a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_T9VXVyuEITg/STtlkEBkX0I/AAAAAAAAAmM/1FYndgjniZU/s1600-h/oilderrick.jpg"img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 213px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_T9VXVyuEITg/STtlkEBkX0I/AAAAAAAAAmM/1FYndgjniZU/s320/oilderrick.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5276923058624683842" //abr /Oil may break through $40 a barrel, since it is skirting very close to that price and has traded as low as $40.81. Recently, I wrote about the trucking and package delivery a href="http://stockerblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/stocks-which-benefit-from-low-oil.html"stocks which could benefit from lower gasoline prices/a.br /br /With the price of oil and natural gas tanking, investors are now looking closely at the utility stocks that use oil and gas as a major fuel source of their electrical generation. Hopefully, the cost savings for these companies will pass through to the bottom line long before the Utilities Commissions implement rate reductions. br /br /Pinnacle West Capital Corp. (PNW) has one of the heaviest exposures, with 24% of their electric energy coming from oil and natural gas. About 35% comes from coal and 21.5% from nuclear. This ...

Gold had a nothing day yesterday, but most of the action it did have occurred on the Comex in New York, where an attempt to break through $740 was once again thwarted. Silver was where all the action was. After a 20 cent sell off on the Comex open, silver jumped up sixty cents from the bottom by lunchtime, but someone was there to put an end to this “irrational exuberance.”

Monday’s open interest numbers showed another substantial decrease in gold open interest…this time 4,551 contracts. But in silver, o.i. rose 1,191 contracts to 93,757. Was it short selling? I’ll let you know on Saturday morning.

Talking about silver, here’s a graph (courtesy of Gene Arensberg) showing Comex silver stocks from October 17th to November 17th. Since that graph was published early yesterday, Comex silver stocks have fallen again…this time by 314,095 troy ozs. to 128,720,340 troy ozs. Options expiry and first

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With partisan politics and media telling their own twisted truth about the U.S. economy, perhaps the most accurate forecast comes from Europe.

The European Commission forecast on Monday that the 15-country Eurozone will grow a meager 0.1% next year - at best.

The global financial crisis has hit Europe like Hurricane Katrina flattened New Orleans. And we expect this is a clear indicator of how the U.S. will fare as we approach 2009.

What this means to investors is that the major emerging markets such as China and India may indeed be the place for their money. China and India are certainly down from the commodity supercycle heyday, but their growth far outstrips what we’re seeing (and can expect to see) in Western industrialized economies.

The European Commission said the Eurozone’s largest economies such as Italy, France and Germany will come to virtual standstill with the prospect of 0% growth.

At the same time, second-tier

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With partisan politics and media telling their own twisted truth about the U.S. economy, perhaps the most accurate forecast comes from Europe.

The European Commission forecast on Monday that the 15-country Eurozone will grow a meager 0.1% next year - at best.

The global financial crisis has hit Europe like Hurricane Katrina flattened New Orleans. And we expect this is a clear indicator of how the U.S. will fare as we approach 2009.

What this means to investors is that the major emerging markets such as China and India may indeed be the place for their money. China and India are certainly down from the commodity supercycle heyday, but their growth far outstrips what we’re seeing (and can expect to see) in Western industrialized economies.

The European Commission said the Eurozone’s largest economies such as Italy, France and Germany will come to virtual standstill with the prospect of 0% growth.

At the same time, second-tier

...

It's been a bumpy ride for solar stocks recently.

The industry received a boost when clean energy tax credits were added to the $700 bailout bill to help its passage from Congress. But fears of falling demand and oversupply have weighed on solar stocks. The Claymore/MAC Global Solar Index ETF (NYSE:TAN) fell 35% in the first eight trading days of October.

William Patalon III, however, says new mapping technology and advances that have made solar power more eco-friendly will boost solar stocks in the long run.

The battle for battered bank Wachovia Corp. (WB) is heating up with Citigroup Inc.’s (C) win of a court order to extend negotiations, while Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) contends its merger agreement still stands. Late Saturday evening, Citi won a court order from New York State Supreme Court Justice Charles Ramos granting an injunction to extend the exclusive negotiation period between Citigroup and Wachovia. The original agreement between Citi and Wachovia, reached with assistance and backing from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) did not include a signed merger agreement. However, it did grant Citi exclusive rights to negotiate with Wachovia through today (Monday). Wells Fargo’s agreement with Wachovia was announced on Friday, well before the exclusive negotiation clause’s deadline. Despite this breach and the finding by the court, Wells Fargo remains confident in its agreement. "Wells Fargo ...

Western Standard Energy Corp., (OTCBB: WSEG) has hired Tim Turner as vice-president of its Land division. Starting at Exxon in 1980, Turner’s career spans 28 years through upstream oil and gas and business consulting services in Texas, throughout the United States, and internationally. He worked for Exxon Company, in New Orleans, La., and for Phillips Petroleum in Houston, Texas.

For the last 13 years, Turner, a certified Landman, has led the oil industry-consulting firm, Tim Turner & Associates, LLC. Clients there include Gazprom, Pemex, PDVSA and Saudi Aramco, as well as other major, independent and international oil and gas producers.

“We plan to expand the business through joint venture partnerships, developing our vast portfolio of exploration assets in Montana and North Dakota, and through the acquisition of producing assets,” said Dan Bauer, Western Standard president and CEO. “Tim’s knowledge and experience on the business side will prove to be invaluable in that

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Crude oil futures zoomed more than $16 a barrel yesterday (Monday) - and traded as high as $130 a barrel - thanks to a steep decline in the U.S. dollar and speculation that the Bush administration’s plan to bail out the financial sector might actually jump-start the U.S. economy. The record single-trading-session gain came on a day when CNNMoney.com republished a brand new Fortune magazine story in which author and noted "peak oil pundit" Matthew R. Simmons stated that crude prices were headed for $500 a barrel. At that price level, gasoline would cost more than $10 per gallon. Crude oil for October delivery soared $16.37 a barrel, or 15.7%, to close at $120.92 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange (CME). The gain surpassed the previous price-gain record for a single day of $10.75, a move that occurred on June ...

One industry that seems to be recession proof is the adult entertainment industry. This is a $20 billion industry, and some sources say that the industry has been growing by as much as 50% per year. Many of the publicly traded stocks in this business are low cap companies, so caution is urged when considering these.Playboy (PLA) is a New York Stock Exchange company that which is participating in practically all aspects of the industry including magazines, DVD’s, television shows, documentaries, web entertainment, e-commerce sites, and various Playboy brand products. They also own the Spice brand of TV shows and related products. They recently decided to launch their Playboy Magazine in the Philippines. It is considered to be the largest adult entertainment conglomerate in the world. Last year, they started going after women as customers. It has a forward P/E of 14. ...

Last week’s crude and gasoline inventories dropped more than expected as the effects of Hurricane Gustav resulted in some production disruptions. Gustav, which struck last month, was the fourth-most-destructive storm to hit the United States, causing $20 billion in damages. And then came Hurricane Ike. Ike made landfall in the Galveston area of the U.S. Gulf Coast on in the pre-dawn hours Saturday (the day I was penning this column) as a Category 2 storm with winds hitting 110 miles per hour.  Ike’s path toward Houston makes it the first storm to hit a major U.S. metropolitan area since Hurricane Katrina eviscerated New Orleans in 2005, Bloomberg News reported. We won’t know how much direct damage those high winds from Hurricane Ike will cause for several days at least. From the initial reports, the results appear to be devastating. But the indirect costs are ...