GoldDrivers 2009 – Extraordinary Bullish Outlook for Gold

By: Eric Hommelberg ldSeek.com

It sure has been a brutal year for gold and its shares and many may wonder if the $1030 top clocked in March 2008 marked the top for the gold bull market that started in April 2001. Despite the fact that many analysts want you to believe that gold has failed to act as a

ur “Obama Rally” forecast… will things “get worse before they get better” or vice versa?… Print in the doghouse… Tribune Co., New York Times and McClatchy looking desperate… Still no bottom in sight for housing… foreclosure, refi and pending home sales data all down… Anecdotal evidence of tough times to come… Wiggin house, office burglarized… Chris Mayer with a sector sell-off that’s gone too far Enjoy the rally… for now. “Things are going to get worse before they get better,” the president-elect’s been saying all week. We suspect he’s right. But the Obama Rally is likely to have some legs first.

The Dow surged 3.5% yesterday after an equally notable gain Friday. Just about every stock got a boost, but materials, energy and infrastructure players led the way… half because of President-elect Obama’s audacious infrastructure plans, half because these stocks can’t go much lower anyway.

The Fall Of Legg Mason's Bill Miller

Legg Mason's Bill Miller managed to outwit the S&P 500 longer than anyone else.  But eventually he was doomed to fail. And now there's little doubt that the biggest star among stock mutual fund managers has stumbled badly.

This Wall Street Journal  piece takes an in-depth look at Miller's huge bets and stunning failures in the past few years. It even quotes him as saying he was "naïve."

(One minor disappointment about this article is that it didn't touch on how Miller, as his fund as well as Legg Mason's business grew, took on more administrative functions and delegated more daily fund management duties to associates.)

But just a minor point in an otherwise fascinating look at the fall of one of the industry's greatest names. You can read it here.

Some Commodities

Barclays Global Investors expects its exchange-traded funds business in Brazil to reach $1 billion to $2 billion in the next year.

The forecast follows the introduction of the first three BGI iShares ETFs for the Brazilian market last week (see story here.)

The iShares ETFs were the first ETFs approved by the Brazilian regulator, the Comissão de Valores Mobiliários, a process that BGI began planning three years ago. More ETF companies may now follow iShares' lead into Brazil, where hedge funds and institutional use of ETFs is expected to lead the adoption of ETFs by local investors.  

In most Latin American ETF markets, it has been institutions leading the way, and retail investor use of ETFs expected to be a much longer-term story.

Mexico and Chile are among the easiest markets in Latin America to introduce ETFs, and these are the markets where BGI's early Latin

Nexia Holdings, Inc. is a diversified holdings company with operations in health and beauty, fashion retail, and real estate. Currently, the company owns two salons, one retail store, one online retail store and three commercial properties.

The two salons, Landis Lifestyle Salon and Landis Salon, are both located in Utah. Landis Lifestyle Salon, located in Salt Lake City, is an Aveda™ Lifestyle Salon, while Landis Salon, located in Bountiful, is an Aveda™ Concept Salon. Nexia plans to grow the Landis brand to a national level with up to 5 locations in the Salt Lake region before executing a national expansion plan that could include franchise opportunities.

The retail store, operated by subsidiary Black Chandelier, sets itself apart from clothing giants such as The Gap, Hot Topic, and Target by offering eco-friendly fabrics, in-house sewers and silk screeners, and crazy models like Lisa D’Amato. The store was designed to be

It wasn't just the usual suspects to whom the assets were flowing.

Net cash flow into exchange-traded funds in November blew away October levels, with more than $26.3 billion coming into ETFs, according to data from the National Stock Exchange.

In October, during the worst of the investor panic, net cash flow into ETFs was only $7.3 billion. There were 271 ETFs and 26 exchange-traded notes with net outflows in October, and 179 ETFs and 16 ETNs with outflows in November.

It wasn't just the usual suspects to whom the assets were flowing. While the iShares, SPDRs, Vanguard and ProShares had their usual big flows, most notable was the arrival of Direxion Funds as a serious competitor, which took in $511 million in net new cash in November.

Though ProShares itself did not slow down while its new competitor made its face known to the ETF world. ProShares took in $4.6

The CIO position has been somewhat of a revolving door at ProFunds.

Asset manager ProFunds Group has plucked Todd Johnson from index and quantitative institutional money manager World Asset Management to be chief investment officer.

The CIO position has been somewhat of a revolving door at ProFunds and its exchange-traded funds group ProShares.

Gus Fleites, a longtime State Street Global Advisors official, took over the CIO reins in 2005. He lasted approximately a year in the role—a period of success for the company, especially with its ETFs—but left ProFunds under uncertain circumstances (see story here).

Fleites then moved to IndexIQ, but lasted only a few months in that job before leaving the hedge fund replication shop also.

The CIO that Fleites had replaced at ProFunds, William Seale, came back into the CIO role when Fleites left in 2006. George Foster, who had been a director of portfolios, assumed the

Ross and Wiandt On ETFs

The U.S. News and World Report continues to explore the world of exchange-traded funds. It has an interview with State Street Global Advisors ETF guru James Ross in its most recent issue, and in a companion piece, some quotes from IndexUniverse.com publisher Jim Wiandt.

SSgA's Ross alludes to target date ETFs as being a big area for future ETF product development. Does that mean SSgA will be heating up the competition for iShares' new target dates soon? Ross also believes that the industry may be headed into a period of being gobbled up by bigger asset managers, and that active ETFs may never see the light of day. You can read the Ross interview here.

And for some IU.com-branded comments on ETF use by Wiandt, read the companion U.S. News and World Report piece here.

Inverse ETFs are

The head of BGI's iShares business gives his views on slumping market share numbers, ETFs still in registration, spreads and fund expenses.

Lee Kranefuss, chief executive officer of BGI's iShares business, recently took time to discuss with IndexUniverse's Murray Coleman the future of exchange-traded funds and recent developments relating to the industry's dominant product line.

IU:  Barclays recently renamed the Lehman-based bond indexes to the Barclays Capital moniker. Will the iShares Lehman ETFs change?

Kranefuss:  Barclays Capital completed its acquisition of Lehman Brothers' North American Investment Banking and Capital Markets businesses. As part of the transaction, Lehman Brothers' indices have become part of Barclays Capital. The Lehman indexes are now Barclays Capital indexes. iShares will be renaming those ETFs. It's our practice to include the index provider in the name of the funds; we think that transparency is important for investors. People ought to know which index a fund is following.

The head of BGI's iShares business gives his views on slumping market share numbers, ETFs still in registration, spreads and fund expenses.

Lee Kranefuss, chief executive officer of BGI's iShares business, recently took time to discuss with IndexUniverse's Murray Coleman the future of exchange-traded funds and recent developments relating to the industry's dominant product line.

IU:  Barclays recently renamed the Lehman-based bond indexes to the Barclays Capital moniker. Will the iShares Lehman ETFs change?

Kranefuss:  Barclays Capital completed its acquisition of Lehman Brothers' North American Investment Banking and Capital Markets businesses. As part of the transaction, Lehman Brothers' indices have become part of Barclays Capital. The Lehman indexes are now Barclays Capital indexes. iShares will be renaming those ETFs. It's our practice to include the index provider in the name of the funds; we think that transparency is important for investors. People ought to know which index a fund is following.