Barring some dramatic – and unforeseen – news this week, expect investors to tread water until Thursday, when the government is expected to release the results of the bank stress tests it conducted on the 19 largest U.S. banks.

The stress-test results are expected to show that the 19 banks may have to raise between $100 billion to $150 billion – or even more – in new capital. Investors will cause the shares of the strong players to zoom northward, and will likely savage the shares of the weakest players.

“I can’t think of a time since I’ve been watching banks when there’s been so much uncertainty about the true value of a key set of assets,” Douglas Elliott, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, told Reuters.

The U.S. bank stress tests have transfixed the world financial markets for weeks, exacerbating the ongoing financial crisis – worsening the U.S.

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Gold did practically nothing from the time Globex trading opened in the Far East on Thursday morning, until noon in London [7:00 a.m. in New York]. From there, and until about a half hour after the Comex open, gold tacked on about $12 in two quick spikes.

However, what little gains there were, evaporated by the close of New York electronic trading at 5:15 p.m. yesterday afternoon.

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Silver didn’t show much activity until 3:00 p.m. in Hong Kong yesterday afternoon. From there, it was an eleven-hour battle for it to add about 35 cents to the price…with the peak coming during lunch time in New York. From there it got sold off hard…and in the next four hours all these gains disappeared as well. One might have thought that there was some sort of prize for

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Bullion and oil appear in the lineup of power players that Doug Casey thinks investors can count on as the world slips deeper and deeper into what he calls the “Greater Depression.” Despite the raging economic storm and Doug’s doubts that Western civilization’s governments will take the actions needed to quell it, though, the Chairman of Casey Research is nowhere close to calling the game. In fact, he sees silver lining in the clouds of crisis—opportunity—and expresses optimism that technological advances, coupled with capital rebuilding once over-consumption runs its course, will prevail eventually. The Energy Report caught up with the peripatetic author, publisher and professional international investor between polo matches in New Zealand, one of several nation-states he calls home from time to time.

The Energy Report: You’ve been discussing what you’re calling “crisis and opportunity,” and in fact have a summit by that same name coming up in Las …

Yesterday after the closing bell, Nexia Holdings, Inc. announced that its management is reviewing and planning for its 2009 advertising and marketing strategy. Richard Surber, CEO of the company, stated, “I first want our shareholders, employees, and customers to be aware of some of the unique and traditional marketing efforts that have occurred over 2008 and how we plan to improve upon those efforts in 2009.”

In the press release, Nexia Holdings provided a list of tradition media, such as magazines, newspapers, mailers, radio, email, and press releases, that featured the company during the current year:

– Salt Lake Tribune, with a weekly readership of approximately 900,000, printed a half page ad this last weekend.

– Salt Lake Magazine is a high end magazine distributed throughout the Salt Lake Valley.

– IN Utah, a weekly newspaper, features Nexia’s companies on a weekly basis to the hipster crowd and has a circulation of

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A Rare Bank Without Defaults

by David Fessler, Advisory Panelist Friday, December 19, 2008: Issue #904

No Credit… No License… No History? No Problem?

Even before our current mortgage meltdown, most banks would never touch a prospective customer with any one of the above issues, let alone all three. But there’s one bank in a quiet little corner of Pennsylvania that’s made thousands of loans - all to customers who have no credit history, zero credit scores, no drivers license and nothing beyond an eighth grade education. The most amazing part is that they’ve never had even one customer default on a loan. And that’s thousands of customers over a 20-year period. How can this possibly be true?

A number of reasons…

This bank strictly adheres to one of the most basic principles of

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This report from National Public Radio interviews average Russians about their perceptions of the economic crisis: Russia is among the countries hardest hit by the world's financial turmoil. Only recently, Moscow was bragging that its oil-rich economy was an island of stability amid global uncertainty. But now many ordinary Russians are worried about losing their jobs and their savings.