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Clemens Kownatzki submits: This year’s FIFA World Cup 2010 hosted by South Africa has prompted numerous sites to look into possible investment opportunities in South Africa and other countries on the African continent. We are not trying to advise on the merits of investing in South Africa but would rather like to point out a few possible avenues one could consider. As you might have guessed, there are certain ETFs providing some exposure to South Africa and its currency the South African Rand.Complete Story »

Jeff Pierce submits: I really wanted to be in cash at the close of yesterday’s trading, but my signal didn’t tell me to move to cash. I was looking over some charts and realized that it’s really pointless because today, Friday, the market is going to be news driven and emotions are going to rule the day. My signal is an end of day signal, and currently there are some mixed signals so I haven’t added or trimmed any of my positions this week. My shorter term time frame is bullish, while my longer term has remained bearish. Even if the market gaps up today, there’s no point in me watching and letting my emotions tempt me into covering my shorts because my signal won’t come till the end of the day. This is where getting away from the computer can help you to keep your emotions in check. When big macro news is set to be announced it has the same effect on the markets as earnings do on individual stocks. And I never hold a stock through a earnings report. It’s just about the same as gambling and gap up/downs don’t provide you with much flexibility. The major markets are slightly different because they don’t move as much as individual stocks do, but just for the record I don’t like to hold through the jobs numbers or Fed announcements.Complete Story »

The Gold Report submits:Is there a China bubble? Not according to Gianni Kovacevic, corporate development strategist and principal of Kovacevic Consultants. In this exclusive interview with The Gold Report, Gianni says that China will continue to be the primary driver of fundamental demand for copper and other resources. He says the amount of infrastructure already built in China, and to be built, is not a road or bridge to nowhere, but a critical necessity. Hundreds of millions of people are participating in the largest migration in human history, presenting a great opportunity for investors. The Gold Report: We noticed that you were one of the gold sponsors at the recent Mines and Money show in Hong Kong. Talk to us about that.Complete Story »

Stephen Castellano submits: Weekly Long/Short Focus List as of March 26, 2010 Our highlighted stocks continue to anticipate major ratings and estimate changes by a number of sell side shops, as illustrated in our March 17 report, "Goldman Sachs and Nostradamus versus Simple Quantitative Models and Common Sense." Four Weeks Early on Scotts Miracle-Gro For example, on March 23, 2010, Scotts Miracle-Gro (SMG), which has been a top performer in our monthly model portfolio and our monthly focus portfolio, was SMG)+Higher+On+BofAMerrill+Lynch+Upgrade/5463172.html" rel="nofollow">recently upgraded by Bank of America/Merrill Lynch with a target price moving to $53 from $45. Complete Story »

Peter Mycroft Psaras submits: Gold has been an amazing investment over the last five years and has made stars out of many Investment Advisors and Brokers who put their clients in the precious metal. Over the last couple of weeks I have had a few requests from my clients to see if it would be better for them to buy a Gold ETF like SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) or to invest in Gold Stocks? Being that I am a Quantitative Equity Analyst by trade, it is very hard for me to analyze the actual commodity itself, as I base all my work on Price to Free Cash Flow and FROIC (Free Cash Flow to Invested Capital) and you can’t get a free cash flow result from a commodity. Thus, I went and analyzed a group of Gold Stocks and found some very disturbing results from a free cash flow point of view, a real horror story. I only analyzed stocks where I could actually get clear P/FCF TTM and FROIC TTM results. TTM means Trailing Twelve Months for those who don’t know. And for those who want to know more about Price to Free Cash flow you can read my 58 year backtest of the DJIA by going here (.pdf).Complete Story »

Davy Bui submits: Scanning the 13F-HR SEC filing of Paulson and Co. suggests that John Paulson employs an active trading strategy. Readers can best view Paulson's moves in spreadsheet format but some broader themes do emerge:

• Similar to some of the other money managers already profiled here (Berkowitz, Klarman), Paulson is bullish in the financial sector, as evidenced by sizable new positions in Wells Fargo (WFC), JP Morgan Chase (JPM) warrants, CIT Group (CIT) and Bank of America Units to complement his already huge holding of the bank's common stock (BAC). Paulson's fund also added substantively to existing stakes in Citigroup (C) and Suntrust Bank (STI).
• While Paulson made some big moves in the financial sector, his single largest new add was Comcast (CMCSA), the cable and now media company.
• Upon examining its holdings, it is evident the fund heavily employs a merger arbitrage strategy. The three large divestitures -- Schering Plough (SGP), Wyeth (WYE) and Liberty Media -- were all related to corporate merger/spin-off activity.
• Perhaps the most intriguing insight to be gleaned from Paulson's holdings is that he appears to be a financial sector bull and a gold bug. The single largest holding revealed in the filing is the gold ETF (GLD) and the fund also has large stakes in several gold miners: AngloGold Ashanti (AU), Gold Fields (GFI) and Kinross Gold (KGC). Apparently, Paulson has taken the stance that the financial sector can thrive despite the massive economic uncertainty that a large gold holding would imply. Or, perhaps one is a hedge on the other.

Martin Whitman is receding more into the background these days and letting other managers helm the funds at Third Avenue. As such, Third Avenue's 13F-HR filing (available here in spreadsheet format) may not be a good reflection of Whitman's thinking. Whitman has always been a big proponent of moving into the financial sector at times of crisis but this time around, he was too early and picked some bad stocks to play. Despite numerous funds and managers, Third Avenue's filing was rather sedate:Complete Story »

Sprott Asset Management Files Preliminary Prospectus in the US for a $ 575 Million Gold Bullion FundDecember 13, 2009Complete Story »

There were those last week who mentioned a word of caution. A caution about a gold price bubble. If gold were a person he’d start to feel dizzy by his extraordinary growth. In fact he’d have felt dizzy since 2001, when this bull market started. But we can’t help but think that many analysts and economists all missed the credit crunch. What’s to stop us all from misinterpreting this bull market in gold? Could this be a bubble? We all know of the movements of the central banks to firm up their reserves, of China and other emerging markets' reluctance to keep piling up reserves of the US dollar, and we’re all familiar with governments across the world pumping cash into the market (which must some day come home to roost). These are all the causes that are pushing the gold price to new highs today. But then why aren’t we saying, ‘to hell with it’ and placing all our money into gold and gold related shares?Complete Story »

Investor Nirav submits: If you’ve been reading the popular press for the past 6 months, there’s been a slew of articles talking about deflation. I’ve been somewhat skeptical of the long term probability of deflation and have been investing in gold and commodities in anticipation of inflation. Looks like I was a little early to the game (which, on Wall Street is just the same as being wrong!). Now however, it looks like we are warming up the printing presses and gold has hit $1,000 twice in a week in anticipation of future inflation. Legendary hedge fund manager John Paulson, who made $2.5 Billion last year from his trades, has been betting heavily on gold and his fund has nearly 50% of its assets in gold or gold-related investments like gold mining stocks and ETFs. The gold ETF, GLD reportedly makes up 30% of his fund! He has also taken a large 12% stake in AngloGold Ashanti (AU) making him the largest shareholder.Complete Story »

Stocks discussed on Jim Cramer's Stop Trading! TV Segment, Tuesday September 8. Schering-Plough (SGP), Ford (F), Micron (MU), Nvidia (NVDA), AngloGold (AU), Whole Foods (WFMI)Complete Story »