'We ran into a crazy bull market when stocks didn't react enough to wipe out even the one point margins, and,of course, all the customers were bulls and pyramiding,' said Jesse Livermore, legendary stock speculator in the 1920's.

Featured Trades: (TBF), (TBT), (TMV) 2) Shrinking Federal Deficits Bode Ill for Bond Shorts. I have written at length about the rapid repair in California's finances that sparked a bull market in its municipal bonds. Brace yourself; the same thing is happening at the federal level. Tax receipts from the healthy sectors of the economy [...]

Featured Trades: (IAN BREMMER) 3) The New Cold War Between Two Forms of Capitalism. My friend, Ian Bremmer of the Eurasia Group, a global risk analyst who I regularly follow, will soon publish another book entitled The End of the Free Markets: Who Wins the War Between States and Corporations. I find this highly depressing, [...]

'Everyone imagined that the passion for tulips would last forever, and that the wealthy from every part of the world would send to Holland and pay whatever prices were asked for them,' said Charles Mackay in his landmark work, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, published in 1841.

Featured Trades: (YOUTUBE) 2) A Complete History of Bubbles. I get sent the most bizarre things by my incredibly diverse band of readers, who now hale from all 50 states and 125 countries. Here is a link to a YouTube video compiled by ‘Rogue7135′ giving a remarkably compressive history of bubbles, set to rap music. [...]

Featured Trades: (OIL SPILL), (BP), (RIG) 3) Investment Implications of the Gulf Oil Disaster. The massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico’s Macondo field could not have come at a worse time. Just as the Obama administration was finally opening up new offshore tracts for lease, this had to happen. All new licenses for [...]

Featured Trades: (LED BULBS), (GE) 4) The “Black Swan” Solution to Our Energy Problems. I firmly believe that simple solutions to our energy problems will come out of the blue, and are something no one is thinking about now. Here is one of them. General Electric (GE) is about to start mass production of their [...]

'I am amazed at the publicity for the loss of a few birds,' said Fred Hartley, president of the Union Oil Company, in the wake of the 1969 Santa Barbara Oil spill.

Featured Trades: (BIDU), (BYDDF), (GOOG) 2) Baidu Goes Ballistic. Since I am in an ‘I told you so’ mood, take another look at Baidu (BIDU), which I said last week involved swimming at the deep end of the pool (click here for the call). Well, the pool just got a lot deeper. The Chinese search [...]

Featured Trades: (COPPER), (FCX) 3) Business is Booming at Freeport McMoRan (FCX). Another company I track religiously for insights on the global economy is Freeport McMoRan (FCX), the world’s largest producer of copper, and also a major miner of gold and molybdenum. CEO Richard Adkerson says that revenues are up an amazing 67%; demand for [...]

Featured Trades: (RARE EARTHS), (AVARF.PK), (GWMGF.PK), (RAREF.PK), (LYSCF) 4) Rare Earths Are About to Become a Lot More Rare. Interest in Rare Earths is starting to heat up in a dramatic fashion, and it something you should keep on your radar. So named because they were hard to get in the 18th and 19th century, [...]

'If there were no way to short stocks, the probability of stock market bubbles would be much greater,' said hedge fund manager, Bill Ackman, of Pershing Square.

Featured Trades: (FXI), (SPX), ($SSEC) 2) How Can the US Go Up and China Go Down? There is something that is not right with these pictures. Investor sentiment is now 54% bullish, the highest since December, 2007. In the meantime, the Chinese stock market is rolling over like the Bismark, with the Shanghai Index's ($SSEC) [...]

Featured Trades: (NICKEL), (JJN) 3) Nickel Smashes Through to Three Year High. The bull market in industrial commodities has spilled over from copper, palladium, iron ore to nickel, which hit $27,500/ tonne in trading on the London Metals Exchange yesterday, up 42% YTD. As a result of the price surge, a nickel is now worth [...]

Featured Trades: (PALM), (HPQ), (AAPL), (RIMM), (CHA), (GS) 4) The Real Logic Behind Hewlett Packard's Takeover of Palm. I think that Hewlett Packard's (HPQ) takeover of Palm (PALM) for $1.2 billion speaks volumes about the future of technology in the global economy. While HPQ's late entry into the sector so they can go head to [...]