State of Denial By David Galland, Managing Director, Casey Research

Does the price action of gold of late make you scratch your head, falling as it has from its recent high of $1,420 to $1,359 as I write? Hard not to make one wonder, considering the nature of so much recent breaking news…

• Consumer prices in December exceeded forecasts, up 0.5%, with core inflation up 1%.
   
• Producer prices rose 1.1% in December.
   
• China’s inflation, at over 5%, is beginning to cause problems.
   
• Import prices into the U.S. are on the rise.
   
• The European Central Bank is now warning of inflation, and interest rates there continue to rise.
   
• Back in the U.S., the rise in interest rates is becoming persistent, with 10-year Treasury rates moving from 2.57% in November to 3.31% today – something that Bernanke is trying to spin as a positive, but given the amount of debt sloshing about, it is very much not.
   
• Oil – the stuff that makes the world go ‘round – appears stuck at around $90, no matter whether the news is good, or bad.
   
• The U.S. government is trying to chase foreign depositors away from the dollar by broadcasting that the IRS wants to begin looking in to all foreign-held U.S. bank accounts. Trying to keep ahead of the curve, JP Morgan, among others, has told foreign account holders they have to close their accounts by March 31. The harder it becomes to do business with the U.S., the weaker the demand for dollars. The weaker the demand for the dollar, the weaker the dollar will be… interest rates will have to rise to offset the fall, and import prices will go up even further.
   
• Following that thread, China and Russia have recently struck a deal to bypass the U.S. dollar in bilateral trade – the latest and most substantial act of foreign nations taking active measures to ditch the dollar.
   
• Food prices are soaring – with corn contracts up over 90% from June lows, and wheat up 80%.

And, yet, gold goes down.

Doesn’t make much sense, does it?

In my firmly held opinion, what we’re seeing is nothing more than the consequences of Mr. Market’s confusion – about gold, about the dollar, about Europe, about Asia… and especially about the potential consequences of Uncle Sam’s massive meddling in all manner of markets. Thus Mr. Market desperately looks to the equally confused punditry for an explanation, and gets fed a lot of nonsense and hoo ha about “risk on” and “risk off,” and the benefits of the governments “quantitative easing,” and so on.

Don’t let yourself be confused in the slightest about what’s going on, and pay no attention to the punditry. The analysis they do is garden variety at best, and they have it dead wrong… just as they almost always do.

To make that point, I’ll share a quote from the excellent book When Money Dies, referring to the Vossische Zietung, one of Germany’s leading financial newspapers back in the 1920s as the inflation began to spin dangerously out of control:

The Chancellor would accept no connection between printing money and its depreciation. Indeed, it remained largely unrecognized in Cabinet, bank, parliament or press. The Vossische Zietung of August 16 declared that… … the opinion that the flood of paper is the real origin of the depreciation is not only wrong but dangerously wrong… Both private and public statistics have long shown that for the last two years the interior depreciation of the mark is due to the depreciation of the rate of exchange… it should be remembered today that our paper circulation, although it shows on paper a terrifying array of millards, is really not excessively high… we have no ‘dangerous flood of paper’…

Another particularly telling quote from around the same time was from the Berliner Borsen Courier:

It has long been realized that the printing of notes is the result not the cause of depreciation, and that the amount of currency, as it increases in bulk, is really decreasing in value. A point has now been reached where the lack of money has a worse effect than the depreciation itself… Even should the quantity of paper money be three times its present size, it would constitute no real obstacle to stabilization. Until such a time, therefore, let us print notes!

At the time of that quote, the money printing in Germany had pushed the mark from 5 to the dollar to over 1800. Yet, almost no one in a position of influence was connecting the dots.

That’s much as is the case today. Until there has been a fundamental shift in U.S. fiscal and monetary policy, I would like to strongly suggest you trust your own instincts about the relative value of holding gold versus dollars – or any of the fiat currencies, for that matter – and set your sails accordingly.

Or, you can listen to Bernanke, who said yesterday:

“Interest rates are higher, but I think that’s mostly because the news is better. It’s responding to a stronger economy and better expectations. So I think that the policy has helped.”

And, don’t forget: historically interest rates, gold, and inflation all rise together. Not until we see positive real interest rates – interest rates that clearly outstrip the depreciation of the currency – will gold stop being a good investment. We are nowhere near that point.

Riots in Egypt & The Price of Oil - by Economic Collapse

As if the world economy did not have enough problems already, now the riots in Egypt threaten to send the price of oil soaring into the stratosphere.  On Friday, the price of U.S. crude soared 4 percent.  A 4 percent rise in a single day is pretty staggering.  The price of Brent crude in London closed just under the magic $100 a barrel mark at $99.42.  The incredibly violent riots in Egypt have financial markets all over the globe on edge right now.  Any time there is violence or war in the Middle East it has a dramatic impact on financial markets, but this time things seem even more serious than usual.  Many believe that we could see an entirely new Egyptian government emerge out of this crisis, and the uncertainty that would bring would make investors all around the globe nervous.  Financial markets like predictability, peace and security.  If Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's 30 year reign is brought to an end, it will severely shake up the entire region, and that will not be good news for the global economy.


Have you seen how violent these protests have become?  Cars and buildings are on fire all over the place.  Even the headquarters of Hosni Mubarak's political party was burned down.  The Egyptian military has been deployed on the streets of Cairo.  Protesters have been showering government forces with stones, firebombs and anything else that they can find to throw.  Security forces have been using rubber bullets, water cannons and tear gas to try to disperse the protesters but those efforts seem to be doing little good.  Deaths and injuries are being reported all over the place.  There are even rumors that the wife and son of Hosni Mubarak have already left the country.

At this point, Mubarak has gone on national television and has announced that he has asked his cabinet to resign.  That is an absolutely stunning move, but it is doubtful that the protesters will be satisfied.  All over Cairo protesters continue to chant for Mubarak to resign.

The following is a short compilation of some raw video from the riots in Egypt....
These riots in Egypt come on the heels of violent uprisings in Algeria and Tunisia.  In fact, it seems like virtually the entire Middle East is in a very foul mood right now.  Riots have been reported in Lebanon, in Jordan and in Yemen over the past few days.

Some of the rioting has been motivated by economic factors, but unfortunately all of this rioting is only going to make the global economic situation even worse.  Concern over all of these riots is driving up the price of oil and driving up the prices of agricultural commodities.  These higher prices are going to make it even harder for the poor people in the Middle East to afford food.

But also it must be acknowledged that much of this rioting is being done for very deep political and religious reasons as well.  Many westerners are cheering the protests in Egypt because they envision the protesters to be some sort of "freedom fighters".  But the vast majority of these protesters do not desire "American-style democracy".  The Muslim Brotherhood is one of the groups at the heart of these protests.  The government that they intend to set up would not give "liberty and freedom for all".  Rather, it would be a hardline Islamic government based on Shariah law.  According to Wikipedia, the Muslim Brotherhood bills itself as the "world's most influential Islamist movement", and their goal is to impose their version of Islam on society....

The Brotherhood's stated goal is to instill the Qur'an and Sunnah as the "sole reference point for ... ordering the life of the Muslim family, individual, community ... and state"

So unless your version of "freedom" includes being forced to live like the Taliban, then you probably would not enjoy the "liberty" that the Muslim Brotherhood wishes to impose on you.
Coptic Christians all over Egypt are already being slaughtered even with a relatively pro-western president in power.  On New Year's Day, an attack on a Coptic Christian church in Egypt killed 21 people.  The following is how one eyewitness described the scene to a reporter from the New York Times....

“There were bodies on the streets,” said Sherif Ibrahim, who saw the blast’s aftermath. “Hands, legs, stomachs. Girls, women and men.”

Once a radical Islamic government is installed in Egypt it will be open season on all Christians.
Yes, there is a whole lot of blame to be passed around to other nations, organizations and individuals in the Middle East for things they have done as well, but that does not excuse the horrific persecution of the Coptic Christians in Egypt.

We have to call a spade a spade.  We cannot condemn some forms of tyranny and persecution and then make excuses for other forms of tyranny and persecution just because those doing it are on "our side".
Replacing one form of tyranny (Mubarak) with an even more repressive form of tyranny (The Muslim Brotherhood) is not something that those who love liberty and freedom should be celebrating.
In any event, everyone should be able to agree that these events are going to severely rattle world financial markets that were already very nervous about 2011.

If these violent riots in Egypt and other countries in the Middle East keep going on, the global price of oil and the global price of food will continue to soar.

Not that oil and food were not going to be heading in that direction anyway.  Yesterday I wrote about the warning signs for the global economy that we are starting to see.  Wheat and corn have absolutely skyrocketed in price over the past 6 months.  The UN had already been projecting that we would see a 30 percent increase in the global price of food in 2011 even before these riots.
If you add rampant political instability into the mix, there is no telling how bad food inflation could get this year.

Many experts have already been forecasting substantial food shortages throughout the world this year based on all the extreme weather we have been having.  So what is going to happen if something causes those food shortages to be even worse than anticipated?

We live in very interesting times my friends.  The globe is becoming an increasingly unstable place.  Even nations that seemed perfectly stable just a few months ago can erupt in rioting at almost any moment.
People around the world are getting angry.  Thanks to the Internet, people are able to circumvent official government propaganda more easily than ever before.  This is making it harder and harder for governments to control people.

Egypt tried to regain some of that control during the riots by shutting down cell phones and by shutting down the Internet but it did not work.

Let's just hope that Egypt can soon find peace and that the changes that are made in the Egyptian government are good for freedom and liberty.

Warren Buffett....The Guru & His successor?

 

 

GREED & FEAR

Have your coffee ready and listen to this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rNsQBPUbJI&feature=pyv&ad=5945773916&kw=current%20financial%20crisis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9mWAxHpeew&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCC1H7MSIsg&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l95dIwOJOm0&feature=related

Happy Trading and Smart Invest!

Sunday morning - Say hello to Gilbert Sullivan, CCR, and Mike Jagger.....Lets sing together to cheerful your heart:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Rzh_rv7yI4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7K0kmo_-csM&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Uj9sduV3k8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDGuyGPJ_JE

What to Expect This Earnings Season - by Cullen Roche

Another earnings season is right around the bend and it’s shaping up to be very similar to the last 6 that we’ve seen. In short, cost cuts have created very lean balance sheets and corporations are leveraging up these lean balance sheets to generate respectable and “better than expected” bottom line growth. The result is an environment that continues to be unappreciated by the majority of investors.
The largest single cost input for most corporations is labor. During this recession we’ve experienced a near unprecedented decline in unit labor costs. As I mentioned yesterday, this massive cost cut is causing extraordinary pain on Main Street, but is actually helping to generate healthy margins for Wall Street. Although the cost cutting appears to have troughed in the last few quarters labor costs remain very low by historical standards. Rising input costs have started to put pressure on balance sheets, however, on the whole we should see fairly stable margins as long as unit labor costs remain low.
click to enlarge images

Revenues have been unspectacular in recent quarters, but low single digit domestic growth combined with double digit growth from Asia is helping to drive S&P 500 revenues per share in the right direction. So, we’re seeing continued cost cuts and relatively good revenue growth.

What does that mean? It means nice fat margin expansion. Although margins are still off their all-time highs they are fast approaching those levels. I would expect to see some stagnation in margins in the coming quarters as revenues continue to tick higher and costs continue to move north, however, with margins at record highs we can expect to see continued profit expansion.

What does it all add up to? It likely means we’re in for another quarter of “better than expected” earnings. The deeply negative sentiment and solid bottom line growth has created an investment environment that is ripe for outperformance. This is best reflected in my Expectation Ratio which has now forecast very strong earnings trends since Q2 2009. Based on the recent reading of 1.45 we can be quite confident that the state of corporate America remains quite strong.

About the author: Cullen Roche

The World's Most Valuable Asset in a Time of Crisis

By Porter Stansberry
with Dr. Steve Sjuggerud and Mike Palmer

If things get as bad as I expect in America in the coming years, most people are going to lose a lot of money.
So how can you protect yourself... and even potentially make a profit over the next decade?
Well, you should certainly own a significant amount of precious metals... real, hold-in-your-hand gold and silver. Both of these metals have skyrocketed in recent years, gaining more than 400%, in anticipation of this crisis.
But guess what...
There's one investment that might prove to be even better than gold or silver when America's currency crisis hits full tilt.
In fact, since 1970, a year before the U.S. went off the gold standard, this investment has easily outpaced both stocks and gold.
See the chart below...

So what is this incredible asset that has crushed stocks and gold, and how does it beat these things handily?

We're talking about farmland. The chart above shows the total returns of U.S. farmland versus the total returns of the stock market (including dividends) and the total returns of gold (which, of course, pays no dividend).

The returns from farmland come from two sources. According to a recent edition of Ag Decision Maker, published by Iowa State University, roughly half of the overall returns come from the appreciation of the actual land.

The other half comes from the "rent" you can get by farming your land – or hiring someone else to do it for you. Add these components together, and it's easy to see why the overall returns of farmland have outpaced gold, stocks, and just about any other asset we could name.

In fact, some call farmland "gold with yield" – because you book steady income from rents while you wait for the value to grow. I can think of no better asset to own during any kind of financial crisis.

Why does farmland do so well?

When food prices go up, farmland prices go up. There's no shortage of mouths to feed – on this side of the globe or the other.

And as an added benefit, farmland returns have little correlation to the returns on stocks and bonds. Farmland didn't fall in a single quarter during the financial meltdown.

If you believe, as I do, that inflation will only get worse, then you'll want to look closely at an investment in farmland.

Consider...

If you had invested your money in the stock market at the beginning of the 1970s, you would have made about 16%... TOTAL... over the course of the entire decade. Adjusted for inflation, you would have lost about half your money.

But during the same time the total returns of U.S. farmland were more than 600%!

Now imagine what farmland might do today.

I can guarantee, as I've written many times over the past few years, that we are going to experience major inflation.

On top of that, other factors are pushing farmland prices higher...

Just to name a few: A tightening supply of farmland, rising demand for crops, and skyrocketing commodity prices. In short, I expect farmland could be one of the best investments of the next decade.

Of course, farmland has another great benefit as well...

It can actually save your family during a serious crisis.

Barton Biggs, in his excellent book, Wealth, War, and Wisdom, reports farmland was the one thing that saved families in occupied France, Poland, Holland, Germany, and Italy.

An unostentatious farm, not a great estate, is probably best. Bricks and mortar real estate can be expropriated or bombed, but the land is always there. Your land can't be plundered or shipped off to somewhere else.

During World War II in most of the occupied countries, if you had a self-sufficient farm, you could hunker down on it and with luck wait out the disaster. At the very least you were supplied with food in a starving country.

A working farm protected both your wealth and your life.

As my good friend (and multimillionaire investor) Doug Casey likes to say, in a time of crisis, "The best thing you can do is buy a really good farm."

So how can you play it?

Well, just like I prefer owning real, hold-in-your-hand gold and silver rather than owning precious metals on the stock market... I suggest you seriously consider a private land deal. Quite literally, you should investigate buying a plot of farmland.

But if your only option is the stock market, my favorite is a company called Cresud (Nasdaq: CRESY).

Cresud is run by one of the world's best investors, a man I'm almost sure you've never heard of, named Eduardo Elsztain.

I've been a longtime admirer of Eduardo, and in recent years I've gotten to know him on a personal level too. He even invited me to ring the opening bell with him on the New York Stock Exchange last year, to commemorate a new business deal.

One of the things I love about Eduardo is he has survived and prospered through more government-debt pileups and busts than any big investor I'm aware of. You see, Eduardo has lived his life in Argentina, which has a history of wiping out investors time and again.

Eduardo's firsthand knowledge of how to invest through an inflationary time is important right now... as our U.S. government is inflating our money at an unprecedented, off-the-charts rate. To me, nobody is more experienced than Eduardo at profiting from this situation.

Cresud is Argentina's largest cattle raiser and owner of private farmland and cattle raiser in a country with some of the world's best agricultural lands. The company's 600,000-acre Los Pozos farm is recorded on the books at its historic cost of around $4.50 an acre (plus improvements). That's the way accounting works. But according to a sale two years ago, the land is worth as much as 25 times more than what is on the books.

The company is also the biggest owner of commercial real estate in one of the world's finest cities – Buenos Aires. Eduardo buys real estate (buildings) through a company he built called IRSA. He tries to buy it extremely cheaply, improve its value, and then sell it.

He does this because real property is a proven store of value during government inflations. Argentine farmland is some of the world's most productive farmland... A hundred years ago, Argentina was "the breadbasket of Europe." Its agriculture and natural resources led it to become the world's 10th-wealthiest nation.

So what happened in the last 100 years? How could Argentina fall so far in that time? To me, the blame lies significantly with the government...

For nearly 100 years, Argentina has had bad politicians who consistently rang up large government debts while putting the people through excessive regulation/socialism... only to see this unsuccessful formula blow up on the people, over and over again.

Hopefully, our next 100 years in the U.S. will turn out better than Argentina's. But these days, it sure feels like the U.S. government wants to repeat Argentina's formula for failure – large debts, excessive regulation, and more socialist tendencies.

There is one thing we can do to protect our wealth. We can follow Eduardo... we can buy farms, real estate, and gold – REAL things that hold their value when the government goes too far.

Over the last 20 years, Eduardo has built one of the world's finest portfolios of real estate. He's made his fortune by being patient for opportunities to appear... and then being bold and aggressive when the time is right. Right now, Cresud owns about 1.2 million acres of farmland. About 800,000 acres of this land is in productive use. They have about 80,000 beef cattle... and 9,000 dairy cattle.

And Cresud is well-run and incredibly profitable. Last quarter, the company's operating income rose 103% – from 93.4 million to 183.6 million Argentinean pesos. Crop, beef cattle, and milk prices all increased, boosting the company's margins. The company is increasing its planting area going into 2011 by 24%. Profits will continue to grow.

So what's not to like? There's one catch: The stock is expensive right now.

Over the years, the time to buy Cresud has been when the stock has been trading for less than book value. Right now, shares trade for close to two times book value. No matter how fantastic the business is, that's just too much to pay for the shares. We're going to wait for a better entry point.

Action to take: Put it on your watch list and buy it when it trades for less than book.

The Fed is Guaranteeing Higher Oil Prices (By Jeff Clark)

This can't be good...

 

 

In a season filled with dancing sugar plums, halls decked with holly, and forever rising stock prices, rising oil prices play the role of the Grinch.

 

Oil popped above $90 per barrel yesterday – its highest price in over two years (as you can see from the chart above). As a result, an average gallon of unleaded gasoline topped $3 nationally. If you're buying the premium stuff in my neck of the woods, you're paying $3.90 per gallon – a 20% increase since September.

 

It's not the highest price ever. But it's enough to push the cost of filling up an SUV into triple-digits.

 

Forget about tax cuts and quantitative easing (QE). When it comes to the economy, $100 fill-ups trump everything.

 

Someone far smarter than I am figured out every $0.01 increase in gasoline prices extracts $600 million from U.S. consumer disposable income. The $0.30 rise in gas prices over the past few weeks pretty much wiped out whatever economic benefit was hoped for with the Fed's QE2 program in December.

 

Here's something else to keep in mind...

 

The following is a chart of the Baltic Dry Index. It tracks the cost of worldwide shipping prices of various dry cargos… So it's a measure of economic demand.

 

 

 

It's interesting that while oil prices are climbing to their highest point in two years, economic demand is slipping toward its lowest point.

 

Clearly, the rise in oil prices isn't the result of a rise in economic activity. It's the result of an increase in inflationary pressures… Pressures that are caused, in part, by the Fed's policy of printing money in the name of quantitative easing.

 

Whatever benefit the Fed is trying to create by printing money to buy bonds to keep interest rates low (a failing effort, by the way) is negated by the rapid rise in oil and gasoline prices – not to mention the rise in wheat, sugar, and corn, too.

 

There's still six months left in the Fed's QE2 program. Yet they're already floating trial balloons about the possibility of QE3.

 

At this rate, we'll see $140 oil by July.

 

Best regards and good trading,

 

Jeff Cark

 

Gold oh Gold

Do you love Gold? You should (hold) buy on the dip!

Over the past week, gold dropped from more than $1,400 an ounce to about $1,360 an ounce today. The pundits are panicking... Yesterday, when gold fell 3%, headlines asked, "Is it time to sell gold, or double down?" An investment banker friend of mine sent an e-mail with the same question.

It's absurd that a $40 drop in gold is spurring these questions. Will individual gold buyers fret over $40 or even $100 an ounce when the U.S. dollar collapses? Will central banks and sovereign wealth funds, with their trillions of dollars, care about a 3% change in the price of gold when they lose faith in paper money? There's a short list of things to buy when you lose faith in paper money... Along with energy and agriculture, gold is near the top. And the central banks' gold holdings are historically low.

You can't value gold like a stock, bond, or any other traditional asset. You have to view it as a currency. Except this currency has no counterparty risk. You can't print more of it. And it's only as valuable as paper money is worthless. (We all know paper money is fast approaching its intrinsic value... zero.) And the market is saying the same thing. Take a look at the following five-year chart of the gold ETF (GLD) versus the 20-year Treasury ETF (TLT). People are losing faith in government bonds (i.e. the dollar) and favoring gold, proving what the true currency is...


Gold has risen 10 consecutive years. Going all the way back to 1980, we found no other market with the same consistency.

And we see gold's rally isn't over. Go to the grocery store and ask people if they own gold... Not gold jewelry, but actual gold bullion. Most do not. Sure, gold is making headlines. But until your waiter, auto mechanic, and tailor are showing off their new Canadian Maple Leafs, you can bet gold will rally. If we do see a short-term dip down to $1,300 or $1,200, we'd treat it as a tremendous buying opportunity.

And it helps that the Federal Reserve is hell-bent on printing the dollar into oblivion. Yesterday, the Fed released minutes from its December 14 meeting... Attendees dismissed rising long-term Treasury rates as a strengthening economy (no inflation here). Officials also committed to the $600 billion Treasury bond purchase program proposed in November. According to the Fed's minutes:

While the economic outlook was seen as improving, members generally felt that the change in the outlook was not sufficient to warrant any adjustments to the asset-purchase program. Some indicated that they had a fairly high threshold for making changes to the program. (Emphasis is our own.)

We're not sure what it will take to hit the Fed officials' "high threshold"... Perhaps when interest rates hit double digits, and we're walking to the store with wheelbarr ows of cash. But we're sure the dollar will be far less valuable by the time the Fed quenches its thirst for printing.

In addition to rising interest rates, another "End of America" prediction is also playing out... Soaring food prices. Last November, Porter attended a secret meeting with some of the world's most powerful people (billionaire investors, government officials, corporate CEOs) to discuss the looming food crisis. While most attendees tiptoed around the central issue, Porter dove in. He recalled his contribution to the meeting in the November 2010 issue of Stansberry's Investment Advisory...

Excuse me... I wonder if everyone here is merely trying to be polite... We are here talking about the risks to the global food supply chain because we all know food prices are rising rapidly and these price shocks are merely the beginning.

We all know there's a currency war underway – a currency war that began in 2008 with the collapse of Wall Street's investment banks. We all know this will, eventually, lead to a trade war. And we all know that as sure as night follows day, a currency war will lead to a trade war. We know this will have catastrophic consequences for food supplies.

But why hasn't anyone yet pointed to the obvious problem?

It terms of gold, agricultural commodities prices have fallen by about 50% over the last 10 years.

Obviously it's not the price of food that's the problem. It's the collapsing purchasing power of the U.S. dollar that's led us to this situation.

That's what's going to cause a food crisis – and an energy crisis.

The real question we should be discussing isn't food. It's money. And more specifically, the lack of a sound world reserve currency.

As Porter predicted, the weakening currency caused food prices to rise. According to the United Nations, world food prices hit an all-time record last December (besting the 2008 levels that sparked deadly riots across the world). An index of 55 food commodities followed by the Food and Agriculture Organization rose for the sixth month to 214.7, above the June 2008 high of 213.5.

Have a good day

Focus on Oil and Gas

HOARDING
How to buy one of the world's biggest, cheapest energy hoards... and get paid to wait on the boom

Inside This Issue • All roads lead to higher  natural gas consumption • One of the world's ultimate energy blue chips is on sale • Buy ow and start collecting safe, inflation- proof dividends • We're making a huge change to our model portfolio

The Nissan Leaf is a modern engineering marvel.

Satellite radio, which provides hundreds of static-free radio stations anywhere in the country, is standard. You can "sync" the car with your iPhone, which allows remote controlling of the car's heating and cooling system. The Leaf makes almost the same amount of noise while running as while not running. You might also notice the Leaf has no tailpipe. That's because there's no engine exhaust to pipe out.

Last month, Olivier Chalouhi of Redwood City, California became the first person in America to own a Leaf... the first mass-produced electric car priced for broad appeal.

The Leaf recently won the European Car of the Year award, making it the first electric car to win a major "car of the year" award... an important milestone for "green" enthusiasts.

However, with a range of just 100 miles per charge in low-speed city driving – and just 50%-75% of that for highway driving, the Leaf is a joke in the eyes of your average red-blooded, meat-eating American driver.

"Go ahead and laugh," the Leaf driver might say... "The joke is on the American taxpayer."

You see, the sticker price of the Leaf is around $33,000. However, buyers receive a subsidy from the U.S. government (aka you, the taxpayer) of $7,500 on a Leaf purchase. Whether you like electric cars or not, the government is forcing you to pay for them. The government wants 1 million new electric cars on the road by 2015. That works out to $7.5 billion in incentives... or an average of $87 per taxpayer.

We're discussing the Leaf because it's a part of one of the world's biggest resource trends you're not hearing about: The impending boom of global natural gas consumption.

What folks who go wild over boondoggles like the Leaf don't realize is we don't generate electricity from the flapping of butterfly wings or rainbow generators...

We burn coal to generate electricity. We run nuclear plants to generate electricity. These two sources are responsible for around 70% of the electricity produced in the U.S.

The Leaf doesn't burn gas... It burns coal.

And natural gas? It's responsible for 24% of our electrical generation capacity. But that's going to rise. As you can see from the Leaf story, the U.S. government wants the nation to go green. And one of the ultimate green plays is natural gas. It's cheap… It's clean… We have abundant supplies of the stuff. It's practically un-American not to burn the heck out it… And that's exactly what's going to happen over the next several decades.

Fortunately, we can buy the ultimate blue chip of this sector on the cheap right now… and collect a substantial dividend. Here's the story…

The Pickens Plan... The Shale Boom... The Nissan Leaf ...
The Obama Tax Craze... The Rise of Asia:
All Roads Lead to Higher Natural Gas Consumption

As one of the smartest, loudest, richest oilmen in America, T. Boone Pickens commands an audience. Since graduating college with a geology degree in 1951, Pickens has spent the last 60 years building a billion-dollar fortune by finding oil, putting together giant deals, and managing energy investment funds. He's the "rock star" of the U.S. hydrocarbon industry.

Pickens is now 82 years old. He doesn't need to focus on money anymore. These days, he's focused on the "Pickens Plan"... a giant push to convert a portion of the American truck-and-car fleet to burning natural gas instead of oil.

If you've read my research in this letter and my publisher's free daily e-letter DailyWealth in the past few years, you know new drilling technologies have recently unlocked vast natural gas supplies in the United States. From 2003 to 2008, natural gas spent most of the time trading in between $6 and $8 per million BTUs (British thermal units)... and occasionally spiking past $13. The new drilling technologies have unleashed so much new supply that natural gas prices have plunged into the $3-$4 range.

Pickens wants the U.S. to burn all this cheap gas to fuel our cars and trucks. He expects oil prices to move much higher in the coming years. Pickens thinks we're crazy not to burn our vast supplies of natural gas... rather than buy hundreds of billions of dollars worth of oil from the likes of Saudi Arabia, Mexico, and Venezuela. As he recently told Futures magazine...

From a security standpoint, we have to get on our own resources in the United States. If you didn't have resources, that would be a real problem but we have resources. You have 4,000 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, it is 30% cleaner than gasoline and diesel, it is cheaper, and it is an unbelievable opportunity for us to move to our own resources again. If we don't use natural gas for serious transportation fuel, we are going to go down as the dumbest crowd that ever came to town. Why wouldn't you replace dirty-foreign-expensive with cheaper-cleaner-domestic?

Pickens, who has a flair for the dramatic, also notes...

... we have more natural gas than any other country in the world. You are sitting here with 4,000 trillion [cubic feet of] natural gas, which is equivalent to 700 billion barrels of oil, which is three times what the Saudis have. You are honestly going to look like a fool if you sit here and ignore what you have available to you and you don't use it.

The Pickens Plan has problems. It calls for massive federal subsidies, just like Leaf drivers get. In addition, natural gas engines do work... But they aren't as powerful as traditional diesel engines. We'd have to build a lot of new fueling infrastructure.

Regardless, Pickens' main point is a good one: We have a tremendous amount of natural gas we aren't using right now.

I can't tell you if the government will get fully behind the Pickens Plan. But I can tell you the government is serious about burning less oil and coal. These two are the "dirty" fuels.

And as we've seen with the Leaf – and the Obama administration's pushing of various carbon taxes – the government is starting to push America in the direction of increased natural gas use over coal and oil. This will be a major tailwind for natural gas consumption.

Adding to the tailwind on a global scale is a familiar tale in the resource business: The growing consumption by the giant nations of China and India (or "Chindia"). As you can see from the below chart of Chindia's natural gas consumption over the past 25 years, it's a giant uptrend.

That's the past 25 years. Consider what happening now. The Chinese government just reported its natural gas imports were 30% greater in the first 11 months of 2010 than the same period in 2009. That's an incredible increase.

"Chindia" generates most of its electricity with coal... but it knows coal produces horrible pollution. It badly wants to increase its percentage of electricity generated from clean natural gas (and uranium). This is driving more gas consumption and more gas imports. It's a huge tailwind for natural gas prices over the long term.

As you can see, huge forces are escalating natural gas consumption: It's cheap... It's clean... It's abundant... "Chindia" is consuming more and more of the stuff.

While this demand tailwind won't cause a short-term explosion in natural gas prices, it's a no-brainer to start hoarding the stuff right now... in advance of the coming consumption boom, which will be driven by the U.S. government and "Chindia."

Fortunately, we can buy the ultimate safe, North American natural gas hoard on the cheap right now... and pick up a near 3% dividend while we wait on the boom...

The Greatest Hoard of Natural Gas in
North America Is Going Cheap

Commodities are cyclical. We can count on that.

Natural gas is no exception. Its price may be at historic lows today... but we can be sure it will rise again at some point. Many roads may lead to higher natural gas demand. But the simplest is this: Natural gas is the cheapest source of clean energy in North America today.

It costs about $2.91 to buy enough coal to generate 1 million BTUs of energy. A million BTUs of natural gas costs $4.58. The trade off comes from the soot and pollution generated by burning coal. Natural gas combustion produces one thing... carbon dioxide. That difference will matter in the future.

To quote legendary commodity investor Jim Rogers, "The best cure for low prices is low prices." Eventually, the utility of natural gas and its low cost will create demand. We simply have to be patient.

In investment terms, we want to own enormous reserves that can be produced when the natural gas rally cranks up. We want to buy companies the market has left for dead... but will have enormous natural gas production in the future. Essentially, we want a "call option" on natural gas.

We want to own "PUDs."

PUD stands for Proven Undeveloped Reserves. These are undrilled gas wells with zero exploration risk. Typically, PUDs are located between two producing wells or in the middle of proven fields just waiting to be drilled. We know the gas is there... The company that owns it just hasn't drilled it yet because prices are too low.

Right now, the stock market is giving away natural gas PUDs for free.

The price of natural gas is so low, investors aren't willing to pay much at all for future production of PUDs. Companies only get credit for current productions and cash flows... promising properties are selling for peanuts.

If the price of natural gas heads up from $4 to $6 or $8 in the coming years, these assets will skyrocket in value.

That will likely take years to happen. We're buying today because it's cheap and stands a great chance of doubling or tripling our money over the next three years.

That's why we're buying...

The King of PUDs

Encana Corporation (NYSE: ECA) is a $23 billion North American-focused natural gas producer and explorer. It is the undisputed king of undeveloped natural gas.

As a landholder, Encana has more developed acreage than all but six companies in the world. Among only the firms with more are oil majors like ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips – giants four times Encana's market cap.

The company can trace its roots back to the Canadian Pacific Railroad (CPR). In 1881, the Canadian government gave CPR land in exchange for building a transcontinental railroad. In 1958, the railway created an oil and gas subsidiary to exploit those resources. In 2002, it spun off that subsidiary, leading to EnCana's creation. Those original deeded acres make up part of Encana's 12.7 million acres. That's an area larger than Maryland and Connecticut combined.

The company's assets span North America. As you can see on the map, Encana has a foothold in nearly all the major natural gas discoveries on the continent.

The table (below) details how much land Encana has in each gasfield, the number of wells it has already drilled, the number of PUDs, and the cost range for developing that asset.

Encana's Natural Gas Assets Canada Gas Plays Encana Acres Encana Wells PUDs Cost Range Coal Bed Methane (CBM) 2,100,000 13,000 885 $3.50-$4.00 Horn River 1,752,000 800 50 $3.50-$4.25 Montney/Cutbank Ridge 1,062,000 1,200 65 $3.25-$3.75 Bighorn 459,000 500 55 $3.50-$4.00 U.S. Gas Plays       Cost Range Piceance/Niobrara 869,000 1,700 120 $1.00-$5.25 Haynesville 429,000 1,600 90 $3.75-$4.45 East Texas 267,000 600 25 $3.70-$4.20 Jonah 127,000 1,400 110 $2.90-$4.00 Fort Worth 76,000 900 20 $3.10-$4.30 Other 1,692,000 1,400 90 $2.15-$3.25 Totals 8,839,000 23,100 1,510

You can think of Encana's vast collection of PUDs like you would a portfolio of stock options. Options can be speculative investments. They may not have much value in the near term. But if you place a small sum of money into them, you could wake up one day to see that your investment soared in value.

In addition to the PUDs, Encana has an enormous amount of gas waiting for the drill...

According to SEC filings, it has 19.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves. But remember, the SEC uses a rigid set of guidelines to dictate how a company reports reserves... and its rules take into account if the asset can be produced economically. Much of Encana's gas isn't economic at today's price, so the company can't report it as reserves.

As a geologist, I believe the company can actually produce about 58 trillion cubic feet of gas. We call those assets "contingent resources." Here's a table that shows the difference between the SEC-blessed reserves and contingent resources.Here's a table that shows the difference between the SEC blessed reserves and contigent resources.

Note: Engineers predict the volume of reserves/resources. The three grades of proven and contigent reserves reflect the levels of confidence. The first grade is the highest confidence and the third is the lowest. The middle, 2P/2C, estimate is commonly regarded as the most likely.

Encana has 23,100 producing wells. It also has an inventory of 35,000 drilling locations (PUDs plus contingent resources). That's enough inventory to drill 1,500 wells a year for more than 20 years... without doing any exploration at all.

Another key piece of information is the cost range. This is the expected cost per MCF. Many of Encana's plays aren't economic when gas trades for less than $3.50 per MCF – so they're tenuous at best today.

But when the natural gas price hits $4.50 per MCF, it clears even the upper range of costs. That means profits will soar once natural gas clears about $4.50 per MCF.

Even better, those production costs should decline over time as Encana works each property. Here's why...

Encana operates in nearly all the best shale gas plays in North America. As we've discussed before, shale gas – or unconventional gas – comes from thin-layered rocks. These rocks require horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (fraccing) to open them up and let the gas out. This can be an expensive proposition at first. The key to shale gas is, the longer you are in a region, the better the economics become.

For example, Encana spent four years working the Montney shale. In 2006, it cost $1.5 million per frac stage (frac jobs are typically priced in standard "stages." A well can have multiple frac stages, depending on complexity and size). Those wells produced 2.1 million cubic feet of gas per day. By 2010, the company had its cost down to $600,000 per frac stage. Its production rose to 5.3 million cubic feet per day.

Or consider Encana's early-stage shale play Horn River, in British Columbia, Canada. In just two years, it cut its costs from $2 million per frac stage to $600,000 per frac stage. It increased production from 4.6 million cubic feet per day to 11.7 million cubic feet per day.

The costs fall thanks to economies of scale. At the same time, its engineers tailor the process to the immediate geography. That increases production.

The company employs what it calls the "gas factory" technique to maximize its gas production. It can drill six horizontal wells from a single drilling location. That's the equivalent of 48 vertical wells. In some places, the company can drill as many as 16 to 20 wells per location. As you can imagine, that reduces drilling costs. It also reduces the amount of roads and pipes needed to get that gas to market.

Encana plans to use those techniques to double production in the next five years – regardless of whether gas prices rise. That means our base case scenario is a double on our investment over that period. However, that assumes natural gas prices don't recover in that period... If they do, we could make much, much larger gains in Encana thanks to that growth plan.

Should natural gas climb into the $7-$8 range – like it was back in 2007 – Encana's PUDs will soar in value, as well as its cash flows and dividends.

It's Time to Buy the Cheapest
Independent Energy Company on the Market

Encana's books show the company's fundamentals are solid...

Encana Summary Market Cap $21.6 billion Enterprise Value $27.8 billion Revenue (2010 estimate) $9.0 billion Earnings (EBITDA) $5.7 billion Cash $1.4 billion Debt $7.6 billion Dividend Yield 2.7% (80¢ per share)

Encana is one of the cheapest companies in its peer group – independent oil and gas companies. As you can see from the table below, it has the second-lowest price-to-book value and price-to-earnings ratios. Those metrics reflect the market sentiment. The more gas the company produces, the lower the price ratios. The market hates natty right now...

Company Market Cap Price to Book Value Price to Cash Flow Price to Earnings Encana $21.4 billion 1.24 7.44 13.0 Talisman Energy $22.6 billion 2.04 6.47 34.3 EOG Resources $23.5 billion 2.34 7.94 40.4 Husky Energy $23.6 billion 1.55 9.31 18.8 Cenovus Energy $25.0 billion 2.49 8.89 32.9 Hess Energy $26.1 billion 1.94 5.83 16.1 Marathon Oil $26.7 billion 1.22 4.98 12.1 Chesapeake Energy $17.3 billion 1.57 3.22 19.1

Higher valuations will come with higher cash flows, as the price of natural gas rises. That will happen as Encana is doubling its production... That's a trifecta for shareholders. More gas production at higher margins with higher cash flow.

Conservatively, we should double our money over the next thee years on production alone. If we double production and the market decides to pay six times our cash flow – a reasonable assumption over the next three to four years – that's a 300% gain.

And as added incentive, this company is shareholder-friendly...

Today, Encana pays a 2.7% dividend. The company began paying a dividend in 2003 and has grown it 682% since then. It has never decreased its payouts.

And consider... it paid 86¢ per share in 2009 and 2010 – two terrible years for natural gas producers. The company's production fell, its cash flow fell, and its earnings fell. But management remained conservative through the good years. It was prepared to pay its dividends even in the worst of times. That makes Encana's dividend one of the safest out there.

Plus, the company is actively buying its own shares. In 2010, the company bought 2% of its shares at an average price of $32.42 per share. Clearly, management believes its shares are worth at least 10% more than today's share price... and they're buying more. In 2011, management agreed to buy back 36.8 million shares. That's 5% of its 736 million outstanding shares. If you add that to the dividend yield, we could earn 7.7% this year... even if nothing else happens.

From 2003 to 2008, Encana grew production 165%. The company's success and rising energy prices drove a spectacular rise.

Then came late 2008... Like most every stock, the boom turned to a bust during the credit crisis. Oil and gas prices collapsed. And Encana shares cratered from near $50 to less than $20.

As you can see from the chart below, EnCana has recovered a bit... but is still inside a long sideways trading range. Low natural gas prices have kept the stock from exploding in the past few months like most resource stocks did. This gives us a great entry point.

Action to take: Buy Encana (NYSE: ECA) up to $32 per share. Use a 25% trailing stop.

Unlike many of our resource plays, I encourage you to see Encana as a long-term dividend paying investment. We're buying a giant, cheap hoard of natural gas... and looking to hold it for a long time. Investors experienced with options can consider using this stock to build a long-term covered call program to juice the yield. But we will only follow the stock for portfolio tracking.

However, we do have some risk here.

Our greatest risk is commodity risk. Things could get worse before they get better. Natural gas prices averaged $4.38 in 2010 and $3.95 in 2009. We could see a repeat of those prices if the world's economic picture clouds over again.

During the worst period in 2009, Encana's shares fell to a low of $19.21. That's about 35% less than today's price. And even in 2009, the company still turned out a $1.9 billion profit.

While there is some commodity risk, Encana is a solid and relatively safe company. A big reason for that is our timing. The market hates natural gas. It only gives a company like Encana credit for its cash flow. Encana's gas assets are at fire-sale prices. Buying assets this cheap is about the safest thing to do with your money.

Also remember, with the threat of inflation making big headlines these days, the interest in getting cash into "real assets" like gold and energy these days is huge. If you're looking for such a long-term real asset play, Encana is a great one. It has the potential to soar hundreds of percent in value over the coming years should an inflationary trend take hold.

If crude oil continues to trot higher in response to rising Asian consumption and a lack of new supplies, it will pull natural gas prices higher with it. If you're bullish on oil over the long-term (I am), you're bullish on EnCana.

Portfolio Review

Now is the time for utmost caution...

I could write five pages about my concerns that commodities have run up too far, too fast recently. But a picture says a thousands words, so let's just look at the chart below. It shows the past two year's trading of the benchmark commodity index (CRB).

The index has staged a spectacular move since September, up 23% in three months...

I know 23% doesn't sound like much to some people... but this is an extraordinary move for a broad index like the CRB. Some important individual commodity moves have been bigger: Copper is up 27%... Silver is up 46%... Corn is up 32%. And cotton, coffee, and sugar have soared, too.

This huge move has sent many resource stocks up 50%-75%. Some of the smaller "junior" exploration firms are up more than 100% in the past few months. It has also brought a huge amount of speculative money into the commodity sector...

Speculative long positions held by fast-money hedge funds in vital markets crude oil, copper, and corn are near record levels. This move has brought us enormous gains. But it also leaves the sector vulnerable to a huge selloff that would shake out latecomers.

Now it's time to take some money off the table...

I know selling a position can feel like losing a family member for some folks. But it's the only way to make huge gains in the "boom and bust" resource sector. You can't fall in love with these stocks. (They won't love you back.)

When considering buying, selling, or holding a position, we have to ask the big question: Does the potential reward from here justify the potential risk?

If you can't make a good case for "yes, it does," then it's time to consider selling the position.

Right now, in the short term, some of our positions are at risk of big selloffs. We've made incredible gains... and I'm recommending you be conservative and take some gains off the table. But realize... if conditions change, I'm willing to jump right back into these names.

Originally, I planned to tighten our trailing stops on our higher-risk silver plays (especially in silver, as it has soared so much). However, this week, many of our stocks blew right down through the 10% stops I'd planned to use.

Instead, I urge you to:

• Sell, to close, Hathor Energy (TSX V: HAT) at $2.76 per share for a 58% gain.

• Sell, to close, Alexco Resources (AMEX: AXU) at $7.15 per share for a 57% gain.

• Sell, to close, China North East Petroleum (AMEX: NEP) at $5.81 per share for a 34% loss.

• Sell, to close, Silver Standard Resources (Nasdaq: SSRI) at $24.37 per share for a 89% gain.

• Sell, to close, Mag Silver (AMEX: MVG) at $11.50 per share for a 156% gain.

• Sell, to close, Silvercorp (NYSE: SVM) at $11.70 per share for a 270% gain.

• Sell, to close, Silver Wheaton (NYSE: SLW) at $34.19 per share for a 345% gain.

Again, I see our silver stocks as particularly vulnerable. In order to preserve some of our larger gains, we need to tighten up our trailing stops on several companies. Yes, this means selling our mega-winner Silver Wheaton. I know some folks will see this similar to shooting Old Yeller... but we have enormous gains here that could get rocked in a selloff. We need to protect them. And remember... there's no shame in banking a 300% winner.

But keep these stocks on your watch list. Our silver plays are all great companies with great futures. We will almost surely jump back into them later.

Let's tighten our trailing stop on Northern Dynasty Minerals (AMEX: NAK) from 25% to 15%. That means we'll sell our shares if it closes at less than $12.34 per share.

Let's also tighten our trailing stops on Seabridge Gold (AMEX: SA), Fronteer Gold (AMEX: FRG), Magnum Hunter (NYSE: MHR), Vanguard Natural Resources (NYSE: VNR), and Imperial Metals (TSX: III) from 50% to 25%.

This will prevent us from giving back all our gains, in case a deep correction cuts across all the resource markets.

We've had a tremendous run together. Many of our stocks have skyrocketed in the past few months. Investors are wildly bullish right now, which should make any good contrarian nervous. Let's take some profits and keep our new buying to an unloved name like EnCana. I'll update you on how it all plays out.

Good investing,

Matt Badiali
January 7, 2011

The S&A Resource Report Model Portfolio Prices as of January 6, 2010

Company Ticker Ref. Price Ref. Date Recent Price Total Return* Status Description Best Buy Encana ECA NEW 1/7/2011 $28.89 NEW Buy below $32 King of PUDs Buy Royal Gold* RGLD $38.00 3/3/2009 $50.10 47% Buy Below $55 Golden Paychecks Hold Minco Silver MSV.TO $6.09 12/7/2010 $5.97 (2%) Buy Below $6.50 China Gold Minco Gold MGH $1.93 12/7/2010 $2.38 23% Buy Below $2.25 China Gold ATAC Resources ATC.V $6.05 10/4/2010 $5.84 (3%) Buy Below $6.50 Yukon Gold Kaminak Gold Corp KAM.V $3.24 10/4/2010 $2.77 (15%) Buy Below $3.50 Yukon Gold Mesa Royalty Trust MTR $44.48 8/28/2010 $49.08 13% Buy Below $46 Royalty Trusts Dorchester Minerals DMLP $24.00 8/27/2010 $26.87 14% Buy Below $25.50 Royalty Trusts Hugoton Royalty Trust HGT $19.00 8/26/2010 $20.77 11% Buy Below $18.50 Royalty Trusts Cameco CCJ $26.14 8/3/2010 $39.43 51% Buy Below $30 Uranium Fronteer Gold FRG $6.07 8/3/2010 $10.45 72% Buy Below $7 Uranium Penn Virginia Resource Partners PVR $23.73 8/2/2010 $27.93 22% Buy Below $29 New AOP Enterprise Products Partners EPD $37.72 8/2/2010 $41.96 13% Buy Below $46 New AOP EV Energy Partners EVEP $31.70 7/7/2010 $40.64 33% Buy Below $35 Eagle Ford Shale Vanguard Natural Resources VNR $20.64 7/7/2010 $28.76 45% Buy Below $23.50 Eagle Ford Shale Magnum Hunter MHR $3.95 7/7/2010 $7.21 83% Buy Below $4.60 Eagle Ford Shale Inter-Citic ICI.TO $1.25 4/28/2010 $2.00 60% Buy Below $1.75 China Gold San Juan Basin Trust SJT $21.96 4/5/2010 $23.25 12% Buy Below $23 Natural gas play Seabridge Gold SA $21.37 3/22/2010 $28.32 33% Buy Below $35 Golden Triangle Imperial Metals III.TO $16.20 3/22/2010 $24.45 51% Buy Below $17.25 Golden Triangle Suncor SU $29.33 3/2/2010 $37.23 28% Buy Below $32 Oil Insurance ExxonMobil XOM $65.40 3/2/2010 $75.18 17% Buy Below $70 Oil Insurance Carbo Ceramics CRR $60.70 2/25/2010 $98.80 64% Buy Below $82 Shale Ammo Magma Energy MXY.TO $1.63 2/9/2010 $1.36 (17%) Hold Green Power Bubble Interoil Corp IOC $71.70 12/22/2009 $76.55 7% Buy below $80 New Guinea Giant Calpine CPN $13.03 8/3/2009 $13.98 7% Hold Green Power Bubble Eldorado Gold EGO $9.21 7/17/2009 $17.01 85% Buy up to $16 China Gold Barrick Gold ABX $37.04 6/1/2009 $49.26 35% Buy below $60 Gold Loophole Northern Dynasty Minerals NAK $4.18 3/3/2009 $14.20 240% Buy below $8 World's Largest Undeveloped Gold Deposit ConocoPhillips COP $45.73 2/3/2009 $66.97 65% Buy Up to $62 Energy Hedge Fund Sell Alexco Resources AXU $4.55 10/4/2010 $7.15 57% SELL Yukon Gold Hathor Energy HAT.V $1.75 8/25/2010 $2.76 58% SELL Uranium China North East Petroleum NEP $8.83 4/26/2010 $5.81 (34%) SELL China Oil Silver Wheaton SLW $7.75 7/6/2009 $34.19 345% SELL World's Greatest Business MAG Silver MVG $4.50 7/6/2009 $11.50 156% SELL Safe Silver Silvercorp SVM $3.25 6/1/2009 $11.70 270% SELL China Silver Play Silver Standard Resources SSRI $12.90 3/12/2009 $24.37 89% SELL Best Silver Stock of 2009

* Total return includes dividends. This portfolio is not intended to represent the exact prices at which you could get in or out of a stock, rather, it represents the value of our insights at the time our material is published.