Alcoa Cuts 13% of Workforce; Best Buy to Sell Used iPhones; Jobs’ Statement Earns Apple Upgrade; India Exports Slowing Dramatically; Europe Inflation at 2-Year Low; U.S. Still Innovation Leader; Belarus to Secure IMF Aid

Alcoa Inc. (AA) said late yesterday (Tuesday) that it will cut 13% of its global workforce. The company will also sell four business units, cut output, freeze salaries and hiring efforts, MarketWatch reported. The measures will result in a fourth-quarter charge of $900 million to $950 million after tax, or $1.13 to $1.19 a share. Electronics retail Best Buy Co. (BBY) said it will sell used Apple Inc’s (AAPL) iPhone 3G -returned 30 days of ...

A Chinese traveler at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, a href="http://www.centredaily.com/living/travel/story/1034382.html" target="_blank"spent over $60,000 at a Aéroports de Paris (AEOPF.PK) duty free shop/a on Christmas Eve for his trip to Beijing. Most of the purchases were bottles of wine including 1947 Lafite Rothschild and a 1991 La Tâche Jeroboam.div class="blogger-post-footer"div class='adsense' style='text-align:center; padding: 0px 3px 0.5em 3px;' script type="text/javascript"!-- google_ad_client="ca-pub-2427831169011625"; google_ad_width=300; google_ad_height=250; google_ad_format="300x250_as"; google_ad_type="text"; google_ad_channel ="8681602088"; google_color_border="FFF3DB"; google_color_bg="FFF3DB"; google_color_link="1B0431"; google_color_url="1B0431"; google_color_text="29303B"; //--/script script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js" /script /div

Oil prices have fallen 70% since hitting a record $147.27 a barrel in July, which means in just five months, crude has given up all the price gains it made in the past four years.

After such a wrenching plunge, many analysts believe the outlook for the “black gold” remains bleak – and in the short term it certainly is. In the long run, however, dwindling supplies, resurgent demand, and a lack of investment will cause crude oil to double, triple, or even quintuple in price over the next few years.

In fact, the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) – energy advisor to 28 industrialized nations – says oil will rise to $100 a barrel by 2015, as a result of a major “supply crunch,” and will ultimately soar to $200 a barrel.

But before it does, prices are likely to sink even further, perhaps falling as low as $20 a barrel in

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Oil prices could fall as low as $20 a barrel in early 2009, says Jason Simpkins. But don’t expect these low prices to last long. Dwindling investment will prompt a longer-term supply crunch, which will send crude to new record highs. Jason gives seven ways to profit from this coming spike.

This from Money Morning:

Oil prices have fallen 70% since hitting a record $147.27 a barrel in July, which means in just five months, crude has given up all the price gains it made in the past four years.

After such a wrenching plunge, many analysts believe the outlook for the “black gold” remains bleak – and in the short term it certainly is. In the long run, however, dwindling supplies, resurgent demand, and a lack of investment will cause crude oil to double, triple, or even quintuple in price over the next few years.

In

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by Edward Hugh: Barlecona br /br /br /Only one thing is really clear about the Germany economy at the present time, and that is that it is shrinking rapidly. In fact it contracted far more than most analysts and observers expected in the third quarter (although I, for one, a href="http://www.rgemonitor.com/euro-monitor/252923/what_is_the_recession_risk_for_the_german_economy"was not especially surprised/a), entering what now appears to be its worst recession in at least 12 years as both exports and domestic spending continue to fall. German gross domestic product in Q3 dropped by a seasonally adjusted 0.5 percent from the second quarter, when it fell by a quarterly 0.4 percent, according to revised data from the Federal Statistics Office. The Germany economy last had a two quarter contraction of this magnitude back in 1996.br /br /br /pa href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/SRwqCqomolI/AAAAAAAALd8/hUkBJVBg6wg/s1600-h/GDP+y-o-y.png"img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5268131889409335890" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 198px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/SRwqCqomolI/AAAAAAAALd8/hUkBJVBg6wg/s320/GDP+y-o-y.png" border="0" //abr /br ...

The most foreboding Christmas season in history…every day brings more cutbacks, more bankruptcies and more trouble… Borrowers have counted on home equity money to fill in the gaps in their household budgets, using borrowing in place of saving… Americans are really beginning to resent Wall  Street…Consumer prices are sure to fail in the near future…and more!

The worst is over. At least in the Northern Hemisphere. Yesterday marked the earth’s greatest tilt away the sun, leaving the northern latitudes in darkness for much of the day.

Here in Paris, for example, it was practically dark at 4PM yesterday…at 9AM this morning, it is still dark.

But the world turns. Around and around it goes. It never seems to stop. Oh…we’re getting dizzy!

And while it is dark and cold today…lo! Soon it will be sunny and warm. Beginning today, the daylight will last a little longer every day. Gradually, we will tip back into

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After the big day that gold and silver had on Wednesday, I wasn’t surprised to see them get taken down the moment that Globex trading started in the Far East on Thursday morning. That only lasted until 1:00 p.m. yesterday afternoon in Hong Kong, as the dollar began a serious decline. With that, gold and silver began a steady rise that lasted until moments before the Comex opened. Then they both ran into brick walls…and the highs for the day were in. After that, it made no difference how much the dollar fell, the boyz made sure that the prices went nowhere from that point on.

Then mysteriously, and in unison, the Dow, gold, silver…and their respective shares…headed south while the dollar had a smallish rally. I was speaking with John Embry yesterday while this was going on, and there was no doubt in his mind that the boyz were out

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Speculation that oil prices are beginning to bottom helped push crude contracts higher yesterday (Wednesday), as traders closed out short positions and rumors surfaced that both Russia and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) are planning to cut production next week.

Light, sweet crude for January delivery rose $1.45,  or 3.4% to settle at $43.52 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after climbing by as much as 7% earlier in the day. Futures have plunged roughly 70% since hitting a record-high $147.27 a barrel in July. However, they may be set for a rebound as traders close out short positions and production cuts offset slackening demand.

Traders who took short positions on crude contracts, or placed bets that prices would fall, are buying contracts to cover those bets now that oil has dropped more than 20% in the past two weeks. Their exit from the market has been expedited by the belief that prices

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IEA predicts 2009 oil demand growth after 2008 contraction… Saudi Nov oil output complies with OPEC target-oil min… Expectations of deeper supply cut by OPEC next week

Oil rose above $45 on Thursday after the International Energy Agency predicted global growth in oil demand would resume in 2009 and Saudi oil minister said OPEC’s top exporter pumped less oil than expected last month.

World oil demand growth would return in 2009 after shrinking this year for the first time since 1983, the IEA, which advises 28 industrialized nations on energy policy, said in a monthly report. It also cut forecasts for supply outside OPEC next year.

“We knew the bad bits, demand down, but the supply downgrade was supportive,” said Rob Laughlin of MF Global.

U.S. crude was up $2.23 at $45.75 a barrel by 1152 GMT, after surging $1.45 to settle at

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El Dorado … Cibola … Quivira … these are all fabled “lost cities of gold” that fired up the imaginations of explorers who pursued their dreams to the four corners of the Earth. These cities only existed in the fevered imaginations of storytellers. But there was a real city of gold … or at least, a city richly associated with gold. Its discovery by European explorers is the story of unlocking mysterious Africa … a tale that rings down through the ages … and holds lessons for investors today. Timbuktu’s distance and fabled wealth fired the imaginations of early explorers. The ...