Totalinvestor Special Situation: UNX a Ten+ Bagger?

Byron King of Agora Financial thinks he may have found a tiny Canadian penny stock that could result in a 3577% gain.

In the following video "you will hear about the "Oil Kitchen," a potential 2.3 billion barrel discovery off Africa's West coast. Time magazine calls this part of Africa "an oil and gas bonanza just waiting to be tapped.""

click here for video

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This is NOT a recommendation or advice.

Foreclosures up in 75 percent of top U.S. metro areas

(Reuters) - Foreclosures rose in 3 of every four large U.S. metro areas in this year's first half, likely ruling out sustained home price gains until 2013, real estate data company RealtyTrac said on Thursday.

Unemployment was the main culprit driving foreclosure actions on more than 1.6 million properties, the company said.

"We're not going to see meaningful, sustainable home price appreciation while we're seeing 75 percent of the markets have increases in foreclosures," RealtyTrac senior vice president Rick Sharga said in an interview.

Foreclosure actions -- which include notice of default, scheduled auction and repossession -- in the first half rose in 154 of the 206 metro areas with populations 200,000 or more.

"We're not going to see real price appreciation probably until 2013," said Sharga. "We don't see a double dip in housing but we think it's going to be a long painful recovery for the next three years." (more)

Zilch for You Know Who Trillions for Wall Street

By MIKE WHITNEY

On Tuesday, the 30-year fixed rate for mortgages plunged to an all-time low of 4.56 per cent. Rates are falling because investors are still moving into risk-free liquid assets, like Treasuries. It's a sign of panic and the Fed's lame policy response has done nothing to sooth the public's fears. The flight-to-safety continues a full two years after Lehman Bros blew up.

Housing demand has fallen off a cliff in spite of the historic low rates. Purchases of new and existing homes are roughly 25 per cent of what they were at peak in 2006. Case/Schiller reported on Monday that June new homes sales were the "worst on record", but the media twisted the story to create the impression that sales were actually improving! Here are a few of Monday's misleading headlines: "New Home Sales Bounce Back in June"--Los Angeles Times. "Builders Lifted by June New-home Sales", Marketwatch. "New Home Sales Rebound 24 per cent", CNN. "June Sales of New Homes Climb more than Forecast", Bloomberg. (more)

Investing in the world's best balance sheets

FORTUNE -- At the G20 summit in Toronto last month, the leaders of world's largest economies embraced a brave new theme: Halting the alarming, potentially ruinous growth in already mountainous sovereign debt.

Now that the spotlight is shifting to the dangers of big deficits and excessive leverage, many politicians, pundits, and even investors, are mostly ignoring the most remarkable feature of the global debt picture. It's almost exclusively the developed countries that are guilty of excessive borrowing.

Amazingly, the emerging nations, from China to Russia to Brazil to Indonesia, are either virtually debt-free or boast far healthier balance sheets than their giant trading partners. These countries stand as the new models of fiscal prudence. (more)

Why The Fed Will Not Raise Interest Rates

Are Risky Assets Back in Vogue?

Barrons,
In the manic world of Wall Street, the tide can roll in and roll back out with blazing speed. Just two weeks ago, the talk was centered on deflation as yields in the Treasury market plummeted and stocks threatened a major technical breakdown.

This week, with stocks freshened by one of the stronger months we've seen recently and with many commodities on the move higher, the outlook seems to have changed. Have investors changed their minds and are now willing to take on more risk?

I don't think so. The stock market's recent recovery is fueled more by investors grasping for hope of anything positive rather than an underlying change in the structure of the markets.

Stocks were extended to the downside, and Treasuries were extended to the upside as fears ran high. Gold, one safe haven in times of duress, was tired. So was the Japanese yen—the safe haven in the currency world—especially versus the euro. (more)

Rosenberg on the cause of the next secular uptrend in inflation or hyperinflationary shock

David Rosenberg is bullish on bonds. And the reasoning for his bullishness has a lot to do with the deleveraging and excess capacity which the bursting of the credit bubble has brought into view. In this sense, his views on inflation are actually rather similar to modern monetary theory advocates.

In his daily letter to investors yesterday, Rosenberg asks "So what will be the cause of the next secular uptrend in inflation or hyperinflationary shock?" In response, he writes:

If the 55 year-old Boomer resolves to work longer and harder, cut the budget to save more and liquidate debt, can we really expect the politics to maintain the status quo? This type of behavior from the developed world will exert enormous deflationary pressure. In addition, the huge amount of debt and entitlement expansion that has occurred at the government level, particularly in response to the financial crisis, will be an enormous drain on economic growth as taxes are raised to service the debt and budgets are dramatically cut. (more)

Foreclosures In California Killing MiddleClass Dreams

Nassim Taleb: "The Government Debt Is Becoming A Pure Ponzi Scheme"

In an interview conducted with Business Week, Nassim Taleb discusses his view of the biggest black swan in the market currently, and isn't shy to call government debt a "Pure Ponzi scheme." - When asked where he the biggest potential source of systemic fragility is, he responds: "The massive one is government deficits. As an analogy: You often have planes landing two hours late. In some cases, when you have volcanos, you can land two or three weeks late. How often have you landed two hours early? Never. It's the same with deficits. The errors tend to go one way rather than the other. When I wrote The Black Swan, I realized there was a huge bias in the way people estimate deficits and make forecasts. Typically things costs more, which is chronic. Governments that try to shoot for a surplus hardly ever reach it. The problem is getting runaway. It's becoming a pure Ponzi scheme. It's very nonlinear: You need more and more debt just to stay where you are. And what broke Madoff is going to break governments. They need to find new suckers all the time. And unfortunately the world has run out of suckers." Alas, Taleb is wrong: Ponzi or not, today's UST auction will likely once again come at a multi year high Bid To Cover as the suckers (especially those who recycle Fed discount window money) just refuse to go away. (more)

Stocks fall amid uncertainty over the economy

CNBC,
Stocks ended an erratic day with a modest loss Thursday as investors tried to reconcile another batch of conflicting economic signals.

The Dow Jones industrial average closed down 30 points after falling as much as 110 and rising 87 during the course of the day. The other big market indexes also closed slightly lower.

Thursday's trading fit with the market's months-long pattern. Investors are torn between upbeat earnings news from companies and reports that point to an uncertain recovery. That indecision was clear as stocks rose on strong earnings at Southwest Airlines Co., ExxonMobil Corp. and other companies, then fell on disappointment over a slight drop in first-time claims for unemployment benefits.

Traders were also uneasy ahead of the first reading on U.S. gross domestic product for the April-June quarter, to be released Friday.

"This is a market that is trying to ascertain how deep the downturn is going to be and it is a market that's future-looking," said Quincy Krosby, a market strategist with Prudential Financial. (more)

Gerald Celente on Tony Cruise WHAS

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