Saturday, August 8, 2009

Bank Pay Outrageous, But Is That Recovery? Assuming Americans still have the capacity for outrage, they should be rioting in the streets following last week’s reports that nine big banks paid out $33 billion in bonuses in 2008. The Wall Street Journal put this travesty in perspective, noting that the bonuses were a third larger than California’s budget deficit. “Six of the nine banks paid out more in bonuses than they received in profit,’ the Journal reported, and “one in every 270 employees at the banks - [a total of 5,000 employees] –received more than $1 million.”... Read the Rest of the Article | Comments *** Bear Rally Looks Eager to Recharge The S&P 500 Index played footsies with the 1000 barrier yesterday, but bears looking eagerly for a major top shouldn’t rely too heavily on the stopping power of this benchmark. One reason is that Dow 10,000, a marquee number with greater importance, is still 700 points away. We should also mention that at yesterday’s closing price of 9286, the Indoos lay almost 200 points shy of a 9476 target that we flagged a while back as a minimum rally objective. There is also Goldman Sachs, a favorite bellwether of ours that we’ve been... Read the Rest of the Article | Comments *** Are You Ready for the Gold Rush? Last week, I explained why junior and exploration gold-mining stocks will be spectacular investments in the impending 21st Century gold rush. I will discuss specific stocks in the weeks ahead, but first let’s talk about how to accumulate them.  Because juniors are quite different from other stocks, the best approach to building a portfolio is to stick with a game plan formulated in advance.  For starters, you should look for stocks of companies that hold the most resources or have the greatest