Month: January 2014

Article by Investazor.com

Forex Scalping is a basic trading strategy based on short and quick transactions, due to bring results only if it is used repeatedly and on long term periods. It implies high volume trades, but with big impacts both on the profit and loss.

To sum up, the main ideas from the Forex Scalping Complete Strategy Guide are:

As a beginner, it is important to understand the main characteristics of scalping before using such a system. A newbie trader should know that is mandatory for him to use analysis for forecast and money management. He should know everything about the instrument he is trading; try to hunt sharp price movements; make a full use of his leverage and correctly choose the strategy that suits him.

The life of a trader will be easier if he would know how to correctly choose his broker. He should take his time to analyze spreads and offers from different brokerage houses, since it is relevant to him to have very low costs. Getting to trade with a professional broker would bring a scalper advanced trading tools, tight spreads and a certainty that he will get his money back from the market maker. A trustworthy broker would also take care of his client’s interests.

It’s not enough to have a good broker and to know what’s scalping about. A trader, who uses a system like this and also a trader in general, should know very well his trading instruments. For scalpers, the best trading instruments are those with high leverage, liquidity and high volatility. Currency pairs are usually the common instrument found in scalpers portfolios. Because of their low costs, aggressive price movements and high liquidity, the most profitable currencies are: EURUSD, GBPUSD, GBPJPY, AUDJPY, AUDCHF and USDTRY from the well-known groups majors, carry pairs and exotic currencies.

Scalping can be done in any part of a trading session, but there are some moments when the market has higher volatility, giving scalpers more opportunities to open and close trades. Scalpers should look for high volatility on their instruments that are usually depending on the exchange market on which they are traded. Frequently, the publishing of macro-economic indicators is followed by a high volatility moment, especially if the releases diverge from the analyst forecasts. This gives good scalping opportunities; therefore this kind of moments should be hunted by scalpers.

Traders, particularly scalpers, should surpass their normal psychological condition in order to face the market pressures. They should evolve their capability to keep calm in different market setups and create their own trading discipline, in order to always keep focused and maintain their regular trade sizes. Sometimes, these characteristics are the hardest to be developed and controlled in a trader, but without them, the probability to be thrown out of the market becomes really high.

There is no complete scalping strategy guide without a trading system. The strategy can be created based on fundamental analysis or technical analysis. If a scalper doesn’t have the necessary knowledge to create a strategy based on macro-economic interpretation, it is easier for him to look for technical trading strategies. We proposed in our guide three types of scalping strategies based on price formations and technical indicators, which can be used to start a scalping experience.

If you have read this Forex Scalping Complete Strategy Guide, and you consider that you fully understood what this is about, be sure to match your answers to the most important questions for a scalper to the ones written in our last two articles from this handbook.

The post Final Conclusions On Forex Scalping appeared first on investazor.com.

By MoneyMorning.com.au

Long ago, before the tech boom and bust, Mr Smith started to build a house. It was 1999 and the electrical industry was all abuzz about future smart homes.

Being a young man, keen to prepare his new home for the future, he decided to build a ‘smart home‘. So as he wired it, he loaded the house with additional CAT 5 cabling on top of the copper cabling.

Every room in the house would have the latest and greatest data cabling to ensure that when the smart appliances became available, he could just plug them in. Simple.

He pondered the possibilities. Such as…

Turning on the air conditioning at home before he left work on a hot Melbourne day.

Turning on the spa while driving back from a long weekend of snowboarding.

It was easy. He just needed to make a phone call on the dedicated separate line at the house. Enter the code and the appliance in question would whir into life.

Of course, all of this would work through his new mobile phone at the time, a Nokia 3210.

It didn’t matter about the added expense of the data cabling. Because he was ready for the smart home.

And it came. Smart home appliances have been available for a couple of years now.

Based on some of the products on display at this year’s International CES (formerly the Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas, home automation products will be the tech toy of choice this year. Even for those who aren’t tech savvy.

While Mr Smith envisioned the smart home, it didn’t happen the way he planned. It wasn’t long before a CAT 5 cable became old news and was replaced by CAT6a cables. And within in a couple of years fibre optic cabling was all the electrical and data industry could talk about.

Unpredictable Changes

But then another unpredictable change happened…Wi-Fi.

That’s right. Instead of home automation needing data points, appliances connect wirelessly to your Wi-Fi network.

As I mentioned before, the concept for home automation isn’t new. Products like Google’s recent acquisition of Nest, have hit the mainstream.  And there are two reasons behind the growing popularity behind appliance integration.

You see, aside from the convenience of home automation, the idea was that you could save money on bills. For instance, lighting that automatically turns off when you leave the room. And simply turning off your ‘stand by’ devices while you’re not home.

But now, the machines have gone beyond the basics like turning lights on or off, or setting an alarm system.

The gadgets for home automation are getting, well, nifty.

For example Samsung show cased smart TV’s, air conditioning and washing machines…all controlled by your Samsung Galaxy watch of course.

And several American companies offer smart light bulbs and power points programmable by a smartphone or tablet app.

Or there’s this start up, Goji, which show cased it’s soon to be available keyless door lock. Basically, your smart phone controls the door lock via its blue tooth. When you leave through the door, as the blue tooth signal drops out, the door locks.

And as you approach the door, the lock picks up the blue tooth signal and unlocks the door – letting you back in. Oh and there’s the app that takes a photo of who’s ringing your doorbell…and you can even let them in while you’re not home if you want.

Taking it a step up is SmartThings and its smart house design.

A sensor works out you’re awake and adjusts the house to your personal settings – like lighting, heating, and even warms up the coffee machine! Another sensor picks up that you’ve opened the cupboard and tells you basic information you need to know about the day. You can view the SmartThings House video here.

The Future is Already Here

Simply put, the future smart home is actually already here, and it’s doesn’t need expensive data cabling. For a Smart home set up all you need is your Wi-Fi.

That all sounds great. Yet, there is one big problem – security.

For the past couple of years home alarm systems have used Wi-Fi to keep the house safe. But the problem is, your home may be far more vulnerable to cyber risk then it is to any burglar.

But the exhibitors at CES mostly ignored this peril. In fact only one company, Goji discussed the encryption used in the door locks. But even then, it was a brief mention that the door lock had some form of encryption.

The thing is, smart homes are just as susceptible to internet threats as any computer device you have at home.

MIT Technology Review magazine last year highlighted the potential of malicious attacks on home automation systems.

As an example, a bored teenager with a decent set of hacking skills could be tempted to access your home automation network and turn the heater on…on a 40 degree day, which would drive up your electricity costs not to mention make for a rather uncomfortable homecoming.

Or they repeatedly flush your smart toilet.

Let’s stop there. You may wonder why you would want or need a smart toilet. After all how smart does a toilet have to be? It just needs to accept what goes into it and then get rid of it as quickly as possible!

However, a smart toilet could be useful. For example it could analyse your waste to check your level of health, and it could determine how much water is actually needed to get rid of the waste, rather than a default setting. That could save you water and money in the long term. Of course, constant flushing by some hacker would have the opposite effect.

Something more sinister could be to confuse your security system to enable a robbery to take place.

Because the potential for naughtiness is high, two researchers from Trustwave Holdings, a privately owned business that ‘fights’ cybercrime decided to test smart home products being offered to see how safe they were.

David Bryan and Daniel Crowley at Trustwave Holdings discovered the security systems for the Internet of Things (IOTs – a group of machines that talk to each other via the internet) have minimal security settings.

‘It varies from device to device, but a common thread with a lot of these devices is they don’t require any authentication at all,‘ says Crowley. This is a problem Kris Sayce and Sam Volkering have discussed in Revolutionary Tech Investor.

Take Vera Lite from Mi Casa Verde Inc. for instance. These smart home devices control lights, cameras, thermostats, alarms and door locks. It’s also easy to set up. You simply connect the device to your home network and a couple of steps later you have a ‘smart home’.

However, its default setting requires no username or password – a very basic security to say the least. But Bryan and Crowley found that even once these were in place, bypassing it didn’t break a sweat.

Founder of Mi Casa Verde, Aaron Bergen has hit back at claims this system lacks security, and actually insists it’s a design feature.

‘We do not consider it a vulnerability to allow a user to have full control over his own Vera,‘ was his response to the Trustwave criticisms.

Still, in all of the ten home automation products tested, eight had significant security flaws. Aside from Bergen’s defence of his Vera system, no other manufacture of smart home products responded to Trustwave Holdings when notified of the poor cyber protection.

But both Crowley and Bryan don’t think the danger is a lone hacker accessing one home automation system.  Presenting their findings at the Las Vegas Black Hat security conference a couple of weeks ago, Crowley told the audience they fear a crime much bigger than one person messing with one house:

‘It might be some effort to get to this kind of scenario, but if breaking into one server means you get to ransack 100, 1,000, 10,000 people’s homes, that’s definitely worth it, and that’s where the real danger lies.‘

Yoshi Kohno is also wary of companies rushing the smart products to consumers without taking further steps to increase their security. As an associate professor at the University of Washington, he studies privacy and computer security in consumer technologies. He feels there needs to be a higher focus on security of home automation products before he’d even consider using them in his own home.

He sees the threat to home lighting systems as minimal. But automated door locks for him are a big no-no for now.

But don’t despair. David Bryan from Trustwave believes the security of smart home products are where cyber security was 10 years ago.

Eventually, tighter encryption and enhanced coding features will appear in this cluster of useful machines.

And while smart homes clearly are the way of the future, there is one other industry that is set to boom with it. Cyber security firms.

You may think that sounds boring. Kris felt the same way when Sam Volkering, the tech analyst at Revolutionary Tech Investor pestered him about the topic a few months back. Kris even passed on the idea the first time.

Kris told Money Morning readers:

‘Before we got stuck into the research we couldn’t have thought of anything more boring than cyber security.

‘But after Sam laid out the big picture, we dug deeper into it and the impact it could have on the world economy. We’re certain that cyber security will be one of the most important industries in the years ahead.‘

Revolutionary Tech Investor subscribers are surely happy that Kris and Sam went ahead with the cyber security stock recommendation. One of the two recommended stocks is up an amazing 81% since October. The other stock is flat, but gains are sure to come as cyber threats continue to rise.

Just think about it. The more and more gadgets you connect to the ‘net, the more vital your internet security becomes.

The reality is that cyber protection is so much more than antivirus software on your PC or smartphone.

Sam tells a riveting tale about past cybercrimes and the companies developing ways to stay ahead of the black hatter’s (the bad guys of the internet world).

Before you go and install the latest home automation products, make sure you understand the importance of protecting yourself online. Checking out Sam’s thoughts on the subject is a great place to start.

Shae Smith
Editor, Money Weekend

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By MoneyMorning.com.au

By MoneyMorning.com.au

Governments and regulators have no idea about technology. The simple fact is the bureaucratic nature of government can’t keep pace with the world.

Nowhere is this more evident than the laughable story that’s come from the US this week.

This week a man attended a cinema in Ohio. Midway through watching Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit the man was asked to leave the cinema by a number of intimidating people. Once outside, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents held the man in custody for several hours.

The ICE agents interrogated the man under suspicion of illegally recording the movie.

First thoughts are innocent until proven guilty. But it seems these ICE agents had made up their mind as soon as they approached the man.

But no, this man was innocent. After hours of interrogation, he was cleared and released. He didn’t have a video and he didn’t record the movie. Oh and for his troubles the cinema gave him four free tickets…

So what was all the fuss about? The man was wearing Google Glass.

In an interview with Tech Crunch the man explained,

‘As I was taken out of the theater – the DHS agent had my Glass because he snatched it off my face – I started shaking and I was thinking I should call the police. Outside the theater when they asked me for the first time why was I recording the movie I realized it was a misunderstanding and I wanted to clear it as soon as possible. I unsuccessfully tried for a couple of hours to convince them to connect Glass to a computer or put it on their face and check, and when they finally did so they realized I wasn’t doing anything illegal and let me be and left.‘

It took the ICE agents a couple of hours to figure out he wasn’t doing anything illegal. A simple five minute check of his Google Glass would have ended it all there and then. In fact the man said to the agents to put on the Glass and check it.

But idiocy prevailed and the resultant storm in a teacup ensued.

So it appears wearing Google Glass is akin to being a terrorist. Of course wearing Glass into the cinema in the first place probably wasn’t the best idea. After all it can be a recording device. But almost every single person these days has a smartphone. So why aren’t ICE agents placed at every cinema across the world?

Surely if the threat of piracy is so strong a ‘suit’ in some dark shades talking into his wrist would tear my stub for cinema 8?

But this isn’t the only time Google Glass has run afoul of the law. In October last year police gave Cecilia Abadie a ticket. It was for ‘Driving with Monitor visible to driver (Google Glass)’. Thankfully sense prevailed. A judge dismissed the ticket just this week.

Government is Lagging

But the worrying issue is that government agencies, regulators and law enforcement simply can’t keep pace with technology.

It’s not always the fault of the officer or agent involved. There’s no directive, no law, no regulation for any of these technologies. That doesn’t mean there should be. I can’t imagine that the ‘Google Glass Act of 2014′ would be a good use of legislator time and effort.

The problem is government generally wants to regulate everything and anything it can.

But the example of the cinema incident is proof that government can’t control or regulate with any great authority anymore.

With mounting evidence it’s plausible the world will go one of two ways in the coming future.

Either technology driven networks will have greater influence in the world than any government, or government will stifle and slow technological progress and innovation. The by-product of this is it will also stifle and slow economic growth.

Perhaps government control is on borrowed time. This won’t be something that happens over two or three years. This is something that’s building momentum now and will happen over the next 10, 25 and 50 years.

Government will lose its grip on power and lose even further touch with the people. It’s socially connected, distributed, technology driven networks that will seize the power. In other words, people who are a part of these networks will use technology to make decisions that directly impact their way of life. They’ll do this outside of the realms of government regulation and control.

Faith and Trust

There are real examples of this happening in the world now.

The most topical of these is Bitcoin. It completely defies the rule of the state. It snubs central banks and relies on the network to ensure security, legitimacy and its very existence. And of course regulators and government around the world are scrambling to define and regulate the use of this economy busting technology.

Peer to Peer lending is another. Whether it’s Lending Club in the US or Zopa in the UK both of these have banks running scared. Wells Fargo has even banned its employees from using peer to peer lending.

Then you have the likes of Uber and AirBnb. These two seem to have a new lawsuit filed against them daily.

Take Uber for example. In Paris, lawmakers enacted a law stating that anyone who orders an Uber cab has to wait 15 minutes before entering the cab. So if your Uber cab arrives in 5 minutes you have to stand outside it for another 10 before getting in. These laws are to ‘protect’ the taxi industry in Paris. Protectionism laws…really? So much for competition and democracy.

Needless to say Uber has attracted its fair share of haters in Australia. The Australian Taxi Industry Association is calling for more regulation of Uber and other taxi ‘apps’. They want the same regulation as normal taxis. What they fail to recognise is the existing taxi network is a failure. As the current system doesn’t work these new technologies like Uber are growing in popularity and size.

Then there’s AirBnb. The New York City Attorney General in October last year filed a lawsuit against AirBnb for the records and data of all New Yorkers using AirBnb to list rooms and rentals. Of course you mustn’t forget that government takes a very handy little cut from hotels in the form of occupancy taxes. With AirBnb government collects nothing.

Technology is influencing our day to day lives more and more every year. The explosion of competitive, disruptive companies over the last couple of years has been a huge factor in this shift. These companies and technologies are specifically targeting markets and networks that for too long have had cushy, easy rides.

These technology driven networks that are the foundation of these companies give everybody a platform to make a difference.

You see Bitcoin is so popular because people have lost trust and faith in banks. Uber is so popular because people have lost trust and faith in the taxi industry. AirBnb is so popular because people have lost faith and trust in the hotel industry. See the common link…? People in general are losing trust in established industries and turning to these new, start-ups and new technologies. Why?

Because these technology driven networks do something that most regulators and governments fail to do…listen to the people and act on what they hear.

Regards,
Sam Volkering+
Technology Analyst

Ed Note: Soon Sam will launch a new free daily eletter – Tech Insider. Each day, Monday to Friday (plus a weekly digest on Saturday) Sam will reveal and explore the latest technological developments and explain how these technologies could impact your life. Importantly, Sam will explore these technologies from an investment angle too, by showing you how easy it is to invest in some of these remarkable technologies. Look out for more in the coming weeks, including details of how you can subscribe to Sam’s new free daily eletter…

Special Report: 2014 Predicted

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By MoneyMorning.com.au

By Dennis Miller – Laddering Adds Another Layer of Protection

Laddering reminds most people of a strategy often used when owning multiple CDs. Back when interest rates made them worthwhile, if you were trying to arrange cash flow, you could stagger the maturity dates of your CDs so you always had one maturing in the near term. Longer-term CDs had better rates, but they tied up your money; laddering mitigated that problem.

For example, if you had $500,000 to invest and a five-year CD was paying 6%, you could count on $30,000 in income each year. But what if you needed money before the maturity date? You could build a ladder, buying five $100,000 CDs, with one maturing each year. Sure, the CDs you initially bought in the short term would have slightly lower rates, but as each one matured, you could replace it with a five-year CD.

Once your ladder was complete, you could expect $30,000 in interest income, plus another $100,000 in liquidity each year. While constant cash flow was the main reason for doing this, laddering is a tool that has many more uses—most notably, inflation protection.

Inflation Protection

Suppose an investor bought a five-year, $100,000 CD paying 6% on January 1, 1977. The table below shows the inflation rates during the five-year period that followed.

Assuming this investor-taxpayer was in the 25% tax bracket, even if he’d reinvested his interest, he would have had a 25.9% net loss of buying power due to high inflation, as illustrated in the chart below.

By using a CD ladder, he could have mitigated some of his inflation risk. At the end of each year from 1977-1981, an investor who laddered could have rolled over a CD at the prevailing interest rate. By the end of 1981, he could have had five CDs paying rates much higher than 6%.

One note of caution: at one time, most CDs were non-callable, meaning that both the lender (us) and the bank were committed for whatever period the CD specified. Then banks started issuing callable CDs, meaning they could pay off their debt at any point during the period.

The same feature applies to bonds. If you lend money to someone and agree to callable terms, they have protection if interest rates go down. If interest rates rise, there’s a good chance you’re losing out because of inflation. Given a choice, I would take a slightly lower interest rate for a non-callable bond or CD.

The above chart tracks the interest rates for the 10-year Treasury. As you can see, overall interest rates have dropped. CDs and other fixed-income products have followed that same track. However, the trend has started to reverse, and we must protect ourselves.

Currently rates on CDs and top-quality bonds are still below inflation; they aren’t a good investment. Some 10- to 30-year high-risk bonds are paying 5-7%, but we do not recommend any of those products. Instead, we suggest laddering very short-term bonds if you have a need for fixed-income investments—in other words, creating a bond ladder. As interest rates continue to rise, you can then roll it out over three to five years so your yields keep pace with inflation and market interest rates.

Note that many of our subscribers have foreign currency CDs with EverBank, some of which have a 90-day period. Inflation protection is one of the key goals with those CDs. So if you’re investing in them, break your capital into thirds and ladder your CDs so you have one maturing every month.

Annuities: Another Use for Laddering

Many retirees also use annuities for guaranteed fixed income. We believe annuities have their place under certain circumstances. In general, however, they offer little protection in a high-inflation environment. While some have inflation riders, they come at a cost: lower initial monthly payments or some sort of cap on the increase.

Nevertheless, our frequent collaborator Stan the Annuity Man told me of a client who laddered his total $500,000 annuity purchase over five years as a means of increasing inflation protection. As an added bonus, he was one year older each time he bought the next $100,000 step in his ladder, which gave a boost to his monthly payments.

Laddering can help protect against high inflation, volatile interest rates, and cash-flow problems. It may mean you miss a little income in the short term, but in the long run it adds another layer of protection.

Annuities – with the additional protection afforded by laddering – make sense for many retired people and those approaching retirement age because they can provide a guaranteed income – which can make it a lot easier to sleep at night.

To help you determine whether an annuity is right for you, I put together an easy-to-follow report called The Annuity Guide.

This new report is jam-packed with invaluable information that will uncomplicate the world of annuities and is a must-read for anyone considering one.

Act now to get your copy of this important special report.

AUDUSD: Clears the 0.8755 level, Extends Bearishness.

AUDUSD: With the pair breaking the 0.8755 level, its Jan 20 2014 low to sell off further on Friday, more decline is expected in the days ahead. Support is seen at the 0.8650 level, its psycho level followed by the 0.8600 level. Further down, support comes in at the 0.8550 level and then the 0.8500 level. Its daily RSI is bearish and pointing lower suggesting further downside. On the upside, resistance resides at the 0.8755 level followed by the 0.8887 level, its Jan 22’2014 high. A break of here if seen will aim at the 0.8915 level, its Jan 16’2014 high. Further out, resistance resides at the 0.9000 level, its big psycho level. All in all, the pair remains biased to the downside in the medium term.

Article by www.fxtechstrategy.com

By Chris Vermeulen – GoldandOilGuy.com

The two trend reversals everyone has been waiting a year for are about to take place, but they have not yet started.

While I do think 2014 is the year we see gold, silver, miners and many other commodities rally, it is important to follow the trend and wait for a reversal to form before getting overly excited and long commodities.

Each time we see the daily charts form some type of bullish pattern gold market traders become instantly bullish. And each time this happens they get another reality check about their trading technique of trying to pick a bottom.

I just published a book in December which teaches readers how to identify trends and stages in the market – “Technical Trading Mastery – 7 Steps to Win With Logic”. Buying into a bear market rally is not a high probability winning position. Odds favor that sellers will pull the price down and likely to new lows.

This January is one of these times and gold market traders are getting excited and long positions. While the bottom may in for precious metals, buying a bounce in a bear market is tricky and you better have some trading discipline to exit if price starts to sell back down.

Eventually we will see the stock market rollover and breakdown below its support trendline and gold will rally. But keep in mind, some of the largest percentage based moves take place just before a reversal. What does this mean? It means that the stock market could easily go parabolic and rally for a few more weeks, then reverse down sharply. And precious metals would do the opposite, sell off, make new lows, then reverse back up and start a new bull market.

Stock Market VS. Gold – Gold Market Traders Be Aware!

Below are a few more charts showing my big picture trend analysis for silver and gold miners.

Gold Market Traders Conclusion:

In short, the precious metals sector is still in a bear market and has not yet reversed to the upside. As you know I don’t pick bottoms or tops which go against the longer term trend. In this case the trend is down for precious metals so I am not trying to pick a bottom.

While I am starting to get excited about the eventual bottom in gold, I am still sitting on the fence with my cash.

If you would like to get my analysis every day and my gold trades be sure to join me at www.TheGoldAndOilGuy.com

Chris Vermeulen

By Laurynas Vegys, Research Analyst, Casey Research

Looking back on 2013, we have to conclude that it was one of the worst years for precious metals stocks in recent memory—despite all the reasons why it should have been a great one.

Here’s a sober look at the performance of the most widely followed indices in the precious metals (PM) sector.

It’s obvious that 2013 was an extremely painful year for precious metals investors.

Why? Here’s a shortlist of some of the most notable reasons.

• We didn’t see significant levels of price inflation in the US—the very thing that gold is a good hedge for—so there was no major flow into precious metals in America.

• Precious metals ETFs, like GLD, flooded the market with a massive amount of gold liquidations.

• The European sovereign debt crisis eased up (unless, of course, you live in the PIIGS countries, Cyprus, or pretty much anywhere else in the Eurozone).

• Rumors of the Fed tapering QE continued throughout the year, depressing the gold market and causing extreme volatility. (Oddly enough, the actual taper in December did much less harm than the rumors that preceded it, suggesting it was already priced in when it arrived.)

You can probably think of other reasons, but these no doubt contributed to the industry’s precipitous decline.

In such a depressed environment, it’s not surprising that almost all gold stocks were down, though our International Speculator portfolio outperformed the market indices. And in fact, two of our portfolio companies—both 2013 recommendations—saw their share prices rise substantially.

Here’s how these two stocks performed last year relative to gold and the indices:

The good news is both of these stocks are still “Buys” today, and we’re convinced there’s much more joy to come…

2014 Winner #1: Profit at Just About Any Price

Never mind simply beating the indices; this company gained a whopping 47.9% last year, due to its unique business model of processing third-party gold ore at its plant in South America.

We’d previously been skeptical of this model because ore suppliers are typically small scale and operate with no mine plan. This often causes irregularities in the quantity and quality of the ore received by the mill, which can lead to output and earnings seesawing wildly.

A very compelling angle to this story emerged, however, when the jurisdiction where the company operates decided to crack down on illegal and environmentally unsound ore-processing practices. This instantly created a bottleneck, allowing the company to pick and choose its potential suppliers and accept only the highest-grade deals.

Our 2014 Winner #1 has been steadily increasing output while keeping tight control over its ore grade and gross margin. One of the most attractive characteristics of its model: The company has been able to lock in a margin that remains stable even when the gold price fluctuates.

On the exploration side, our pick recently delivered high-grade drill results at its South American gold project, including some bonanza-grade hits. A large, high-grade discovery here could easily drive this stock to become a 10-bagger (i.e., produce gains of 1,000% or more).

However, successful exploration is not required for the shares to continue rising in the coming years, as the company will continue to profit from its gold processing operation.

This gold processor is still one of our favorite International Speculator picks. It will continue to earn record profits this year, even if the gold price goes nowhere—in other words, this stock still has plenty of upside with almost no downside risk.

2014 Winner #2: High-Grade Metal with Proven People

Our second favorite pick in 2013 was a new high-grade copper-gold producer in Colombia.

We had been following the story for a while, primarily because we know and trust management (and if you’ve read Doug Casey for any length of time, you know that “People” is the first and foremost of his Eight Ps of Resource Stock Evaluation).

We didn’t recommend the stock the first time we were on site, as metals prices were falling and the company had a big property payment coming due. Flash forward to today: The company raised the money it needed, the resources in the ground have been expanding and at excellent grade, mine upgrades are under way, and the keys to the plant have just been handed over.

The dual copper-gold production is a real boon in our current, low-price environment: Even if gold were to stay down for the rest of the year, the cash flow from the copper (a base metal and, therefore, subject to different economic factors than the precious metals) should keep the company’s profits humming along.

We have yet to see financial results from the operation, but we have a great deal of confidence in this mine-building team, one that has delivered for us repeatedly in the past.

Cash flow, and soon thereafter net profits, are an imminent push in this story—though the real jackpot potential comes from the large land package surrounding the company’s mine, which holds multiple outcrops of high-grade mineralization that have never been drilled.

Currently, the company is busy expanding its mine, so that exploration work probably won’t happen until later this year. But we do think there’s a good possibility of some very big news in the second half of 2014—so you’ll want to position yourself now, while prices remain relatively low.

Why You Should Own These Stocks This Year

Both of the companies—and their share prices—are poised to benefit greatly from increased cash flow, a ramp-up in production, and high-grade drill results.

In addition, 2014 Winner #1, with its ingenious long-term growth model and its ability to profit at just about any gold price, offers minimal downside risk. This company found a creative and profitable way to not only survive last year’s downturn but to thrive in the midst of it—and with an effective model in place, it will continue to prosper this year. The tide doesn’t need to turn in the precious metals sector for this stock to continue to do well.

Out of fairness to paying subscribers, we can’t give you the names of these two companies. But you can find out all about them—plus how to invest and what to expect this year—without any risk to you whatsoever.

Here’s what I suggest: Take us up on our 100% satisfaction guarantee and try Casey International Speculator for 3 months. If it’s not everything you expected and more, simply cancel for a prompt, courteous refund of every penny you paid.

Even if you decide to cancel ANY TIME after the 3 months are up, you’ll still get a prorated refund on the remainder of your subscription. That’s our iron-clad guarantee, so what do you have to lose? Just click here to get started.

See Original Article: Two Gold Stocks You’ll Wish You Owned in 2013… and Should Still Buy Now

By Marin Katusa, Chief Energy Investment Strategist, Casey Research

Investors who want to know how the energy sector will be doing in the coming year are, in my opinion, asking the wrong question. There really is no such thing as “the energy sector,” because the performance of the different resources—from oil and gas, to uranium, to coal, to renewables—can vary dramatically.

Case in point: while unconventional oil exploration and production have seen a huge upswing in recent years, thanks to the vast success of the Bakken and other oil-rich shale formations, at the same time natural gas has taken a nosedive, due to a supply glut that still hasn’t found its balancing point.

To find out which investments will deliver the greatest profits for well-positioned investors in 2014, my team and I have identified three trends that are hot… and may become even hotter in the course of this year.

HOT: Service Companies in North America

The oil and gas production in the United States is mature. Rather than looking for new basins, companies are looking to “rediscover” the past by applying new technology to increase economic production from known oil and gas fields.

This new technology comes in a variety of shapes and sizes: better software, bigger rigs, more efficient drilling processes. And it’s being applied everywhere, onshore and offshore, conventional and unconventional alike.

Just as an example, today we’re seeing operators drill more than 50 horizontal wells from a single well pad, a far cry from just a decade ago.

Exploration and production companies know that the focus moving forward is not just the amount of oil they can pump out of the ground, but the profit they can extract from every barrel (what we call the “netback”). This is even more true in the mature unconventional basins such as the Bakken, Eagle Ford, and the Marcellus shale plays, where the margins are tight and require an oil price of more than US$70 per barrel in order to be economic.

This means E&P companies have to use the best ways to increase production from every well—while at the same time reducing their drilling costs. Failure to do so would be to guarantee a firm’s demise.

The dilemma for E&P companies is having to prioritize what their shareholders want in the short term—growing production and dividends—over whatever may be best for the company in the long term. At the same time, they have to fight the natural decline of oil coming out of their wells.

All the while, service companies continue to extract fees for their tools and services. Drillers, pumpers, frackers, and other oilfield-service guys make money regardless of whether E&P companies find oil or produce it at economic rates.

We’ve said it before: Many E&P companies are running on a treadmill, and the incline is going higher and higher, which means higher costs to produce the same amount of oil.

Of course, not all service companies will rake in the dough. The ones that will do the best are the ones that can consistently stay at the forefront of technology and keep signing contracts with the supermajors like Exxon, Chevron, and Shell.

HOT: European Energy Renaissance

Russia’s grip on European energy continues to tighten, and there’s a push to produce oil and gas within their own borders all around Europe.

2014 looks to be an exciting year for companies like one of our Casey Energy Report stocks, a TSX-V-listed oil and gas explorer and producer with a 2-million-acre concession in Germany. We call the deposit it’s sitting on the “Next Bakken” because we believe that its potential to deliver exceptional output could rival that of the famed North American formation.

This development is still in its early stages, but investors who position themselves now could see outsized gains for years to come. It’s not really a question of “if” the oil is there—previous oil production in the very same location yielded more than 90 million barrels—but of “how much” oil can be extracted with the modern methods not available the last time companies worked on this field.

The company has completed its first well and will continue to drill additional wells (both vertical and horizontal) next year. While the initial well cost more than anticipated, it’s a good start that indicates economic oil can be produced in Germany. We’re also confident this company’s experienced management team is applying the lessons of its first foray to reduce drill costs on future wells.

As our Energy Report pick proves up any of its projects in 2014 and early 2015, we can expect another of our holdings, which has just entered the German oil and gas scene, to either farm into the company or even buy it out.

We predict that by the end of 2015, our “Next Bakken” play, and others like it, will have attracted a lot of attention, not just from individual speculators, but from institutional investors as well—and investors who have gotten in early will be very happy indeed.

Another of our portfolio holdings is just beginning to drill on its Romania projects after a series of delays due to politics and bureaucracy. We have reason to be optimistic because its JV partner, a Gazprom subsidiary, has drilled successful wells on the same basin on the other side of the border in Serbia. If our pick has anything close to that level of success, the markets will surely take notice and its shares will go much higher.

As the “Putinization” of the global energy markets continues and Russia’s dominance grows, European countries become increasingly more desperate to escape from under Putin’s heavy thumb and to start developing their own energy resources.

The European Energy Renaissance is real, and we continue to monitor companies that are funded and have the permits and ability to drill game-changer wells in Europe in 2014.

HOT: Uranium

During a recent trip to London, I spoke with Lady Barbara Judge, chairman emeritus of the UK Atomic Agency and an advisor to TEPCO on the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan. I asked her point-blank whether Japan was willing to bring any nuclear reactors back online in 2014.

Her answer was an unequivocal “Yes.” The Japanese have no choice, really, because the alternative—importing liquefied natural gas (LNG)—is far too expensive.

Japan is the world’s largest importer of LNG and has had to double its imports since the Fukushima incident. For that privilege, the country pays some of the highest rates on the planet—almost four times more than what we pay for natural gas in North America.

South Korea also shut down its nuclear plants post-Fukushima to do inspections and maintenance upgrades, and it, too, has had to import a lot of LNG. Both countries are looking to restart their nuclear reactors so they can stop paying a fortune to foreign energy suppliers. When these countries restart their reactors, they’ll also restart the uranium market, so we expect uranium prices to begin to shake loose of the doldrums this year.

Another driver will be throwing the switch at ConverDyn, the US uranium facility that is slated to start converting natural U₃O₈ to reactor-ready fuel in late 2014 or early 2015.

We currently hold two solid uranium companies in the portfolio—one is a US-based small-cap producer (one of the very few in America), the other is the lowest-risk way to play the uranium market that I know of. Both, we believe, will take off in 2014 on the renewed interest in uranium and the associated stocks.

If you want to know more about our thoroughly vetted energy stocks and their potential for amazing gains in 2014 and beyond, give the Casey Energy Report a try. You’ll find all my “What’s Hot” predictions and the full names of the stocks I’ve mentioned above in our January forecast issue… plus the energy sectors you should avoid like the plague this year… as well as a feature article on elephant oil deposits in the Gulf of Mexico and a new stock pick ready to profit from them.

Giving the Casey Energy Report a try is risk-free because it comes with a 3-month, full money-back guarantee. If the Energy Report is not all you expected it to be, just cancel within those 3 months and get a prompt, full refund. Or cancel any time AFTER the 3 months are up for a prorated refund. Getting started is easy—just click here.

EURUSD:  Flat In Wave 2

EURUSD reversed sharply to the upside in this week from 1.3505 level where we see a completed three wave decline in wave B. As such, current rally represents an impulse wave C that is most likely part of an expanded flat in wave 2). If our count is correct then we still need too see a little bit higher levels to complete a minor five wave rally. Ideally pair will make a top around 1.3740.

EURUSD 4h Elliott Wave Analysis

GBPUSD: Uptrend Continuation

GBPUSD is accelerating to the upside now already well above 1.6600 high from the end of December so market is back in bullish mode. We are tracking an updated count now with bullish impulse underway up to 1.6700. At the moment we see prices rally in wave (iii) so be aware of more upside after wave (iv) retracement that may show up in the next few sessions.

GBPUSD 4h Elliott Wave Analysis

Written by www.ew-forecast.com

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by Michael Lombardi, MBA

The Bureau of Labor Statistics just reported that inflation in the U.S. economy increased by 0.3% in the month of December and that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the entire year of 2013 increased by only 1.5%. (Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, January 16, 2014.)

Is inflation in the U.S. economy really this low?

It sure doesn’t feel like it. Every time I buy groceries, go out for dinner, get my car fixed, pay utilities bills, or fill up my car’s gas tank, it feels like I am paying a lot more than I did last year or the year before.

Dear reader, inflation is higher than what the CPI figures say because of the way the CPI is calculated; food and energy prices are taken out because they tend to be more “volatile,” according to the government. That means key items consumers buy on a regular basis—food and gas—are excluded from the official inflation numbers!

While the mainstream fears deflation in the U.S. economy, I’m concerned about an unexpected bout of higher inflation hitting us. Why would I think this?

I can sum-up my argument for inflation ahead with just this one chart:

The chart above shows the currency (coins and paper notes) in circulation and deposits of banks at the Federal Reserve.

As you can see, since the financial crisis, the Federal Reserve has injected trillions of dollars into the U.S. economy. This is dangerous, in my opinion, for the simple reason that the more there is of any item in supply, the less the demand, and the lower the price. In this particular case, the more U.S. dollars in circulation, the less they are worth, and the more of them it will take to buy something. This is what creates inflation.

What I say now certainly doesn’t resonate with what you see on the TV, hear from stock advisors, or read on the popular financial websites. With unemployment roaming high, a period of stagflation—that’s when economic growth is anemic and unemployment and inflation are high—could be in the cards for the U.S. economy.

Stagflation is bad for investors because rising prices hurt corporate growth and profits. Companies can’t pass rising costs on to consumers during times of stagflation because economic growth is slow. Thus, during periods of stagflation, stock prices fall. Maybe that’s just where we are headed in 2014.

This article Why We’re Headed for a Period of Stagflation and What It Means for Investors was originally published at Profit confidential.