Crude oil is now worth less than half its July value. But as central banks and consumers rejoice, socialist oil-exporters like Russia and Venezuela are in “dire straits”. Justice Litle says desperate times could prompt desperate measures from the firebrand leaders of these countries. And this “geopolitical time bomb” could send crude skyrocketing once again.

This from Taipan Daily:

The petrocrats were richly rewarded as crude oil climbed to new heights. Now a sharp decline in the price of oil threatens to tear their world apart. A time for drastic action could be at hand…

Today I want to talk about a situation that feels like a ticking time bomb - a time bomb that could go off sooner rather than later. It starts with this chart…

After climbing to nearly $150 a barrel earlier this year, the price of

...

Another day, another hair-pullingly tumultuous stock market. Zacks Senior Market Analyst Charles Rotblut, CFA was thankfully on-hand to talk us through this most precarious time with practical knowledge of what we should be doing next.

The markets recouped some of their losses late yesterday. Is this a sign that a bottom has been set?

A lot of people have been trying to predict when stocks will stop falling, and nearly all of these people have been wrong. It's very difficult to predict a market bottom, or top. And for the overwhelming majority of investors, it does not matter.

Rather, investors should be focusing on looking for fundamentally sound companies with rising earnings estimates that are trading at attractive valuations. This is a strategy that has worked over the long-term and will continue to work in the future.

So, when will investors feel safe investing?

Over the short-term, there is a real risk that

...

by Edward Hugh: BarcelonaWell, it's official, or at least its as near official as it's going to get at this point: the Eurozone is in its first recession. And how do I know this? Well Frankfurt-based Financial Times European economy correspondent Ralph Atkins told me it was, in this article last Tuesday. Joking aside, this line-judge ruling (we will remember the eurozone doesn't have an official referee with the authority to call recessions like the US NBER) from Ralph is significant, both due to the fact that he is about as plugged-in as it is possible to get - without, that is, electrocuting yourself on all that high voltage cable knocking about over there - to mainsteam ECB thinking over on Kaiserstrasse, and also because he has been one of the most stalwart journalistic defenders of the idea that the German economy was finally - after many ...

President Dmitry Medvedev has called on security chiefs to establish a formal border in the Arctic, territory which he views as crucial to Russian energy security. Arms control advocates see the nuclear energy accord between the US and India as potentially damaging anti-proliferation efforts. Henry Kissinger writes on how the world’s biggest oil consumers might change the current dynamic of energy supply and demand. Britain’s impending energy shortfall will leave it vulnerable to Russia, says one journalist. Gazprom and LUKoil have been fined for charging identical prices for gasoline and diesel. The International Energy Agency has warned that the world economy faces a recession if the price of oil stays above $90 a barrel. The US says it will take measures against companies it believes are assisting Iran with its nuclear program.

Key Points: Engineering and consulting firms are an alternative way to get exposure to the energy sector. A heavy reliance on revenues from oil companies provides upside, while a diversified list of customers in other industries lessens risk. Analysts have recently raised forecasts on several engineering and consulting firms

Last week, I discussed how the decline in oil prices was causing analysts to lower their forecasts on exploration and production (E&P) stocks.

An alternative for investors looking to keep some exposure to the energy sector are engineering and consulting firms. These are companies that provide maintenance, construction and project management services to the energy sector.

They are less sensitive to the price of oil than E&P companies, but still benefit from elevated oil prices.

The key for firms such as Fluor (FLR) and Jacobs Engineering (JEC) is that oil stays at a high enough level to justify spending

...

Key Points: Engineering and consulting firms are an alternative way to get exposure to the energy sector. A heavy reliance on revenues from oil companies provides upside, while a diversified list of customers in other industries lessens risk. Analysts have recently raised forecasts on several engineering and consulting firms

Last week, I discussed how the decline in oil prices was causing analysts to lower their forecasts on exploration and production (E&P) stocks.

An alternative for investors looking to keep some exposure to the energy sector are engineering and consulting firms. These are companies that provide maintenance, construction and project management services to the energy sector.

They are less sensitive to the price of oil than E&P companies, but still benefit from elevated oil prices.

The key for firms such as Fluor (FLR) and Jacobs Engineering (JEC) is that oil stays at a high enough level to justify spending

...