Why are the prices of so many commodities rising in an economy that seems to remain quite weak?

% change butter35 coffee21.8 cocoa20.2 copper89.1 corn-8.3 cotton38.6 gold32.1 hogs2.7 oats13.4 oil63.2 lead81.9 palladium75.9 platinum61.7 silver59.1 steel-0.9 sugar73.6 tin22.5 wheat-26.6 zinc55.4 average37.4 euro12

The table at the right summarizes the percent change between January 6 and November 11 in the cash prices of 19 commodities reported in the Wall Street Journal (downloaded via Webstract). The average commodity in this list has appreciated 37% since the start of the year.

A recent paper by Ke Tang and Wei Xiong documents an increasing tendency for commodity prices to move together over the last few years. A decade ago, what happened to oil prices was largely unrelated to movements in most other commodity prices. The graphs below show how the correlations between oil prices and

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by Chris Thompson

Online brokers are all over so it’s hard to figure out which one is really the best. I’ve compiled a list of the different ones out there and give a brief description of my thoughts on each.

Etrade is one of the earlier players in the discount brokerage and practically invented online brokerages. The user interface is amazing and the commissions are on the higher side in this day and age.

TD Ameritrade is also an early player and it’s main competition is Charles Schwab and Etrade. They have good advertising but the interface isn’t great and support is okay mediocre. However, they do have a solid following and trades are $9.99 no matter how much you trade or have with them.

Charles Schwab have been cleaning up in the last year or so, especially with the troubles of Etrade. Honestly, I’ve been thinking …

Makeup.com is as the name implies: an online provider of “exclusive, hard-to-find” cosmetics, perfumes, skin care and other beauty products. The company today announced its year-end financial results for the 12 months ended December 31, 2008, reflecting solid growth and improvement.

Revenues for the year increased $176,998, or 35 percent, to $683,185, as compared to $506,187 for the 2007. Gross profit surged 116 percent to $242,968, up from $112,374 reported for the year ended December 2007. Net loss for the year ended 2008 was $1,195,894, as compared to a net loss of $1,470,145 for fiscal 2007, representing a $274,251 improvement.

“We are very pleased to report another year of strong growth and improved financial results. Although 2008 had many economic challenges, we were able to increase revenue, improve profit margins and lower expenses.” Robert Rook, CEO and president of makeup.com stated in the press releases.

Rook accredits the gains to

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We have heard alot of discussion lately in regards to why the miners could possibly be doing so horribly, when history has shown us that mining stocks should be skyrocketing given the last 8 year bull run in precious metals.

Two words: Naked Shorting

Jim Sinclair has created a movement lately asking to enlist over 200,000 investors, and thousands of mining companies, to put a stop to the criminal activity of Naked Shorting that literally steals money from investors.  You can see more information on Jim Sinclairs initiative here.

One of the best detailed audio explanations of how Naked Shorting works, listen to this audio program.

Hopefully when this all starts coming to light, the brokers who have engaged in this criminal activity will be spending a long time in a cold cell with a large room-mate named Bubba who finds ex-stock brokers attractive.

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Bull runs show diversification in poor light. The Conglomerates Sector is a nearly inevitable victim when one or the other industry experiences a surge in demand. Diversified companies cannot refocus their resources to leverage such opportunities fully.

The shoe changes feet in troubled stock investing times. A conglomerate has best chances of surviving a depression. Diversification is also a meaningful hedge against rampant inflation. This approach can help in stock investing as well.

The herd mentality is a bane of stock investing. We pour hard-earned capital to copy what the media and stock brokers tell us others do. The benefits of contrarian stock investing deserve greater attention. A tangible step in this direction is to diversify every stock portfolio.

Not all conglomerates succeed. Some lose the benefits of operational autonomy because they are top-heavy. Others build high fixed costs by decentralizing even common management functions. The centralization-decentralization balance drives business success in

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