Here is a great investment for you -- one where the price has zoomed to unheard-of levels in recent months, yet for which the natural heavy buyers have all the reason in the world, both from a desire and an ability-to-buy point of view, to stop buying. Furthermore, it is known that the supply of this investment will expand next year at a rate that has rarely been matched in history. As an added kicker, you know with certainty that cash flows from this investment will never go up. Sound good? So what is this fabulous gem of an investment? Why, good old-fashioned treasury securites. Lock your money up for 10 years and get the princely return of 2.72% -- heck if you are willing to lock in for 30 years you can get 3.15% today. Those rates are down from 3.78% just last month on the 10-year ...

Stocks stage huge rally, but will it hold? Key levels to watch, and some historic perspective… Libor continues to ease; famous Wall Street CEO explains why credit still isn’t flowing… John Williams on the “true cost” of the U.S. financial crisis, with charts to prove it… Byron King with an “exploding” foreign resource market…. Plus, a stinging critique of I.O.U.S.A., and one thing you must do before voting Nov. 4.

The Dow logged its second best one-day point gain, 889 points, in its even more storied history yesterday:

Percentage wise, at 10.8%, the rally ranks sixth. The S&P and Nasdaq trundled alongside the old lady like puppies.

After finding a new “credit crisis” low on Monday, traders on Wall Street snapped back with vengeance. But it’s not the higher highs we’ll

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The plummeting price of oil could cause another source of capital to dry up: the Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) of the Persian Gulf. This could be another blow for global credit markets, says Irwin Greenstein. These oil-rich funds fueled with petrodollars invested trillions over the past few years, notably with high-profile infusions of billions in CitiGroup, Carlyle Group, Merrill Lynch and the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Now with oil down more than 50% from near $150 a barrel in July, the Persian Gulf is beginning to suffer from its own credit squeeze.

The bottom line is that world credit markets could suffer, further crippling the economy and the banking industry.

Persian Gulf SWFs control huge amounts of money. The combined funds of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar account for more than half the $2.5 trillion total assets of global SWFs.

As of March 2007, the UAE and Saudi Arabia had,

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Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and even the mighty Dubai are getting dragged down by the global economic turmoil.  “The global financial storm rolled across the Persian Gulf on Sunday,” reports the WSJ, “as Kuwait’s central bank guaranteed bank deposits and cobbled together a hasty bailout for one of the country’s largest banks.”

– Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, has announced it will pour $2.3 billion in loans to low-income borrowers.

– There are also signs of trouble in boom town Dubai. The WSJ reports that real-estate brokers there say they are seeing signs of “price weakness” there. We can only presume this is real-estate broker speak for “Nobody’s buying.”

– Over the weekend, “Dr. Doom,” aka New York University economics professor Nouriel Roubini, told The Times that the world economy was “at a breaking point” and that

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Dubai luxury developer Nakheel PJSC on Sunday unveiled plans for a tower that will stand a full kilometer (3,280 feet) in height, beating the world record that’s already held by the booming city-state.

Dubai luxury developer Nakheel PJSC on Sunday unveiled plans for a tower that will stand a full kilometer (3,280 feet) in height, beating the world record that’s already held by the booming city-state. Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, chairman of Dubai World, a holding company that holds a stake in Nakheel, said the project would be “one of a kind,” the Emirati news agency WAM reported. Located along the southern coast of the Persian Gulf on the Arabian Peninsula, Dubai is one of the seven emirates and is the most populous city of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The new tower project is actually part of an entire town development – known as the Nakheel Harbour & Tower project – that will cover ...

As equities commence the dramatic Autumn slump I've been anticipating in recent weeks, it is uninspiring to witness the standard of political debate in the US Presidential election. It seems neither candidate is aware, or at least willing to articulate, the tectonic shifts taking place in global financial power which threaten to severely limit the room for manoeuvre of any future administration, not only economically, but diplomatically and militarily as well. We hear references to Iran and Russia as geopolitical challenges, but nobody is talking yet about a bigger threat right on America's doorstep, the potential implosion of the Mexican state. There are two pressing issues that are putting intolerable stresses on the Mexican economy and society; the first is the huge escalation in drug related violence and corruption, as US support for the Colombian war on drugs has displaced Cartel activity into Mexico, now the primary base for ...

No one knows where oil is heading. Only four months ago (May ’08), oil cleared $120 a barrel on its way to $145. Within a month, analysts were calling for $150, even $200 oil. Countless graphs and charts surfaced showing how demand was outpacing supplies. Pundit after pundit commented that emerging markets like China and India were fueling an unstoppable mega-boom for black gold. Then Russia invaded Georgia, and oil took a nose dive falling more than 20 consecutive days from $145 down to $115 a barrel. Hurricane Gustav gave it a brief shot in the arm, but the damage was less than expected and oil rolled over the next day. Now analysts are predicting oil will fall to $100 or even $85 a barrel. Again the charts and graphs are surfacing, this time showing that both international and domestic demand for oil is ...

(P.S: Sorry for any disturbances the advertisements above may have caused you)If late-2004 and early-2005 are remembered for the corporate debacles of CAO, Citiraya and ACCS, the later part of 2005 will be remembered for the attention that centered on oil and refining. The catalyst was Hurricane Katrina, which was the worst-ever storm to hit the Gulf of Mexico and caused extensive damage to the refining facilities in the region, exposing the deep global capacity crunch in refining capacity.Katrina formed over the Bahamas in late August 2005 and due to the unpreparedness of the authorities, caused severe destruction along the Gulf of Mexico coast from central Florida to Texas in the form of a Category 5 storm, with the most severe loss of life and property damage occurring in New Orleans. Of more interest to oil traders was the damage to ...

World Wide Auctioneers Group Inc (WWAG.OB) engages in the trading and auctioning of transportation and industrial equipment worldwide. WWA holds fully unreserved auctions mainly for consigned equipment, with no minimum bids, seller bids, or reserve prices, assuring buyers and sellers that their equipment is traded at fair market value. A list of auctioned items by the company includes mobile and stationary earthmoving and construction equipment, such as crawler tractors, excavators, wheel loaders, cranes, trucks and trailers, generators, compressors, agricultural tractors, and forklifts.

WWA Group was founded in 1996 and is based in Tempe, Arizona, but conducts the majority of its auctions in its Dubai facilities. Since early 2001, WWA Group has held more than 110 auctions around the world, selling over 66,000 items for a combined total of over $760 million. The company operates an in-house, state of the art Internet site with its own equipment search engine

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