We think it is an excellent time to hit the car lots. Sales are slow, inventories are high, raw materials (steel, chemicals, plastic, rubber) are depressed, and interest rates are near zero. Demand is off due to the credit crunch. Dealers and manufacturers are hurting and are hungry for business.

The following list is our list of favorites from the San Diego Car Show. This is our list of All Pros (some are Hall of Famers) from the half a thousand vehicles from around the planet on display there.

Despite the bad publicity recently, Chevrolet and Chrysler have some of the best products in the market. The non-Chevy part of General Motors (GM) must be restructured. Also, Honda (HMC) has emerged to be a Big-4 player in the US. They work and act more domestic than even Chrysler.

We were disappointed with Ford (F), Toyota (TM) and Nissan (

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Dollar-Euro parity? Crude at $12 a barrel? 15% unemployment? J. Christoph Amberger presents the Today’s Financial News top predictions for 2009…

A month ago, I asked my colleagues at TFN to think about the year ahead… the events that will shape the year both politically and financially. In short, to come up with realistic “Predictions for 2009″. As history is fast-forwarding, some of these events have already taken place. Others look increasingly probable… and not half as far out as they appeared just a month ago.

Here they are, in no particular order

*** Dollar hits parity against euro by June 2009.

*** Oil bottoms at $12 per barrel by April 2009.

*** Gold falls to $500 as Indian economy crashes and Dubai abandons spending spree.

*** Russian troops wearing Gazprom uniforms invade Ukraine to “protect” natural gas pipeline. The Russian stock market collapses. Three European energy stocks soar. (Yes, there’s

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The election last night of Barack Obama to the White House has many green investors cheering, but their elation may be short-lived. For one, the ROI of alternative energy is still pegged to the price of fossil fuels. Second, environmentalists may find themselves at cross-purposes with one faction leading the charge for a greener grid while the other seeks to protect endangered species and offshore territory from solar arrays and wind farms.

Perhaps the biggest green market, however, will not be an Obama-led green mandate, but emerging markets like China and India. In these places, green presents a true economic gain untethered from the price of oil, coal or natural gas.

That’s because the cost of pollution in these economies has a true impact on the GDP. Pollution raises the price of food, energy and health care. In the case of China, the pollution quotient

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Benjamin Graham, the teacher and mentor of Warren Buffett, wrote two seminal tomes on value investing called Security Analysis in 1934 and The Intelligent Investor in 1949. I was reading The Intelligent Investor at a time when the bear market following the dot com bubble was in full swing and I remember thinking to myself that some of what Mr. Graham mentions in his book may no longer hold true as even at that point  it was almost impossible to find stocks that met his criteria such as a Price/Book ratio of less than 1.5, a P/E < 15, uninterrupted dividends for last 20 years and an adequate margin of safety. If you like bargain hunting for things, you are probably aware that there is an intrinsic value to things and unless the seller is in distress it is very difficult to ...

Unorganised and organised retail must coexist and flourish in India…

After almost scaring the Tata Motors away from West Bengal, Mamata Bannerjee has now trained her guns on Reliance Retail. Well, Reliance Retail should be used to being targeted by feisty women politicians. Immediately after coming to power in Lucknow, Ms. Mayawati had earlier undertaken a similar exercise in UP.

All this is taking place when behemoths of international retail are trying to enter the Indian market. Tesco has chosen to come with Tatas, while Reliance has tied up with Wincanton. The big daddy of them all, Wal-Mart is coming to India courtesy the Bharti group.

In the September edition of Pragati-The Indian National Interest Review, Prashant Kumar Singh makes significant observations about the confusion surrounding retail industry in India. He rightly notices that-

The debate over retail in India has been fixated on the growth

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