China’s President Hu Jintao just concluded on a victorious trip Havana on Tuesday - expanding a trade pact that could divert commodities from open spot markets.

It’s no secret that China has largely been responsible for the commodity run-up of the past few years. Now the question remains if the latest deal with Cuba could give China a new lost-cost provider of commodities. If so, it could be a bit of bad news for investors looking for a China-driven commodities run-up.

On Tuesday, Chinese president arrived in Cuba as part of a Latin American tour to strengthen ties with the resource-rich region. And his timing was impeccable.

Just weeks after Cuba’s farm sector and overall economy were rocked by three hurricanes which inflicted more than $10 billion, China parachuted in with almost a dozen trade agreements, according to Cuba’s state-run news agency.

In exchange for wider access to Cuba’s natural resources, China will rehabilitate

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Where are oil prices going? We don’t know.  You don’t know.  Nobody knows.  Short-term events could drive oil higher or lower.  The current trend is clearly down, but where it stops is not evident.

What is an investor to do? One reasonable thing to do is nothing, if you don’t have particular oil exposure, or if you have good yield from oil companies with well covered dividends.

When does increasing exposure make sense? That depends on your time horizon and the yield element.  If you plan to use a futures-based investment products such as USO or OIL, you need to watch the charts fairly closely.  If you you plan to buy large integrated oil companies with solid yields and strong financial conditions, such as Chevron (CVX), or an oil royalty trust such as Canadian Oil Sands (COSWF), now may not be a bad time, although there may be better entry

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[“Election 2008" is an ongoing Money Morning series that examines the investor implications of the presidential election campaign] By Martin Hutchinson Contributing Editor One thing is clear about John McCain’s economic policies: They won’t be a mere continuation of George W. Bush’s policies. They can’t afford to be. While Bush’s tax cuts have been highly beneficial both to the stock market and to investors directly, the Bush Administration has taken what was a $150 billion federal budget surplus and transformed it into a $400-billion-plus deficit. That’s at a time when stock markets and real estate markets have been ebullient, producing lots of bonuses and capital gains to tax. Most of the deficit increase has resulted from sloppiness on spending; only about one third of the negative swing has been caused by the Bush tax cuts. Some of those cuts – most notably the 2003 ...

Everyone is looking for a low share price bargain. But what about the high priced shares? There are plenty of great stocks, besides Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK-A), that sell for over $100 a share.Here are some stocks, all trading in excess of $100 a share, that have P/E ratios less than 20, PEG ratios less than 1, market caps above $15 billion, and all but one pay a dividend.Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (GS) the large investment banking firm, has the highest priced shares on the list at about $154 per share. The stock has a P/E of 8 , a PEG of 0.43 and pays a yield of 0.9% .CNOOC Limited (ADR) (CEO) is the explorer and producer of crude oil and natural gas off the coast of China which sell for around $143 per share. The stock has a ...

Alright, we are going to look at this from to aspects. First from a purely economic point of view and then from a more pragmatic view. But before we jump into that, let’s quickly go over how the candidates feel. Obama, along with most Democrats, is wholly opposed to lifting the drilling ban. McCain recently flipped sides and is now saying that states should be able to decide whether or not to drill. For an economic point of view, we’ll turn to Kudlow’s Money Politic$. Kudlow reports that after Bush lifted the moratorium on offshore drilling, crude oil futures dropped 6.3%. So if this is any indication, even if offshore drilling proves to be of little direct help, it will still help drive down oil prices because of the effect on speculators. Kudlow says it better: Traders took a look at a ...

It seems that almost every day there is an editorial urging John McCain to relieve the American people of their high gas price burden. But rather than an endorsement of his gas tax vacation, the average conservative citizen is urging McCain to drill for domestic oil. If he indeed decided to drill for more oil on American soil, he would be embraced by the right.

But how much good would it do? The Wall Street Journall’s Real Time Economics has an article indicating that even if we were to drill in the massive ANWR reserves, it would not be likely to impact gas prices now.

Furthermore, 2008 Central has a humorous bit of an exploitation article on the same issue. In 1985, McCain insisted (very strongly) that offshore oil in states like California should be distributed to Americans on a national …