This podcast features an excellent interview by FT’s David Stevenson with Dylan Grice, strategist of Société Générale. Dylan, who has been described as “the Robin to Albert Edward’s Batman”, discusses stock market bubbles, China and geo-politics.

Click here for the interview (but be warned that the running time is 44 minutes).

Source: David Stevenson, Financial Times, November 6, 2009.

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This post provides links to a number of interesting articles I have read over the past few days that you may also enjoy.

• Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (Telegraph): Is $6,300 fair value for gold? November 19, 2009. The last parabolic spike in gold took off when central banks joined the fray in the 1970s, hoarding bullion with the same enthusiasm as gold bugs. Dylan Grice from Société Générale says it smells much the same today. He sees an eerie similarity between the decision of India’s central bank to buy half the IMF’s entire sale of gold, and the move by France’s central bank to start converting dollars into gold in 1965.

• Gregory Zuckerman (The Wall Street Journal): John Paulson making big new bet on gold, November 19, 2009. John Paulson, who scored about $20 billion of profits between 2007 and early

The post below is republished courtesy of Trader Mark, writer of the Fund My Mutual Fund blog (hat tip: Damien Hoffman of Wall St Cheat Sheet).

Societe Generale’s Albert Edwards is generally considered an uber bear, although there were times in the past year he has tactically increased exposure to equities to take advantage of oversold conditions. Now is not one of those times. In fact, Edwards chimes in with many similar thoughts we’ve posted on the fundamentals … but sticks his neck out calling for new lows in 2010.

While the belief from this blog writer is this will all end badly, knowing when and how will be the ultimate question. Without the massive intervention by central banks and governments we’d have a different landscape; and without knowing to what lengths these people will continue to go to, it’s much more difficult to predict the intermediate

This post provides links to a number of interesting articles I have read over the past few days that you may also enjoy.

• Daniel Gross (Newsweek): The greatest trade ever, November 10, 2009. How hedge fund manager John Paulson bet against the real estate bubble and made $15 billion in a single year.

• abc News: SocGen’s top analyst sees market lows next year, November 9, 2009. Albert Edwards, a top analyst with French bank Societe Generale, expects global markets to hit a new low in 2010, adding that he would not be surprised if the global economy enters another recession next year. Edwards, one of the leading equities bears and a long-term critic of the policies of Western central banks, is skeptical of popular opinion that extreme policy response will safeguard the West against a repeat of Japan’s lost decade of the 1990’s.

The video clips below provide a handy summary of the reports expected on the economic, financial and corporate front around the globe during the week ahead.

US: Employment, autos, rates

Jobless numbers, auto-sales figures and an FOMC meeting are due in the first week of November. Then there’s the progress of the health-care overhaul in Washington and more.

Europe: BOE meeting, UBS results

The Bank of England may take steps to buy up to 50 billion pounds more of assets on Thursday to help the UK escape recession. Earnings are due from UBS, BNP Paribas, Societe Generale, Total, Adidas and Deutsche Telekom among many others.

Asia: Carmakers in focus

Toyota, the world’s largest carmaker by sales, and

The Dow Jones industrial average moved up 132 points on Tuesday and all major indicators rose more than 1% as the Australian central bank’s decision to raise interest rates boosted optimism about the world economy.   Investors' show of confidence ahead of a flood of corporate earnings reports came as Australia became the first major country to raise interest rates since the onset of the financial crisis last year.  The move signals that policymakers see that country's economy as strong enough to withstand higher borrowing costs. That touched off hopes that other economies might also be growing.

Australia's decision dented demand for the U.S. dollar, which, in turn, raised commodities prices.  US energy and materials stocks moved up, oil also rose, and gold reached a record high.  Stock investors cheered the drop in the dollar because it boosts corporate profits by making U.S. goods cheaper for overseas buyers.

Dr Stock Pick HOT News & Alerts!

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Friday September 25, 2009

DrStockPick.com Stock Report!

CVAT, POT, MOS

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CVAT, Cavitation Technologies Inc, CVAT.OB

CVAT is a “Green-Tech” company, established in 2006 to become a world leader in the development of new cutting edge technologies for the, vegetable oil refining, renewable fuel, petroleum, water treatment, wastewater sanitation, petroleum, food and beverage, chemical industries.

CVAT announced that Biocombustibles y Energias Alternativas (ALS) has entered into a long-term agreement with CTI (Cavitation Technologies Inc) to develop projects in Argentina and throughout Latin America. ALS (www.alsbio.com), partnering with DOW Chemical (www.dow.com), has identified several projects where CTI technology can greatly improve process yields

The conventional wisdom is that ETFs and other index-tracking vehicles are designed for beta (market exposure) and that active managers pursue alpha (value added through skill). But what does this actually tell us?

Do our well-used Greek letters help us make sense of the investment landscape, or do they actually hamper us in managing money? As James Montier, formerly of Societe Generale’s asset allocation team, now with Boston-based fund manager GMO, pointed out in an article published in 2007, as soon as you use the terms “alpha” and “beta,” you are invoking the spirit of the capital asset pricing model.

And, unfortunately, CAPM doesn’t actually work in practice.

Why not? Apart from some questionable assumptions about frictionless trading and investors having identical goals, the key problem with CAPM is that it assumes that stock returns are normally distributed. In other words, the theory requires that stock prices follow a random walk,

Albert Edwards, London-based strategist of Société Générale, has always been a firm favourite among Investment Postcards’ readers. His latest research report appeared earlier this week and saw him remaining firmly in the bearish camp.

Edwards’s “Global Strategy” report is subtitled “Money makes the world go round down” and argues that monetary stimulus will have only a limited impact in reviving the global economy. “Massive quantitative easing (QE) around the world has undoubtedly melted the clots of some of the most clogged arteries of the global financial system. That has made things less worse, which is not the same as better,” said Andrews.

Edwards highlights that debt aversion is causing bank lending and the money supply to slump (outside of China) and he has difficulty to see a

A better-than-expected jobs report helped U.S. stocks rally ahead of the long weekend but the unemployment scenario continued to remain grim, signaling the much-expected economic recovery is not going to be smooth.  Worries that the rally has gone ahead of any economic recovery continued to keep a check on sentiments and stocks declined during the first three sessions of last week.  All major indexes started off on a dull note but posted strong gains in the afternoon.          

Following advances in the overseas markets, US stocks are expected to gain at the opening.  The DJIA futures added 79 points for a gain to 9496; the S&P500 increased 9.9 points heading toward a 1023.80 open.  Markets were closed yesterday for the Labor Day holiday.

On Friday, the 30-stock Dow Jones industrial average rose 96.66 points, or 1.03%, to 9,441.27.  The S&P 500 index rose 13.16 points, or 1.31%, to 1,016.40.  The