“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Justice Litle thinks Dickens’ classic line  provides an apt description of today’s markets. Sure, this year has been hell. But it has also created some amazing opportunities for contrarian investors. Justice says this is most apparent in the oil and natural gas market, where irrational risk aversion has made most people forget the fundamentals.

This from Taipan Daily:

Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking.

— Vice–President-Elect Joe Biden

Just a few weeks ago, Vice–President-elect Joe Biden (back when he was plain old Senator Joe Biden) promised the world that Barack Obama will be “tested” by America’s enemies.

“Remember I said it standing here,” Biden told his Seattle audience, “if you don’t remember

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We'll have more commentary coming soon on this, but it appears that President Dmitry Medvedev has greeted the historic election of Barack Obama with a telegram of congratulations ("I expect to develop a constructive dialogue with you on the basis of confidence and respect for each other's interests") while simultaneously issuing a direct threat with an announcement that he would deploy Iskander missiles to Russia's Kaliningrad region, which lies between Poland and the ex-Soviet republic of Lithuania on the Baltic Sea. He also used his state of the nation speech to again blame the United States for the war in the Caucasus and the global financial crisis. As Joe Biden predicted, the new president is immediately being tested even months before inauguration. As we predicted, Russia would be among the first to do it (although Israel also celebrated ...

I'm just amazed by the dizzying news cycle of all these broadcast outlets during my brief visit to New York City this week. It's actually quite hypnotic and surreal ... I think that a few more days of this and I won't even remember what was happening amongst the elections gossip of just yesterday. So a comment before I lose the shelf life on this one: I am completely blown away by the stupidity of a comment made by the Democratic vice president candidate Sen. Joe Biden about Sen. Barack Obama, that the prospective nominee would face serious "tests" from a variety of foreign leaders if elected. I think it was an incredibly stupid comment because it is almost unbearably true, and really provided the Republican ticket with something to talk about for three straight days ... which has become tedious for everybody by this point. However the ...

TODAY: EU decides to delay talks with Russia; Gorbachev supports Yukos prisoner; More military spending; UK continues fight for extradition. With strenuous resistance from Poland, Sweden, and the Baltic States, the European Union leaders have delayed a decision on whether to restart talks over establishing a new Partnership and Cooperation Agreement with Russia. "The PCA will resume once the analysis, the evaluation that is being done by the Council (of EU ministers) and commission is finished," said EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana. Amid funeral proceedings for Alexei Cherepanov, the New York Rangers first-round pick who died during a game outside of Moscow Monday, the Duma called for a probe of why medical officials weren't present at the game. Responding to outlandish claims of Russia expertise by Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, her Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, recently quipped, ...

The most-watched vice-presidential debate in history recently took place between candidates Sarah Palin, the Governor of Alaska, and Joe Biden, the senior Senator for Delaware, at Washington University in St. Louis. There were reportedly 70 million viewers according to Nielsen Media Research. Stockerblog.com has put together a comparison of the Joe Biden Stock Index, which is made up of the companies that are connected to the billionaire contributors to the Joe Biden campaign, and the Sarah Palin Stock Portfolio, which is made up of the stocks in the Alaska State disclosure filing for her and her husband. The Palin Portfolio was down 22% outperforming the Biden Index which was down 27%, which doesn't mean much since it a comparison of a contributor index to a stock portfolio, or in other words, apples to oranges. However, both grossly underperformed the Dow ...

If you look at the companies that major contributors to the presidential candidates are connected with, stock indexes can be created for each candidate. Forbes Magazine came out with a great list of the members of the Forbes 400 that have contributed to presidential campaigns. The following spells out the stocks of each candidate, and who the contributor is. The contributors are either major shareholders or they run or have run these companies. The above graph shows the Barack Obama Stock Index and the John McCain Stock Index and compares them to the Dow Jones Industrial Average. What is interesting is that the returns for the two presidential candidates are almost identical, with the McCain Stock Index down 21% and the Obama Stock Index down 22%. But what is most unusual is that the indices for both candidates greatly underperformed the ...

Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili goes on Fox News Channel for an interview Neil Cavuto, and quickly finds himself pressed up against a wall to declare his preference for the Republican ticket over the Democratic. Doesn't Cavuto know who the Kremlin wants to win? Saaskashvili makes a narrow escape from the questioning, but check out the transcript below for some very awkward and funny moments (though probably not as cringe-worthy as this one). You can see that Cavuto smells blood after the president describes Biden as "smart" and Palin only as "delightful." SAAKASHVILI: Well, first of all, I met both of them. I mean, Joe Biden is a longtime friend, amazingly smart guy, who gets very good perspective on Georgia's situation. I met Sarah Palin. She was wonderful. She was absolutely delightful. CAVUTO: Did you have or get a sense of ...

In this speech Sen. Joe Biden talks about Barack Obama's instincts on Russia, emphasizing the importance of a strong alliance with Europe to counter Russian aggression in its near abroad. Biden also raises the issue of decreasing Europe's dependency on Russian energy, but insists that open and cooperative dialogue with Moscow must continue to forge a successful relationship.

Most observers are expecting Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama to use the first foreign policy debate this coming Friday to discuss U.S. policy toward Russia, and most likely highlight their (at times passionate) disagreements. What many may not realize is that there are still some areas of general consensus by both candidates in this area, as shown by Senate Resolution 322 (DOWNLOAD HERE), signed by Senators McCain, Obama, and Joe Biden, which expresses support for Mikhail Khodorkovsky and other political prisoners who have fallen victim to the failures of Russia's judicial system. Today we have sent out a press release (see below), to remind everyone of this 2005 resolution, and urge the candidates and U.S. voting public not to forget the plight of those trapped in the gulags of contemporary Russia. Realistically, we all recognize that U.S. policy ...

With the hedge fund industry facing more scrutiny than ever before it’s quite amazing that Hunter Biden’s sour hedge fund deal, where he is accused of defrauding a former business partner and an investor of millions of dollars, has barely been mentioned in the press. After all he is the son of Democratic VP candidate Joe Biden.( Could that be the reason?)

According to a story in the Washington Post: “A lawsuit filed by their former partner Anthony Lotito Jr. asserts in court papers that the deal was crafted to get Hunter Biden out of lobbying because his father was concerned about the impact it would have on his bid for the White House. Biden was running for the Democratic nomination at the time the suit was filed.” The article continues, “Hunter Biden was made president with an annual salary of $1.2 million, despite his inexperience

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