Red Hot Energy and Gold

Chart of the Day — Copper

Sean Brodrick — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 13:59:50 +0000

I’m keeping an eye on copper. After breaking out a couple of weeks ago, it is consolidating on lower volume. That’s something you expect in a bullish move …

I think copper could go down and test support #1 in the next week or so. Will it bounce there, or head to support level 2?

If the bounce comes sooner rather than later, that could be a bullish signal for commodities of all types. And it will also be a bullish signal for the global economy. But we need to see that bounce first.

A Big Cru-u-unch in Copper! Take a look at this copper chart … You can...
Looks Like the Copper Correction Is Over I talked about copper in my UncommonWisdomDaily.com column today, “A...
Copper Was the Big Winner of 2009? And for 2010 … The results are in, and the best performing investment for...

Sunday Discussion — Climate Change

Sean Brodrick — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 14:56:07 +0000

I’ve tried to stay away from talking about climate change lately. It’s become the third rail of politics because a large and growing section of the American populace believes climate change is a crock.

Also, have I mentioned that I grown to hate politics? Both major political parties in this country are run by and for crooks. If you need evidence to support that thesis, just look at how government has been run over the past 10 years. Did you vote for “hope and change”? Did you get more of the same? That’s because the front men change, but the crooks remain in charge.

However, I recently got two negative reviews on my book that were negative for the simple reason that I talk about climate change in the book. The reviewers had nothing against the recommendations I make in the book; they just hate the fact that I won’t drink the climate change denial Kool-Aid.

I think there are more immediate concerns than climate change. An energy crisis, potential economic collapse, potential food crisis and more. These are more likely to happen in the shorter term than climate change that is severe enough that it affects my life.

But in the longer term, the evidence is heavily stacked that the climate is changing, and it could serious affect the world our children live in.

So, I wrote a three-page piece about my feelings on this issue. Then I realized that’s a lot to ask you to read on a “spring-forward” Sunday.

So, I’ll ask you to watch this short video instead …

Have a good Sunday.

HoweStreet.com Interview on ‘4 Tips to Beat the Next Crisis’ HoweStreet.com’s Phil and I had a great chat this afternoon. ...
Yakking About My Book I’m making a lot of media appearances to talk about...

Crude Oil — Close But No Cigar

Sean Brodrick — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 12:17:07 +0000

After pushing strongly above $82 yesterday morning, crude oil turned around and sank to close at $81.47. $82 is the line in the sand — if oil can close above that, it could be on its way to $91.5o. So, this pullback is a real disappointment for the bulls.

Oil could make another attempt next week, or it could travel back to the bottom of that ascending triangle and test support there.

Why did oil go lower on Friday? Market watchers blamed a dip in the University of Michigan consumer sentiment index, which declined to 72.5 in March from 73.6 in February. Economists had been expecting the sentiment index to hit 74 in March.

However, this news came out on the same day that U.S. retail sales increased 0.3% to a seasonally-adjusted $355.5 billion in February, despite three major snow storms in the East. That should have been good news, especially because expectations were for a DECREASE of 0.3%.

I think oil pulled back for the simple reason that everyone had already bought into it. The early movers were looking for any excuse to take profits.

But the long-term outlook is pretty darned bullish. Especially when the International Energy Agency says China’s demand for oil is “astonishing”. China’s oil demand jumped 28% in January compared to a year earlier. Wow!

Take Another Look at Crude Oil I’m looking at crude oil, which has been trading in...
2 Crude Oil Charts Here are some charts you should keep your eye on. ...
Thursday Charts — Crude Oil and More IEA Sees World Oil Demand to Post Sharpest Decline...

Latest Interview with Tom Jeffries on MobileInvestor

Sean Brodrick — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 11:58:05 +0000

Remember Tom Jeffries, the velvet-voiced interviewer from HoweStreet.com? He’s on to a new gig, working for a Canadian group that is going to deliver investment interviews to mobile devices. It downloads as a podcast rather than streaming. This 15-minute interview with me took about 30 seconds to download and activate on my computer …

http://www.mobileinvestor.com/_resources/audio/download.php?file=seanbrodrick11032010.mp3

Here’s an interesting note: When the nice people at Weiss asked me what my goals were for the year, I said I wanted to start a new video-only service that goes directly to phones and other mobile devices. Our tech geniuses at Weiss are working on adapting the technology, and I think it’s the wave of the future. Heck, phone companies are going to start broadcasting football games to mobile devices. So handling one of my little video casts should be no problem.

However, my bosses aren’t keen on it. And I was okay with their decision — it’s not like I don’t have enough to do. But then Tom calls me up. He’s going to be doing podcasts for mobile devices (”Mobile Investor” is better than the name I thought of for my video service — drat!). AND he’s working on doing VIDEO podcasts for mobile podcasts.

So, I see the thing I think I should be doing happening right in front of me, and I’m not part of it. Sigh.

What do you think? Would a 2- to 3- minute video stock service directly to your phone or mobile device be something you’d be interested in?

Latest HoweStreet.com Interview I talked to Phil at HoweStreet about a whole bunch...
My Latest HoweStreet Interview — on Oil, G-7… Here is a link to my latest interview with HoweStreet.com:...
My Latest HoweStreet.com Interview As usual, Phil and I have too much fun while...

Another Great Book with Another Cool Video

Sean Brodrick — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:31:34 +0000

By now, you’re probably sick of the video for my book, as funny as it is. So let me present another video for your viewing pleasure — the video attractions for Yves Smith’s book ECONned: How Unenlightened Self Interest Undermined Democracy and Corrupted Capitalism

I would have gone with a narrator, but that’s just me (I love to talk). It’s a good video anyway — it reminds me of some international thriller movies I’ve seen.

As frequent readers of my blog know (because I link to Yves’ site all the time), Yves is the brains behind Naked Capitalism.

Now, I haven’t ready the book yet — it’s winging its way from Amazon — but if it’s half as good as her writing on the blog, it should be very good indeed. If you want to go show her some love and get a good book to read, she’d probably appreciate that. I have no financial relationship with Yves, her book or Naked Capitalism of any kind. I don’t even know her real name (Yves Smith is a pseudonym).

And hey, Jesse likes the book. That’s all the endorsement I need. He says on Jesse’s Café Américain: “Given the author’s performance on her blog, and her detailed industry knowledge and experience, it looks to be a ‘must read’ for those following the financial crisis and its associated developments.”

Transcript for ‘The US Economy in 3 Stocks’ Video Here’s a transcript for my most recent video. brodrick-video-for-030210-the-us-economy-in-3-stocks I...
Friday Chart and Video Fiesta — Now With Flash Spider! Russia is reducing its holdings of US Agency bonds. As...
Wages Fall as the Battle for Exports Heats Up – Sovereign Debt Default Risk Rises Here are 7 things worth reading … #1) The News N Economics...

Update on Oil — Global Demand Estimate Raised AGAIN!

Sean Brodrick — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:04:14 +0000

My column for UncommonWisdomDaily.com that posted today, The Coming Emergency in Energy, is already out of date. That’s because I used the International Energy Agency’s February estimate for global oil demand, when they raised the estimate for 2010 to 86.5 million barrels. Today, the IEA raised their 2010 estimate to 86.6 million barrels a day , or 1.6 million barrels a day higher than in 2009. That’s a HUGE jump.

As I said in today’s UWD column, auto sales are zooming in Asia and other emerging markets. But it’s not just new drivers hitting the road. Emerging markets are also expected to lead a rebound in air travel as well.

One other thing. The IEA’s estimate for oil used in 2009 was revised upwards to 85 million barrels a day. Why do they need to do that revision? Because oil use at the end of the year was much stronger than expected.

What does that tell you about the estimates they have for 2010? It tells me that they could be raising those estimates again.

Crude is above $82 now. If it can hold this level with a convincing close, my targets for crude are $91.50 and possibly $103.

And yes, this will be great news for many of the recommendations in Crisis Profit Hunter.

As US Harvests Rise, China Demand Is Insatiable From Reuters this morning (hat-tip Forexyard) … U.S. farmers can...
Latest Post on Global Wealth Report Blog — Gold and More Just a reminder that I’ve moved my blog over to...
China, Post-American World, Global Warming & … Here are some stories I find interesting. You may find...

Outlook for Uranium

Sean Brodrick — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 13:51:19 +0000

Gold is shining … oil is heating up … so what’s up with uranium? The once white-hot metal is certainly way off its highs. In fact, the spot price of uranium recently fell to U.S.$40.50.

Source: U3O8.biz

Going forward, the picture is mixed.

On the bearish side …

Both Macquarie and UBS forecast spot prices will average$47 per pound this year, down from an average of $52 per pound in 2009. In other words: uranium is not expected to join the recovery elsewhere in the commodity space anytime soon.

On the bullish side …

Macquarie does expect the spot price to return to $80 per pound by 2012.And RBC Capital Markets expects the price of uranium to rise to $80 a pound in 3 years’ time (2013) but then fall back to $60 a pound in 2019.

RBC has quite a detailed report free online. Some highlights from RBC’s report:

Uranium demand will grow by an average of 4.4% per year during the next 20 years, The increase in demand is driven mostly by China as it will lead the world in new reactor builds over the next two decades.
Governments will continue to support new new nuclear plants. This trend should continue as nuclear power is seen as a clean alternative for baseload generation.
The supply of uranium should grow by an average of 5% annually until 2015, but fall thereafter as reserves are exhausted.

Interestingly, RBC believes that output from Kazakh mines will fall due to technical problems that can’t be resolved. And it is taking into account Cameco’s Cigar Lake Mine coming online in 2013.

RBC also gives these three caveats …

Any major problem with a nuclear reactor could quickly curtail new reactor builds and reduce demand.
Technical or regulatory problems could reduce mine supply.
Material owned by speculators and investors could temporarily flood the market.

LET’S GO, CAMECO!

So what’s the deal with Cameco’s Cigar Lake Project, the world’s largest unmined uranium deposit? You’ll remember that the uranium bull market started when the Cigar Lake Mine flooded in 2006, and flooded AGAIN in 2008! The only reason uranium prices didn’t take off a second time (I think) is because Kazakhstan’s enormous production had come online by that time.

Well, the mine is drained out (again), and Cameco plans to have it in production in 2013. At full production, this mine should produce 18 million pounds of uranium a year.

That will be good news for Cameco (CCJ: 27.76 -0.45 -1.60%), which owns 50% of the project.

As for the rest of Cigar Lake, French nuclear giant Areva owns 37%. Idemitsu Canada Resources owns the rest.

So, Cigar Lake (if it doesn’t flood again) is good news for these large uranium miners, but the increase in supply is especially good news for utilities that use uranium in nuclear power plants.

Not so good for, say, the fund that holds physical uranium, like Canada’s Uranium Participation Corp …

And that’s why I made the nuclear recommendation that I did in my Green Energy report, “The Golden Age of Green Energy.”I picked a fund whose two largest holdings are Areva and Cameco. It also holds a bunch of utilities that use nuclear power – utilities that could be showered by buckets of government money as the world turns toward nuclear power as a clean fuel.

That doesn’t mean other uranium miners can’t do well. We have one in the Red-Hot Global Small-Caps portfolio that I think is a prime candidate for a takeover, and it has very rich deposits to boot. But you have to be selective.And for the most part, there could be easier money to be made elsewhere … for now. I’m talking about select plays in gold, silver, oil, natural gas, wind, solar, and more.

The market outlook changes all the time, as new forces and developments come into play. For now, I’m not bullish on uranium prices, I am bullish on select uranium stocks and funds, and I’m very bullish on nuclear power as a clean fuel of the future.

By the way, if you haven’t jumped onboard the 9 recommendations in “The Golden Age of Green Energy,” the portfolio is showing a small open gain from my tracked entry point, but it’s still a good time to get in. Originally that report had eight recommendations, but I added another pick. And remember, there are at least three updates to come on that report.

Uranium Update The price of uranium per pound has fallen substantially from...
Bullish Uranium News? Uranium has had so many stakes stuck in its heart...
A Nation Haggles on the Way to the Gallows … News and Links for Wednesday It’s a busy day for me as I wrap up...

Funniest Video You’ll See Today: “The Front Fell Off”

Sean Brodrick — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:02:42 +0000

A video on maritime safety standards sounds dry, but wait till you see it …

Hat-tip TheBigPicture blog

Background: In 1991, an oil tanker off the coast of Australia split in two, dumping 20,000 tons of crude oil into the sea. At the time, an Australian member of parliament appeared on a TV news program to reassure the Australian public with soothing rhetoric. Australian television comedy duo John Clarke and Brian Dawe used that incident (a politician’s response to a disaster) as the nugget for their brilliant satire. Clarke and Dawe are still around and making people laugh.

They remind me of Britain’s John Bird and John Fortune, who do their own hilarious parodies of Very Important People …

Christmas Video 2 — An Angel Will Be With Thee Shortly Are you taking a break from your family on Christmas? ...
New Video and Dollar Chart I have a new video for UncommonWisdomDaily today called “A...
Transcript for ‘The US Economy in 3 Stocks’ Video Here’s a transcript for my most recent video. brodrick-video-for-030210-the-us-economy-in-3-stocks I...

Lucky Numbers for Ultimate Suburban Survivalist Guide

Sean Brodrick — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:11:44 +0000

On Tuesday night, my book, The Ultimate Suburban Survivalist Guide, hit #17 on all Amazon books. It also hit #1 in Investing books and #1 in Personal Finance. Click on the image below and a larger image should open up (depending on your browser).

The #17 ranking for all books is the highest I’ve seen. I only check it irregularly, so if you see it higher, let me know. Anyway, it’s pretty cool, and I’m enjoying the heck out of it. Thank you everyone who bought it. I hope you find it useful, and entertaining to boot.

And if you haven’t picked it up yet, go read the reviews.

Ultimate Suburban Survivalist Guide — Now With Free Reports There’s a home page for my new book “The Ultimate...
Financial Tips from The Ultimate Suburban Survivalist An excerpt from my book, The Ultimate Suburban Survivalist …...
Ultimate Suburban Survivalist – 5 Tips for Gold and Silver Buyers An excerpt from my book, The Ultimate Suburban Survivalist …...

United States to be Sold for Scrap

Sean Brodrick — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:02:55 +0000

If this isn’t a fitting metaphor for the troubles our country faces, I don’t know what is …

Historic ship adrift, on the block

The SS United States, America’s greatest ocean liner and the fastest ship of its kind ever to cross the Atlantic, is in “imminent danger” of being sold and ripped up for scrap, according to a preservation group.

The SS United States Conservancy says Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL), which owns the mothballed ship, has set a deadline this month for bids from buyers and could sell it soon to a scrapper.

“This is it,” says Dan McSweeney, conservancy director. “We could lose this symbol of the United States.”

Read the rest HERE.

Happy Honeymoon, Donald! I woke up to a few phone calls on my...
The Finance Industry Has Captured Our Government What Jesse Says … Over at Cafe Americain, Jesse links...