The yield of ten-year US Treasury Notes has surged by 34 basis points since the middle of October as market participants started adopting a more upbeat outlook on the economy and shied away from safe-haven assets.

Unsurprisingly, the following comes from the minutes of the meeting of November 4 of the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association: “Several members noted the graph discussing net fixed income supply in 2009 and 2010, and how issuance will ramp up dramatically in 2010. Federal Reserve purchases have taken an enormous amount of supply out of the market this past year across fixed income markets, but next year, financial markets should expect even greater issuance with no support. Such an outcome could pressure rates.” With quantitative easing set to expire during Q1, it is difficult not to see long-term rates rising, unless the economy falls

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It isn't fun being a value investor right now. Just 8 months ago, value investors had the stock markets at their feet. The S&P 500 was trading at just 10 times earnings, and some blue chips were trading at multi-decade lows.

And then, poof!

Before value investors could even blink, stocks moved higher and, so far, haven't looked back. Over the next 8 months, the valuation on the S&P 500 nearly doubled.

Make no mistake; the rally has been great. Every investor has benefitted. For value investors, current market conditions are both the best of times and the worst of times.

Who doesn't feel a tinge of jealousy as growth investors cash in on multi-decade highs for stocks like Amazon.com? If you're like me, sometimes it's tempting to just throw in the towel and follow the crowd into the growth stocks, even if they are trading with P/Es at 50 or higher.

But never

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Please welcome Paul Judd to the Trader’s Blog stage where he will present to you a very interesting trick…BONDS ARE GOOD! Paul should know as he’s dedicated the last 14 years to treasury bonds where he’s learned the in’s and out’s that we should all take a look at! So please read the article below, visit Paul’s Blog here, and let the comments fly!

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I can take a position in the bond market prior to the release of an economic report. Once the report is released, I can close out my position and take profits. Cash is King!

Not so if you are a long-term investor in stocks.

A popular slogan used by many “salespeople” on Wall Street is to buy and hold for the long term. However, not only is your money tied up for years but also holding for the long term doesn’t necessarily mean you will make a

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One of the highlights of the international biomass energy conference held in Mexico City on October 7th was a leafy green plant of which most people have never even heard of. The plant is called Giant King Grass (GKG), and its remarkable properties make it a potential solution to the search for clean renewable energy.

In a recently released summary of a presentation given by Dr. Carl Kukkonen, CEO of VIASPACE, Inc. (VSPC.OB), GKG was shown to be one of the best potential biomass energy resources on the planet, with a range of other applications as well.

If anyone should know about GKG, it’s Carl Kukkonen, and his enthusiasm carries a lot of weight. Holding his PhD in Physics from Cornell, Dr. Kukkonen spent a number of years at Caltech as Director of the Center for Space Microelectronics Technology and Manager

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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.

• John Hussman (Hussman Funds): Rumors of the death of the credit crisis are greatly exaggerated, October 26, 2009. In recent months, I’ve strongly rejected the notion that the credit crisis has been conveniently placed behind us and that the U.S. is now in a typical post-war economic recovery (and can be approached as such from an investment perspective). This view continues to strike me as dangerous and even naïve.

• Dave Nadig (IndexUniverse.com): Nouriel Roubini - big crash coming, October 23, 2009. Roubini will be the keynote speaker at IndexUniverse’s upcoming “Inside Commodities” conference on November 4 at the New York Stock Exchange. IndexUniverse sat down with Dr. Roubini ahead of the conference to take his temperature

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“I take the action of the stock and bond markets this week (and particularly today) very seriously. Extreme caution is advised. The primary trend of the market is bearish, and the secondary trend may now be turning down,” said Richard Russell (Dow Theory Letters) on Friday.

After equities’ seven month climb, stock markets certainly look vulnerable for a decline. Two downside reversal days - on Wednesday and Friday - would seem to indicate that stocks could commence a pullback to work off the overbought condition, allowing fundamentals to reassert themselves.

Bill King (The King Report) reported Art Cashin as saying that since June 2007 the Daily Sentiment Index (as published by Trade-Futures.com), which polls futures traders, has reported more than 90% bulls on the S&P only once. “When would you guess that time to be? July 2007? October 2007? Wrong. It was last

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Source: YouTube, Schiff Report Video Blog Note: This video and article are by Mr. Peter Schiff, aka Dr. Doom, dated 10/23/09 detailing his views on the recent movement of the dollar and its impact on the economy and the broader market. Posted here to share and compare with my views on the same subject. King Dollar Forced to Abdicate  by Peter Schiff, via EuroPac.net October 23, 2009 For the

ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) Has the Eye of the Tiger

Tony Daltorio, Investment U Research

ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) is one of those companies people love to hate.

The firm racks up billions in profits each year, yet it’s been sluggish to develop green technologies (although that’s slowly changing now), despite a $600 million investment into an algae-based biofuels project.

Some critics, including major shareholders, also criticize the company’s overly conservative management. They say that Exxon has a poor strategy for future growth and is too slow to replace its reserves.

With limited investment into finding new sources of oil and gas, ExxonMobil has instead spent $109 million to buy back shares and increase dividends by 58% over the past five years.

Last year alone, Exxon returned $40.1 billion to shareholders through buybacks and dividends, amounting to 154% of its capital

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By Natasha Brereton LONDON -(Dow Jones)- Bank of England Governor Mervyn King said Tuesday that heightened regulation can’t prevent the financial speculation that results in bank failures, and called for a serious review of the structure of the banking sector whose goal would be to eliminate institutions that are too important to fail. In a speech to business people in Scotland, King championed the idea of separating banks’ utility functions as a means of minimizing the government’s effective subsidy of risky activities and reducing the U.K.’s reliance on a small number of very big banks. Turning briefly to the economy, he noted that there was likely to be “significant” fiscal tightening in the years ahead, and stressed the need to boost broad money growth, but gave no clear indication on whether he would favor extending the bank’s bond buying policy. “The sheer creative imagination ...

• Eaton (NYSE:ETN) reported third quarter earnings were benefitted by "improved production and lower costs."  The company reports third-quarter EPS of $1.21 ex-items versus $1.95 a year earlier, and well above Zacks projections of $0.91 as revenues fell 26% to $3.03 billion. The company set full year operating projections at $2.40-$2.50

• Hasbro (NYSE:HAS) reported third quarter earnings of 99 cents, versus Zacks estimates of 92 cents a share, although revenues of $1.28 billion were below Zacks projections of $1.34 billion

• BB&T (NYSE:BBT) reported third quarter fully diluted results of 23 cents versus 65 cents a year earlier, inline with Zacks estimates of 23 cents. According CEO King, "Our revenue growth for the quarter was very strong at 16.1%, the net interest margin is improved, growth in noninterest-bearing deposits is exceptional and the impact from the Colonial acquisition is positive. However, our earnings continue to be negatively affected by a significant

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