Recent quarters have played up the commodities markets. Oil and gold are the celebrities of the sector and moving higher and lower at the whims of the mutual funds and individual commodity bugs. When it comes right down to it, however, who can afford some of these commodities? After all, over $1,000.00 per/oz. for gold or a contract for $80.00 per/bar of oil is a bit pricy for the average investor.

Past posts have discussed “hitting it where they ain’t.” As far as base metals are concerned, consider silver/copper instead of gold. Stock or hard asset is the choice. Hard asset lets an investor know what they have and what it is worth without wondering what a company’s management is up to. Stocks, on the other hand, can move either way on a dime and, if bought at the right price, do very nicely. Either way there is profit opportunity

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It is estimated that the U.S. House of Representatives' construction-related stimulus proposal, released on 15 January 2009, might exceed $160 billion. The following is an outline of the proposal:Transportation:Dept. of Transportation (DOT) federal-aid highways = $30 billion; DOT airport improvement grants = $3 billion; DOT passenger rail = $1.1 billion; DOT transit capital assistance to buy buses, railcars & make facility improvements = $6 billion; DOT transit fixed-guide-way infrastructure = $2 billion; DOT transit capital investment grants for light rail, heavy rail, commuter rail, HOV projects = $1 billion; Army Corps of Engineers (civil works) = $4.5 billion; U.S. Forest Service capital improvement & maintenance = $0.65 billion.Defense-related:Facilities improvements = $4.5 billion; hospitals and ambulatory surgical centers = $3.75 billion; Troop housing and child care centers = $1.55 billion; Reserves and National Guard = $0.40 billion; base realignment and closure environmental cleanup = ...

The massive liquidation of equities resumed with a vengeance during Monday trading on the Canadian Markets. For the tale of the tape, the TSX Exchange lost 5.30%, while the TSX Gold Index fell 6.3% and the TSX Venture Exchange, Canada’s largest junior exploration bourse, dropped 12.78% with the declining issuers swamping the advancers by a 1,008 to 129 margin on big volume of 235 million shares traded.