SPECIAL BOND BUBBLE ISSUE Featured Trades: (TREASURY BONDS) 4) Its Official: China is Unloading its Treasury Bonds. It looks like the smart money these days is found in China. While American investors have been scrambling over each other to buy more Treasury bonds at historically low yields, China has begun quietly unloading some of its [...]

'If you look at previous times in US history when bond yields were this low, the returns have been quite poor. Bonds now have many elements of a bubble. We're at the end of the debt super cycle. First we had a large banking crisis. The next step is a large sovereign crisis. This means [...]

Featured Trades: (BEHAVIORAL TARGETING) 1) So You Think They're Not Watching You on Your PC? Hey! You there, staring at this monitor. This is your PC talking to you. No, not you over there standing in the background. I'm talking to the guy sitting in front of me poking at my keys. Ouch! That one [...]

Featured Trades: (RARE EARTHS), (MCB), (LYSCF) 2) It’s Off to the Races at Molycorp. I just wanted to follow up on the rare earths piece which I recently published (click here for “Rare Earths Are Becoming A Lot More Rare”). Despite lackluster market conditions at best, Molycorp (MCP) managed to raise $394 million through its [...]

Featured Trades: (THD), (TF), (F), (NSANY), (TM) iShares MSCI Thailand Investable Market Index ETF Thai Capital Fund 3) Thailand Punches Through to New Highs. With hotel occupancy in the dumps at 20%-30%, and parts of downtown Bangkok still in ruins from the May riots, you would think the call to buy Thailand (THD), (TF) two [...]

Featured Trades: (BAIDU), (GOOG) 4) Make Another Visit to the Trough for Baidu. Just like buying a drink for an old flame when passing through town, there is no better feeling than revisiting winning trades. I first recommended Baidu (BIDU) at split adjusted $12.5 in December, 2008 (click here for the call). It hit $88 [...]

'When I look at the Treasury market, I get a really 1998 sort of dotcom feeling. You knew they were going higher, you knew that it would end badly; you just didn't know the timing. At a certain point this becomes a disaster,' said Barry Ritholtz, CEO of hedge fund Fusion IQ.

Featured Trades: (THE RANGEBOUND MARKET), (SPX), (FCX), (VIX), (USO), (GLD) 1) Why We're on the Slow Boat to Nowhere. After speaking to a gaggle of economists, portfolio managers, and traders the last few days, I've had one of those 'Eureka' moments, as the markets have shown their hands. Those that delivered the dramatic, heart stopping [...]

Featured Trades: (COAL VS. NATURAL GAS), (BTU), (RTP), (ACI), (CHK), (BNR) 2) Peabody Energy (BTU) Takes a Hatchet to the Natural Gas Industry. After my year in the White House Press Corps, I vowed never to return, and took a really long shower, hoping to scrub every last spec of prejudice, self interest, and institutionalized [...]

'The good news is that the rash on my penis finally went away,' wrote a child to his parents, about to return from summer camp.

Featured Trades: (SOUTH KOREA), (EWY) (FXI) South Korea iShares ETF iShares FTSE Xinhua China 25 1) Why Your Next Car May be a Hyundai. I have been banging on about South Korea (EWY) for some time now as the ‘K’ that should be in the acronym ‘BRICK’, the country that has successfully carved out a [...]

Featured Trades: (PALLADIUM), (PALL) ETFS Physical Palladium Shares ETF 2) Is Palladium the New Gold? When the current outbreak of angst biting at the heels of the markets runs its course, and traders morph back into risk accumulation mode, you can count on palladium outperforming the other precious metals. During 2009, gold rose 27%, silver [...]

Featured Trades: (ROBERT REICH) 3) Lunch With Robert Reich. The other day had me sharing a cold, congealed chicken salad for lunch with Bill Clinton’s Secretary of  Labor, Robert Reich, at San Francisco’s posh Fairmont Hotel. We covered a wide range of market impacting topics, which I have summarized below. A Rhodes Scholar who dated [...]

 ‘Patience is underrated,’ said Steve Wozniak, creator of the first PC and cofounder of Apple.

Featured Trades: (COMMODITY OVERVIEW), (FCX), (VALE), (RIG), (JOY), (CCJ), (FSLR), (UNG), (USO), (MOO), (DBA), (MOS), (MON), (AGU), (POT), (PHO), (FIW) 2) Don't Buy Anything That Can Be Created With a Printing Press. I just want to take a moment to provide the long term view of commodities. This is my favorite asset class for the [...]