Brett Steenbarger submits: Recently, I've highlighted non-confirmations in the stock market, as new stock highs in the large cap indexes were not followed by highs among small caps and many stock sectors. Complete Story »

  International Energy Agency (IEA) executive director Nobuo Tanaka noted that “world leaders gathering in Copenhagen next month for the UN Climate Summit have a historic opportunity to avert the worst effects of climate change” in a statement released following the publication of the 2009 World Energy Outlook.This analysis also concluded that, if more efficient methods of production can be implemented on a large scale, Canada’s carbon-intensive oil sands will prove critical to satisfying global energy demand in coming decades.At this point, oil sands production of 3.2 million barrels a day by 2020 seems more inevitable than a United Nations-brokered agreement on climate change. Global leaders managed expectations for a treaty down to zero even before they got to the Copenhagen Climate Summit, while Suncor Energy (SU), after its recent acquisition of Petro-Canada one of the biggest players in the oil sands, accelerated its efforts to reorient toward Athabasca.Complete Story »

  Roger Nusbaum submits: Yves Smith from Naked Capitalism had a particularly meaty post earlier in the week about the current state of the US dollar. Of particular interest was the following one-liner: But one difference this time is now the dollar, rather than the yen, looks like the best funding currency, and the dollar is a deeper market, so the scale of potential damage is much greater.Complete Story »

  The 451 Group: Inorganic Growth submits: By Brenon DalyIn the third-quarter earnings report for Silicon Storage Technology (SSTI) at the end of October, chief executive Bing Yeh went out of his way to tout the vastly improving outlook for the flash memory vendor. Yeh noted that end-market demand had recovered and pricing had firmed up in what had been a pretty tough market. Third-quarter sales picked up sequentially and the company actually posted black numbers after three straight quarters of losses. The rebound was expected to continue in the fourth quarter, with a profit forecast for the period, as well.Complete Story »

  By Tom KonradWe cannot choose between transmission and renewable distributed electricity. Local renewable generation requires long distance transmission to even out variations of supply. Hence, both advocates of distributed renewables and large wind and solar farms should support transmission improvements. Here are a few stocks which should benefit from such investments.Complete Story »

  Dr. Duru submits: In early September, First Solar (FSLR) signed a deal with Ordos City, Inner Mongolia, China for a major solar farm project whose 4 phases will run until 2019. This week, FSLR and Ordos City signed a “Cooperation Framework Agreement” which… …spells out additional project details and local support that advance the development of the 2 gigawatt (GW) solar power plant and confirm the June 1, 2010 expected construction start date for the 30 megawatt (MW) Phase 1. First Solar and Ordos also agreed to establish two committees to ensure the successful execution of the project and to develop a new energy industry in Ordos.Complete Story »

  Tom Lydon (ETF Trends) submits: After a slew of measures and policies that pumped world economies full of money, a lot of cash found its way into Asia, and Hong Kong is not pleased. Officials feel that Hong Kong’s economy and related ETF have become artificially distended by international investors.Norman Chan, monetary authority chief executive in Hong Kong, has suggested that low interest rates and quantitative easing of U.S. monetary policy has allowed people to borrow at low cost and reinvest into Hong Kong’s economy, which is consequently fueling an asset bubble, reports Alex Frangos for The Wall Street Journal. With Hong Kong’s economy in the early stages of recovery, some observers are warning of dangerous bubbles seen forming in property and stock prices.Complete Story »

  Tom Lydon (ETF Trends) submits: It’s that time of year again. Millions of Americans will fork over their hard-earned cash and stand in long lines at the airport, all to visit their families and celebrate the holidays. But will ETFs reap the rewards of the increased air traffic?Holiday travel is expected to be down this year for the first time in a decade. Around $4.05 billion is expected to be lost, but it may not be for the reasons you’d think. Although the economy is still on shaky ground, many travelers may also be planning to stay home because of the H1N1 flu virus, reports Meeting News.Complete Story »

  Edward Harrison submits:After a huge fall off in credit consistent with the fall in nominal GDP, we are seeing credit stabilise at a lower level. Debt to GDP ratios may not be lower, but as GDP is lower, so too is credit in the system. Yet there is a large difference between the haves and the have-nots, largely due to a difference in which banks received government largesse and which did not. Bank analyst Don Coxe puts this in perspective for us:Complete Story »

  Trader Mark submits:*deep sigh* Just another day in Rome... I truly wish those of us who have been warning about this impending mess could get tax exclusions from our wages to be raided for the bailouts that are to come. I do want to make a caveat, since I've made the FHA implosion my personal Roubini / Schiff call. Each time a government official denies FHA will need a bailout, I scoff on the blog and say "just you wait". Well I found some grave news dear readers about a week ago in some of my readings. The government officials are correct.Complete Story »

  Edward Harrison submits:Barack Obama has now come clean about his thinking on why his administration has decided to focus first on reducing the deficit and next on jobs. He fears a double-dip recession will occur if foreigners lose confidence in the U.S. dollar, causing interest rates to spike. This is nonsense and it demonstrates how much at odds Obama’s economic thinking is with reality. This is the clearest indication that the Obama Administration doesn’t understand how modern money works. In fact, by focusing on deficit reduction, he has increased the chances of a double dip instead of decreasing them.Complete Story »

  Steve Alexander submits:Every year, Forbes creates a list of the top 200 best small companies in America. To be eligible for the list, a company must have annual revenue between $5 and $750 million, be publicly traded for at least a year, and have a stock price of at least $5. The rankings are done based on earnings growth, sales growth, and return on equity. Forbes has found that this group of stocks has outperformed the benchmark Russell 2000 of small stocks by about 10% annually.This list is especially interesting for Magic Formula investors, as a staple of MFI is purchasing small-cap stocks, which are often under-followed and thus inefficiently priced in the market. Taking the Forbes list and pulling out the current Magic Formula stocks could find us some attractive investment ideas from the number of declining businesses or cyclical entities on the screen. Here is a table of current MFI stocks that appear in the top 200 list:Complete Story »

  Tom Lydon (ETF Trends) submits: ETF Spotlight on SPDR S&P Emerging Europe (NYSEArca: GUR), part of a weekly series. Assets: $175.3 millionHoldings: The largest holdings include Gazprom (OGZPY.PK), 18.1%; Lukoil Oil Company (LUKOY.PK), 9.6%; Rosneft (RNGZY.PK), 5.8%; and Sherbank Rossii, 5.2%.Complete Story »

  John Jansen submits: Prices of Treasury coupon securities are registering virtually no change in overnight trading. As I peruse the news, there is not one story which jumps out and grabs me as particularly pithy. And I guess I am not alone as the US bond market manifests virtually no movement.Complete Story »