons that mutual funds—particularly the index funds—were designed.

Scalp Trading

Scalp trading is a style of trading that is designed to capitalize on small percentage moves.

It uses price setups that present exceptionally low risk opportunities.It also uses positions initiated and closed out in the same trading session.

The typical objective for a scalp trade is 1% to a 2% or sometimes even more.

Scalping demands the familiarity as well as the use of a direct access trading system for instant order execution.

The best scalping opportunities are found in liquid stocks.

Scalping is the method that usually sends you home free without having to think about your tomorrow!

 

Stock Market:Bull and Bear Markets

When we talk about bull and bear stock markets reminds me that it's a zoo out there. And, like any zoo, there are quite a few wild  species to be found!

The first two are the bulls and the bears. We do know that a bull market is when stock prices are climbing strongly and a bear market is when they're languishing.

One common myth is that the terms "bull market" and "bear market" are derived from the way those animals attack a foe, because bears attack by swiping their paws downward and bulls toss their horns upward.

This is a useful mnemonic, but is not the true origin of the terms.

Long ago, "bear skin jobbers" were known for selling bear skins that they did not own; i.e., the bears had not yet been caught. This was the original source of the term "bear."

This term eventually was used to describe short sellers, speculators who sold shares that they did not own, bought after a price drop, and then delivered the shares.

Because bull and bear baiting were once popular sports, "bulls" was understood as the opposite of "bears." I.e., the bulls were those people who bought in the expectation that a stock price would rise, not fall.

Both bull and bear markets are inevitable!

Smart investors try to anticipate both events to profit from their eventuality.

Bear markets are generally shorter in duration than bull markets. To avoid being hurt by bear markets you must recognize the signs early and move part of your assets into cash equivalent investments.

We do recommend that you invest for the long term. Don't let the bears get you down!

Abraham Lincoln (1809 - 1865) once said: "When you have got an elephant by the hind legs and he is trying to run away, it is best to let him run!"

The same thing is true of bears - don't panic and sell low. Let the bear market run its course, which history tells us is likely to be short.

On the other hand, a bull market can leave many investors feeling pretty good about their ability to prosper.

Their confidence bolstered by the good times ...

Some even find themselves swept up in "Bull Market Myopia" and forget the basic tenets of smart investing, like asset allocation and portfolio diversification.

Holding good stocks through bull and bear markets is a prudent strategy. However, many investors feel that they do not want to be in the market during a bear market. It is difficult to predict when to move in and out of the market.

When a bear market ends, a strong upward move can occur in a short time. If you are not in the market you will miss the move. The probability that your timing will be wrong is very high.

Unlike slow-starting bull markets, bear markets may start with a mini-crash - a major drop within a few days when investors least expect it.

Many investors are afraid to get out of a bull market for fear of missing "big profits" at the top of the market.

This is a recipe for disaster!

It is also known as greed!

As a bull market continues to increase, investors should start to decrease their stock holdings and move them into cash or money markets accounts.

Now, besides bulls and bears there are two other animals in our zoo to keep watch for!

Ostriches:

Are investors who stick to their old strategies, oblivious to changes in the world around them.

And then there are the Hogs:

Bulls can make money ...

Bears can make money ...

But hogs are investors who are too greedy and usually get slaughtered!

 

Advice for New Investors

Advice for New Investors

Investing is just one aspect of personal finance. People often seem to have the itch to try their hand at investing before they get the rest of their act together.

 

This Is a Big Mistake!

 

For this reason, it's a good idea for "new investors" to hit the library and read maybe three different overall guides to personal finance -- three for different perspectives, and because common themes will emerge sice repetition implies authority!

 

Personal finance issues include making a budget, sticking to a budget, saving money towards major purchases or retirement, managing debt appropriately, insuring your property, etc.

Many "beginning investors" have no business investing in stocks!

Only after learning about personal finance they should explore particular investments. If someone needs to unload some cash in the meantime, they should put it in a money market fund, or yes, even a bank account, until they complete their basic training.

Investments, Growth, Yield and Income

You've probably been listening all over about the fortunes being made in the stock market. With enough patience and a lot of discipline, you are almost guaranteed to make a considerable amount of money in the markets!

You merely need a willingness to put your savings to work in a balanced portfolio of securities tailored to your age and circumstances.

But you do have to understand how investing works. Investing is not about throwing all your money into the XYZ stock hoping to make a killing. Investing has nothing to do with getting a stock tip from your brother-in-law! Investing isn't gambling or speculation.

Investing is taking reasonable risks to earn steady rewards.

Investing works because it allows you to participate in the relentless growth of the world's economy, which hardly follows a straight line, but does trend upward over time. It's also true that the longer you stay invested, the faster your money will grow!

When you are determining your investment strategy you will always have to consider the following three elements:

1. Growth:

Growth is the rate at which your money appreciates during the time it is invested.

If you think you will need access to your funds sooner rather than later, look for an investment that provides a fairly safe and steady growth rate.

Long-term investments that are influenced by factors such as the inflation rate may lose money in the short term, but they can still grow over long-term.

What will matter is not a slow growth rate (or even a loss) during a particular period, but a higher growth rate over time.

2. Yield:

Yield is the interest or dividends paid on your investment. Like growth, it can vary in importance depending on your needs.

If you are retired and your investment is funding your retirement, your investments should generate enough yield to let you live on the interest.

Savings accounts tend to yield small percentages. Stocks can yield the highest percentages but also have the greatest risk.

3. Income:

Income is closely related to yield. Does your investment, or the yield from your investment, make up a significant portion of your income?

If so, you may want to be more conservative with your investment choices to ensure that the amount of yield it produces remains consistent and reliable.

You should give careful consideration to where and how often you want to reinvest your money, as it could effect your financial security.

Savers' year of pain after bank holds rates

Millions of families and pensioners have suffered a year of interest rate misery that has left the average saver nearly ￡600 worse off.

The Bank of England yesterday held interest rates at 0.5% for the 12th consecutive month. Campaign groups said it marked an unhappy anniversary for savers, who have been stung by the worst rates in history.
Their suffering was worsened by research which showed there is not a single easy-access savings account paying a rate which beats inflation. And some experts believe the decision to slash the base rate has not helped the economy as much as had been hoped.

In March last year, the Bank's governor Mervyn King halved the base rate to 0.5% to try to stop a recession turning into a depression.

But Britain was one of the last major economies to emerge from recession, and grew only by a modest 0.3% in the final quarter of last year.

Yesterday the campaign group Save Our Savers said there was widespread fury among savers, who outnumber borrowers by seven to one. Many are pensioners who rely on the income from their savings.

Spokesman Reverend Dr John Strain, a parish priest and financial adviser to the Diocese of Guildford, said they felt a sense of 'betrayal and anger' from rates which are 'pitiful.'

'The fever of frustration among savers has turned into real anger since the financial crisis,' he said.

 

Alex Brummer: 'How banks are exploiting the low base rate'
'Responsible savers did not cause the economic collapse but they are being forced to carry the can yet again. Many are struggling on a much reduced income while others are watching their savings shrink in front of them.'

 

A basic rate taxpayer needs a savings rate of at least 4.38% to make sure that their money is not eroded by inflation, currently 3.5%, according to research from financial information firm Moneyfacts.

 

But none of the 326 easy-access savings accounts pay this rate. The average is a paltry 0.72%. With ￡20,000 in an account, this would pay interest of just ￡12 a month.

Before the Bank started slashing the base rate, savers were getting more than ￡60 a month.

Darren Cook, a savings expert from Moneyfacts, said: 'It is a kick in the teeth for prudent savers. These rates are an insult to their years of hard work to prudently put money aside for the future.'

Some accounts pay 0% or 0.01%, which is worth just 17p a month. But many economists predict that interest rates will remain low for at least a year.

Invest like Warren Buffett

Warren Buffett is the world's third richest man with an estimated fortune of over $52bn.

But unlike the other billionaires that feature in Forbes' list of the 10 richest people in the world, Buffett doesn't have a retail empire, an oil well or a brain for computing to show for it – simply a lot of share certificates.

The 76-year-old made his money through identifying companies that he believed were worth more than their market value, investing in them and holding that investment for the long-term. And it's certainly paid off.

Class A shares in his company Berkshire Hathaway were $15 when he first took over in 1965 – today they are valued at $109,800 per share.

It sounds remarkably simple, but given the ups and downs of the stock market, it takes a high level of discipline, nerve and conviction in your decisions. Although Buffett has never written a book detailing his investment style, much can be gleaned from the annual letter he sends to Berkshire shareholders.

He doesn't view the purchase of shares in a company as buying a stake in that business, but believes that the investor should feel that they are actually buying that business outright. Because of that he looks for quality management, a durable competitive edge and low capital expenditure.

Companies tend to have a strong brand name – Coca Cola, McDonalds and Gillette feature in his holdings – and a good history of solid earnings growth. We run through how Buffett invests his money

HOW TO INVEST$20,$100,AND$1000(AND MORE)

HOW TO INVEST$20,$100,AND$1000(AND MORE)

Got only $20 to put away right now?

It may not sound like much, but you can use it to buy shares in Intel. Or Johnson & Johnson. Or Harley-Davidson (you rebel). And those are just a few of more than 1,000 options available. What if you've got $100 -- or $1,000? Your options are even greater.

We're not here to tell you where to invest your money. We won't lay out a handful of stocks on a "buy" list. But what we can tell you is how you can invest your money -- the mechanics of investing small, large, and medium amounts of cash. We can even help you choose a broker.

How to invest $20
Let's start with $20. We're going to assume that you've already paid off any high-interest debt and that you have some money stashed in a safe place (like a savings or money market account) that you can get to quickly in case of an emergency expense. Now you find yourself with a little extra dough, and you want to begin investing for your future.

Is it even worth it to invest such a pittance?

Heck yeah it is! One of the best ways to invest small amounts of money cheaply is through Dividend Reinvestment Plans (DRPs), also known as Drips. They and their cousins, Direct Stock Purchase Plans (DSPs), allow you to bypass brokers (and their commissions) by buying stock directly from the companies or their agents.

More than 1,000 major corporations offer these types of stock plans, many of them free, or with fees low enough to make it worthwhile to invest as little as $20 or $30 at a time. Drips are ideal for those who are starting out with small amounts to invest and want to make frequent purchases (dollar-cost averaging). Once you're in the plan, you can set up an automatic payment plan, and you don't even have to buy a full share each time you make a contribution.

Drips may be one of the surest, steadiest ways to build wealth over your lifetime (just make sure you keep good records for tax purposes). For more details on Drips, see "What if I can only invest small amounts of money every month?"

How to invest a couple of hundred bucks
So you've weeded out all the wooden nickels from your spare-change jar and have tallied up a few hundred bucks. Instead of blowing it on snack food and Elvis memorabilia, consider investing it in an index fund (the only kind of mutual fund Fools like). An index fund that tracks the S&P 500 is your ticket to an investment that has traditionally returned about 10% per year.

Some index funds require as little as $250 for you to call yourself an owner. This low minimum is usually restricted to IRAs (Individual Retirement Accounts). After your initial investment, you can add as much money as you like, as frequently as you like, with no additional costs or commissions. You purchase index funds directly from mutual fund companies, so there are no commissions to pay to a middleman.

If you have a few hundred dollars to start with, then this is a great, low-cost way to establish an instant, widely diversified (500 companies!) portfolio.

How to invest $500
Once you're up to $500, your investment options open up a bit more. You can still buy an index fund, and now you'll have your pick of fund companies that require higher initial investments. This freedom will enable you to shop around for a fund with the lowest expense ratio.

You should also seriously consider opening a discount brokerage account. You'll want to focus on the account option that best serves your needs; some accounts require a minimum initial deposit, and some don't. That means you can open up an account with whatever investing money you have available, and start researching and perhaps purchasing individual companies. (Or, if you're enamored of index investing, you can easily invest in Spiders, a stock-like investment that mimics the performance of the S&P 500.)

The key here is to keep your costs of investing (including brokerage fees) to less than 2% of the transaction value. So if you're planning to add to your position in stocks a few times a month, a Drip or an index fund may still be the way to go.

How to invest $1,000-plus
What can you do with a grand? Obviously, with $1,000 you can open up a discount brokerage account, but look at the rewards if you can scrape up an additional $1,000 a year to add to your original investment.

Say you've got 40 years to retirement. If you start with $1,000 and invest an additional $1,000 each year, and your money earns 10% annually, then when you're ready to retire at age 65, you'll have $532,111.07. That seems worth it to us. If you have earned income, you can set up a Roth IRA, and you won't even pay any taxes on that $532K when you withdraw it. (As always, your mileage may vary.)

Again, even at this level, the key is to keep fees from eating up your earnings. So make sure that the costs of investing (including brokerage commissions, stamps to mail in checks, and books that help you learn to invest) are less than 2% of your account's overall worth. With small accounts, that can be a challenge, but with such low commissions being offered by discount brokers, it's definitely doable.

 

how to invest when you're broke

How do you start investing if you're barely scraping by?

Say you're making $25,000 a year and know that (along with feeding yourself, paying for gas, rent, etc.) you need to start thinking about your future.

It pays to do that, because even small amounts add up surprisingly fast if you invest on a regular basis. And Uncle Sam will even kick in free money on top of that.

For instance, over the past 10 years, the stock market, at least as measured by the S&P 500 Index ($INX), has returned around 8%, on average, annually. Say you start with nothing and invest only $10 per week. If you pick an investment that only matches the S&P's 8% return, after 10 years, you'd have around $8,000. You have $10,000 if you got lucky and picked an investment that churned out 12% average annual returns.

Even better, if you're a poor person, the government rewards you by refunding as much as half of what you put in. Singles earning up to $15,000, head of households earning up to $22,500 and married joint filers earning up to $30,000 get a credit of 50% of funds contributed to an IRA or 401(k). That means, for instance, if you invested $1,000 in your 401(k) last year and qualified for the credit, your refund would be $500 larger. (A dedicated saver could turn right back around and plow that $500 into a Roth IRA as well.)

One big caveat: Investing in small amounts isn't about investing in individual stocks. All stock investors, no matter how talented, eventually pick a clunker, a stock that drops 25% or 30% before your first cup of coffee in the morning. That's not so bad if you own 20 stocks. But it would be a disaster if you hold only four or five.

Instead, mutual funds and exchange-traded funds make more sense for small investors. Richard Jenkins, editor-in-chief of MSN Money, explains here how to use ETFs. Below, I'll explain how to get started using mutual funds.

Why funds?
For starters, mutual funds give you automatic diversification. Most hold dozens, if not hundreds, of stocks. So, when one goes south, its impact on the portfolio is minimal.

Also, fund managers have advantages over individual investors. It's their day job, and because their trading generates huge commissions, they have access to better information than individual investors.

How, When And Where To Invest

Many people are scared of investing. They prefer the safety of leaving their cash in a bank or building society. While it's true you won't see the value of your savings lurch up and down on a daily basis, we're going to show why failing to invest can cost you money in the long term. And we're not talking about a few pence, we're talking about thousands and thousands of pounds!

The five main types of asset

First of all, let's look at the five main types of asset you can park your dosh in:

Cash (e.g. a savings account with a bank or building society); Bonds (e.g. a loan to the government or a large company); Property (e.g. residential or commercial property); Equities (e.g. shares in companies such as BP or Vodafone); and Commodities (e.g. copper, oil or coffee) A general rule of thumb is that the riskier an asset is, the greater return you'd expect to earn from it over the long term. We're going to talking a lot about the "long term" in this guide - generally it means five years or more.

Cash is generally considered to be the safest asset, but it also likely to give you the lowest return over a period of several years or more. Bonds are slightly more risky than cash but normally generate roughly the same level of long-term returns. Property tends to do well over long periods and the returns are quite stable. The returns from equities and commodities vary the most from year to year, but tend to be highest of all over long periods.

As an example of the difference in volatility, here in the UK, the real annual return of cash over the last 100 years (i.e. the annual return after taking off inflation) has been primarily between minus 5% and plus 8%. For equities, the majority of annual returns for the last 100 years fall between minus 15% and plus 25% and the chances of losing money in any individual year has been approximately one in four.

Long-term returns

To illustrate what effect this can have, let's look at some numbers. Here is the average annual return for cash, equities and gilts over the last fifty years (note that gilts are the main type of bond in the UK, being a loan to government). The figures are taken from the Equity Gilt Study produced by Barclays Capital.

Asset Average return
Equities 5.7% pa
Gilts 2.4% pa
Cash 2.0% pa

Expressed in percentage terms these figures don't look that interesting. So let's look at them another way. Say you invested £1,000 in each of these three assets fifty years ago. How much money would you have now?

Asset Value after 50 years
Equities £15,752
Gilts £3,218
Cash £2,692

Now we're talking. Investing in equities would have resulted in five or six times the amount you would have got from gilts or cash! And remember that these figures are after inflation, meaning the buying power of your initial £1,000 would have increased 16-fold over the course of the last fifty years.

No one knows what will happen in the next fifty years of course. However, these figures span numerous wars, recessions, shocks and other crises. We think they provide a reasonable as to what sort of returns to expect in the future as well.

As we've seen in the last decade though, the returns from shares can be weak for a considerable period of time. A key point to recognise here is that if you want to earn a high rate of return, i.e. higher than you'd typically get from a savings account, you need to accept some risk. That means getting comfortable with the fact that your investments will go down in value some of the time.

When To Invest

That's all very well, you might say, but I don't have fifty years to invest. However, you might if you've just started work and you're looking to invest for your retirement. But investing in shares also works well over shorter periods, too.

Turning to figures from Barclays Capital again, we can see that shares have beaten cash the majority of the time over shorter periods as well.

Period Shares have beaten cash
2 years 67% of the time
5 years 75% of the time
10 years 93% of the time
20 years 99% of the time

Even over a period as short as two years, the chances of shares beating cash are two in three. However, most people, ourselves included, advise that you shouldn't invest in shares for any period shorter than five years. The rationale is that the chances of losing money less than five years, while fairly small, are still quite significant.

For example, there have been two occasions in the past 100 years where shares have fallen three years in succession. So you're usually better off sticking to cash if you have definite plans for your money in the next five years (to put down a deposit on a house for example).

So when should you invest? The earlier the better. It's advisable to keep a portion of your money in cash, in case of emergencies. Three to six months' salary is a good guide as this is often the period you'll need cover before any insurance policies you may have start to pay out.

Once you have an emergency fund in place, the longer you give yourself to invest, the greater your returns are likely to be. So invest as soon as you can. There is a risk that you will invest just before stock market takes a tumble. There is very little you can do about this. No one knows where share prices will go in over the next minute, day or month. All we do know is that the long-term direction of the stock market is up - but it's not a straight line!

In practice, you're unlikely to invest all your money at one particular point in time. It's far more likely that you'll invest small amounts of money on a regular basis. So while you might see immediate stock market falls some of the time, most of the time this won't be the case.

What about property and commodities?

The more observant among you may have noticed that we seem to have lost two asset classes in the last few paragraphs, namely property and commodities.

There a few reasons for this. First of all, annual return figures for shares are a lot easier to measure. Property figures are complicated by factors such as rent and how to account for maintenance costs.

It's also a lot easier to buy and sell share-based investments, as we'll see later. You can't just sell one room of a house for example and property transactions can take months to complete.

The indications are that investing in property and commodities is likely to give you a similar long-term return to equities. So all three types of asset are well suited to long-term investment plans.

Property investing, via buy-to-let, is obviously very popular at the moment and benefits from the fact you can 'gear up' your investment by putting down a small deposit and borrowing the balance of the price. This can magnify your returns over the long term although it does add additional risk as you have to continue to find money to pay interest on what you borrow. Property does have another advantage over equities in that returns tend to be less volatile and it has been much rarer for it to fall in value over the course of any given year.

Commodities are somewhat of a curiosity. They tend to have long periods of poor returns followed long periods of good returns. After many years in the wilderness, they have recently undergone a resurgence. The price of oil and gold, for example, is a lot higher than it was ten years ago. Investing in commodities is not as easy as investing in shares however.

How to invest in shares

The main reason the Motley Fool favours shares as a type of investment is ease of use. You can buy and sell quickly and cheaply and in more or less any amount you want.

So how do you get involved? You can invest directly, buying and selling shares in individual companies such as BP and Vodafone. If you have the time, and lots of discipline, this can be best way to go.

Many people feel more comfortable getting a fund manager to do the investing for them. You can get funds that invest in particular markets such as the UK, US or the Far East. You can also get funds that invest in certain types of industries, such as biotech or mining. You can get even funds that just invest in smaller companies (as there some who believe that small companies offer greater potential returns).

As a rule, you pay up to 5% as an initial fee when you invest and around 1.5% each year to the people who manage these funds. There is a cheaper alternative - you can invest in funds where the decisions about where and when to invest are made automatically according to a strict set of guidelines and not by an overpaid fund manager!

Typically, these sorts of funds, called index trackers, will cost you nothing in initial charges and around 0.5% a year. Over the course of, say, twenty years these lower charges mean you end up keeping a lot more of your money.

Lower charges mean index trackers perform better than most other funds (often called managed funds). Indeed, over a period of five years, an index tracker is likely to beat 75% to 80% of other funds. Over longer period, it's likely to do even better.

 

 

Why I'm Playing the Smart Phone Tsunami Right Now

If you've ever tried to use an iPhone in New York City, you know firsthand how badly wireless networks need to be upgraded.

Speaking from personal experience, it's miserable. Some estimates say 20% of AT&T calls are dropped in the Big Apple. The 3G network crawls at times. Check out this spoof AT&T ad about dropped calls (warning: involves explicit language). There's even a Facebook group called AT&T Sucks boasting 445 members.

People aren't happy with slow wireless, and providers are being forced to upgrade to meet demand. The market is projected to grow at an astounding annualized rate of 131% until 2013, as this chart from Cisco shows:

Growth like that should set alarm bells off in your head.

Because certain companies are going to make a killing off this inevitable — and huge — wireless upgrade cycle.

One of them is Tellabs (NASDAQ: TLAB), and I think it's a buy here. Let me explain why.

First off, Tellabs is a $2.6b company sitting on $1.3b in cash. Debt is minimal at $268m. They're profitable and the company just started paying a dividend this quarter (current yield: 1.2%). Their balance sheet is immaculate. Management has been on a cost-cutting crusade over the past year and is now shifting the company's focus to high-margin products.

Tellabs also happens to be very well-positioned for the wireless data build-out. TLAB sells products that improve data flow — for both wired and wireless markets. They sell products that improve performance and lower costs for mobile carriers, internet service providers, and traditional voice companies.

While TLAB should also benefit from the wired broadband market, wireless is where the real growth is at. Demand for their wireless data management products soared 52% last year. According to Reuters, Tellabs CEO recently said at a recent conference that he expects 60%-70% growth in 2010.

Smart Phone Tsunami

Smart phones like Apple's iPhone are pushing wireless networks to the breaking point. Customers are using more data than expected, earlier than expected.

Apple took the industry by surprise with the iPhone; it was the first mobile product that's truly fun to use on the web. But they're not the only company with a great web phone anymore... Their lead is slipping, and demand on 3G and 4G networks will only get heavier as competitors like Google and PALM catch up.

Tellabs has products to help solve these data problems. One of their new releases — the Smart Internet Breakout Gateway — is a good example. The name is a mouthful, but the product has big potential. The Gateway routes traffic and data more efficiently through mobile networks, saving bandwidth and improving performance. It's currently being tested by major mobile operators.

The company said in a recent press release: "Users want fast mobile data, so operators must prepare their networks for the mobile Internet tsunami," said Rehan Jalil, senior vice president, mobile Internet at Tellabs. "Tellabs' Smart Internet Breakout Gateway enables operators to handle traffic easily while reducing their costs dramatically."

The Whole Package

TLAB has just about everything I look for in a best stock: a rock-solid balance sheet, a strong growth catalyst, and a dividend (albeit a small one).

There's also some buyout potential, but that's not on top of my list. Tellabs has great technology, a portfolio of intellectual property (patents), and a pile of cash. When recently asked about takeovers, the company's CEO said, "There have been inquiries over time but we are still a standalone company and we like it that way and so do our customers."

So a buyout may not be on the table in the immediate future, but it's always a possibility. Small strong companies like TLAB are attractive acquisition targets. Especially with giants like Cisco sitting on $40b in cash...

If the price were right, I'm sure the board would come around.

ENVI: Best Stocks Analyst In 2011

Changes in federal regulations have triggered some of the most profitable investment opportunities of a lifetime. You could make a fortune from this one.

I'm forecasting a fast 475% from Enviro Resolutions (OTC: ENVI.PK) in the stampede to upgrade diesel engines with the company's exclusive EPA-compliant exhaust-scrubbing muffler.

The profit potential here is enormous. An Enviro Resolutions (ENVI) exhaust-scrubbing muffler eliminates 95% of pollution from diesel exhaust...making it the only bolt-on technology I've found that enables any diesel engine to meet 2007 EPA emissions standards.

You do not want to miss this. Sales of the Enviro Resolutions (ENVI) exhaust-scrubbing muffler are clearly set to skyrocket. Investors buying ENVI shares today are getting a ground floor on what could easily become the fastest growing green energy top stocks for 2011 in the market today.

Imagine the value of ENVI shares, now selling around $1.30, when this company's diesel scrubbing muffler gains traction in the market.

ENVI could quickly quintuple in value once the market catches on. And catch on it will! Green energy is "on the radar" and ENVI could hit the screen in a blinding flash!

You'll want to be ready for this breakout profit event!

As America ramps up its green energy campaign...the early winners will be the companies that make green energy upgrades easy and affordable. Enviro Resolutions (ENVI) exhaust-scrubbing muffler could be a perfect fit. The company reports that its muffler can be retrofitted to a diesel exhaust system for around $3,400...and as you will learn in a moment...that's a screaming bargain!

690,000 American school buses and public transportation make up the most immediate market potential for Enviro Resolutions (ENVI). Even a fraction of this market could send ENVI shares flying.

The immediate market for Enviro Resolutions (ENVI) exhaust-scrubbing mufflers is huge. My recommendation is to load up on ENVI right now...then sit tight and watch what happens! My forecast is for 475% growth in ENVI. Next target...coal fired industrial plants and 3000% profit potential.

The fuel behind the accelerating growth of ENVI shares is one of the most powerful market forces in America today, the Environmental Protection Agency. With a stroke of a pen, this agency created an instant market for Enviro Resolutions (ENVI) technology...a whopping $2.25 BILLION overnight market for the company's exclusive exhaust systems.

Just a fraction of this market leads to millions in sales for Enviro resolutions (ENVI)!

The implications of the new EPA rules are stunning. Forced into using the EPA's expensive low-emissions diesel fuel, a single fleet operator can lose hundreds of thousands of dollars every year. It's a daunting financial challenge, particularly for school and municipal bus services that cannot easily pass along soaring new costs.

Now, these fleet operators have an effective, low-cost alternative...the EPA-compliant diesel exhaust-scrubbing muffler available only from Enviro Resolutions (ENVI).

After installing the Enviro Resolutions (ENVI) muffler, diesel emissions plummet, even when using low-cost diesel fuel.

In the coming months, I anticipate you'll see an explosion of demand for Enviro Resolutions (ENVI) diesel-scrubbing muffler, setting off skyrocketing prices in ENVI shares.

Expect triple-digit gains in the coming months...hitting 475% growth in what could easily become my most profitable pick of the year!

Already proven in real world use!

The Enviro Resolutions (ENVI) muffler is more than a great idea...it's a proven product! In a towering anti-pollution challenge, the Enviro Resolutions muffler virtually eliminated smoke from the stack of the Vancouver ferry! (See photos on right.)

Used on buses, it could save a fortune for cities and school districts. Two years ago the Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD) conducted an experiment for its fleet of 1,000 diesel buses. Instead of fueling them with #1 grade diesel, they switched to #2 grade diesel for one year and saved $700,000.

Had the Enviro Resolutions (ENVI) scrubbing muffler been installed, an even lower grade of fuel could have been purchased and the buses would still have run cleaner than if they were burning the more expensive #1 diesel! The savings would soar into the millions of dollars!

The prospect for saving six to seven figures each year in fuel costs should compel bus fleets to install Enviro Solutions (ENVI) exhaust-scrubbing mufflers immediately! Share prices in ENVI should lead the stampede hitting triple-digit gains in a flash!

It's time to make money on ENVI!

I know the signs of winning potential and my 475% growth projection for Enviro Solutions (ENVI) is a no-brainer.

• Like I said, the market potential is huge, $2.25 billion huge...and it's driven by the unavoidable power of newly enacted EPA regulations that slash diesel sulfur and particulate emissions by 95% or more!
   
• Meeting those EPA requirements can be cheap and easy simply by installing an Enviro Resolutions (ENVI) diesel-scrubbing muffler.

You do not want to miss this.

Diesel clean-up is a top priority at the EPA. If you drive a diesel vehicle, you know the agency already forced refiners to produce a new low-sulfur diesel fuel for retail channels. It's an expensive solution! This stuff is selling at 4.5¢ to 5¢ a gallon over last year's fuel...and you have no choice but to use it. Imagine the cost for a fleet of buses! As I highlighted above, it can add hundreds of thousands of dollars in fuel costs each year!

 

Meeting the Rules + Avoiding Expense = Profits for You

1. Diesel operators had no choice but to start using the new higher priced fuel. And to add insult to injury, the new fuel is hard on older engines. Maintenance costs are projected to rise and engines will wear out sooner.
    
2. Fleet operators may avoid all these expenses by using Enviro Resolutions (ENVI) diesel-scrubbing mufflers and filling their tanks with cheaper fuel at home base!
    
3. ENVI reports that with an Enviro Resolutions scrubbing muffler (costs only $3,400), even the filthiest diesel engine can be brought into EPA compliance.
    
4. What's more, the cost of maintaining the Enviro Resolutions (ENVI) scrubbing muffler is nil. An easily flushed collector allows fast and simple cleansing of retained pollutants.

I project that the smart money will be spent on Enviro Resolutions diesel exhaust scrubbers...adding up millions in sales. The market is all but certain, and the early money may even come from the EPA itself!

Even the EPA knows it whelped a monster!

Following its heavy-handed edict, the EPA saw the cost it inflicted on bus operations. In an attempt to mitigate those expenses, it has been spending millions of Federal grant dollars to subsidize bus engine or vehicle replacement.

For example, from 2006 to date, the EPA has awarded or announced over $19.34 million in grants for new school bus engines.

With the EPA approach, thousands of perfectly good diesel bus engines could be tossed in the trash at an estimated cost of $6,000+ per vehicle! And even with a new engine installed, the bus still must use the expensive new 2007 fuel. The high cost of fueling remains unchanged.

No matter how you cut it, bus operators MUST use the expensive new fuel...UNLESS they can reduce the pollution in some other way.

The solution could easily be the Enviro Resoutions (ENVI) exhaust-scrubbing muffler. Engines could be saved meeting EPA standards with lower cost fuel...all at a fraction of the cost of engine or vehicle replacement.

The Enviro Resolutions (ENVI) is so effective, you could look for its diesel-scrubbing muffler to be offered in a Federal grant program as well!

This is a huge development that remains little-noticed on Wall Street, but carries with it enormous potential. I'm thrilled to have discovered ENVI early. Accordingly, I've propelled Enviro Resolutions (ENVI) to the front of my green energy picks for 2008.

Let me assure you, green energy is paying off big in my book. I recently recommended a wind energy best stock that more than doubled in 21 days. A solar energy pick soared 83% in just 6 months. As you will learn in this report, I expect ENVI to outperform all of them. Thanks to EPA rulemaking, it's an opportunity that's opening right now.

The ugly underbelly of Green Energy is clean up...and you could "clean up" a fortune from Enviro Resolutions (ENVI).

Americans are so predictable...and Wall Street is the same. Billions are flowing into "new" green energy technologies, some promising, some idiotic. New ideas come and go like floats in a parade. At the end of the day, only one guy is guaranteed a job, that's the guy with the broom.

I don't want to labor the metaphor, but clean up is big money and it's only going to get bigger.

For Enviro Resolutions (ENVI), it's a market of low-hanging fruit. It's why I can readily project 500% short term growth as word gets out about the Enviro Resolutions diesel exhaust scrubbing muffler. 1,000 shares of ENVI bought today could quickly produce a $4,900 profit. 5,000 shares of ENVI bought today could similarly return a $24,500 gain!

Once the Enviro Resolutions (ENVI) scrubber gets traction in the market, I see huge potential in scrubber sales and corresponding profit in ENVI shares.

When government makes rules,
you can make money.

Complying with EPA regulations will trigger a rush to spend millions. Even a modest 5% share of the overall market potential could add up to $112.5 million in Enviro Resolutions (ENVI) sales! With figures like this, ENVI shares have even foreseeable potential to rise into the $13 to $15 range, twelve times today's entry price.

For now, I'm conservatively recommending ENVI for its 475% growth potential.

This is an early stage company ready to move now. These simple facts make a compelling case for ENVI shares right now...

• It's protected by three key patents
• There is no competition for meeting EPA requirements
• The scrubber is inexpensive and requires no significant maintenance

Give this some thought and you'll quickly recognize the potential in ENVI shares. It's also tied to a pattern I've uncovered in the green energy sector.

Enviro Resolutions (ENVI) isn't the only company I've found with an enormous green energy potential. As America (and the world) ramps up new green energy technologies, you could earn a fortune from the changes.

My publication, the Intelligent Investor Report (IIR), digs deeply into all important energy sectors to flush out emerging leadership. Stocks investment for 2011 in these companies could one day be worth a fortune and I want to help you find them now.

Compare my results with other market pundits. My record is simply off the charts. See results to the right.

The top three performing newsletters in America according to Hulbert's Interactive yielded 12-month average returns of 29.9%, 28.5% and 28.5% (reported on 5/28/07). My average, including all winners and losers, averaged 46.7% over the last 12 months!

I beat Hulbert's best by a whopping 156%!

Companies like Enviro Resolutions (ENVI) could quickly gain enormous market size. In a year or two, the companies I find could be worth fortunes, and like ENVI, carve out a solid share of America's multi-billion-dollar green energy market.

Right now, I recommend you make your move on my first IIR pick for you: Enviro Resolutions (ENVI).

Remember, should ENVI take off like I think it will, you heard about it first from me!

Go Nukes

The "No Nukes" era has been replaced by the "Go Nukes" era...and uranium top stocks are a great way to play the trend.

The nuclear industry is about to experience a breakout, and it's going to be a major investment opportunity. Lately, I've been talking with people in the nuclear business, from uranium miners to reactor designers to government minders and check signers. Everything I've heard leads me to believe that 2010 will be a good year – finally – for the nuclear industry.

Whether you want to look just at home in the US or all around the world, the nuclear story is good and getting better. The main use for nuclear power is to generate electricity. Let's start with a look at how the world generates its electricity.

There are 436 operating reactors in 30 countries around the world, 104 of which are in the US. These reactors produce just shy of 15% of the world's electricity. The best data are that 50 reactors are currently under construction. There are 137 more being formally planned, and another 295 reported proposals seeking construction approval.

And what about China and its nuclear ambitions? According to an article in the Dec. 16, 2009, edition of The New York Times, "China is preparing to build three times as many nuclear power plants in the coming decade as the rest of the world combined."

According to the Times, China's "civilian nuclear power industry" (and rest assured there's a Chinese military nuclear power industry as well) has 11 operating reactors, with as many as 10 new reactors per year planned for the next 15 years. That's 150 new reactors just in China.

So where will the world nuclear industry obtain the uranium fuel for all these new reactors? That's a darn good question. Just in the US, annual uranium use for the nuclear power industry is about 55 million pounds. The US produces less than 4 million pounds of this fuel – about 7% – and imports the rest.

But despite the large US demand for uranium imports, the world uranium mining industry lacks adequate capacity to meet demand. A large amount of the nuclear fuel imported into the US comes from decommissioned nuclear warheads from Russia. The warheads trace their origins back to the Soviet Union.

If you thought the US had a problem with imported oil, now you know that there's an issue with uranium fuel as well. Of course, I'm not the only one who knows this. It's a national security issue, and I can tell you that things are about to change in a very big way.

So let's discuss the fuel, uranium, which is priced and traded as an oxide, U3O8. (It's a yellow powder, often referred to as yellowcake.) The price of uranium oxide peaked in June 2007, at about $135 per pound. The price declined from there, and plummeted in late 2008 with the global crash and stock market meltdown (no pun intended).

Uranium oxide currently sells in the mid-$40s per pound. This price is about as low as it can be, according to the people with whom I've discussed the matter. One producer told me, "At current prices in the $40s, I can barely pay the overhead to keep the plant open. Below these prices, I'll shut down and let other people lose money. But if prices recover, any increase goes straight to my bottom line. So I expect to make money in this business, and soon."

What did this fellow mean? Both the mining and purchasing communities agree that the price of uranium is headed upward in 2010. The reason is that the Russians are running out of old warheads and utilities are back in the market for more supply.

The near-term viewpoint is that we'll see uranium oxide prices in the mid-$60s during 2010. Prices will trend even higher over the medium term, with some forecasters predicting $250 and higher over the long term.

All indications are that there is a great investment play here. It's time to get in, and I believe we're getting in near the bottom. Here's what to do. Take a position in the Market Vectors Nuclear Energy ETF (NYSE:NLR).

As the name implies, this is an exchange-traded fund. It tracks the DAXglobal Nuclear Energy Index. It's oriented toward growth, and includes global companies from uranium miners through electrical generators. The ETF includes common top stocks to buy and a variety of depository receipts that are listed for trading on major stock exchanges around the world. Thus, you can "participate" in many foreign stock plays that you would not ordinarily buy on US exchanges.

The ETF rules are that all companies it owns derive at least 50% of their total revenues from the nuclear energy business.

Most of the holdings of NLR are on foreign exchanges. Thus, it's a great way to play nuclear on the New York Stock Exchange, yet obtain exposure to the international nuclear market without the hassle of foreign trading.

This nuclear ETF has been around since August 2007, and has generally gone down with the declining fortunes of the nuclear industry in the past two years. Still, despite the recent doldrums of the nuclear industry, NLR returned 20% in 2009.

NLR is currently trading in the range of $22 per share. As the nuclear industry recovers in 2010 – from uranium mining to equipment building to power generation – the component top stocks will rise and the ETF will benefit. If you're going to go nuclear, now is a good time and NLR is a great way to do it.

Breaking It Down to Macroeconomics

Markets in the US ended yesterday's session in the red. The Dow was off by 100 points, or around 1%. The broader S&P 500 fell a bit harder, down 1.3% at the close. Gold slipped, too. The yellow metal sunk below the $1,100 mark and now trades for about $1,095 per ounce. Oil gained a smidge, to just shy of $80 a barrel.

What do these single day data points tell us? On their own, probably not much. Put together...still not much. Stick your nose close enough to the computer screen and pretty soon the daily numbers begin to lose their meaning. Journalists report only after the facts, making up their reasons for this and that move as they go.

"Investors shrug off concerns about XYZ, display confidence in recovery," one paper might read after the Dow jumps half a point.

"Investors remain sidelined as concerns over XYZ dampen recovery hopes," another might read on the same day.

On a daily basis it is simply impossible to know what goes on in the hundreds of thousands of minds operating hundreds of billions of dollars in the global markets. Maybe some hedge fund manager's wife just left him...causing him to lose focus for a moment and to liquidate his position in XYZ instead of ABC. Maybe he got some inside information, which then turned out to be false. In that case he might be back in the office first thing tomorrow morning to buy the best stock back. In reality, there are so many variables, so many separate and distinct inputs, that it is virtually impossible to draw a straight line between cause "A" and effect "B" in such a short timeframe.

With neither the patience nor the inclination to study such micro-term trends, we turn our attention today to those on a somewhat longer timeframe. One thing we can know with a reasonable amount of certainty is that we cannot consume a finite resource indefinitely. This applies to natural resources, like oil, just as it does to things like the patience of foreign creditors.

Much ink has been spilled on the subject of Peak Oil over the past few years. Although the issue has been more recently shelved in favor of global financial crisis headlines, the situation is hardly less serious than it was back when crude hit $147 per barrel a couple of years ago. In fact, despite the temporary downturn in global energy demand, the outlook may be bleaker now than it was then.

Last year the International Energy Agency reported that worldwide decline rates were roughly twice what they had forecast just one year earlier. (The previous figure of 3.4% was revised to 6.7%.) New, comprehensive research led the IEA's chief economist, Fatih Birol, to estimate that supplies of conventional oil could begin to plateau as early as 2020...and that's, he said, "assuming that OPEC will invest in a timely manner."

In today's column, Byron King, editor of Outstanding Investments, brings us some thoughts on the resurgence of a once unpopular alternative energy source...one he believes will shine in the coming months and years...