This post provides links to a number of interesting articles I have read over the past few days that you may also enjoy.

• Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (Telegraph): Is $6,300 fair value for gold? November 19, 2009. The last parabolic spike in gold took off when central banks joined the fray in the 1970s, hoarding bullion with the same enthusiasm as gold bugs. Dylan Grice from Société Générale says it smells much the same today. He sees an eerie similarity between the decision of India’s central bank to buy half the IMF’s entire sale of gold, and the move by France’s central bank to start converting dollars into gold in 1965.

• Gregory Zuckerman (The Wall Street Journal): John Paulson making big new bet on gold, November 19, 2009. John Paulson, who scored about $20 billion of profits between 2007 and early

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Canadian energy company Etrion Corporation (TSX: ETX) and U.S.-based solar manufacturer SunPower Corp. (NASDAQ:SPWRA) (NASDAQ:SPWRB) today announced an agreement to build four solar power plants in the Puglia region of southern Italy.

SunPower has more than 500 megawatts of solar power plants installed or under contract around the world, including Italian power plants in Milan and Faenza. In regards to today’s announced projects, SunPower is responsible for the design and construction of the plants, and will provide operations and maintenance services as needed.

Entrion’s CEO Marco Northland said SunPower’s market experience will enable the companies to meet their goals and finish the projects.

“Solar power generation will play an increasingly vital role in our efforts to build more renewable, clean energy sources. SunPower’s experienced approach to solar power plant design and construction will allow us to quickly and reliably complete these important projects,” Northland stated in the press release.

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November 18, 2009
By Gary Grimes
Please understand that this article is about more than safeguarding your money; it’s about saving you headache and heartache. It’s about giving you peace of mind.

Before I explain, please allow me to ask a few questions:

Have you given much thought about the money in your banking accounts lately? Do you know if it’s safe?
Have you thought about what might happen if your bank fails?
Did you know you could be left in the lurch for days, weeks, even months before you get your money back from the FDIC?
What happens if the FDIC can’t cover your funds?
How do you find a safe bank to protect your deposits right now?

I hope you’ve given these questions some serious thought.

I have to be honest: These questions were about the farthest things from my mind until about a year ago, when …

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – November 18, 2009 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: PNC Financial Services (PNC), Bank of America (BAC), Bank of New York Mellon Corp (BK), MasterCard (MA) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM).

Get the most recent insight from Zacks Equity Research with the free Profit from the Pros newsletter: http://at.zacks.com/?id=5513

Here are highlights from Tuesday’s Analyst Blog:

BofA Continues CEO Hunt

Recently, William Demchak of the PNC Financial Services (PNC) was offered the position of the next CEO of the Bank of America (BAC). However, the offer was turned down by Demchak.

We suspect Demchak declined the

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JPMorgan Chase & Company (JPM) is in discussions to take full control of its U.K. joint-venture partner, Cazenove Group, for about £1 billion ($1.7 billion).   JPMorgan entered into a partnership with Cazenove five years ago. At that time, JPMorgan paid about £100 million for a 50% ownership in Cazenove.   Now, JPMorgan intends to buy the remaining 50% of the investment-banking partnership for 500−525 pence per share.   Chief Executive Naguib Kheraj, the former finance chief of Barclays PLC (BCS) is running JPMorgan Cazenove since last year. Cazenove first became one of London's leading stockbrokers in the mid-1930s.   Deciding on the full acquisition of Cazenove has been crucial for Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan. Dimon organized a similar purchase of the bank’s remaining stake in Highbridge Capital Management this year.   In the last few years, JPMorgan has been able to maintain its top ...

Recently, William Demchak of the PNC Financial Services (PNC) was offered the position of the next CEO of the Bank of America (BAC). However, the offer was turned down by Demchak.   We suspect Demchak declined the offer as the pay package is likely to be among the least competitive in the industry, especially since the Obama administration's pay czar took the axe to seven institutions' pay plans, chopping the average high-end salary by 50%. Moreover, the bank is also operating under a memorandum of understanding with regulators, who are scrutinizing the top gun's every decision.   The present CEO of the Bank of America, Mr. Ken Lewis, is set to leave the position, stepping down at the end of the year. It may be noted that he succumbed to the pressure to resign after his company’s Merrill Lynch acquisition.   Earlier this month, Robert Kelly of the ...

Citigroup Inc. (C) announced that it will sell stake in Bellsystem24 to U.S. private equity firm, Bain Capital Partners, in a deal that values the Japanese call center operator at $1.1 billion.   The company announced on Sunday that it will sell its 93.5% controlling stake in Bellsystem24 − which it held through its Citigroup Capital Partners Japan Ltd. − to Bain Capital Partners through a tender offer. The tender offer is expected to start on or before Nov 20 and be completed on Dec 30, 2009. Under the terms of the deal, Citi will receive 93.5 billion of yen ($1 billion) in cash.   Following the completion of the deal, Citi Holdings’ assets will be reduced by $1.2 billion. However, Citi’s net income and capital ratios will not be significantly impacted by this stake sale, the company said.   Citigroup, once the largest U.S. bank by assets, fell

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This post provides links to a number of interesting articles I have read over the past few days that you may also enjoy.

• Jennifer Hughes (Financial Times): Visibility improved but storms may lie ahead, November 13, 2008. The fog is beginning to lift. All year executives, analysts and investors have talked of a “lack of visibility” on the outlook for the economy, earnings and financial markets. By “visibility” they are in essence complaining about the uncertainty that clouds all forecasts all the time, but which we had increasingly managed to ignore during such a steady run of good times. Investors are becoming more confident that the fog is lifting, but that does not necessarily mean there is sunshine waiting just behind it.

• Doug Kass (TheStreet.com): Market ignorance is bliss, November 12, 2009. I do believe with some certainty that the market’s vulnerability

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Why are the prices of so many commodities rising in an economy that seems to remain quite weak?

% change butter35 coffee21.8 cocoa20.2 copper89.1 corn-8.3 cotton38.6 gold32.1 hogs2.7 oats13.4 oil63.2 lead81.9 palladium75.9 platinum61.7 silver59.1 steel-0.9 sugar73.6 tin22.5 wheat-26.6 zinc55.4 average37.4 euro12

The table at the right summarizes the percent change between January 6 and November 11 in the cash prices of 19 commodities reported in the Wall Street Journal (downloaded via Webstract). The average commodity in this list has appreciated 37% since the start of the year.

A recent paper by Ke Tang and Wei Xiong documents an increasing tendency for commodity prices to move together over the last few years. A decade ago, what happened to oil prices was largely unrelated to movements in most other commodity prices. The graphs below show how the correlations between oil prices and

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If You Thought the Housing Meltdown Was Bad… Doug Hornig, Senior Editor, (Casey Research):

…wait until you see what’s in the cards for commercial real estate.

That’s right, the next train wreck will be in commercial real estate. Couldn’t be worse than last year’s residential market crash? That remains to be seen. But it’s coming soon, probably as early as the second quarter of next year, and there’s nothing that can prevent it. The government will intervene, trying desperately to delay the day of reckoning, and may even succeed. For a while. But make no mistake about it, that train is going off the tracks no matter what.

Every part of the sector – from multifamily apartment buildings to retail shopping centers, suburban office buildings, industrial facilities, and hotels – has accumulated a huge amount of defaulted or nonperforming paper. It’s an impossible, swaying structure that cannot long stand.

Just ask Andy Miller.

Andy

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