Five Ways To Profit From The Commodity Nobody Likes

Tony Daltorio, Investment U Research

Forget Superman… the real man of steel is Lakshmi Mittal, chairman of the world’s biggest steelmaker, Arcelor Mittal ADR (NYSE: MT).

Mittal has built an empire – and a personal fortune – by being optimistic when it comes to the global steel industry. And he still maintains that confidence today, recently going on record to say that global demand could rise by more than 10% in 2010.

Meanwhile, many of his peers in the industry sport trembling lower lips over their present and future.

Believe it or not, that ongoing debate matters to everybody, not just those investing directly in the commodity. Steel demand feeds into a huge range of sectors, so much so that many regard it as an important bellwether of industrial trends.

The Half-Empty, Steel Glass

Other than

IPOs Heating Up Markets

by Martin Denholm, Senior Editor

What would you do with $3.5 billion?

While you decide between a luxury beach house on your own private island in the South Pacific, or a Swiss-style log cabin in the Alps, Corporate America is mulling over an option that isn’t nearly as sexy, but is hugely important.

Pumping some of it into the IPO market.

Today kicks off a busy week, in which eight deals are on the table, worth a combined $3.5 billion. Among them is Chinese media firm, Shanda Interactive (Nasdaq: SNDA), which has raised $725 million to spin off its Shanda games division.

Eight deals in a week – the most since December 2007 – evokes memories of the heady days of the mid 2000s when companies were falling over themselves to hit the stock market. Already, the pace of new offerings

Emerging Markets… A Contrarian Take

by Louis Basenese, Advisory Panelist

Editor’s Note: We apologize for anyone who tried to reach our website  over the last few days. One of the perils of our globally interconnected web is that we – like many high profile companies – are constantly under invasion from malicious web attacks.

To say emerging markets are hot right now is an understatement.

The benchmark MSCI Emerging Markets index is up 52% this year, rendering the S&P 500’s 11% uptick completely insignificant.

Thanks to the strong performance, investors’ love affair with emerging markets keeps getting steamier. Case in point – investors poured $10.6 billion into emerging markets mutual funds so far this year, a whopping 34 times the total invested in U.S. funds.

Yet, while most pundits shout from the rooftops that emerging markets are the place to invest right now, let me offer a dissenting opinion.

Three Reasons Emerging

Since the Obama administration took office in January, we’ve seen hundreds of billions pumped into the economy and the U.S. budget deficit now forecast to top the one trillion-dollar mark in the coming years. Many believe it’s only a matter of time before we also see much higher inflation - perhaps even hyper-inflation.

That prospect has kept the gold bugs banging the drum to buy the metal, with the television and radio cluttered with ads that tout the benefit of doing so.

Last week, Lou Basenese noted the numerous reasons why the price of gold should be moving higher - but countered with the reasons why the price has continued to languish around $935.

Today, I’m going to look at another important factor that drives gold prices…

The Dollar-Gold-Inflation Relationship

While the recent rash of government spending hasn’t propelled gold prices to new highs, it has contributed to a decline in U.S. dollar.

Having reached a hit

Back in January, I advised you to dump everyone’s sweetheart dividend stock, General Electric (NYSE: GE) in favor of TEPPCO Partners (NYSE: TPP). Many balked at the idea. But the results don’t lie…

Year-to-date, General Electric is the worst-performing stock in the Dow, down 22.3%. Meanwhile, TEPPCO is up 69%, including dividends.

(If any of you took me up on my income investment recommendation, e-mail us and let us know how you did at comments@investmentu.com.)

Of course, part of the move higher for TEPPCO can be attributed to news that Enterprise Products Partners (NYSE: EPD) is buying the company, as I predicted.

For those of you that purchased the stock, I recommend you take profits now. And whatever you do, don’t reinvest them in GE.

GE: Reasons Why It’s Not a Safe Income Investment

My reasons for disliking GE as a safe income investment remain

Need An Income Investment? Keep Dumping GE and Buy This Stock Instead

by Louis Basenese, Advisory Panelist

Back in January, I advised you to dump everyone’s sweetheart dividend stock, General Electric (NYSE: GE) in favor of TEPPCO Partners (NYSE: TPP).

Many balked at the idea. But the results don’t lie…

Year-to-date, General Electric is the worst-performing stock in the Dow, down 22.3%. Meanwhile, TEPPCO is up 69%, including dividends.

(If any of you took me up on my income investment recommendation, e-mail us and let us know how you did at comments@investmentu.com.)

Of course, part of the move higher for TEPPCO can be attributed to news that Enterprise Products Partners (NYSE: EPD) is buying the company, as I predicted.

For those of you that purchased the stock, I recommend you take profits now. And whatever you do, don’t reinvest them in GE.

GE: Reasons Why

On Friday, my colleague and friend David Fessler provided you with four inflation hedges to consider. Without question, I agree with all of Dave’s recommendations. I just want to add one more inflation hedge to the mix. It’s an under-the-radar one that nobody’s talking about. But they should be. So let me tell you what it is - art investing. But let me stress why it’s imperative you spread the love around and consider investing in all five inflation hedges, not just one.

“Inflation is coming, inflation is coming.”

The world knows it. Even the guys at the switch - the Fed - can’t deny it.

Last week, Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser warned inflation could heat up much sooner than expected.

Here’s the problem. Everyone and their second cousin keep piling into the predictable hedge - investing in gold. The World Gold Council reports investment demand in the first

Art Investing: The Inflation Hedge Nobody’s Talking About

by Louis Basenese, Advisory Panelist Senior Analyst, The Oxford Club

On Friday, my colleague and friend David Fessler provided you with four inflation hedges to consider.

Without question, I agree with all of Dave’s recommendations.

I just want to add one more inflation hedge to the mix. It’s an under-the-radar one that nobody’s talking about. But they should be.

So let me tell you what it is - art investing. But let me stress why it’s imperative you spread the love around and consider investing in all five inflation hedges, not just one.

“Inflation is coming, inflation is coming.”

The world knows it. Even the guys at the switch - the Fed - can’t deny it.

Last week, Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser warned inflation could heat up much sooner than expected.

Here’s the problem. Everyone and their second cousin keep piling into the

Look Before You Leap into the DGI IPO: Watch out for these 4 Big Risks

by Louis Basenese, Oxford Club Senior Analyst

Jim Cramer’s sounding his obnoxious “Buy! Buy! Buy!” on this week’s Digital Globe (NYSE: DGI) IPO – a provider of high-resolution satellite imagery used for defense and consumer location-based applications (i.e. - Google Maps and Microsoft Virtual Earth).

I’m not saying the DGI IPO lacks the potential to rocket out of the gates. The performance of other recent IPOs – Changyou.com (Nasdaq: CYOU) and Rosetta Stone (NYSE: RST) – suggest underwriters are intentionally under pricing deals to get them out the door. In turn, investors are reaping the rewards. The stocks are up 86.3% and 63.7% from their respective offering prices.

However, you need to look beyond the

Takeover Targets: 3 Steps To Finding Them & 3 Stocks For Any Portfolio

by Louis Basenese, Advisory Panelist Senior Analyst, The Oxford Club

I promise. Alexander Green and I are not in cahoots about the coming boom in corporate takeovers…

We both researched the possibility separately. Unprompted, I might add. And yet, armed with different evidence, we arrived at the same conclusion.

If you ask me, such a convergence of analysis in a narrow space of time shouldn’t be ignored. So today, let’s move on from why a takeover boom is imminent and focus exclusively on three takeover targets you can profit from…

Identifying The Market’s Next Takeover Targets

The task of identifying the market’s next takeover targets can be daunting. Literally thousands of potential targets exist, which is probably why most investors liken it to a crapshoot and in turn, shun such a strategy altogether.

But that’s a