Jeremy Siegel is professor of finance of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsyilvania. But he is perhaps best known for his 1994 book Stocks for the Long Run, in which he explained why he believes buying and holding stocks is the best approach to investing.

In Part 1 of an interview with John Authers, investment editor of the Financial Times, Siegel is asked whether he got it wrong against the backdrop of last year’s market crash.

Click here or on the image below to view the video.

In Part 2, Siegel explains why the ageing populations in developed countries mean investors need to put money into emerging markets, or risk losing out.

Click here or on the image below to view the video.

This is Part 2 of a guest contribution by David Kotok* and Bob Eisenbeis** of Cumberland Advisors. (Click here for Part 1.)

Note to Readers:  This is the second of our two-part commentary on the Fed’s exit strategy and the role the Fed has played in complicating its own operating strategies and ability to conduct monetary policy.

In their Wall St. Journal op-ed entitled “The BLOB That Ate Monetary Policy” (September 27, 2009), the Dallas Fed’s Fisher and Rosenblum use the movie metaphor of the BLOB to describe the “too big to fail” banks.  They argue that these BLOBs stood in the way of the Fed’s monetary policy’s low interest rates and thereby “gummed up” the “monetary policy channel,” which would otherwise be able to stimulate economic activity.

The op-ed doesn’t name names.  But we will.  If you examine the list of the Fed’s primary

This is Part 1 of a guest contribution by David Kotok* and Bob Eisenbeis** of Cumberland Advisors. (Part 2 follows tomorrow.)

Note to Readers:  This is the first of a two-part commentary motivated by speeches and editorials from Federal Reserve officials about possible exit strategies from its current quantitative easing policies.  We comment on some problems that the strategies may pose.  We also identify subsidies in the Fed’s current policies.  In part two we comment on the Fed’s own operating policies that may have played an important role in creating the too-big-to-fail problem.  This last issue was overlooked by the Dallas Fed’s Fisher and Rosenblum in their WSJ op-ed piece of September 27, 2009.  They lamented the bottleneck that the concentration of banking resources now creates as the Fed attempts to exit its QE strategy.  They fail to mention how the Fed’s determination of primary-dealer status has

Biomoda, Inc.

(Public, OTC:BMOD)

StocksHaven Investments profiles one of the most promising up and coming small cap biotech companies, Biomoda Inc, which has established a medical breakthrough for early lung cancer detection. It is a development-stage company. The Company is an invitro diagnostics company that develops assays, or tests, to detect cancer. These assays are performed in clinical reference laboratories using body-fluid samples. This technology is based on a licensed patent from Los Alamos National Laboratories. The technology is based on a molecule that has an affinity to bind with cancer cells and it fluoresces red under ultra violet light. It is a porphyrin molecule. This technology works with a range of cell types. The Company is in the process of developing a line of assays for a variety of cancers based on adaptations of this technology. Biomoda’s first product

AutoChina International Ltd., formerly Spring Creek Acquisition Corp., provides commercial auto sales and financing in China. The company today announced the appointment of Jason Wang as the company’s new CFO, effective immediately.

With more than 10 years of experience in finance, capital markets and company expansion, Wang will head AutoChina’s overall financial planning and control, as well as China and U.S. GAAP compliance, SEC filings, investor relations, M&A activities, and general corporate financial responsibilities.

“We expect Jason’s leadership and financial acumen will be a great asset to our company and add increasing depth and diverse skills to our corporate finance team. Jason’s familiarity with our operations as an investor, combined with his capital markets expertise, should make for a smooth transition. We also look forward to Johnson Lau’s continuing contributions as his background in accounting and financial reporting will continue to serve AutoChina well throughout our expected growth in the

The new version of Mediasite offers enhancement to Mediasite Recorders, webcasting appliances that capture, encode and synchronize high-quality video and DVI/VGA images as rich media presentations, and the Mediasite Server that streams live and on-demand webcasts and provides centralized content management.

Through its Mediasite.com portal launched in 2005, Sonic Foundry hosts thousands of fully searchable public presentations. Major enhancements enriching Mediasite 5.1 includes New Silverlight 2.0 based Players, Enhanced tracking and reporting and In-catalog editing. The company can now customize URLs and provide automatic closed captioning facility for institutions to offer technology to users with disabilities.

We believe that Mediasite is the strongest weapon that Sonic has in its armory, which will definitely help it build market share.

Sonic Foundry’s largest industry vertical is the higher education market where it serves over

Mr Milner's story, like his growing portfolio, combines American ideas with Russian opportunities. The son of an economist and a doctor, he studied particle physics at Moscow State University and worked as a researcher at the Soviet Union's prestigious Academy of Sciences.

As the transformation of the country accelerated in 1990, "instead of sticking around and doing useful stuff like privatising oil companies, I went to the US to study," Mr Milner jokes. He became the first Russian graduate of the Wharton School of Business, after which he spent three years at the World Bank working on Russia's emerging financial sector. He then joined Menatep, the bank founded and formerly owned by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the oil tycoon arrested in 2003. Mr Milner set up

Insights from Jeremy Siegel: 3 Reasons Why The Dow Will Hit 10,000 in 2009

by Dr. Mark Skousen, Advisory Panelist

Wall Street has been debating the huge run-up in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Was March the beginning of a huge rally that will take the market to new highs? Have we witnessed the proverbial “dead-cat bounce?” The prognosticators have been unsure, uncertain and uncommittal about what they see coming next…

So let me make it clear where I stand: We are in the beginning of a new bull market that will carry us to 10,000 on the Dow by year’s-end - and new highs within a couple of years.

Yes, the recovery will be volatile. But now is the time to buy, despite the big run up…

No doubt there’s plenty of bad news out there - rising unemployment with no end in sight, threatened tax increases on capital gains

Pessimism about the U.S. economy and financial market is so thick right now you could cut it with a knife. I’ll be the first to admit that times are tough. But Americans have seen tough times before. And we have always prevailed.

Too many investment myths have gone unchallenged lately. Today I plan to refute them - and explain why financial markets are likely to perform much better than most investors believe in the year ahead.

Let’s begin by examining the four biggest investment myths circulating right now…

Investment Myth #1: The Era of Free Markets is Over

It’s true that many of the apostles of free-market economics have begged Congress for government intervention during the current credit crisis. But nobody is seriously arguing that Uncle Sam should nationalize the economy, set wages and prices, or establish production quotas.

The free market still constitutes the best means of securing

by Alexander Green, Chairman, Investment U Investment Director, The Oxford Club Monday, December 29, 2008: Issue #907

Pessimism about the U.S. economy and financial market is so thick right now you could cut it with a knife.

I’ll be the first to admit that times are tough. But Americans have seen tough times before. And we have always prevailed.

Too many investment myths have gone unchallenged lately. Today I plan to refute them - and explain why financial markets are likely to perform much better than most investors believe in the year ahead.

Let’s begin by examining the four biggest investment myths circulating right now…

Investment Myth #1: The Era of Free Markets is Over

It’s true that many of the apostles of free-market economics have begged Congress for government intervention during the current credit crisis. But nobody is seriously arguing that