Currencies trade in a tight range…  G-20 to shun an exit from stimulus?  Gold and Silver and Oil… A new trend? Loonies follow the commodities higher… And Now… Today’s Pfennig! Good day… And a Happy Friday to one and all! Well… Once again, my day didn’t turn out exactly as planned, but as they say… A bad day at the ballpark is better than a good day and then you plug in the place… It could be work… It could be cutting the grass… Etc..

OK… I heard a great song on the radio this morning on my way to work… And I said to myself… Chuck, now that’s a great song to start a day with, that everyone should hear each day! It’s a song from the 60’s (of course!), by the Rascals, called… It’s a Beautiful Morning… Here’s the first verse, and if you know the song, I’m sure you’ll want to sing

The final word is out. UBS is handing over information on roughly 5,000 accounts and the IRS will back off its fishing expeditions on the remaining ~42,000 accounts.

Frankly, I’ve written so much about the UBS mess over the last year that I am sick of it…and I’m sick of the greedy, crooked UBS bankers and staff that stupidly thought they could use Swiss bank secrecy laws to cover their illegal tax evasion advice, while running up fat fees for themselves and billions in deposits for UBS.

This thoughtless criminal activity not only added to the instability of UBS – already $50 billion in the hole because of bad investments exposed by the global recession – but their conduct needlessly called into question the admirable privacy policies and bank secrecy laws of the Swiss government.

UBS tarnished not only its own reputation,

Currencies trade in a tight range again…U.S. Retail Sales are a clunker! RBA’s Stevens is upbeat! Thoughts on Brazil…And Now… Today’s Pfennig!

Good day… And a Happy Friday to one and all! The end of the week… It’s been a tough week for yours truly, as I’ve hobble around in pain all week. But, as I recall, I promised 2 years ago that I would not complain about these things in the future… So! I carry on!

Well… Front and center this morning… The currencies are trading near levels they were when I signed off yesterday morning. They did have a brief rally, after the U.S. Retail Sales data showed some real rot

A 4-day rally gets stopped at the border…  Home Prices fall at a -18.12% pace…  Alice Rivlin gives her 2-cents… * Kiwi bond maturities galore next month… And Now… Today’s Pfennig! Good day… And a Wonderful Wednesday to you! As tradition with the Pfennig would have it, here’s my introduction to July… There I was… On a July morning… Looking for love… With the strength of a new day dawning, and… The beautiful sun…

Yes, for those “old rockers” from the 70’s like me… That’s Uriah Heep, at their best!

OK… So, welcome to July! The last day of June was quite the volatile one to say the least! There we were waiting for the S&P/CaseShiller Home Price Index to print, and show that home prices were still down by quite a bit, when it did, it did, it printed at -18.12%… But! The media was all over that like a cheap suit, clamoring that

The Investment U Conference Wrap-Up: “Don’t Miss Your Million Dollar Opportunity”

by Dr. Scott Brown, Education Director

It was quite a week at the Investment U Conference in sunny St. Petersburg. It’s been a few days and I’m still a little exhausted at the sheer amount of information covered.

Over the past week we’ve discussed gold, emerging markets and foreign currency Exchanges. In addition we’ve discussed options strategies, commodities, small caps, biotechs and the state of our economy. And yet we’ve really just scratched the surface of the kind of useful, actionable information given out…

There’s a lot that we’ve missed.

And if you weren’t there, then you have no way of knowing what the insiders are thinking, you have no way of knowing if you have just passed over the next big thing - those “million dollar investments” we all dream of.

I highly encourage you to purchase the audio

The Investment U Roving Reporter: Day 2 - Live at the Conference: “Profitable Trading Strategies To Use Right Now”

by Dr. Scott Brown, Education Director

Things are off to a fast pace today at the Investment U Conference, our schedule is packed. And it doesn’t look like it’s going to let up anytime soon…

Day Two opened up with a number of speakers who went in-depth on a variety of the hottest topics out there right now: small caps, foreign currencies, gold and investing during a recession.

Profitable Trading Strategies To Use Right Now

Nobody knows what the market is going to do next month, next week, or next year. But we can look for similarities in the best performing stocks. The Oxford Club’s Momentum Alert service run by Alex Green does exactly that.

It’s a systematic survey of stocks over the last 40 years of stocks that made huge positive moves during

Offshore Investing: Smart Ways to Keep Your Money Safe

by Alexander Green, Oxford Club Investment Director

According to the World Bank, more than half of the world’s personal wealth - over $50 trillion - is stashed in about 60 or so asset and tax havens worldwide. 

More than a third of it is in Switzerland, comfortably secure in that nation’s bank vaults.  The rest is stashed away in Hong Kong, the Cayman Islands, Panama, Bermuda, the Isle of Man and other protected havens.

What do all these rich people know that you don’t?

Plenty. But their secrets are finally revealed in a fascinating new book by Erika Nolen and Shannon Crouch of The Sovereign Society. It’s called “Offshore Investments That Safeguard Your Cash: Learn How Savvy Investors Grow and Protect Their Wealth.” 

Reasons for Offshore Investing 

Why would you even consider going offshore with your investments?  Let me count the ways:

Dear Value Seeker,

Is gold back?

The precious metal suffered heavy losses in the second half of 2008. But it has soared in recent weeks, breaking through the $900-an-ounce barrier yesterday.

As 5 Min Forecast editor Addison Wiggin says, “Global investors see metal as the only currency worth holding.”

This from The 5:

Looking around the globe today, every major currency is in the crapper — and we’re not the only ones to notice. The euro is being torn apart by once-booming members Ireland and Spain. Nor is Greece helping matters much. Across the channel, the pound is getting leveled by outright fear in the London banking scene. Switzerland and its franc are rapidly losing their safe-haven status. China’s manipulating the yuan, as Tim Geithner insists. If Japan isn’t doing the same, it will soon —

If Crude oil Breaks Through $53, It’s a Screaming Buy

Dear Value Seeker,

America’s job losses have come into sharp focus again today.

The New York Times calls it a “rising tide.” It’s more like a tsunami…

Initial jobless claims for the week ended January 17 shot up by 62,000 to 589,000. This is the highest weekly rise in unemployment since November 1982.

Meanwhile, Microsoft ensured an abrupt reversal of yesterday’s stock market rally by warning that it was “not immune” to the recession.

The tech giant also announced it would give 5,000 workers their marching orders, including 1,400 today.

Microsoft joins a long and growing list of blue chips that have announced job cuts in 2009.

It’s a list The Wall Street Journal’s Real Time Economics blog is tracking:

John Crooks says currencies dependent on commodities are in for a very tough 2009. He says weak global demand and a marked slowdown in China will keep commodity prices low. And that’s bad news for resource-rich Australia. John says a looming recession, widening trade deficit and interest rate cuts will send the Aussie dollar plummeting this year.

This from The Sovereign Society:

Over the next six to eight months, our core trading strategy is based on three key ideas:

1. Global demand will continue to deteriorate 2. China will surprise on the downside 3. Commodities prices will sink back to their 2001 levels

Based on these three views, my trading partner Jack Crooks and I are bearish on currencies that depend on commodities to support their growth. And within the pack of commodity players we are most bearish on the Australian dollar.

Right now, Australia is effectively a satellite country of China.