Broadcasters don’t stop transmitting television programs during a recession. That’s why Tom Bulford says ContentFilm (LON:CFL) could be a great penny stock for this downturn. The company has a low-risk business model and is trading at a huge discount today. But Tom says investors need to watch out for a £9 million preferred shares liability due in March 2009.

This from Fleet Street Invest:

‘Welcome to the new West! Where overnight oil millionaires with Porsches and over-the-top mansions butt up against the salt-of-the earth cattle and rodeo country. It’s a place where fortunes are made in the tar sands at noon and lost on the poker tables at night.’

Phew! I don’t think we’re talking about Ilfracombe! More like Dallas, I should say. And this is indeed the promotion for a television series called The Wild Roses, described as an ‘epic clash

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"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way"TolstoyPresident Dmitry Medvedev’s recent decision to inject $20 billion into Russia’s flagging stock markets – which were down nearly 50% from last May at the time - together with the $60 billion odd dollars of support injected into its groggy banking system served to draw attention to the fact that it wasn't only “over there” on the other side of the Atlantic that the financial turmoil was busy raging. This simple point was further emphasised, if need there was for it, by the fact that both the Russian bourses – the MICEX and the ruble denominated RTS - were only working on a “now you see me now you don't basis” for the best part of a week in mid September. Stealing an idea from Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, every financial boom is (boringly) the same, but every financial crisis is different in its own special (and intriguing) way. What just happened in Russia merely serves to prove Tolstoy’s point.

The oil boom in Russia which has produced political power, cash, and a growing upper class -as well as fueled overall Russian economics and the country’s renewed assertiveness in places like Georgia- appears to be shakier than Moscow officials would like to admit.

The reasons behind seeing the potential for disaster in Russian economics as tied to the oil industry are two: Efforts to develop new oil fields have been sluggish to non-existent and since the collapse of Russian economics in 1998, most of the oil produced has come from using advanced technology to re-drill once nearly exhausted fields.

Vary Kryukov, who researches western Siberia oil companies for a government-funded think tank, says the strategy of re-drilling old fields, while not developing new ones is potentially disastrous for Russian economics. “If the situation which exists now stays the same, oil production will start to decline seriously in two years,” Kryukov said in …

Russian companies are struggling to refinance a backlog of $45bn in foreign debt, as the debt market shuts to third-tier borrowers and the cost of borrowing increases by over 2%. The crisis is apparently causing business leaders to back complaints about Kremlin foreign policy, although investors who favor the long-term perspective have not pulled out their funds. Will the MICEX slump threaten Russia’s oil boom? Finnish tire maker Nokian Renkaat, struggling to retain its value, is one of the companies to feel the effects of the Russian slump. As part of its plan to improve its armed forces, Russian spending on arms will rise to a record $47.9 billion next year, and the country has resumed long-range bomber missions. Russian shoppers are boosting western consumer markets.

Shares of Heartland Oil & Gas exploded in value this morning after the company released some promising news regarding its latest project. The price of company stock hit $0.021 (up from $0.015) on more than 75 million shares traded, marking its highest point since the second week of May.

The release pertained to successful pressure tests conducted on the company’s four-mile methane pipeline in Southeast Kansas, expected to double Heartland’s production in the region upon completion.

“We put the necessary pressure into the pipeline and found no leaks along its entire length,” said Augie Soto, COO of Aztec Well Services, Heartland’s contractor on the project, “The four road crossings and 2 creek crossings were our greatest concern and they held without any problems. The 8 inch main is tied into the 12 inch main and the pipeline is secure all the way to the sales meter. We will begin installation

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Last Thursday, China roiled the oil market, announcing it would raise gas and diesel prices by about 46 cents per gallon in order to reduce demand. In a matter of minutes, oil prices skidded lower. Before you knew it, America's TV news and finance channels were all over the story. They asked the burning question, "Will higher prices and lower demand in China kill this great bull market in oil?" And they presented a seemingly endless parade of oil bears and stock bulls who almost unanimously proclaimed that oil prices were about to crater. I hope those experts can live with disappointment, because by Friday morning, investors were buying the pullback like crazy and the oil price was already recovering nicely. Why? Well for one thing, savvy oil investors know that this price ...

Last month, GM and Ford posted sales declines of 30% and 19%, respectively. Both companies blamed the expected culprits—high gas prices and credit strapped consumers. However, in reality these companies’ troubles are nothing new—both brands have been struggling for years. GM actually made more money lending mortgages than selling cars from 2004 onwards. And Ford hasn’t made a dime selling cars for more than five years. And things don’t look like they’ll be improving anytime soon either. GM sold off 51% of its mortgage segment—its most profitable— to a Wall Street hedge fund in 2006. Yet, the company remains on the hook for the garbage subprime mortgages on the balance sheet. Ford isn’t faring much better. The only person interested in buying Ford shares right now is Kirk Kerkorian, a billionaire who either knows something no one else does, or is simply trying to get ...

Source: Mineweb.com 06/09/2008
Since the onset of the so-called supercycle, around early 2002, commodities have increasingly gained the reputation of being a hedge against everything - except, now, so it seems, commodities.

In the past few days, crude oil prices have surged into unchartered territory, close to $140 per barrel, closer to an as-yet unknown “choke point”, where oil will demonstrably unleash serious damage on the global economy. Today’s oil prices are the highest - in inflation-adjusted terms - seen since the 1860s, an event that triggered the Pennsylvania oil boom. In the modern era, oil crises were seen in the mid-1970s, when prices topped $45 a barrel in today’s money, and then $90 a barrel in the early 1980s.

In their most modern manifestation, commodities have also increasingly emerged as a separate asset class, and, when seen as a “hedge against everything”, offer indirect exposure to emerging markets industrialization, …

Crude oil futures closed above $133 last week, and again today. An event that was said to be responsible for another big decline in the DJIA last week.

Think that high oil prices are hurting U.S. stocks?

Check out this whole article, and more importantly this free oil forecast video clip, before you say “yes.”

Soros: Oil Boom Increasingly Speculative

Soaring oil prices are increasingly the result of speculation, financier George Soros said in an interview published Monday.

The billionaire investor said the money pouring into the oil market increasingly had the look of a bubble, but that it would not burst until both the United States and Britain were knocked into a recession.

“Speculation is increasingly affecting the price,” Soros was quoted as saying …