PKey Newsbr•nbsp;Russia’s central bank probably doubled spending of foreign reserves to defend the ruble from its biggest weekly plunge against the euro in more than four years. (Bloomberg)brimg alt= src=http://local.content.compendiumblog.com/uploads/user/7e88b461-578b-47f3-88ec-038e212ad053/a56c87c5-8253-45b7-aa80-26c89da2fa75/120208-1.JPG _width=75 _height=75brnbsp;br•nbsp;The Canadian dollar recovered some ground versus the U.S. dollar on Tuesday but remained range-bound and at risk of pressure from falling oil prices and political uncertainty in Canada. (Reuters)/P PQuotable brThe great question is whether the government will succeed in reinstilling the inflationary spirit of reckless abandon in American lenders and borrowers.nbsp; Debasement is what the authorities are driving toward.nbsp; It’s why they keep inventing new [lending] facilities.”br Jim Grant/P PFX Trading – Can you say 1% Treasury Bond Yield?nbsp; brThe Fed’s announcement that it will start buying Treasury bonds, along with everyone else in the world it seems, pushes the Fed into official Quantitative Easing (QE) territory.nbsp; /P Pnbsp;img alt= src=http://local.content.compendiumblog.com/uploads/user/7e88b461-578b-47f3-88ec-038e212ad053/a56c87c5-8253-45b7-aa80-26c89da2fa75/120208-2.JPG _width=75 _height=75/P PbrA recent article, dated October 10th, carried in the ...

In spite of Friday’s 6% US stock market rise, the general mood is gloomy and getting gloomier.  This week’s Barron’s was particularly gloomy.

Multiple articles said there is no place to hide.  We have said the same, as in our Oct 26 post of the same name, “No Place to Hide”.  The fact is, however, there have been places to hide that persist today.  They should be considered, but cautiously in these volatile times.

A specific example of the gloom comes from one of our favorite columnists, Alan Abelson, who said;

November 24 (Barron’s)

Was Friday’s late and sharp rebound another of those one-day wonders or is it, at long last, the start of something a bit more enduring … We earnestly hope it is. But … this market has been filled all the way down with deadly head feints. So the best advice we can offer for the nonce is to wait

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Even though fuel costs have dropped significantly in the last month, energy is still a main conversation point for consumers. As it is an essential part of the next U.S. administration’s platform, the development of alternative energy sources will continue to remain in the forefront of people’s minds. Axial Vector Energy (AXVC.PK) should play a key role in transforming harnessed energy, such as wind power, into usable electricity.

Axial is a company that is focused on developing and licensing advanced internal combustion engines and power generators. The company’s engineering team has confirmed that its Axial Flux generator has identified advantages when used with existing windmills for power generation. While windmills have been used for centuries, they have mainly been used in rural and agricultural areas for pumping, grinding, and other farming tasks. For practical use on a large scale, wind power is first harnessed

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A batch of interesting video clips about the election of Barack Obama and the unfolding financial crisis has appeared over the past few days as all and sundry are attempting to make sense of a rather murky picture. A number of clips that have attracted my attention are shared below.

Firstly, back to basics with a rudimentary explanation by Enspire of how the mortgage crisis came about. (Click here in case you missed Enspire’s previous video, “Understanding the financial crisis”.)

Enspire Learning: The mortgage banking meltdown

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TODAY: Obama not yet committed to missile defense plan, giving Kremlin hope of more flexible relationship; Medvedev and Obama speak; Kremlin to all but ignore Bush administration; Russia to soften trade measures to smooth path to WTO; Russia and Venezuela form development bank; OSCE monitors blame Georgia; Communist marches, anti-corruption, presidential pardons. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has voiced his optimism on foreign policy relations under Barack Obama, amidst news that Dmitry Medvedev and the new president-elect held an amicable telephone conversation over the weekend. The Russian government reportedly believes that the new US administration could be persuaded to abandon plans to station a missile defense shield in Poland, and reports indicate that Obama has not given Poland a definitive answer on the shield. Despite a meeting between Lavrov and Condoleezza Rice over the weekend, the ...

Doug Bandow, a former Reagan hand, is one of those unique right-wing guys who pushes the realist soft policy approach with Russia (more Kissinger than McCain, that is). Today he argues that "the incoming U.S. administration should use the present economic uncertainty as an opportunity to refashion relations with Russia." This guy used to publish favorable columns for payola from Jack Abramoff, so perhaps this should also be taken with a grain of salt.

You can't have a decent Emerging Markets crisis until Argentina does something crazy, and right on cue, here they go again. This time they have hatched a plan to nationalise all private pension savings, sending the local market diving 25% in two days and bond yields soaring. Who knows, maybe it will catch on, I'm sure Hank Paulsen would love to get his hands on those (fast declining) trillions in 401k plans right now. If you're going to socialize the economy, do it properly. Just about every strategist and 'celebrity' investor like Jim Rogers and Mark Mobius recommended overweighting emerging market equities right up until the crash this Summer, on the ludicrous basis that they would 'decouple' from the downturn in the US. There could be no repeat of the 1998 crisis, because their central banks were now awash in foreign currency reserves. Unfortunately, that shoddy ...

Gold pushed over $850 in early London trading, and again during the first hour in New York yesterday, but then eased in listless action to finish the day little changed at $834.60, up $2.40. Overnight, gold has pushed higher.

Platinum was up sharply in the far East, then traded tightly rangebound through the day, rolling between $1020 and $1040 and ending at $1032/oz., up $45. Overnight, platinum has fallen off.

Silver was also rangebound, between $10.70 and $11.10, but fared better than gold as it closed in the upper part of the range at $10.96/oz., up 29 cents. Overnight, silver has edged lower. (Click here for charts)

It was a generally up day for the precious metals, as equities retreated after Monday’s big runup, and oil sank along with the dollar.

Gold’s lack of sharp movement is obviously, at least partially, the result of it being pulled on hard from opposite directions.

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Leave it to the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal to put Dmitry Medvedev on par with Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his Evian speech. Like the overly sensitive victim of a schoolyard bully, the more Washington reacts to overt anti-Americanism, the more it pleases the provocateur. In a particularly intriguing passage, Mr. Medvedev in Evian noted NATO's plans to expand, and "quite naturally," he said, "we regard these actions as directed against us." Then, perhaps anticipating criticism, he said, "Sovietology, like paranoia, is a very dangerous disease, and it is a pity that part of the U.S. Administration still suffers from it." Some thought Mr. Medvedev would lower the volume on former President Putin's anti-U.S. outbursts. Instead, it appears he is joining such other anti-American stalwarts as Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in concluding that international forums are mainly venues for ranting about the ...

The United States is confident that Georgia and Ukraine will become members of the NATO military alliance, a top US administration official stated earlier today. Russia's recognition of Georgian breakaway regions South Ossetia and Abkhazia has increased backing for Georgia and Ukraine's admission to the 26-member NATO alliance, stated the official, who wished to remain anonymous. These statements were made as US Vice President Dick Cheney held talks with Italian leaders. Cheney last week vowed Washington's backing for Baku, Tbilisi and Kiev during a tour of the region, and urged NATO to unite in order to ward off a return of "line-drawing" in Europe. He held weekend meetings with political and business leaders at a conference in Italy, including many of the top world oil executives. The official went on to state that the crisis in the former Soviet regions are "not just a US problem; all of Europe has a stake in ...