Hidden Housing Boom That Still Rages On

by Andrew Mickey

“Congratulations, you’ve just lost $33,000. Good job! You are now a homeowner.”

Do you think this is what new homebuyers hear from their banker and real estate agent after they sign the bottom line? Certainly not. But they should.

Mark Zandi, Moody’s chief economist, declared, “On a national level, the housing market recession will continue through early 2009. [The housing market is] worsening and is already in the midst of its worst downturn since World War II.”

In addition to that, Goldman Sachs expects home values to decline another 15% nationwide. Since the average price of a house is currently $220,800, a decline that size would make the average loss for owning a home over the next year and a half $33,000. Not a time to be buying a house… quite yet.

Even Caterpillar’s CEO, James Owens, said, “The downturn in the U.S. housing market is the worst it has been since World War II and is likely to weaken further next year.”

All this just shows the worst has only begun for the housing bubble, and it’s going to take a few years to get the housing market cleaned up. However, all is not lost.

Granted, the bleeding won’t be over until 2009… at the earliest. The U.S housing market has propped up the U.S. consumer, and with no housing boom, there’s no consumer. With no consumer, there’s no economic growth… and on it goes.

It can all be a little frustrating. But there is one housing boom that still rages on, and investors have been making a mint.

The U.S. housing market is getting all the headlines for falling to pieces, but the Brazilian housing market is growing stronger and stronger by the day. It’s no secret that Brazil has been attracting a lot of attention from the financial community, but the local housing market has failed to really take off like those of China, India, Japan, the United States, Ireland… pretty much every housing market in the world.

All that’s about to change. According to The Economist, “President Lula of Brazil resoundingly won re-election last October, largely on the strength of support from the poor. Their living standards have been soaring. Income inequality has at last begun to shrink.”

Brazil’s poor are starting to earn money for the first time. They can finally buy the things they want. And, as we’ve seen in every other emerging market, one of the first purchases they make is a house.

It all boils down to basic economics. Brazil has lagged behind the rest of the emerging world. It hasn’t been the runaway success that China and India have been.

Brazil’s GDP growth rate over the past four years averaged 3.3%. That’s well behind the 7.3% average for emerging markets as a whole. That’s why I think Brazil is still just really getting started and there’s plenty more growth left in the country.

Brazil isn’t perfect, but it’s getting better. Poor infrastructure, out of control population growth, and a few other factors have kept Brazil down compared to other emerging economies. Basically, Brazil dug itself a big hole that it took a while to get out of.

Now, the ship has been righted and Brazil is about to really start booming. Exports are soaring. The country has foreign exchange reserves of over $100 billion. For one of the few times in its history, Brazil’s inflation is under control at only 3%. The country is finally getting cleaned up economically.

That’s why the Bovespa Index, which tracks Brazilian stocks, is up about 600% in five years. Although Brazil’s stock market has been on a tear, there’s still plenty of opportunity, if you’re willing to look for it.

According to Bloomberg, “Real estate developers’ shares have underperformed the Bovespa stock index.” In fact, real estate stocks have lagged the boom by about 33%. And it won’t be long until the Brazilian real estate stocks catch up with the other high flyers. But you don’t have to go down to Brazil to take advantage of this opportunity.

Gafisa (GFA:NYSE), one of Brazil’s leading homebuilders, is traded on the New York Stock Exchange just like GE and Exxon Mobil. And with the Brazil housing sector poised to catch up to the rest of the world, this one has the potential to deliver gains that U.S. homebuilders D.R. Horton (DHI:NYSE) and Centex (CTX:NYSE) have delivered over the past few years.

Brazil isn’t the only booming growth story in South America, though. The continent is covered with opportunity, mostly in oil. Although the continent has plenty of natural resources, it’s still relatively unexplored.

That’s why my colleague, Christian DeHaemer, is so interested about what he has uncovered there. Christian has been to places like Cuba, Egypt, India, Bulgaria, Libya, Israel, Turkey and Tunisia and developed a knack for turning crisis into opportunity. In fact, during the Internet bubble, he nailed 680% on Broadcom and 572% on Oracle.

But he says, this small oil company found in South America’s “Gunboat Basin” could return even more. The housing boom in Brazil is a pretty safe bet, and with that safety will come a decent return. But that’s not what Christian is looking for right now. He’s looking for the big win. And what he has uncovered could easily trounce that.

Good investing,

Learn about creating wealth for life.

The Only Three Oil Investments You Should Make

by Andrew Mickey

It’s been an interesting year. The world economy is continuing to grow. The bull market in commodities is temporarily slowing down. More and more horrible announcements continue to come from the U.S. banks as they come clean. And oil prices have moved up 46%.

But as oil prices surge, leading oil companies haven’t enjoyed the run-up. Consider this: While oil prices climbed 46% this year, Exxon Mobil’s shareholders have only seen a 20% gain.

Considering Exxon has more than 2 million shareholders, that’s a lot of people that have completely missed the run-up.

But there is plenty of money to be made in the oil markets. Just take a look at what other oil and gas stocks have done in just the past year:

- Fox Petroleum (FXPE:OTC BB) has climbed 220%
- Contango Oil and Gas (MCF:NYSE) is up 160%
- Evolution Petroleum (EVP:AMEX) more than doubled from its lows

Even the $40 billion offshore oil rig-operating behemoth Transocean (RIG:NYSE) has added 80% in value over the past year.

Clearly, there are some big opportunities in oil stocks. But Exxon Mobil, Cevron, BP and the other large oil companies aren’t going to be where you’ll get market-beating returns. You have to go one step further.

Oil Catch-Up Investment #1: With oil hovering around the $90 mark, many different types of oil are extremely valuable. Heavy oil that costs $40 a barrel to produce profitably, oil sands (which could take as much as $60 a barrel to produce on a large scale) and deep-sea oil that is miles underneath the ocean’s surface makes sense economically.

Currently, billions of dollars are being poured into the areas because the oil majors are betting big that these new sources of oil will provide enough oil to offset declining production from more conventional sources.

As a result, anyone that can help these companies get these types of oil out of the ground and to market has years of growth ahead of it. The oil service sector still offers plenty of undervalued opportunities and specialty firms that focus on these areas will be solid investments.

More specifically, in the oil sands region of Canada, the owners of the new pipelines as well as local natural gas producers will play an extremely profitable role in getting this barely economical source of oil to market.

Oil Catch-Up Investment #2:

The other big problem for oil companies is that they simply can’t find much oil. Of course, there are quite a few companies that help oil companies out here, but the most important ones are the seismic data and imaging companies.

With oil prices still near all-time highs, the Peak Oil theorists are back out in force, screaming, “The world is running out of oil! The world is running out of oil!”

It’s not. However, the world is running out of easy-to-find, easy-to-recover oil. And those companies that can keep costs low and help oil exploration companies increase their odds of hitting crude when they drill are highly valuable partners.

Oil Catch-Up Investment #3:

Finally, the potentially most lucrative oil investment that will allow you to get back some of those missed returns is the emerging oil producers. Too many investors consider these small companies in far off places to be highly risky.

However, it’s that misguided attitude that has helped keep these stocks undervalued. After all, a barrel of oil in the United States costs $90 and a barrel of oil in Thailand is worth $90. There’s no difference. Oil companies don’t care. Your house’s heating system doesn’t know the difference. Cars don’t either. Why should you?

There’s no reason to. That’s why when Christian Dehaemer told me about a small oil company that he recently uncovered, I could instantly see the potential. It’s not the type of investment opportunity for everyone, but if you’d like to learn more.

Sticking to these three different subsectors of the oil industry should help keep you enjoying the remainder of the oil boom. The way it’s looking, we could be a couple of years away from the end of the run and, as we’ve explored here before, wind, solar, ethanol… are going to provide the solution.

Good investing,

When Bank Stocks Fall, Buy “Antibanks”

By Andrew Mickey

The housing market is in a rapid state of decline. Aggressive lenders are imploding because they overextended themselves by making risky loans to borrowers without the means to pay them back. The mortgage industry is in decline following a multiyear boom.

The combined weakness in all of these sectors is dragging down the entire economy and stock market with them. However, a few “antibank” stocks are about to heat up.

Overall, the current situation seems pretty familiar, right? Is it the Savings & Loan crisis or the subprime crisis? Tough to tell them apart; they’re both eerily similar.

The causes are the same, impact is the same, and the medium-term outcome is going to be the same… a recession and years of lack of confidence in the economy. Two conditions that do not bode well for the slowing bull market we’ve enjoyed for years.

And just like the S&L crisis, the more we learn about how deep subprime-related problems reach, the more it’s looking like it’s going to take years to get out of this mess. Two decades ago, it took years for banks and banking stocks to recover from the S&L crisis. Meanwhile, the antibanks flourished.

There’s always a good investment opportunity, even in the United States, regardless of how gloomy things look. All we have to do is look back to see what to do now.

Following the S&L crisis, it took U.S. economy about five years to fully recover. And just about the same amount of time for the stock market.

Some of the best-performing investments during that time were in, of all places, the financial services sector. Right now, bank stocks are falling apart. The plummeting share prices of widely held Citigroup, Bank of America, Washington Mutual and dozens of other banks have cost investors a lot of money.

The most aggressive and biggest risk-taking banks, which have been acting with a level of responsibility comparable to hedge funds or defunct Savings & Loan operations, are finally paying the price. And they’re taking the rest of the financial services sector down with them. The fallout has dragged down the S&P Financial Services Index by 20% in six weeks.

When an entire sector falls this fast, there has to be a few values that get dragged down with the rest of the crowd.

There are plenty of businesses that do well when the financial services sector is hurting. In fact, antibanks perform best when the financial markets are at their worst. Antibanks are the companies that do best when interest rates are moderate and stock market values for companies are low.

In 1985, just a couple years before the Savings & Loan crisis really started causing problems, Peter Peterson and Stephen Schwarzman, founded one of today’s top antibanks, Blackstone Group (BX:NYSE).

They started with a mere $400,000 in cash and a small office in New York City. Now, 22 years later, this antibank has amassed more than $91.8 billion in assets free and clear. When you account for additional capital infusions along the way, Blackstone has earned an average 23% annual return for the past 20 years.

Antibanking is good business… and it’s only going to get better. As the Fed keeps interest rates in a holding pattern to combat inflation yet help spur economic growth and the stock market falls, antibankers like Blackstone will seize the opportunity.

After all, in the private equity and takeover game, its about being able to borrow more money at lower costs and take over public companies with depressed, even distressed, values.

So, if we’re right and expect bank stocks to fall even further and want to take full advantage of the subprime crisis, we’ve got to look at the antibank stocks. Here are three of them:

1. Blackstone Group (BX:NYSE) – As one of the leading takeover artists in the world, falling stock prices are about to be a boon for Blackstone. And with China owning 10% of the company and sitting on well over a trillion in foreign exchange assets ready for investment, Blackstone’s not going to have much trouble raising money, either.

2. Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A:NYSE) – The investment company headed by Warren Buffett has averaged returns of 22% over the past 20 years. This antibank’s value-minded investment strategy, long-term outlook and acquisition-mindedness are likely to keep that impressive average holding up strong. Although, the premium valuation on the shares do limit the potential upside.

3. American Capital Strategies (ACAS:NASSDAQ) – Although by far the smallest of the three, it has just as much upside as the others. A healthy balance sheet and a quickly growing revenue stream are going to pay off well for shareholders of this antibank.

All antibanks are created equal. The “Buffett Premium” is alive and well with shares of Berkshire Hathaway not giving an inch. But two other antibanks have been dragged down with the entire financial sector and offer a much better value.

Antibanks Offering Significant Value

When it comes to the subprime crisis, take a look past all the headlines, multibillion-dollar paper losses, eventual finger pointing, or when Congress will decide to step in and throw some money at the problem… and figure out who’s going to prosper.

It’s kind of tough to have so many losers without a few winners in the bunch. Those winners are going to be the antibanks.

Good investing,

Falling Dollar: The Ailing Greenback Is Eroding Your Portfolio!

by Sara Nunnally

You Need a Profit Protection Plan!

You’re seeing it in the news nearly every day now…

“Dollar Sinks to Euro”
“Dollar Drops to Record Low against Euro”
“US Economic Gloom Brings New Dollar Lows”

Over the past year, the dollar has been down against 15 of the 16 major trading currencies. And with the greenback hitting fresh lows against the young euro on Black Friday, a national consumer buying frenzy, investors have been forced to watch as their hard-earned portfolio gains lose ground in the global market.

Just how much could you be losing because of a weak dollar? Let me give you an example…

If you had invested in Exxon Mobil (XOM:NYSE) one year ago, you could have made about 16.7%. But consider this: Those gains amount to only 3.5% in euros.

On the global stage, your dollars have lost about 13% over the past year!

And things are beginning to look a lot worse. Some OPEC nations, like Iran and Venezuela are calling for oil to be denominated in a currency other than dollars. Of course, these two countries are far from friendly, but several other Persian Gulf countries are threatening to unpeg their currencies from the dollar because it’s costing them more and more to buy goods from Europe.

That could force the dollar even lower, and you can’t afford to lose any more of your portfolio gains. This quote from Peter Schiff, author of Crash Proof: How to Profit from the Coming Economic Collapse, says it all: “The dollar’s fall is now so pervasive that the world is walking away from it en masse. The story has even been given some sizzle with the announcement from Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen that she will no longer accept modeling contracts in dollars… For investors, the urgency to divest themselves of U.S. dollar denominated assets has never been greater.”

We’re not saying the U.S. is on the brink of economic collapse, but the worrisome drop in the dollar has a direct effect on you, the investor.

The good news is you don’t have to sit back with your fingers crossed, hoping for a comeback in the greenback. You can do something about your slipping profits, and it’s very simple.

Millions of people are following this straightforward Profit Protection Plan to safeguard their portfolios.

Step 1: Diversify

Listen to this complicated quote from Michael Woolfolk, senior currency strategist at the Bank of New York Mellon: “As the dollar declines in value, so does the price of oil in non-dollar terms. Consequently, foreigners bid up the price of oil and other dollar-denominated commodities. The result is that the price of crude oil and other commodities rise in dollar terms as the dollar falls in value against other currencies.”

Boil that down, and you’ve got this simple phrase: “Lower dollar equals higher commodities.” Commodities like gold, oil, silver and palladium… Commodities that are easier than ever to invest in, and more profitable. Take a look.

For the past six months, oil prices have climbed some 40%, and gold and silver prices have climbed 26% and 17.5%, respectively. And though this chart doesn’t show an exact inverted correlation, you can see that in August, when the dollar rallied just a bit, oil prices, along with precious metals, tumbled sharply. But ever since September, we’ve had a falling dollar and rising oil, gold and silver prices.

I think you’ll agree, this chart says it all.

Step 2: Profit

There are a number of different ways to hedge your portfolio with oil, gold and silver. Speculators and hedge funds have made a killing in the futures market, and I’m sure there were folks running out to buy gold bullion or silver coins as soon as prices started running higher.

But there are simpler ways that don’t have as much risk as commodity futures or as much hassle as buying bullion or coins.

Let me show you how easy it’s been for investors to profit from the rise in these commodities.

This is a chart of three exchange-traded funds (ETFs): the iShares Silver Trust (SLV:AMEX), the StreetTracks Gold Shares (GLD:NYSE) and the U.S. Oil Fund (USO:AMEX).

The unique thing about these three ETFs is that they trade very closely to the price of the underlying commodity. Just look and compare this chart to the commodity futures chart and you’ll see exactly what I’m talking about.

A bare six months ago, if you had invested $500 in each of these three ETFs, you could cash out now with a wad worth $1,974.60 and average profits of nearly 32%!

That’s more than double the loss of the dollar over the past year.

As an investor, you could simply buy these ETFs as a hedge against the falling dollar, and not only recoup some of your global purchasing power, but make a nice chunk of change as well.

These are very easy ways to follow the gains higher in oil, gold and silver, and I would recommend every investor get positioned now, just for their own protection.

When to Buy the Best Value in Stocks

by Andrew Mickey

The best news we could have hoped for… isn’t coming. Even a record-setting Cyber Monday isn’t going to save this Christmas from the recessionary Grinch.

According to ShopperTrak, retail sales over the weekend came in at $16.4 billion. That’s 7.3% higher than last year and a pace more than double the 3.6% growth in total holiday sales expected by most analysts on Wall Street.

Is this weekend an indication of how much spending is going to be done this holiday season?

Not a chance. It never is. And this weekend’s sales numbers were artificially inflated. Today’s news is going to be the last bit of good news from the retail sector and the retail sector party the U.S. economy is pinning its last hopes on, is going to be quickly coming to an end. It’s all part of what I like to call “retail deflation.”

Retail deflation is a problem retailers haven’t faced since 2001. Following the tech bubble meltdown, retailers feared stock market declines and losses of paper wealth were going to cause a serious drop in consumer spending. The end result was quite a bit of competition from retailers for every consumer dollar.

Throughout every mall, big-box store and discount retailer, we saw each of them get more and more nervous with each low-traffic, low-sales day that passed. And when retailers get nervous, they cut prices. They’ve got to move their inventory. If it’s not moving fast enough, they’ll cut prices again.

How to Buy Gold for $50 an Ounce

by Andrew Mickey

It’s coming -- fast. The dollar is in freefall mode. The Canadian dollar hit $1.10 today. The euro is at an all-time high. Oil passed $98 a barrel. Heck, even the Russian rubble is starting to attract some attention for investors.

China is blowing the wad. It’s selling all its dollars. Officially, China said it’s going to “diversify” its $1.43 trillion worth of foreign exchange reserves. Since the country holds so many dollar-denominated assets, “diversify” can only mean one thing: sell U.S. dollars.

And it has. Every currency is soaring in value against the U.S. dollar. Is the dollar going to be worthless? Not a chance. Exports are rising and there are signs of long-term life in the world’s largest economy.

But the next few years are going to be an adjustment period for the over-extended 20-something set that have been living the good life on someone else’s dollar for too long. I wouldn’t leave the U.S. economy for dead yet. Although a recession appears to be coming just a few quarters away, the long-term outlook for the U.S. isn’t too bad.

But, who has five to 10 years to think worry about that -- let alone, 40 years until retirement. We’ve got to make moves now to protect ourselves.

And when people are fearful over a falling dollar, we’re primarily concerned with the broad fear sentiment, which moves markets much more than reality, there’s no better place to be than gold.

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A 2,600-year-old Egyptian artefact could launch this tiny $2 stock to $27…

Africa has a $10 billion secret. Right now a U.S mining syndicate has stunned the Kremlin and is seizing a commodity fortune!

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Gold has been soaring over the past few weeks. As I write, an ounce of the yellow metal is trading for $837 an ounce. That’s just a few bucks away from its all-time high, which it’s looking like it’s going to pass on its way to $1,000.

So what should we do, you ask. There are a lot of options. You can buy gold bullion or coins. And when gold hits $1,000, you’ll be up a cool 19%. Good, but not great.

Or, you can buy the stocks of gold producing majors that, quite frankly, offer very little upside. Shares of Goldcorp (GG:NYSE), Newmont Mining (NEM:NYSE), and Barrick Gold (ABX:NYSE) have already had there run. But they will probably be able to squeeze out another safe 10% or 20% as gold marches on.

But again, we’re looking for a lot more. And for that, we’ve got to turn to the small-cap and mid-cap gold stocks. Fear & Greed’s top gold play, Seabridge Gold (SA:AMEX), has been beating the rest and still offers some good value.

I uncovered this leveraged gold play last October at a conference in New York City, Seabridge got the lowest turnout of the day. In fact, at the presentation it was just me and Seabridge's president and CEO, Rudi Fronk.

Meanwhile, other presentations from Taser International (TASR:Nasdaq) and Green Plains Renewable Energy (GPRE:Nasdaq) were standing-room only. Now, a little over a year later, GPRE is down 67% and Taser is up about 50%.

Chasing hot stocks can be a wild game, but solid stocks that no one else cares about usually pay off the best. For instance, Seabridge is up more than 200% since I met Rudi for the first time that day.

The reason Seabridge is such an attractive gold stock is that it’s highly leveraged to gold prices. In fact, when gold hits $1,000 an ounce, shares of Seabridge will probably be trading around $54 per share. That’ll be good for a 40% win from here. Or, if you bought last year, it’ll take your gains up to around 280%.

The way I look at Seabridge is like this. It’s like buying gold for pennies on the dollar. For instance, Seabridge has more than 24 million ounces of measured, indicated and inferred resources. That’s $24.1 billion worth of gold.

However, it doesn’t mine it. The gold reserves just sit there. They might be mined someday; they might not. But as long as gold is above $300 an ounce, those ounces are worth something. And with gold at $837 an ounce, the market tells us those are worth $1.36 billion, or Seabridge’s total market value.

All of that works out to about $50 an ounce. Clearly, one of the best values in the gold industry today.

Now, more than ever, is time to take some protection. There are also plenty of opportunities in the junior mining companies. For instance, in my premium investment advisory, we recently picked up shares of a small gold producer that just added to its massive reserves in Venezuela. And shares haven’t had the run-up with many other gold stocks… yet.

When it comes to buying gold stocks now, it’s best to go with Seabridge or an even smaller mid-tier producer. They’re poised for a big run over the next few months.

Of course, gold is one of the most obvious investment ideas around right now. Tomorrow, we’ll take a deeper look into what else we can do to protect ourselves from the ongoing fall of the dollar. After all, investing isn’t always about big returns, but protecting your financial well-being as well.

Good investing,

Andrew

SOLAR STOCK VOLATILITY: SHORTAGES SPELL PROFIT OPPORTUNITY

by J. Christoph Amberger, President, TFN

Alternative energy sources are supposed to deliver the United States from its dependence on oil imports. At 90 bucks a barrel, that doesn't sound like a bad idea. Of course, sometimes you might end up trading one dependency for another.

The solar cell industry currently illustrates what happens if sudden increases in demand cannot be matched by supplies. It's pretty basic stuff. It happens with oil, with pig bellies, and with orange juice concentrate. Demand drives up prices. That's how the market works.

The bread-and-butter photovoltaics industry, for one, got caught in a massive raw material supply crunch. Makers of photovoltaic cells depend on super-pure -- that's 99.99999% pure -- polysilicon, which is essential for the manufacture of computer chips and solar cells.

In 2003, polysilicon was going for $32 a kilogram (the equivalent of about 2.2 pounds). This year it has climbed as high as $200. And yes, that's correct: It costs more than twice the money for a smallish bag of sand than it costs to buy a barrel of oil at record price levels.

There are some solar tech CEOs who predict a polysilicon glut by 2010 that will cut prices to less than $40 a kilogram, maybe even $20 as global production climbs to 100,000 tons in 2010, from 35,000 tons now.

(If I were a CEO of a solar technology company concerned about stock prices and jumpy customers, I would say that, too.)

After all, polysilicon is a highly refined product that only a handful of companies can make, and whose plants cost $200 million and take three years to come on line. Worse, the semiconductor makers appear to be hoarding supplies at this point, restricting the reasonable growth rates in the worldwide solar photovoltaic (PV) market for next year.

Accordingly, with the shortages making news headlines, solar stocks have had a rough week. But that's just how traders like it: Volatility spells profits.

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The first baby boomer in America has filed for Social Security. One down, 76 million to go. Stocks in this sector are capitalizing on the baby-boomer generation... and doing well for investors. Learn how to supplement your retirement - and put away some money for that rainy day - with the service delivering cumulative gains of 1,197%. TFN's Free Emergency Video Summit is one day away. Baby Boomer Stocks: Subsidizing Your Retirement and Social Security by Ann Sosnowski, Editor, Diligent Investor Well it’s official: The first baby boomer in America has filed for Social Security. Her name is Kathleen Casey-Kirschling, a former teacher from New Jersey. She was born one minute after midnight on January 1, 1946. And in modern fashion, she applied for Social Security over the Internet. One down, more than 76 million to go. If Social Security is left the way it is, without privatization or any of the other motley plans politicians have for it, the system will go broke by the year 2041. Over the next two decades, 10,000 people a day will become eligible to receive Social Security benefits. This just reinforces two important points: It’s important right now for health companies to do whatever they can to deal with the conditions and diseases attributed to aging. And it’s crucial for you to subsidize your Social Security and retirement income with gains from good, solid stock ideas and recommendations. In Diligent Investor, I take care of this in one simple way: by picking medical technology companies that will help the aging populace as well as help you build your wealth.

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If you’re a baby boomer or older, looking to add income to your retirement through stocks, you’ve done well with Diligent Investor this year. In the third quarter alone, ending September, subscribers were able to make cumulative gains of 466%, with average gains of 29% on each position. For the year, you could’ve made cumulative gains of 1,197% with average gains of 28%. That already breaks the 1,000% goal I set out for the year of 2007. Best of all, the medical technology stocks that capitalize on helping the ailments of the baby-boomer generation are doing fairly well. Right now, we are holding a company that specializes in using a laser developed during the Cold War to rid vascular blockages for arteries, more often than not in the lower legs of aging patients. This condition of blocked arteries in the legs is called peripheral arterial disease, or PAD, and affects at least 8 million people in the country. This company, currently showing us gains of 16%, is still quite undervalued at $15. Over the next even five years, I see it moving to $60 per share. Another stock in our Diligent Investor portfolio geared toward the baby boomers is a hearing aid company. In fact, it’s already giving some of our longer-held positions a run for its money, with gains of 24% after only two months of hold time. This company has patented digital hearing aid technology that makes it a leader in the hearing aid industry. It’s one of our lowest priced boomer stocks, still a steal under $10 per share. In addition to these two companies, we have two other boomer positions in Diligent Investor: one that deals with medical systems, and one that deals with eyeglasses. If you’re looking to supplement your retirement, and put away some money for that rainy day when Social Security may not be available, I’d beat Kathleen Casey-Kirschling to the punch. Learn more about Diligent Investor today, and you’ll be on board for the next year, making over 1,000% gains with other smart investors of your caliber.

Chinese Stocks: Capitalizing on the 41% of Chinese that Eat Fast Food Once a Week

Over the last week, I’ve eaten McDonalds food twice. And as someone who works out regularly and tries to keep a tab on how many calories I’m putting into my body, every trip to McDonalds turns into a self-induced guilt trip.

I’ve seen SuperSize Me and I’ve read Fast Food Nation… and I’ve even successfully kept myself from eating fast food for months. But sometimes I have to admit that the stress of the day and the busy lifestyle I lead makes me hang my head in shame and pull into that drive-through, order a Quarter Pounder meal and make sure it comes with a Diet Coke.

I might as well deprive myself of the liquid calories if I’m splurging!

And while I may feel guilty about eating fast food a few times every month, we’ve got nothing on the rest of the world.

Building on the passion for anything Western in current Chinese culture, the Chinese are more likely to order and eat takeout meals than Americans. A whopping 41% of Chinese eat fast food or takeout once a week, compared to only 35% of Americans, as surveyed by ACNielson Corp.

In Hong Kong alone, 61% of the population eats fast food at least once a week; 59% of Malaysians and 54% of Filipinos go to carryout restaurants at least once a week.

To put it all in perspective, only 11% of Europeans go to a fast-food restaurant on a weekly basis.

This just reiterates where fast-food corporations are going to see the biggest growth -- in Asia. The demand is there, and the supply has yet to be capped.

by Ann Sosnowski, Editor, Diligent Investor

This $900 Million Bet Has Global Traders Talking…

By Keith Fitz-Gerald

Contributing Editor

Article from Money Morning

Insiders trade when they know something. They’re not supposed to, but they do anyway. It’s just a fact of life.

Most of the time, it’s pretty petty-ante stuff, but occasionally a trade comes along that makes even jaded professionals like me sit up and take notice.

Just such a trade surfaced last Wednesday when anonymous parties agreed to buy and sell 120,000 SPY September call options using deep-in the-money strikes ranging from 60 to 95.

If you’re not options savvy, don’t worry. SPY (AMEX: SPY) – also referred to as a “Spider” in trader parlance – is an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that mimics the performance of the stock market’s closely watched Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (INX). These strike prices equate to a SPY trading between 600 and 950, or roughly 35.81% to 59.46% below where it was Monday.

Any way you cut it, this is a monster trade because it controls 12,000,000 SPY shares. In fact, at a blended price of $7,500 per option, this works out to a $900 million bet that will play out by Sept. 21, when these options expire.

Why haven’t you heard about this on your favorite cable TV money show, or read about it in the business section of your favorite newspaper? Simple: There are just so many possible explanations for this trade that your head would spin. The chances are good that the current lot of reporters just aren’t able to make heads nor tails out of this deal; and with nobody talking, there are simply no warm bodies to interview.

But that hasn’t stopped the professionals in the trading community from trying to figure it all out. In fact, since the trade first came to light about a week ago, the professional trading community I’m a part of has been abuzz with conjecture. That alone makes this a highly unusual trade because – like any small, professional community – we can usually figure out who’s doing what to whom and why – without even having to rely on more than one or two educated guesses. We just know.

But this time around, nobody’s talking.

Naturally, this silence has put the conspiracy theorists on edge and set the blogosphere aflame. Most of the theories are outrageous, but there are a couple that – quite frankly – aren’t so far-fetched and even make some sense. But I have to stress, once again, that nobody who’s actually a party to either end of this transaction has been identified or is talking, which makes this all the more noteworthy – and maybe even a little spooky.

So absent the “who,” let’s take a moment and see if we can’t focus on, and figure out, the “why.”

Pushing aside anything that has to do with UFOs, the “third gunman” on the grassy knoll, the Philadelphia Experiment, or the Soviet K-129 submarine’s failed nuclear strike on Pearl Harbor, my experience as a longtime global-capital-markets trader tells me that there are actually some very real and very rational possibilities amidst the wild hypotheses circulating on the Internet. But, they’re just that – possibilities. And even with my admittedly conservative analysis, the scenarios I provide here could be wrong … either completely, or in part. Conversely, there may be an element of truth to one or more of these.

TAX MINIMIZING SOLUTIONS

Every action by a rational man is motivated by profit!

This may not be a “profit” in terms of money necessarily, but a profit gained in other ways. It could be a feeling of having done the right thing, the emotional high you get by helping someone or a lift in self esteem you feel when someone praises your work. This is what motivates rational people, not just money.

I am motivated not just by money, but by the thought my readers are attaining their financial dreams with my help. Do you have any idea how good that makes me feel?

It’s Tax Time in Australia
It’s nearly June 30 and that means that in Australia it’s the end of the financial year and if you haven’t already done so you should consider a few last minute adjustments to your tax situation.

How’s this for a list of things you should have a think about….

• Increase Superannuation Contributions to take advantage of the changes
• Superannuation Splitting
• Transition to Retirement Benefits
• Salary Sacrifice arrangements
• Defer Your Income
• Defer Sales of Assets
• Accelerate Your Deductions
• Make Repairs to investment properties
• Write Off Bad Debts
• Write Down Trading Stock
• Prepay Bills
• Write Off Non-Commercial Losses
• Add Any Home Office Expenses
  
• Get Your Depreciation Up To Date
  
• Sale of Investments
• Income Splitting
• Child Care Rebate Claims
• Eliminate Capital Gains Tax
• Rebalance your SMSF

These are just a few things you can put in place almost right away. Plus of course, now is the time to consider some strategies for next year that will reduce your tax bill even further, with some careful planning. If you would like to know about the strategies that WILL reduce your tax
CLICK HERE NOW

HIGH YIELD INVESTMENTS

Never ask a poor man how to make money because if he knew he wouldn’t be poor, ask a wealthy man!

Can you honestly answer these questions?

Are you happy with bank interest?

• Do you think investing in bank term deposits will make you rich?
• Will you become wealthy working for someone else?
• Do you know where rich people invest their money?
• Do you want to be rich without having to lift a finger?

If you’ve answered “NO”, “NO”, “NO” “NO”

and “YES” then read on if not you must already be filthy rich or quite insane.

Typically, passive income as derived from high yield investments is quite difficult to find and this requires an expert who has analyzed the market and has a background in accounting and/or financing don’t just take any advice.

The prime consideration when analyzing high yield investments is to ensure diversification. And the best thing about High Yield investments is that there is so much material out there to help you with your investments. The basic principle of investment is to put spare money to work. Here are some examples of investment types:

Funds

• Trust Investment
• Equity Fund
• Bonds
• Hedge Funds

An investment is to place your money to earn more money and with high yield investments you make money a lot faster. Needs and requirements are personal decisions affecting selection of the type of investment to be made.

Long term investment will fetch higher returns but money becomes untouchable for a long time as compared to short term higher yield investments.

More secure investments generally offer less return but guarantee part or all of investments and even these can still be high yielding. Accordingly, risk tolerance and income expectation need to be evaluated in order to arrive at best investment.

Size of investment is another great factor to determine the acceptable risk. High Yield does not necessarily mean high risk if you do your research properly.

Stay Tuned for tips on one of the best Investments

Please leave a comment if you
like me to email tips directly to you!
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POSITIVE THOUGHTS

People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centred;

Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;

Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;

Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;

Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, Someone could destroy overnight;

Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;

Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;

Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;

Give the world the best you've got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God.

It was never between you and them anyway.

Mother Theresa

www.healthywealthyandwisehome.com/TheSecret.html

IS BEING RICH OUR BIRTH RIGHT?

The Right to Be Rich

Poverty is no longer an option in this day’s society. No man can rise to his greatest possible height in talent or soul development unless he has plenty of money; for to unfold the soul and to develop talent he must have many things to use, and he cannot have these things unless he has money to buy them with.

A man develops in mind, soul, and body by making use of things, and society is so organized that man must have money in order to become the possessor of things; therefore, the basis of all advancement for man must be the science of getting rich.

The object of all life is development; and everything that lives has an inalienable right to all the development it is capable of attaining.

Man's right to life means his right to have the free and unrestricted use of all the things which may be necessary to his fullest mental, spiritual, and physical unfoldment; or, in other words, his right to be rich.

In this book, I shall not speak of riches in a figurative way; to be really rich does not mean to be satisfied or contented with a little. No man ought to be satisfied with a little if he is capable of using and enjoying more. The purpose of Nature is the advancement and unfoldment of life; and every man should have all that can contribute to the power; elegance, beauty, and richness of life; to be content with less is sinful.

The man who owns all he wants for the living of all the life he is capable of living is rich; and no man who has not plenty of money can have all he wants. Life has advanced so far, and become so complex, that even the most ordinary man or woman requires a great amount of wealth in order to live in a manner that even approaches completeness. Every person naturally wants to become all that they are capable of becoming; this desire to realize innate possibilities is inherent in human nature; we cannot help wanting to be all that we can be. Success in life is becoming what you want to be; you can become what you want to be only by making use of things, and you can have the free use of things only as you become rich enough to buy them. To understand the science of getting rich is therefore the most essential of all knowledge.

There is nothing wrong in wanting to get rich. The desire for riches is really the desire for a richer, fuller, and more abundant life; and that desire is praise worthy. The man who does not desire to live more abundantly is abnormal, and so the man who does not desire to have money enough to buy all he wants is abnormal.

There are three motives for which we live; we live for the body, we live for the mind, we live for the soul. No one of these is better or holier than the other; all are alike desirable, and no one of the three--body, mind, or soul--can live fully if either of the others is cut short of full life and expression. It is not right or noble to live only for the soul and deny mind or body; and it is wrong to live for the intellect and deny body or soul.

We are all acquainted with the loathsome consequences of living for the body and denying both mind and soul; and we see that real life means the complete expression of all that man can give forth through body, mind, and soul. Whatever he can say, no man can be really happy or satisfied unless his body is living fully in every function, and unless the same is true of his mind and his soul. Wherever there is unexpressed possibility, or function not performed, there is unsatisfied desire. Desire is possibility seeking expression, or function seeking performance.

Man cannot live fully in body without good food, comfortable clothing, and warm shelter; and without freedom from excessive toil. Rest and recreation are also necessary to his physical life .

He cannot live fully in mind without books and time to study them, without opportunity for travel and observation, or without intellectual companionship.

To live fully in mind he must have intellectual recreations, and must surround himself with all the objects of art and beauty he is capable of using and appreciating.

To live fully in soul, man must have love; and love is denied expression by poverty.

A man's highest happiness is found in the bestowal of benefits on those he loves; love finds its most natural and spontaneous expression in giving. The man who has nothing to give cannot fill his place as a husband or father, as a citizen, or as a man. It is in the use of material things that a man finds full life for his body, develops his mind, and unfolds his soul. It is therefore of supreme importance to him that he should be rich.

It is perfectly right that you should desire to be rich; if you are a normal man or woman you cannot help doing so. It is perfectly right that you should give your best attention to the Science of Getting Rich, for it is the noblest and most necessary of all studies. If you neglect this study, you are derelict in your duty to yourself, to God and humanity; for you can render to God and humanity no greater service than to make the most of yourself.

So what's your decision?

Impulse Spending

Avoiding Impulse Spending


Answer these questions truthfully:

• Does your spouse or partner complain that you spend too much money?

• Are you surprised each month when your credit card bill arrives at how much more you charged than you thought you had?

• Do you have more shoes and clothes in your closet than you could ever possibly wear?

• Do you own every new gadget before it has time to collect dust on a retailer’s shelf?

• Do you buy things you didn’t know you wanted until you saw them on display in a store?

If you answered “yes” to any two of the above questions, you are an impulse spender and indulge yourself in retail therapy.

This is not a good thing. It will prevent you from saving for the important things like a house, a new car, a vacation or retirement. You must set some financial goals and resist spending money on items that really don’t matter in the long run.

Impulse spending will not only put a strain on your finances but your relationships, as well. To overcome the problem, the first thing to do is learn to separate your needs from your wants.

Advertisers blitz us hawking their products at us 24/7. The trick is to give yourself a cooling-off period before you buy anything that you have not planned for.

When you go shopping, make a list and take only enough cash to pay for what you have planned to buy. Leave your credit cards at home.

If you see something you think you really need, give yourself two weeks to decide if it is really something you need or something you can easily do without. By following this simple solution, you will mend your financial fences and your relationships.


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THE SECRET

Scientists have proven over and over that universal laws work each and every time. For example, the Law of Gravity works every single time. You drop a brick. It hits the ground very quickly. (Watch out for your toes when you do this!) It doesn't matter if you believe in the Law
of Gravity, it still applies to you.

Just like there's a Law of Gravity, there's a Law that determines what you get in life. That Law has been working for - or against - you since you were born.

You may not have known about the law. Might not have paid attention to it. Might not care
about it. Might not even believe it's true.

But this Law applies to you anyway.

If you're not getting everything you want out of life, then the Law is definitely working... it's just not working to your benefit.

What's that got to do with investing you ask? Well it has everything to do with money and investing because the richest people in the World know this secret well. So well that they keep getting richer.

http://www.healthywealthyandwisehome.com/TheSecret.html

TAX TIME

It's tax time again and guess what you will be paying far too much tax again if you don't educate yourself. The internet is now full of information on this subject but can you trust the information you are reading. Last Tax year I purchased a book called "The Tax Solution", this book is written by Lance Spicer, Lance worked as an accountant for many years and the information he gives in his book is the best solution for anyone who have to pay tax and your accountant can't offer you any more legal ways to assist you with reducing taxes, you've read tax books before and they are too technical and boring, you want to know how the rich can get away with paying less tax than you, you're not necessarily a "financial" person who understands accounting jargon, you don't want to break the law - you want legal strategies and you want to reduce your tax to the absolute legal minimum. This book is about 100% Legal Ways to Reduce Your Tax.

Here is a tip:

Did you know that you don't need to make cash contributions to a superannuation fund to claim a tax deduction. Assets such as shares or business real property may be transferred to a superannuation fund by an employer and a deduction claimed for their value. Watch out for stamp duty costs and make sure the contributions are made before the end of the financial year to claim a deduction.