Between September 2007 and June 2008, oil prices doubled, gold rose 30% and commodities, in general, advanced by a similar percentage. So why, six months later, when prices have fallen back below last year’s levels, does everybody think they won’t rise again? The difficulties of extraction haven’t gone away, nor have the prospects of increasing consumption in the faster-growing emerging markets such as China. Yes, the prices of commodities are severely affected by marginal moves in supply and demand, but this is ridiculous! Rest assured, commodities prices will rebound in the New Year. The reasons will soon become quite clear. The decline in commodities prices since the summer is broad-based. The Reuters Continuous Commodities Index traded recently at 341, down 25% from a year earlier and off about 45% from its June high. At $48 a barrel, oil is trading at less ...

The brutal market sell-off in emerging markets has led many to doubt their importance in the global economy. But Horacio Marquez says the ‘right’ countries in Latin America will thrive in the New Year. Top of the class is Brazil, but Horacio also sees good opportunities in Chile and Mexico.

This from Money Morning:

The second phase of emerging markets expansion is well on its way – a period of self-sustaining growth, driven by consumer growth and infrastructure spending.  And Latin America, following China and other Asian economies, is one of the key global pillars of growth that will save the global economy and the U.S. financial system from total collapse. But not all the countries in Latin America will go on to prosper.  There is a wide gulf in the policies that will continue to separate the winners from the losers.

Let me explain.

In a recent article

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Brazilian stocks have been pummeled in October’s global market rout. But Martin Hutchinson says this has created a great opportunity for profits. South America’s largest economy still has a robust growth outlook and moderate inflation. He says these six “bargain basement” stocks are now well worth a look.

More from Money Morning:

Like most other markets, Brazil has been battered by the credit crisis – the BOVESPA index is currently down 28% in October alone and no less than 52% from its peak as recently as May. It now appears to represent excellent value, with a historic Price/Earnings (P/E) ratio of only7.0.

But are Brazil’s prospects good enough to justify investing there?

Brazil was included in the “BRIC” (Brazil, Russia, India and China) group of rapidly emerging markets that Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE:GS) created in 2003. At that time the country didn’t deserve the distinction. Long-term growth since

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In September I took a look at a href="http://zignalsblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/buffett-way.html"Warren Buffett's/a stock holdings. In this post I will look at George Soros's stocks. The information was pulled from a href="http://www.stockpickr.com/port/George-Soros/"Stockpickr/a and is ehhh... not the most up to date given his third greatest holding was that bastion of financial security, Lehmans. The a href="http://www.marketfolly.com/2008/08/checking-in-on-warren-buffett-berkshire.html"13F/a on which the holdings were pulled were current for June 20th of this year - I suspect things have changed a little since.... br /br /span class="fullpost"Topping his holdings is Petroleo Brasileiro S.A. (strongPBR/strong). The stock has given back nearly all of its 2007 run up but is currently trading at support of a modest up trend dating back to 2005. The stock is also trading near support of a broadening wedge which encompassed the crash of 2008. The stock yields a disappointing 0.30% but the company did report a href="http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/petrobras-reaches-record-oil-production/story.aspx?guid={AC06D002-C3BA-44F0-B338-F783A58EE8D9}siteid=yhoof"record oil production/a for September. br /br ...

We are keeping our Buy recommendation on Petroleo Brasileiro S.A. or Petrobras (PBR) ADRs. We like Petrobras for its positive production-growth profile and the improving outlook for its downstream business. Moreover, the discovery of the giant Tupi field opens up a new range of possibilities for the company in the long run.

Recently, from the drilling of well known as lara in the northern part of Tupi field, PBR discovered light oil and natural gas, with estimated recoverable volume of 3 to 4 billion barrels of light oil and natural gas. The company's large inventories of development projects are also encouraging. Finally, second quarter 2008 results were better than expected, and the outlook for the following quarters remain quite encouraging, even though lower oil prices exist.

Even without considering some important new discoveries, Petrobras is expected to grow annual volumes by approximately 6% over the next few years. Some months ago

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Here are the stocks added to the Zacks #1 Rank ("strong buy") List today:

Alkermes Inc (ALKS) American Financial Group (AFG) Anheuser-Busch Companies Inc (BUD) Arrow Electronics Inc (ARW) Banco Macro SA (BMA) CARBO Ceramics Inc (CRR) Comverse Technology Inc (CMVT) Cyberonics Inc (CYBX) DXP Enterprises Inc (DXPE) Emergency Medical Services Corp (EMS) Glacier Bancorp Inc (GBCI) Gushan Environmental Energy Ltd (GU) Hewitt Associates Inc (HEW) KANA Software Inc (KANA) Limited Brands Inc (LTD) Mitsui & Co Ltd (MITSY) Multi-Fineline Electronix Inc (MFLX) Navios Maritime Holdings Inc (NM) NetScout Systems Inc (NTCT) NexMed Inc (NEXM) Packaging Corp of America (PKG) PepsiAmericas Inc (PAS) Petrobras Energia Participaciones SA (PZE) Petroleo Brasileiro SA (PBR) POSCO (PKX) Robbins & Myers Inc (RBN) Rock-Tenn Co (RKT) ...

Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Brazil's state-controlled oil company, continues to drill away and is now about halfway through its offshore Carioca deposit according to Mines and Energy Minister Edison Lobao said. Carioca forms part of Brazil's new pre-salt region, which lies beneath 2,000 meters of water and as much as 4,000 meters of seabed. The pre-salt region is also home to the Tupi field, which holds an estimated 8 billion barrels of oil and is the largest Western Hemisphere oil discovery in three decades. Lobao is also quoted as saying that Betrobras will need more time to determine the size of the Carioca field, so I suppose for the time being it's just a question of "on we go with the drilling".Following up on my post about oil rigs earlier in the week, Petrobras have also announced plans to lease 146 ...

The biggest oil discovery in the Western hemisphere in three decades and speculation about the existence of an even larger deposit has turned Petroleo Brasileiro SA into the world's most expensive energy producer, at least in terms of its share price to profits ratio. Petrobras shares currently trade at 17.2 times profits after rallying 87 percent over the last year. (By way of comparison Petrobras's price-earnings ratio was 8.77 a year ago and under 5 back in June 2004).This makes Petrobas shares effectively twice as expensive as Russia's Lukoil and or the netherland's Royal Dutch Shell, and 50 percent more expensive than Exxon Mobil - which only this week announced that total output was down 10% in the first three months of 2008 when compared with a year earlier - as investors focus on the Rio de Janeiro-based company's oil finds rather than its falling profits. Lukoil trades ...