The base metals were all strongly positive on Tuesday. Copper rose from the pre-dawn hours straight through the New York day, just edging below its intraday highs to finish at $1.5308/lb., up more than 10½ cents. Nickel peaked as New York opened, but only slipped a little during the day, closing at $5.8665/lb., up more than 23¾ cents.

Zinc had a decent day, ending at its intraday high of $0.581/lb., up better than a penny and a half. Aluminum pushed higher all day, ultimately adding 3¼ cents, to $0.719/lb., while lead shot straight up to its intraday high of $0.5398/lb., up 4 cents.

Copper led the industrial metals higher, soaring to a one-month high past the $1.50 mark as the new year buying momentum gathered some steam as economic stimulus optimism prevailed alongside the annual portfolio rebalancing by index funds.

“Metals could do somewhat better over the course of the week,” wrote Edward

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Investors are breathing a sigh of relief that 2008 is over, but they shouldn’t get too comfortable. After all, with a worldwide recession under way, investors can expect acceleration in corporate bankruptcies in 2009.

But the question is - which ones?

In the financial services sector, 2008 was a year of spectacular failures:

Bear Stearns Cos. and Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. were absorbed by JP Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and Bank of America (BAC), respectively. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (OTC: LEHMQ) filed for bankruptcy protection. And financial-sector giants American International Group Inc. (AIG) and Citigroup Inc. (C) were both bailed ...

T. Boone Pickens thought oil was going to hit $150 last year and go up from there. I don’t mean to pick on him. He’s worth about $3 billion. He’s earned his stripes. I have nothing but respect for the man.

Pickens wasn’t the only person who got 2008 wrong. There were plenty of others.

When it comes down to it, anybody can make predictions. It’s not very hard. But it is hard to make ones that do what they purport to do: predict.

My advice is to take them with a grain of salt. If predicting the markets were so easy to do, most of Wall Street’s brightest fund managers wouldn’t have lost 40 percent or more last year.

I’ve made my share of predictions in the last couple of issues, “A Preview of 2009?” and “Six Predictions for 2009″.  So I decided to go back a

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Just like Friday morning, gold blasted out of the starting gate as soon as Globex trading began in the Far East on Monday morning. And just like Friday morning, this price spike ran into a wall of selling that went on for about four hours. Then there was a respite until 3:00 a.m. New York time when another wave of selling commenced that lasted right through London…and until the Comex open. Then the dealers (mostly JPMorgan, I would think) pulled their bids for the third and last time…and the price of gold cratered another $10…for the third and last time. Silver really got it in the neck on the Comex open. There was nothing free market about this…this was the Gold Cartel…pure and simple. The US$ didn’t even start to rise until after all the damage was done, so you can’t blame it on that.

It was encouraging to see both

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The base metals were mostly in the red on Monday. Copper sank during the pre-dawn hours, but rallied through most of the New York session before slipping a little late in the day to finish at $1.4251/lb., down less than a quarter-cent.

Nickel pulled back a bit after last week’s charge, closing at $5.6283/lb., down 11 1/3 cents. Zinc was up and down, with a final late upthrust taking it to $0.5651/lb., up nearly a half-cent. Aluminum was off during the pre-dawn hours but rallied back the rest of the day to end at $0.6854/lb., down three-quarters of a cent, while lead regained most of its early lost ground, but still shed better than a half-cent, to $0.499/lb.

It was a desultory day for the industrial metals. Reuters summed up: “U.S. copper futures ended with marginal losses on Monday, after an overnight test of both ends of the trading range held,

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Gold started falling as soon as London opened on Monday, and continued down into the first hour of New York trading, hitting its low for the day at $845, then rallied, sold off to the noon hour, and rallied again through the rest of the Comex and the Globex, finishing at $858.30/oz., down $26.60 from Friday. Overnight, gold is sharply lower.

Platinum dropped to its intraday low of $915 early in New York, then staged a strong rally that carried it nearly to $950 before it eased late in the day to end at $943/oz., up $3. Overnight, platinum is slightly lower.

Silver greeted the new year by following gold, albeit with sharper declines and stronger rallies, all of which left it with a close in the red at $11.22/oz., down 31 cents. Overnight, silver has fallen off.  (Click here for charts)

Although platinum held steady, gold and silver began

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Markets kick off 2009 with sizable rally… what’s behind the best New Year’s rally since 2003…  Obama bounce back in effect… Rob Parenteau on whether his $1 trillion plan will actually work… Dan Amoss on the difference between shorting in 2008 and 2009… Bullish factors for gold (and gold stocks) for 2009… The second wave cometh… more troublesome commercial real estate ripples on the horizon.

For the first time in a long time, we can tell you today that the U.S. stock market is up year to date:

The major indexes rang in the new year with a 3% rally on Friday — the best first day of a new year in the last six. And a sharp contrast to 2008, when the Dow had its worst opening day since 1983.

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At the moment, money is being sucked out of the financial system, bringing the threat of deflation. But for James Howard Kunstler, the only question is when the new money being pumped in by the Fed will exceed the amount that has disappeared. James says we could see serious inflation - and a slump in the US dollar - before the end of 2009.

This from Whiskey & Gunpowder:

This is the “other shoe” that a lot of people are waiting to drop. Right now we are caught up in a compressive debt deflation as mortgages stop “performing” and loans of all kinds are welshed on. Since money is loaned into existence, and a great many loans are not being repaid, then a lot of money is going out of existence. That’s what I mean when I say that capital is leaving the system.

At the same time, the Federal Reserve has made

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Research in Motion Ltd. (Nasdaq:RIMM) is a compelling buy right now, says Horacio Marquez. The company dominates the corporate market with its Blackberry phone and has a “bulletproof” balance sheet. Horacio says the correction in RIMM’s share price should have run its course by now, meaning a big opportunity for profits in the coming year.

This from Money Morning:

Research in Motion Ltd. (Nasdaq:RIMM) - maker of the ubiquitous BlackBerry - is likely to consolidate and increase its market share.

Almost all of our “Buy, Sell or Hold” recommended stocks started out on the right foot here in the New Year.  And our strategy of building up a position gradually up to year-end - to avoid the downward pressure of tax-loss selling, and other volatility - seems to have worked. This has left some cash on the sidelines to take advantage of any sell-offs that are

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Borders Ousts CEO; Front Page Ads in New York Times; Steve Jobs Speaks, Apple Soars; U.K. Short Selling Ban Ending; Whitman’s Future; Oil Rises on MidEast Violence; Russia Cuts Gas Supplies to Europe

Borders Group, Inc. (BGP) ousted its Chief Executive George Jones and replaced him with outsider Ron Marshall, a Wildridge Capital Management executive whose primary experience is turning around ailing companies, Reuters reported. George had been Borders’ CEO for the past three years. The New York Times Co. (NYT) opened its front page to advertisers, a controversial move within journalism circles but also one that follows ...