Featured Trades: (WORLD SERIES)   1) From Your Mad Hedge Fund Trader Baseball Correspondent. What a game! Burp. The San Francisco Giants trounced the Texas Rangers 11-7 in what had to be one of the most exciting games in World Series History. I spent the pregame completing my Christmas shopping for the year, feverishly buying [...]

Featured Trades: (MUNICIPAL BONDS), (NCP), (NVX) Nuveen California Performance Plus Nuveen California Dividend Advantage Muni Fund II   2) The Fascinating World of Municipal Bonds. I was fortunate to catch the muni bond wave this year with my recommendations to buy the funds in this sector, the (NCP) and the (NVX) (click here for ‘California [...]

Featured Trades: (CONTEMPLATIONS ON RISK)   1) Contemplations on Risk. The S&P 500 has risen 11 out of the last 13 trading days. Everything in my portfolio is up 50% in the last four months, except for the rare earth stocks which are up 400%. My call that the global equity markets would launch into [...]

Featured Trades: (PEAK TREASURY BONDS), (TBT), (TMV) ProShares Ultra Short Lehman 20 + Year Treasury ETF Direxion Daily 20 Year Plus Treasury Bear 3X Shares ETF 2) The Fat Lady is Still Singing in the Treasury Market. To say that things have gone well for the Treasury bond market this year would be one of [...]

Featured Trades: (THE WORLD’S LARGEST SOLAR PLANT) 3) The World’s Largest Solar Plant. Unfortunately, I know Blythe, California too well. This natural blast furnace is in a God forsaken corner of the state where I hunted jack rabbits as a kid, the Indians survived on Gila monsters for protein, and it regularly reaches 130 degrees [...]

Featured Trades: (THE COMMODITIES BOOM) 1) Here Come the Seventies Again. Better drag your leisure suits, bell bottoms, and Bee Gee’s records out of the attic. The seventies are about to enjoy a comeback. The near universal run all commodities are enjoying now takes me back to that time in my youth when making money [...]

Featured Trades: (INDIA VS CHINA), (FXI), (PIN), (INP), (TTM) iPath MSCI India ETN PowerShares India Portfolio ETF Wisdom Tree India Earnings Fund ETF 2) India is Catching Up With China. When I first visited Calcutta in 1976, 800,000 people were sleeping on the sidewalks, I was hauled everywhere by a very lean, barefoot rickshaw driver, [...]

Featured Trades: (NUCLEAR POWER), (EXC), (CCJ) 3) Is Exelon Building an Alternative Energy Conglomerate? Exelon (EXC) popped up on my radar a few months ago, when it bought the wind energy business from John Deere (DE) for $900 million. The company plans to cash in on a national trend by states requiring their power companies [...]

Featured Trades: (THE HOUSING MARKET IN 2030) 1) The Real Estate Market in 2030. A number of analysts, and even some of those in the real estate industry, are finally coming around to the depressing conclusion that there will never be a recovery in residential real estate. Long time readers of this letter know too [...]

Featured Trades: (THE LONG VIEW OF THE US ECONOMY) 2) The Long View of the US Economy. The retirement of the baby boomers, and the reduced numbers and frugal spending patterns of Generation X, are not only bad news for the real estate market for the next 20 years, they are going to be a [...]

Featured Trades: (TRADING A 'LOST DECADE') 3) How to Trade a 'Lost Decade.' Having concluded that you should be selling rallies in the US markets, I would add the proviso that you shouldn't sell just yet. Counter trend rallies can last for years, and this time we have QEII on the side of the bulls, [...]

Featured Trades: (LUMBER), (WY), (CUT), (RYN) 4) The Monetization of Lumber. If you want to see how widespread the commodities boom has become, take a look at the lumber market, which has popped 47% since June. This is in the face of new home starts that are flat on their back, posting the worst numbers [...]

Featured Trades: (DRINKS WITH THE PRESIDENT) 1) Drinks With the President. President Barrack Obama certainly arrives at a party like a rock star. Three silver GM Suburbans flanking an armored black Cadillac limo screech to a halt with lights flashing, and all of the roads in the immediate vicinity closed to traffic. A dozen sunglass [...]

Featured Trades: (THE CALIFORNIA MARIJUANA INITIATIVE), (BUD), (DEO)   2) California Marijuana Industry Dreams May Go Up In Smoke. One issue to be decided on November 2 will be proposition 19, the latest effort to legalize marijuana in California. This is another one of those ‘Be careful what you wish for’ stories. Advocates claim that [...]

Featured Trades: (RICE), (CORN), (WHEAT), (SOYBEANS) 3) Watch Rice For Clues to Corn. Those wondering what to do about their ag positions better take a look at the contract for rough rice, which has skyrocketed by 50% since July to $14.50 a pound. Rice is the primary food stuff for 3 billion of the world’s [...]