Embry – This is What I’m Doing with My Own Money Right Now

from, KingWorldNews:
With the Dow now at its highest level since December of 2007, today King World News interviewed John Embry, Chief Investment Strategist of the $10 billion strong Sprott Asset Management. Embry told KWN “This is totally unrealistic and unsustainable.” Embry also discussed gold and the mining shares, and what he is doing with his own money, but first, here is what Embry had to say about what is happening in the stock market: “There is enormous interference in the stock market. The ‘Plunge Protection Team’ or ‘President’s Working Group on Financial Markets’ is in the market, virtually every day, making sure there is enough money being funneled to their primary dealers, so the stock market never has a serious hiccup.”
John Embry continues @ KingWorldNews.com

Big Value In Fertilizer: POT, MOS, AGU, SOIL, YARIY.PK, CF, TNH, RNF, SQM

Currently, there are around seven billion people inhabiting our planet, but that number is forecasted to rise to nine billion by 2040. With populations rising in both developed and emerging markets, producing enough food to feed the world's citizens is becoming a paramount issue. To feed our expanding world, food output will have to increase by roughly 70% over the next four decades just to keep up with demand. While all the links along the agricultural food chain will see robust long-term gains, a value opportunity could be had on the critical first step of that chain. For investors, there's big money in dirt.

Value at the Bottom
While most investors tend to focus on the sexier agricultural plays in GMO seeds, high tech irrigation equipment and pesticides, the boring trio of phosphate, nitrogen and potash could be the better long-term play. Various constraints including the lack of available arable land, water resources and infrastructure place serious pressures on the world's ability to increase food production. While the various high tech seeds and equipment will help push back the tide, the fertilizer sector is poised to do most of the heavy lifting.  (more)

Niels Jensen: Investment Outlook (April-May 2012)

by Niels Jensen, Absolute Return Partners
Remem­ber the scene in A few Good Men where Colonel Jes­sup (Jack Nichol­son) and Lieu­tenant Kaf­fee (Tom Cruise) trade insults? Fol­low­ing some pretty intense ques­tion­ing, Kaf­fee yells at Jes­sup: “I want the truth”. With the deadly glare that only Jack Nichol­son can muster, Jes­sop retorts: “You can’t han­dle the truth”.
I was reminded of this rather famous moment in film his­tory when a long time reader of the Absolute Return Let­ter asked me recently: Why don’t you tell the truth about the UK econ­omy? Why don’t you tell it as it is – that the sit­u­a­tion in the UK is worse than it is in the euro­zone? I decided to take up the chal­lenge from the reader. I am not sure that I actu­ally agree that the UK is in a worse posi­tion than most euro­zone coun­tries; it is worse in some respects but bet­ter in oth­ers. More about this in a moment.
The UK government’s strat­egy appears to be based on the age old phi­los­o­phy that the best line of defence is attack. In recent months, Prime Min­is­ter Cameron has been unusu­ally vocal about the short­com­ings of the other major Euro­pean pow­ers at a time when every­thing is not plain sail­ing back home. On the major issues fac­ing the UK domes­tic econ­omy, Cameron and his gov­ern­ment have been deceiv­ingly quiet – per­haps because we can’t han­dle the truth?
It is not all bad news
Back to the out­look for the UK. There is no deny­ing that it is grim; how­ever, and despite all the weak­nesses of the UK eco­nomic model, it has two key advan­tages over most of its Euro­pean neighbours.
Firstly, it is a cur­rency issuer rather than a cur­rency user, mean­ing that it has full con­trol of its mon­e­tary and cur­rency poli­cies and can apply pre­cisely the pol­icy required at any point in time rather than being held hostage to the needs and require­ments of the other mem­bers of the Euro­pean cur­rency union. As a cur­rency user, it can­not overtly default unless it chooses to do so, although there are ways it can default covertly as we shall see later.

Sec­ondly, the UK has gone much fur­ther than most other coun­tries in terms of restruc­tur­ing its labour mar­kets (chart 1), grant­ing it key advan­tages over its Euro­pean com­peti­tors many of whom are still sad­dled with labour mar­ket prac­tices that do not stand a chance in today’s envi­ron­ment where the mar­ket place for both labour and goods has turned truly global.  (more)

GATA’s Bill Murphy Exposes How The Gold Cartel Is Bombing The Market For Precious Metals

Welcome to Capital Account. In one of his writings, a leading English art critic of the Victorian era, John Ruskin, told the story of a man who boarded a ship carrying his entire wealth in a large bag of gold coins. When a storm hit a few days into the voyage and the decision was made to abandon ship, the man strapped the bag around his waist, jumped overboard, and sank straight to the bottom of the sea. The man’s body was found with the wreck of the ship many years later. Reflecting on this, Ruskin asked “Now, as he was sinking, had he the gold? Or had the gold him?”
We tell you this story to impress upon you the enduring value that gold has held in the minds of people through the centuries. It has represented not only a store of value, but a means to an end…any end, including one that concludes at thebottom of the sea.
For muchof Western history, gold has been synonymous with money. It was not so long ago that the United States and Europe fixed their currencies to gold, and despite the free floating currency regime that we have had since the end of Bretton Woods in the early 1970s, one could argue that we are still on a defacto gold standard.
After all, gold has been rising steadily, and at times rather frenetically, since 2001, when it was trading at below 300 dollars per ounce, to levels nearing 2000 dollars in the past year. There are those, like Nouriel Roubini, who have been calling it a bubble since at least 2009. One of the good things about markets is that they tend to have a mind of their own, and don’t care all too much what academics or policy makers think.
But even if markets don’t need policymakers, policymakers still need markets, and the gold market in particular is one that central bankers keep a close eye on. Gold, as our guest James Turk said in a recent interview with us, is the messenger, and what it has been telling us is that people don’t trust governments and they definitley don’t trust central banks.
But how far are governments, central banks and their too-big-to-fail handlers willing to go in order to silence the messenger? Is market manipulation by governments real, and if so, how is it being done and where? Joining us to discuss this, and other golden news is Bill Murphy, Chairman of the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee and veteran of the precious metals space. Bill Murphy has been raising the alarm of manipulation in the precious metals market since at least 1999, and has been a prominent voice among defenders of free markets and sound currency.

JIM ROGERS: The One Thing Investors Need To Consider Before Diving Into Commodities

Jim Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings, has long said the smartest thing investors could do is become a Chinese farmer.
He stopped by the Business Insider office to tell us why agricultural commodities are his top picks and what investors need to consider before diving into commodities.

James Paulsen: Investment Outlook (May 2012)

Is it Déjà Vu all Over Again? April 30, 2012 by James Paulsen, Chief Invest­ment Strate­gist, Wells Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment (Wells Fargo) After nearly six months of per­sis­tently better-than-expected eco­nomic reports and a reg­u­larly ris­ing stock mar­ket, met­rics on the econ­omy have turned a bit more mixed lately while stock mar­ket prices have strug­gled in recent weeks. This has caused many to won­der whether the econ­omy and the stock mar­ket are headed again toward another “spring swoon” like those expe­ri­enced dur­ing 2010 and 2011. Spook­ily, con­di­tions do seem remark­ably sim­i­lar today to those which pre­ceded the last two spring thaws. In 2010, the stock mar­ket peaked on April 23 and in 2011 it peaked on April 29. Well, it’s April again and stocks are strug­gling? More­over, in each of the last two years, just like this year, the spring stalls were pre­ceded by improved eco­nomic reports and by a surge which car­ried stock prices to new recov­ery highs. Finally, ris­ing gas prices have again played a dom­i­nant role in recent months as they did lead­ing up to both of the last two spring swoons. So, is every­one best advised to sim­ply “Sell in May and Go Away”—something which worked well in each of the last two years? Although sim­i­lar­i­ties to past swoons are trou­bling and while the recov­ery will inevitably “ebb and flow,” there are sev­eral crit­i­cal dif­fer­ences evi­dent this year which should help keep the econ­omy and the stock mar­ket out of “swoon’s way” dur­ing the bal­ance of 2012. Eco­nomic Poli­cies are More Accommodative Eco­nomic poli­cies are notably more accom­moda­tive today com­pared to either 2010 or 2011. In 2010, the pace of the M2 money sup­ply had slowed to a restric­tive 1 per­cent annual pace, and in early 2011 it was only ris­ing at a very mod­est 4 to 5 per­cent pace. By con­trast, today, the annual growth in the M2 money sup­ply has per­sisted about a robust 10 per­cent clip since last fall! (more)

Jay Taylor: Turning Hard Times Into Good Times

5/1/2012: The New Depression – Avoiding the Greater Depression

It's Time To Invest In Rare Earth Metals : LIT, MCP, AVL, XING, CHGS

Given the turmoil in the Middle East and crisis in Japan, investors have once again run to the safe haven assets of precious metals and oil. In this flight to quality, many higher risk assets are quickly returning to bargain basement levels. One such opportunity is directly correlated with Japan's high tech economy. Despite the fact that long term rare earth metals prices are soaring, stocks in the sector have plummeted on fears that the tsunami would eradicate demand in Japan. However, these fears have provided a long term opportunity for investors before the rare earth crisis intensifies.

Building Blocks of High TechnologyWhile Scandium, Gadolinium and Yttrium don't exactly roll off the tongue, these minerals form the building blocks of high technology. From slick flat panel TV's and cell phones to wind turbines and MRI machines, these strategic metals are finding their ways into our daily lives more and more. Terbium is one of the key ingredients in low-energy CFL light bulbs and it takes roughly one ton of neodymium for every megawatt of generating capacity a wind turbine has. Hybrid cars use up to 25 pounds of these precious metals in their advanced electric motors in order to increase efficiency. Currently, worldwide demand outside of China for rare earths totals about 60,000 tons per year. Chinese Domination
Demand for these materials is only increasing as populations continue to grow. The market value for strategic metals is expected to reach 200,000 tons by 2014, or roughly valued at $2 to $3 billion. Chinese requirements of rare earths are forecasted to exceed supply by 2012. These supply and demand imbalances are a real cause for concern. Mostly due to its incredibly lax environmental policies, China currently produces more than 95% of global supply of rare earths. During the second half of 2010, China slashed export quotas by 72% and for 2011, the first round of export permits saw cuts of 35%. These cuts have caused prices to skyrocket. One ton of neodymium is quickly approaching the $180,000 mark. (more)

Chart of the Day - Pebblebrook Hotel Trust (PEB)

The "Chart of the Day" is Pebblebrook Hotel Trust (PEB), which showed up on Monday's Barchart "All-Time High" list. Pebblebrook on Monday posted a new all-time high of $24.26 and closed up 0.96%. TrendSpotter has been long since April 25 at $23.51. In recent news on the stock, Pebblebrook on April 26 reported Q1 adjusted funds from operation of 11 cents, above the consensus of 7 cents. Pebblebrook on April 9 announced that it had acquired the Hotel Milano in San Francisco for $30 million. Pebblebrook Hotel Trust (PEB), with a market cap of $1.2 billion, is a real estate investment trust (REIT) that specializes in owning and managing hotel properties located primarily in large United States cities with an emphasis on the major coastal markets.