USDCHF remains in downtrend from 0.9553, and the fall extends to as low as 0.9264. Resistance is located at the downward trend line on 4-hour chart, as long as the trend line resistance holds, the downtrend could be expected to continue, and next target would be at 0.9200 area. On the upside, a clear break above the trend line resistance will suggest that consolidation of the downtrend is underway, then further rally to 0.9400 area could be seen.
By Investment U
A recent Barron’s article was very positive about banks in 2013.
They expect healthy growth from capital markets, corporate lending and deposits. And the existing catalysts of housing and the labor market to continue to push earnings higher.
The article listed the EU and the US regulatory environment as the reasons for a recent slump in consumer confidence and the slowdown in bank stocks. But they are confident earnings growth will continue through the fourth quarter, supported by improving credit quality, loan growth, and better expense control.
The keys going forward, and where your focus should be to track this segment of the market, are the housing recovery and the improving jobs numbers. Both will run through to the banks and will drive their bottom lines.
The basket of stocks Barron’s listed are included below. The one that jumps out at me is PNC. It has shown up on at least five other recommended lists for the banking sector, and that deserves a little attention.
– Bank of America (NYSE: BAC)
– JP Morgan (NYSE: JPM)
– Key Corp (NYSE: KEY)
– Pac West Bancorp (NASDAQ: PACW)
– PNC Financial (NYSE: PNC)
Next up, natural gas is quietly creeping up in price.
Gas prices are running up on much tighter than expected numbers for stored gas. The US Energy Administration reports that the stockpile was 2.1% below the five-year average.
Greg Troccoli, technician and co-founder of Chart LabPro.com stated in a recent The Wall Street Journal article that gas is up 15% and no one is paying any attention.
The United States Natural Gas Fund (NYSE: UNG) was up 4.1% in one day of trading last week and other gas indexes are up 2% to 4%, as well.
A Goldman Sachs report stated that it sees prices going to $4.50 levels but are looking for about $4.25 this year. Gas prices broke through $4.15 early last week.
Goldman says the Street does not appreciate the significance of the fact that the gas storage surplus is gone and production is declining. Storage is actually showing a deficit through April 4 and there has been a two-month decline in production. And, Goldman expects a greater shift back to coal than previously estimated.
Natural gas is the fuel for the next 100 years. In fact, industry insiders are predicting gas will dominate transportation, electrical generation and manufacturing much sooner than anyone thinks possible.
The companies Goldman likes: Southwestern (NYSE: SWN), Cabot (NYSE: COG), Halliburton (NYSE: HAL), Basic Energy Services (NYSE: BAS), Nabors (NYSE: NBR) and NRG Energy (NYSE: NRG).
The ones I have seen on multiple gas lists are Halliburton, Nabors and Cabot.
Owning natural gas now is like buying into the oil boom of the early 20th century. It is a must for every portfolio.
[Note: Our friends at The Oxford Club have tipped us off to a natural gas stock they believe could triple by the end of the year. According to their sources, this company is about to make a major announcement that “will launch one of the most explosive stock run-ups in recent history.”
To see the full report, click here.]
This week the Award goes to the health minister in the Czech Republic who wants to make water cheaper than beer.
You heard me right; a glass of water in a pub in the Czech Republic is twice as expensive as beer.
The Czech Republic is the largest consumer of beer in the world and their beer-drinking heritage goes back to the 13th century.
They drink so much beer it is delivered to the pubs, not in kegs or cases, but delivered by tanker truck. The kind we use to deliver gasoline.
And they take this stuff really seriously.
There was actually a war fought over the right to brew beer and the patron saint of the country is also the patron saint of beer making, St Wenceslas.
I grew up in a coal mining town where there was a bar on every corner, and I thought we drank a lot of beer, but these folks are the real champs.
The health minister said he gives his efforts very little chance of success, but he will try again.
One pub owner was quoted as saying, “It really ticks me off. Beer is like mothers milk to us. The government should work on important things.”
Beer, half the price of water! Maybe it’s time for another trip to Prague.
Good Investing,
Steve
Article By Investment U
Original Article: Time to Play Rising Natural Gas Prices
Commitment of Traders Weekly Data shows which way Large Traders and Hedge Funds were leaning last week in the Futures Market
By CountingPips.com
The latest weekly Commitments of Traders (COT) report, released on Friday by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), showed that large futures traders slightly decreased their total bullish bets of the US dollar last week against the other major foreign currencies.
Non-commercial large futures traders, including hedge funds and large International Monetary Market speculators, registered an overall US dollar long position of $25 billion as of Tuesday April 9th. This was a decline from the total long position of $26.3 billion on April 2nd, according to position calculations by Reuters (US dollar positions against the total positions of eurofx, British pound, Japanese yen, Australian dollar, Canadian dollar and the Swiss franc).
Individual Currencies Large Speculators Positions in Futures:
The individual currency contracts quoted directly against the US dollar last week saw increases for the euro, Japanese yen, Swiss franc and the New Zealand dollar while the British pound sterling, Australian dollar, Mexican peso and the Canadian dollar all had a declining number of net contracts for the week.
Individual Currency Charts:
EuroFX: Weekly change of +14,843
EuroFX: Large trader positions for the euro rose last week following three straight weeks of decline. Euro contracts improved to a total net position of -50,858 contracts in the data reported for April 9th following the previous week’s total of -65,701 net contracts on April 2nd. This is a change of +14,843 contracts from the previous week.
British Pound Sterling: Weekly change of -4,949
GBP: British pound spec positions declined last week after an increase the previous week. British pound speculative positions fell last week to a total of -69,969 net contracts on April 9th following a total of -65,020 net contracts reported for April 2nd. This was a weekly change of -4,949 in large trader contracts.
Pound speculator positions have been in a negative bearish position for nine consecutive weeks since crossing over on February 5th.
Japanese Yen: Weekly change of +474
JPY: Japanese yen net speculative contracts rose last week for a second consecutive week. Japanese yen positions increased to a total of -77,697 net contracts on April 9th following a total of -78,171 net short contracts on April 2nd. This is a weekly change of +474 positions.
Swiss Franc: Weekly change of +2,001
CHF: Swiss franc speculator positions improved last week for a second consecutive week although still remains in a bearish position. Net positions for the Swiss currency futures increased to a total of -10,014 contracts on April 9th following a total of -12,015 net contracts reported for April 2nd. This is a weekly change of +2,001 contracts.
Canadian Dollar: Weekly change of -6,589
CAD: Canadian dollar positions decreased last week for a second straight week and to a new low level in 2013. Canadian dollar positions decreased to a total of -71,133 contracts as of April 9th following a total of -64,544 net contracts that were reported for April 2nd.
This is a weekly change of -6,589 net contracts following a weekly change of -1,899 the previous week.
Australian Dollar: Weekly change of -6,092
AUD: The Australian dollar declined last week for a second consecutive week. Aussie speculative futures positions decreased to a total net amount of +77,879 contracts on April 9th after totaling +83,971 net contracts as of April 2nd. This is a weekly change of -6,092 in net positions following the previous week’s -1,544 change.
New Zealand Dollar: Weekly change of +6,763
NZD: New Zealand dollar speculator positions jump last week to rise for a third consecutive week to a new 2013 high level. NZD contracts rose to a total of +25,150 net long contracts as of April 9th following a total of +18,387 net long contracts on April 2nd. This constitutes a weekly change of +6,763 following the previous week’s change of +1,471 net contracts.
Mexican Peso: Weekly change of -213
MXN: Mexican peso speculative contracts dipped ever so slightly last week after rising for the previous two weeks. Peso positions decreased to a total of +142,542 net speculative positions as of April 9th following a total of +142,755 contracts that were reported for April 2nd. This is a weekly change in net large peso speculator positions of -213 contracts following the previous change of +14,593 contracts.
10 Year Treasuries: Weekly change of +10,087
10 Year Notes: 10-Year Treasury Note speculative contracts advanced higher last week to rise for a fourth consecutive week. 10-Year positions rose to a total of +120,779 net speculative positions as of April 9th following a total of +110,692 contracts that were reported for April 2nd. This is a weekly change in net large speculator positions of +10,087 contracts following the previous week’s change of +12,502 contracts.
Crude Oil Light Sweet: Weekly change of -25,452
Crude Oil: Crude Oil speculative contracts decreased last week after rising for the previous two weeks. Crude spec positions fell to a total of +223,398 net speculative positions as of April 9th following a total of +248,850 contracts that were reported for April 2nd. This is a weekly change in net large speculator positions of -25,452 contracts which is the largest weekly fall of 2013 so far.
Gold Futures CMX: Weekly change of -847
Gold: Gold speculative contracts fell just slightly last week to decrease for a third straight week. Gold futures positions declined to a total of +119,359 net speculative positions as of April 9th following a total of +120,206 contracts that were reported for April 2nd. This is a weekly change in net large speculator positions of -847 contracts following the previous week’s change of -12,240 contracts.
S&P 500 Index Futures: Weekly change of +2,299
S&P 500: S&P 500 speculative contracts edged higher last week for a second straight week. S&P 500 futures positions rose to a total of +6,831 net speculative positions as of April 9th following a total of +4,532 contracts that were reported for April 2nd. This is a weekly change in net large speculator positions of +2,299 contracts.
VIX Futures: Weekly change of -1,380
VIX: VIX speculative contracts decreased last week to fall for a second week. VIX futures positions declined to a total of -69,653 net speculative positions as of April 9th following a total of -68,273 contracts that were reported for April 2nd. This is a weekly change in net large speculator positions of -1,380 contracts.
The Commitment of Traders report is published every Friday by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and shows futures positions data that was reported as of the previous Tuesday (3 days behind).
Each currency contract is a quote for that currency directly against the U.S. dollar, a net short amount of contracts means that more speculators are betting that currency to fall against the dollar and a net long position expect that currency to rise versus the dollar.
(The graphs overlay the forex spot closing price of each Tuesday when COT trader positions are reported for each corresponding spot currency pair.)
See more information and explanation on the weekly COT report from the CFTC website.
Article by CountingPips.com – Forex News & Market Analysis
By Bill Bonner
Nothing beats luck! Then luck beats you.
Want to know the secret of success? John D. Rockefeller explained it a century ago: “Get to work early. Work late. Strike oil.”
“It’s amazing how lucky I get when I work 14 hours per day,” said a famous workaholic.
But a lot of people who work 14 hours per day don’t get lucky. They
just get tired. They drill dry holes. They run for president… and
lose. They do careful stock market research… and the stocks go down,
anyway.
What’s the real secret? Napoleon knew it. He said he didn’t want smart generals. He wanted lucky generals.
That’s not to say that luck is everything. You have to be ready for it… and worthy of it.
How? By working hard. There are certain basic requirements for
anything. If you want to be a plumber, you’ve got to learn your pipes.
If you want to be an economist, you’ve got to know your mumbo-jumbo. And
if you want to win a Nobel Prize, you’ve got to do something that the
Nobel committee might consider worthwhile.
All of those things are more or less under your control. And if you
want to get lucky in your career or your investments, you have to lay
the groundwork. You’ve got to put in the hours.
But then… it’s a matter of luck.
Everybody knows Warren Buffett is a genius. But there are a lot of
geniuses in the investment world. And not all of them are Warren
Buffett. What makes the difference? You got it – luck!
He was buying solid stocks in an intelligent way in the middle of the biggest financial boom in history. Here’s Bloomberg, on the case:
Bill Gross, manager of the world’s
largest mutual fund, said the most renowned investors from Warren
Buffett to George Soros may owe their reputations to a favorable era for
money management as expanding credit fueled gains in asset prices
across markets.
The real test of greatness for
investors is not how they navigated market cycles during that time, but
whether they can adapt to historical changes occurring over half a
century or longer, Gross, 68, wrote in an investment outlook published
today entitled “A Man in the Mirror,” named after a song by Michael
Jackson.
“All of us, even the old guys like
Buffett, Soros, Fuss – yeah, me too – have cut our teeth during perhaps
a most advantageous period of time, the most attractive epoch, that an
investor could experience,” Gross wrote. “Perhaps it was the epoch that
made the man, as opposed to the man that made the epoch.”
What was unique about the epoch – 1980-2007 – was that it was the final stage of a huge private-sector credit expansion.
There were many reasons for this phenomenon, in which total US debt
went from about 150% of GDP to over 350%. The main one was that the US
was lucky. It has the world’s reserve currency. People used the dollar
as they had once used gold. They thought they could trust it. So when
the US sent a dollar overseas, the foreigners were happy to take it… and keep it. They still are.
This huge credit expansion meant that consumers could buy things
without fully paying for them. The foreigners took their dollars… and
held onto them. They never asked for anything else in return.
It also meant that businesses in the US were able to earn revenue
with no offsetting labor cost. People were spending money they never
earned… that is, money that US businesses never paid out in wages.
They were living on credit – on earnings that were supposed to take
place in the future. This meant business revenues were higher than
usual… and their costs were lower.
It was a great time to be an investor. It was a great time to be a consumer too. We were all lucky.
But luck runs out. For five years now, the US private sector has been
trying to deleverage – as the public sector insists that it borrow
more. Result: economic stagnation.
Also, US consumers have watched their wages and family incomes fall
for more than 10 years. And US investors – led by Warren Buffett – have
been unable to stay even. Adjusted for inflation (however you calculate
it), investors are still below where they were in 2000.
And now the world has changed – it is now almost the opposite of
1980, when the big boom began. Today, stocks are expensive, not cheap
like they were in 1980. Interest rates are low, not high like they were
in 1980. Total debt is now around 350% of GDP, not 150% like it was in
1980.
Hope to make a lot of money in stocks or bonds now? Good luck!
Regards,
Bill
To learn more about Bill Visit his Google+ Page or Bill Bonner’s Diary
| COUNTRY | MSCI | NEW RATE | OLD RATE | 1 YEAR AGO |
| MONGOLIA | 11.50% | 12.50% | 13.25% | |
| POLAND | EM | 3.25% | 3.25% | 4.50% |
| SOUTH KOREA | EM | 2.75% | 2.75% | 3.25% |
| INDONESIA | EM | 5.75% | 5.75% | 5.75% |
| SERBIA | FM | 11.75% | 11.75% | 9.50% |
| PERU | EM | 4.25% | 4.25% | 4.25% |
| CHILE | EM | 5.00% | 5.00% | 5.00% |
| PAKISTAN | FM | 9.50% | 9.50% | 12.00% |
| COUNTRY | MSCI | DATE | RATE | 1 YEAR AGO |
| SRI LANKA | FM | 16-Apr | 7.50% | 7.75% |
| TURKEY | EM | 16-Apr | 5.50% | 5.75% |
| BRAZIL | EM | 17-Apr | 7.25% | 9.00% |
| SWEDEN | DM | 17-Apr | 1.00% | 1.50% |
| CANADA | DM | 17-Apr | 1.00% | 1.00% |
By Justice Litle
In the movie Havana, Robert Redford tells Lena Olin, “A
butterfly can flutter its wings over a flower in China and cause a
hurricane in the Caribbean.”
The butterfly effect describes a finding of chaos theory known as
“sensitive dependence on initial conditions.” Even a minute change in
inputs (the butterfly’s wings in China) can trigger massive effects on
the other side of the globe (a hurricane in the Caribbean).
It is as true in the world of finance as it is in the world of
weather… especially when the butterfly in question is Godzilla-sized.
The new Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, and Japan’s new central bank
chief, Haruhiko Kuroda, have taken “quantitative easing” (aka debt
monetization) to a level never seen before. Call it “Godzilla-sized.”
Relative to the size of its economy, the Bank of Japan‘s stimulus will be three times the size of that of the Fed.
And that is where the butterfly effect comes in…
Imagine the following scenario:
You have been saving and adding to
your nest egg for many decades. It is all you have for your retirement.
Your prime minister comes on television and basically says, “We are
going to print currency until we get a 2% inflation rate — no matter
what.”
You have no idea what the outcome of
this massive experiment will be. You understand, through some basic
research, only that it is the biggest monetary gamble in the history of
the world. It is a gamble with your retirement funds, which could potentially lose half of their value (or more) over the next two years.
You also know that, if your
government screws up this “experiment,” runaway inflation could wreak
havoc on your country. Your food and energy costs alone, for example,
could triple or quadruple (as you are essentially an island nation with
no natural resources).
This is not hypothetical. The Japanese prime minister has already
announced his crazy plan and hired a crazy central banker to carry it
out. What would you do if you were in this situation?
One thing you might do is seek out assets denominated in a stronger currency… assets that function as inflation hedges… assets such as real estate.
Property booms in Miami, New York City, Las Vegas… and even
Houston… are being driven not just by easy monetary policy and Wall
Street private equity capital, but also by foreign investors sending
their capital to the US.
When, say, a wealthy Brazilian decides to buy a block of Florida
condos as a diversification of assets, he can do it only by exchanging
the Brazilian currency for dollars. These exchanges occur on such a
massive scale they have kept the dollar more stable than many
expected…
Also, the US remains a military and agrarian superpower. This
combination of military might and food stability makes US Treasury bonds
attractive to foreign capital as a safe haven. (The political and
military positioning of the US is a valuable intangible asset, not
unlike the value of the Coca-Cola brand.)
Japanese savers are already rushing to escape a doomed currency. That
means their investment dollars will flood US markets — fueling a US
real estate hyper-bubble.
To play this setup, you could buy shares in the iShares FTSE NAREIT Resi Plus Capp (NYSE:REZ), which tracks the performance of the US residential real estate equity market.
This isn’t quite a pure play on the residential real estate sector.
(There are some health care and personal storage REITs in there too.)
But you get exposure to plenty of apartment complex REITs, such as
Equity Residential, AvalonBay, Essex Property, Camden Property Trust,
UDR and BRE Properties.
Or you simply avail of ultra-low interest rates, buy a second home and rent it out.
Both are great ways to prepare for the Godzilla-sized flood of cash out of Japan and into the US real estate market.
Carpe Divitiae,
Justice
Article brought to you by Inside Investing Daily. Republish
without charge. Required: Author attribution, links back to original
content or www.insideinvestingdaily.com. Any investment contains risk. Please see our disclaimer.
Today’s Money Weekend will begin out in the galaxy before returning down to earth to explore a rock bottom, contrarian mining play. Believe it or not, there’s a link between them.
In case you missed it, NASA confirmed this week that it’s going to try and snag an asteroid in the next decade and stick a team of astronauts on it. Hopefully they can grab some samples. Maybe they’ll just poke around.
But the larger story is that we’re on the front door step of the cosmos and are now — thanks to the commercialisation of space flight (entrepreneurship) — getting ready to take several practical steps further into the future of mankind.
Not since the moon landings have we been on the verge of really exploring our solar system like this. It will also change the world and create incredible investment opportunities.
One of them will eventually be mining in outer space. If you think working a deep sea oil rig is remote, what about an asteroid?
‘Asteroids are full of valuable minerals – as well as water and oxygen that can be used to support activity in space,’ wrote Glenn Harlan Reynolds in USA Today this week. Some of those minerals are precious metals — especially the platinum group. And one reason why entrepreneurs will probably soon lead the way into space even further than NASA. That’s what professor Michio Kaku told CBS News last month:
‘Private capitalists are saying, ‘If NASA won’t fund this thing, why not private enterprise?’ If they get a piece of the action, that’s going to be on the table as well, whether or not entrepreneurs can see a gold rush in outer space.’
You may have heard that the Google squillionaire Larry Page teamed up with some other entrepreneurs to form company Planetary Resources. But there’s also Deep Space Industries. The push into space should drive incredible advances in technology, some of which will no doubt flow through to other industries. Stay tuned for more on this.
To be clear, asteroid mining isn’t going to happen tomorrow or anytime soon. Any space mining program will need a lot of money. Right now, that might sound pretty ambitious to people on the ground here on earth because miners, especially juniors, are struggling to attract capital.
One group is junior gold miners. A big part of that is because the gold price is not going up, lethargic even in the face of Japan’s decision to double its money supply. That’s the equivalent of a financial asteroid. It’s also highly inflationary and sets the stage for a new boom in precious metals.
But you wouldn’t know it looking at the gold price. In fact, right now it’s probably even worse for Aussie investors as the Australian dollar strengthens against the USD!
But there’s no need to worry, according to natural resource veteran Rick Rule. He calls the downward move in gold ‘a cyclical downturn in a secular bull market’. That’s a fancy way of saying the gold price will go higher in the long term, but can go down in the short term. It’s perfectly normal in any market.
We like to remember the old Wall Street saying, ‘bull markets climb a wall of worry’. The day you hear nothing else but blue sky for gold will be the day to get your money out and buy something else.
There’s different ways to play the gold bull market. One is to buy physical gold or an ETF that tracks the price. The other is to try and get leverage to the price and buy gold stocks. This is a more risky, speculative way.
Of course, there’s a handy line attributed to Mark Twain worth keeping in mind: a gold miner is a liar standing next to a hole in the ground. That is to say, it pays to be sceptical. That’s why it’s handy to have a guy like Alex over at Diggers & Drillers sniffing around.
If you ask natural resource veteran Rick Rule, he sees a once in a generation opportunity in gold stocks. Rick Rule spoke recently for a web event called Downturn Millionaires.
The background is that gold stocks have taken a caning lately. Rule calls it an ‘extended sale’ where the market is taking down the good companies as well as the bad. No doubt that’s true. But jeez, if you want to get on board, looks like you’ll need to be patient and have an iron gut.
Rule talked about picking up bargains in gold stocks in the 1998–2002 gold bear market. That’s four years before the payoff began. But when it did, it was a monster and that’s what he’s backing to happen a second time around.
The other hard part, he said, was accepting that right now, when people are selling, you should be buying — the classic contrarian. Does it hurt yet?
And if you think that’s hard, try this for advice: if you bought a stock at $2 and its now 20c, he says you either sell the stock and admit your thesis was wrong or you buy more. If you liked it at $2, you have to love it at 20c. If you’re not willing to buy the stock, you shouldn’t be holding the stock.
We take it as the hard voice of experience. Mining is a capital intensive business, he added. No capital, no business. That means looking for companies with lots of cash that can ride out the volatility.
Another point he made was even more interesting. He said junior mining companies, before they do into production, are not asset based companies. They’re research and development businesses. They’re exploration businesses. He meant human resources are important. Don’t get tied up in statistics. It’s the people who make these deposits work.
That means if you want to own gold miners, look for companies run by people who have been successful in the past.
Callum Newman
Editor, Money Weekend
PS. Don’t forget if you want to keep track of the latest things we’re reading and brief commentary on events that happen through the day, check out our Google+ page and Kris Sayce’s as well.
From the Port Phillip Publishing Library
Special Report: TORRENT SIGNAL 3
Daily Reckoning: The Market Is High
Money Morning: An Anarchist Squint at the US Jobs Report
Pursuit of Happiness: The Retirement Raid You Didn’t Read About…
You’ll see a theme when it comes to technology. A merging of ‘immersive technologies’ devices linked with our physical activity and digital world. Google Glass, the MYO Armband and Microsoft’s Kinect are all examples.
One of the exciting new technologies at the moment is the Leap Motion controller. It’s a piece of tech (scheduled to ship soon) which allows three dimensional control of your computer.
So instead of using a mouse and keyboard to surf, scroll and click through the net, you could just reach into your computer with your hand. Imagine being able to grab the web page you want and flick it to one side. Or push a page back and drag another one forward.
The actual technology is quite mysterious, so I can’t really say how it works. But Leap says it’s 100 times more accurate than Kinect. There’s a host of developers working on mind-blowing programs and apps for the Leap controller. Here’s an example of the Leap developers’ work.
PC’s and laptops are the main target for Leap. And work’s underway on reverse engineering it for phones and other devices. This means you could reach into your phone and the space around your phone to work your digital environment.
Like we’ve said before, the combination of motion sensing devices with wearable tech is coming. Think Google Glass plus Leap plus MYO…
It means we might see a new ‘reality’ where your digital world and your ‘normal’ world become one.
Note: I’ve pre-ordered a Leap and hope to get it in May. When it lands on my desk hopefully I can throw away my keyboard and mouse.
There’s a movement underway to help us live a healthier lifestyle using tracking information. It’s possible you’re already a part of it but don’t even know. It’s called the Quantified Self (QS) movement. It’s not some fancy catch tag to sell some gadgets and apps. It’s a real effort to make new technology and programs to help us be healthier, armed with our own information.
This is a concept multi-billion dollar companies like Nike and Adidas realise is catching on. They’re investing heavily in projects like Nike+, Nike Fuel and Adidas MiCoach. These are all technologies forming the QS movement.
At the core of QS is self-tracking. Another way to look at it is self-knowledge through numbers. It’s about using the flow of info through technology and apps to make better life choices.
Digifit, RunKeeper, SleepCycle and Mood Panda are all examples of different apps that track different parts of your lifestyle.
And the technologies and apps are getting more complex and comprehensive.
Take for example the Jawbone Up. You wear it on your wrist, and it links to an app on your phone. It tracks how far you travel, time spent sitting, standing, moving and calories burned. It helps log your food intake, moods and how you’re sleeping. The linked app collates all this information to give you your own personal lifestyle analytics.
There are some people that disagree with this level of information. They argue the app companies may use the info against you, or steal it. Sure, this is possible.
But think about this example: John is suffering from early stage congestive heart failure and is unaware of his condition. He may have warning signs which indicate his illness. But in his busy day to day life, he doesn’t see the warning signs. One day John has a sudden heart attack.
With QS apps and technology, it’s possible John may have already been alerted to the warning signs. He could have put treatment measure in place and avoided a heart attack.
The QS movement isn’t about gathering data to use and abuse, it’s about giving us the ability to make better life choices. It’s means hopefully we all get to live a happier, healthier life.
There are different types of innovation across the energy sector such as solar, wind, nuclear, gas and hydrogen. We think it’s not one solution, but a combination that will help solve the world’s energy issues.
One way that doesn’t get much attention is food power. An amazing amount of food is wasted and thrown out every year. In Australia we throw away approximately 20% of all food we purchase. This infograph shows the staggering statistics.
But thanks to science and technology there’s a way to convert food into renewable power.
An example of food-to-energy power is happening at Colorado State University’s (CSU) Fort Collins campus. They are trying a new food-to-energy program with the city of Fort Collins.
The university realised they produce a large amount of food waste. This used to go to landfill. Well not any more. The university is diverting 1000 pounds a day of food waste to the city’s water reclamation plant. There it’s recycled and the methane by-product heats the plant and its building.
CSU aren’t the only ones using food-to-energy power. In Avonmouth, Bristol (UK) a food waste recycling plant opened late last year. It has the potential to power about 3,000 homes. Using the same process to create methane, the plant has capacity to produce about 10GWh of energy per year.
And there are more examples of this popping up around the world. Sweden has been doing it for years and Edinburgh has recently opened a plant.
Australia has also realised this is a real source of renewable energy. Veolia, Transpacific Industries and Earthpower Technologies have opened a food-waste to energy plant in Sydney.
The Sydney plant has the capacity to power around 3,600 homes. It’s the first of its kind in Australia, and also and a positive sign private industry is heading in the right direction with renewable energy. Now if only the government had the same foresight…
Sam Volkering
Technology Analyst, Money Weekend
Ed Note: Sam Volkering is assistant editor and analyst for a new breakthrough technology investment service to be launched by Money Morning editor Kris Sayce. The breakthrough technology service will introduce cutting edge investment ideas from the technologies of the future, including medicine, science, energy, mining, and more.
From the Archives…
Only Lunatics Need Apply for This Stock Market Rally
5-04-2013 – Kris Sayce
The Run-on Effect of Aussie Housing on the Australian Stock Market
4-04-2013 – Murray Dawes
Good News in China’s Economy? Put This Date in Your Diary…
3-04-2013 – Dr Alex Cowie
‘Gold Only Rises During the Bad Times’ and other Fairy Tales
2-04-2013 – Dr Alex Cowie
On Gold — Billionaire Investor Eric Sprott Says : ‘I’m in Alex Cowie’s Camp’
1-04-2013 – Dr. Alex Cowie
By Bill Bonner
US stocks are still going up. Gold is still dillydallying.
Gold is waiting to see what happens. Japan and the US are pumping up the monetary base – fast.
But collectively, their balance sheets actually contracted by $415
billion in the first quarter – led by a $370 billion decline in the
ECB’s balance sheet.
Result: slightly less paper money in the developed economies… and a slightly lower gold price. Seems logical. Seems sensible.
You see, since the start of the secular bull market in gold, there
has been a nearly perfect correlation between the gold price and the
rate of balance sheet expansion (aka money printing) at the Fed, the ECB, the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan.
You can see clearly it in this chart courtesy of our friends at the Sprott Group.
According to Sprott, for every extra $1 trillion in collective
balance sheet expansion by these central banks, gold has risen $210 per
ounce.
Gold is the world’s alternative money. It and bitcoins. New supply of paper money is expanding rapidly. New supplies of gold and bitcoins are much more stable.
But many mainstream pundits are sure the end of the secular bull market in gold is at hand.
Who knows? Maybe they’re right.
But it seems more likely that when the Japanese get their presses running hot, the price of gold will resume its upward climb.
Like the Fed in the 1970s, central banks in the high-debt, low-growth
developed economies have decided that inflation is the solution to low
growth and high unemployment.
Unless something happens to stop them, they’ll probably keep
increasing the money supply. And the price of gold will continue to
correlate to the rate of increase in the monetary base of the developed
world’s major central banks.
But we’re still laughing at the Japanese… and at Ben Bernanke… and at economists and central bankers everywhere.
And at ourselves! We all do the damnedest things.
Remember the dot-com bubble? People thought they could rich by buying
companies with no earnings… no assets… and no business plan that
had ever been tested. They invested hundreds of billions of dollars in
these companies.
And when we pointed out to them at the time in our Daily Reckoning e-letter that the whole thing was loony, they said we “didn’t get it.”
As it turned out, we were happy not to get it.
And remember the US housing bubble? People thought they could get
rich by buying houses. They thought that some magic force was making
houses more and more valuable… and that all they had to do was to buy
the biggest, most expensive house they could afford and “flip” it for a
outsized profit.
Again, we didn’t get it. How could an inanimate object that needed
constant maintenance and attention increase your wealth? Houses were
consumer items, not capital investments.
And again, it turned out that not getting it was a big advantage.
So you’re probably wondering… what is it that we don’t get now?
We’ll tell you. We don’t get how printing money can make people
wealthier. It never did in the past. Instead, it just led to higher
inflation, bankruptcies, riots, revolutions… and disappointment.
Not that we have a closed mind about it. If someone could explain how
printing up pieces of paper makes us more prosperous, we’d be all for
it.
We’d want more of it. Heck, if one or two trillion new dollars or yen
or euro makes you wealthier, why not print up 10 quazillion?
Wait a minute. Didn’t Argentina try that in the 1980s? Didn’t Brazil give it a whirl in the 1990s… and Zimbabwe in the 2000s?
We don’t remember any of them getting richer. Instead, they got poorer.
So what’s the magic that Ben Bernanke and the Japanese have discovered? What’s the secret?
There may be one. Anything’s possible. But what is it?
Until we get a good answer… we’re going to keep laughing.
Regards,
Bill
http://www.billbonnersdiary.com/articles/bonner-money-inflation.html
Charles Sizemore and Jeff Reeves give their latest thoughts on their picks for the 2013 Best Stocks contest: Daimler ($DDAIF) and Intel ($INTC)
SUBSCRIBE to Sizemore Insights via e-mail today.
The post Update on the Best Stocks of 2013 appeared first on Sizemore Insights.
