SIBORAP includes these ten specific sections: (1) Product Transparency, (2) Regulation and Education, (3) Protection from Speculators (4) Control of Hedge Funds, (5) Brokerage Account Statements, (6) Retirement Account Investments, (7) Executive Compensation, (8) Corporate Financial Statements, (9) Taxation of Investment and Retirement Income, and (10) Transactional Greed and Fear Controls.

Section Seven: Executive Compensation - continued from Part Three of the SIBORAP report.

Every dollar paid to corporate executives, directors, and employees (in any form whatsoever) in excess of two million dollars would be matched by a ten-cent per share extra dividend to all shareholders and a 10%-of-annual-pay bonus to all employees.

All golden parachutes, separate “non-qualified” retirement plans, stock option and deferred compensation programs, and others that do not benefit all employees and shareholders will be unwound over a three to five year period. Any employee who receives …

SIBORAP includes these ten specific sections: (1) Product Transparency, (2) Regulation and Education, (3) Protection from Speculators (4) Control of Hedge Funds, (5) Brokerage Account Statements, (6) Retirement Account Investments, (7) Executive Compensation, (8) Corporate Financial Statements, (9) Taxation of Investment and Retirement Income, and (10) Transactional Greed and Fear Controls.

Section Five: Brokerage Account Statements.

Investors have a right to brokerage account statements that: (1) help them monitor and manage their asset allocation, (2) report realized gains and losses for the year, (3) track both the cost of their holdings, and their net account deposits, and (4) emphasize the long-term, cyclical nature of the investment process.

Under SIBORAP, all brokerage firms would be required to maintain cost basis information on all holdings, and the ACATS system would be required to provide it in all transfer transactions. Mutual funds would be required …

SIBORAP includes these ten specific sections: (1) Product Transparency, (2) Regulation and Education, (3) Protection from Speculators (4) Control of Hedge Funds, (5) Brokerage Account Statements, (6) Retirement Account Investments, (7) Executive Compensation, (8) Corporate Financial Statements, (9) Taxation of Investment and Retirement Income, and (10) Transactional Greed and Fear Controls.

Section Two: Regulation and Education (continued from Part One of the SIBORAP report).

Security industry regulators will be charged with many responsibilities: (1) educating investors with respect to product content; (2) developing a “hierarchy-of-risk” tool that identifies the risks in all things sold to investors; and (3) preventing the spread of unregulated Internet based investment advice offered by persons of unknown qualifications.

Additionally, they will be responsible for:

(4) Preventing the development of multi-level, multi-leveraged, WMFDs; (5) requiring that all financial blogs include appropriate caveats that speak to the qualifications of …

We the securities investors of the United States, in order to form more transparent financial markets, establish effective regulations, defend against destructive speculation and manipulation, promote financial well-being, preserve working capital, and protect retirement income, do establish this Securities Investors Bill of Rights and Protections (SIBORAP).

These rights are intended to replace, amend and/or abolish all laws and regulations currently in conflict with SIBORAP, and are to be implemented by all parties to financial transactions.

Any institutional efforts to create and/or market securities and/or derivative products that do not comply with the spirit of SIBORAP will result in fines to corporate officers and directors, congressional oversight committee members, regulatory agency directors, and their financial or legal counsel.

All derivative investment products of any kind, any investment programs or specific recommendations promoted in any medium by non-professionals and professionals alike, SEC …

On December 4 2007 I wrote a piece called Roll with Landstar, Short CHRW, saying:

“Based solely on sales or operating margins, Landstar (LSTR - Annual Report) is about 35% the size of CH Robinson (CHRW - Annual Report). If it had the same relative valuation, it would trade at $52 per share.

CH Robinson’s forward price-to-earnings multiple is 24.6, compared with 19.3 for Landstar. At 24.6 times estimated 2008 earnings, Landstar would be trading north of $54. Assigning CHRW’s 1.67 PEG ratio (P/E ratio related to its growth rate) to Landstar would give it a $49 value.

CH Robinson has a lofty 16.1 times EV/EBITDA ratio. If Landstar got that multiple, its stock would be $60.”

The day I wrote the article, Landstar closed at $43.02 and CH Robinson was $53.03. Today, they are in a dead heat price-wise, with LSTR at $55.59 and CH Robinson at

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My latest column is up at RealMoney.

New orders for manufactured durable goods in May increased slightly to $213.6 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau announced last week. This was the first increase in three months, and it followed a 1.0% April decrease. Excluding transportation, new orders decreased 0.9%. Excluding defense, new orders decreased 0.6%.

Behind that bland summary, though, is usually a wealth of information that I believe could be useful for picking the best industries in which to invest. This month, the signal was clear. Get defensive. Among a sea of industries seeing declining sales and orders, one stood out for its strength: defense aircraft and parts.

Disclosure: At time of publication, William Trent has no financial position in the companies mentioned in this article.

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According to the CNBC Stock Blog “Powering Your Portfolio: Uranium” what is uranium miner Cameco’s other business?

Looking to miners, Canada’s Cameco (CCJ) has a market capitalization of more than $13 billion and is the world’s largest uranium producer. It also mines gold.

Cameco scores average for each of the models I follow with the exception of return potential. It gets a low score there.

Disclosure: Author is long STREETTRACKS GOLD (GLD) at time of publication.

In “Surging Crude Means Picking Shrewd” why did Christopher Zook praise Applied Materials?

“The best idea right now would be Applied Materials (AMAT - Annual Report),” he said.  “We believe there’s a tremendous growth opportunity there in the solar business, as well as the economy begins to recover in 2009 and 2010, they’re going to get strength in their core businesses as well.”

Eventually the semiconductor firms will start ordering again. Meanwhile, solar is too small to register much, in my opinion.

Disclosure: William Trent has a long position in SMH.

Monday the NASDAQ undercut its most recent rally attempt’s lows reseting our confirmation rally. Tuesday’s action failed to re-ignite a new rally attempt. Volume was on the light side as NASDAQ volume fell roughly 2% while on the NYSE we saw higher volume. This market continues its “no man’s land” path. Overall, this market does appear to be a bit oversold at the moment and good news is that we haven’t been able to accelerate to the downside. However, upside seems a bit LAME! Until a clear direction in this market is set, its best to step aside and let others waste their time. Times like these the greats would be having a vacation. The lack of interest from large institutional players leads to lackluster markets like we have here. So many stocks are breaking out and failing that it leads me to ...

My latest column is up at RealMoney.

We can all agree that the jobs report was pretty lousy. On a year-over-year basis, the growth in employment is barely staying positive.

However, as Jim Cramer likes to point out, there’s always a bull market somewhere, and regular readers probably know I like to use the economic reports as a source of stock ideas. Until they launch an “Economy ETF” (believe me, it won’t be long before somebody tries), that means sifting through the reports to find the industries and companies that are most poised to benefit from the prevailing trends. In this morning’s jobs report, that was pretty easy. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics report, only five industries are showing statistically significant job growth:

Hospitals Ambulatory health care services Nursing and residential care facilities Oil and gas extraction Pipeline transportation

I’ll bet you noticed the same pattern in those industries that I did.Disclosure: At time of

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