My colleague Nathan Slaughter knows just about everything there is to know about the energy industry. He’s been warning investors that just because the price of oil is touching $100 a barrel doesn’t mean you should necessarily buy stocks like ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) or Chevron (NYSE: CVX). Read More

They finally did it. Gasoline prices have been creeping ever closer to the $3-a-gallon mark in my hometown. Now they’ve pierced through. And with oil touching $100 a barrel, gas stations may as well be in a race to see who can reach $4… Read More

In case you haven’t heard, inflation is on its way. Unprecedented levels of government debt and deficits will likely weaken the value of the dollar at some point, thus raising the prices of everything it buys. But, the Federal Reserve says… Read More

It’s one of the rarest metals on the planet… 30 times more rare than gold. It takes anywhere from 7 to 12 million tons of raw ore to produce a single ounce of the metal. In 2009, miners extracted 64 million ounces of gold; stockpiles of this metal grew by just 6 million ounces. And I use the word stockpile figuratively, because unlike other metals there are typically little to no above-ground supplies of this rare and valuable metal. That’s because demand often outpaces supply. In 2008, the world consumed 7.3… Read More

It’s one of the rarest metals on the planet… 30 times more rare than gold. It takes anywhere from 7 to 12 million tons of raw ore to produce a single ounce of the metal. In 2009, miners extracted 64 million ounces of gold; stockpiles of this metal grew by just 6 million ounces. And I use the word stockpile figuratively, because unlike other metals there are typically little to no above-ground supplies of this rare and valuable metal. That’s because demand often outpaces supply. In 2008, the world consumed 7.3 million ounces of the stuff, compared to production of just 7.0 million ounces. We need every ounce available and then some. So why is this metal needed at all when it’s expensive, rare, and hard to mine? Above all, platinum owes its popularity to chemistry. You’ve probably heard of catalytic converters. Internal combustion engines would spew tons of noxious pollutants without these miraculous devices, which convert hydrocarbon exhaust into carbon dioxide and water vapor. Well, platinum group metals (PGMs) are the catalyzing agent — and try as they might, automakers have never found a… Read More

Perhaps the easiest way to profit from higher oil prices is to buy shares of the largest energy firms in the world. These companies are referred to as “integrated” oil and gas firms, which stems from the fact that they are involved in just about every facet of… Read More

Dear Investor, On Sept. 30, 2010, I told you about what could be the biggest profit opportunity of the next few years. The investments I recommended have already started moving: they’re up 25%, 34% and 56% in just four months. Read More

Five weeks into 2011, and investors are looking at their first bona fide bubble of 2011. All that money sloshing around global markets, led by the Federal Reserve’s massive easing policy, was bound to start igniting various speculative asset classes. Gold surely looked frothy in 2010, and in 2011, it’s copper that’s looking bubble-icious.     You have to take a 15-year look at copper prices to understand just how crazy the current market looks. For a decade up until 2005, copper usually traded for $75 to $100 a pound. That price reflected a nice equilibrium… Read More

Five weeks into 2011, and investors are looking at their first bona fide bubble of 2011. All that money sloshing around global markets, led by the Federal Reserve’s massive easing policy, was bound to start igniting various speculative asset classes. Gold surely looked frothy in 2010, and in 2011, it’s copper that’s looking bubble-icious.     You have to take a 15-year look at copper prices to understand just how crazy the current market looks. For a decade up until 2005, copper usually traded for $75 to $100 a pound. That price reflected a nice equilibrium between supply and demand. It was also a period of steadily declining output of copper, as second-tier and third-tier mines were hard-pressed to make money. China changed the whole dynamic. As its economy started to take off during the past decade, demand for copper, which is used in many industrial and construction applications, soared, pushing prices up above the $300 mark in 2006, 2007 and 2008. Although copper prices eventually cooled, China learned its lesson. The next time copper prices took off, China would have ample supplies on hand to draw upon… Read More

Policy planners in Washington just caught a big break. They’ve been repeatedly trying to prod China to strengthen its currency — to no avail — but larger economic forces may yield the same benefit. Prices are starting to bubble up in China and, if you connect the dots, you can start to see myriad benefits for the U.S. economy and U.S. stocks. A slow build The Chinese economy has been able to grow at a rapid clip for more than a decade without any price pressures — a feat that is… Read More

Policy planners in Washington just caught a big break. They’ve been repeatedly trying to prod China to strengthen its currency — to no avail — but larger economic forces may yield the same benefit. Prices are starting to bubble up in China and, if you connect the dots, you can start to see myriad benefits for the U.S. economy and U.S. stocks. A slow build The Chinese economy has been able to grow at a rapid clip for more than a decade without any price pressures — a feat that is largely unparalleled in the modern era. Not anymore. Inflation in China started to perk up in 2010 and finished the year at a peak, with inflation now running close to 5%. (The official figure released by the Chinese government is a bit lower, while analysts at HSBC in Hong Kong think it’s a bit higher than that rate). The reasons for rising inflation are pretty straightforward and can be explained by the notion of “capacity utilization.” As is the case with any industry, prices remain stable as long as producers have excess production capacity. Read More

To make money in stocks, you need to tie together various threads of information to see what it might mean for your investments. Right now, a pair of disparate data points has caught my attention: rising oil prices and a trio of unloved stocks that may really benefit from it. Read More

The world is undergoing a frantic search for new sources of oil. The reason is simple: World-wide oil supply is dwindling while demand is soaring. The planet is estimated to have 1.3 trillion barrels of proven reserves — only enough for 40 years at current consumption rates. Read More