Felix Salmon submits: A defender of Neel Kashkari writes in: He worked his butt off at Treasury at great personal cost (both financial, with an 80% pay cut, and otherwise) to help keep catastrophe from happening, and now he’s out and reconnecting with the rest of his life. I seriously doubt that he invited the Post reporter to “hang out with him in the mountains”, as I know he chose not to “do” any press beyond hearings and remarks while heading TARP.Complete Story »

  Trader Mark submits:Now that some air has been taken out of gold and silver, I'm slowly (key word) rebuilding these positions. Withsome purchases late Friday and Monday morning,s I am back from a 0.2% allocation (combined) to something around 1.4%. (recall we essentially sold all our holding except for a holding stake a week ago, Wednesday right ahead of Dubai) I would love to see a 4-8 week correction in precious metals, at which point I'd build a quite material position, but you never know in advance if we are headed for such an event, or a 2 day blip. Complete Story »

  Zacks.com submits: Chevron Corp. (CVX) – the second-biggest U.S. energy company – entered into a deal to sell 4.1 million tons of liquefied natural gas (LNG) per annum from its Wheatstone venture in Australia. The company said that its Australian subsidiary has signed a long-term agreement in this regard with Japanese utility behemoth Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TKECF.PK) (also known as TEPCO).As per the A$90 billion ($82.5 billion) contract, potentially the largest for any Australian export industry, Chevron would provide the LNG to TEPCO for a period of up to 20 years. The agreement would also see TEPCO acquire 15% of Chevron’s equity share in the Wheatstone gas field licenses and an 11.25% interest in the onshore gas processing facilities to be developed by Chevron.Complete Story »

  Andy Abraham submits:So many gold bugs think this is absolutely impossible. However, as a commodity trading advisor, I believe anything can happen. Stick to a thought-out plan. Let me give you an example. In the 1980s, gold reached $1223 and investors were throwing money at gold. However, almost 30 years have gone by and nada - even in a savings account, someone would have out-performed gold. Do you prefer sleeping at night with your gold; are you sure the world will end? Should you blindly follow the hedge fund biggies, like John Paulson, Paul Tudor Jones and David Einhorn? Will history repeat itself? It is anyone's guess. The difference, however, is when you invest with a plan, you will not have to wait 30 years to make any money. The same can be easily said about people who invest in the stock market blindly - anything can happen. It took approximately 25 years for investors to get even after the Great Depression. I am not saying that will happen again ( remember anything can happen) - but have a plan.Complete Story »

  Claus Vistesen submits: As we move into the new year and perfectly in line with seasonal regularity, we are flooded by a veritable tsunami of sell and buy side research on the big themes of 2009 and those to come in 2010. Now, we can add another to the list in the form of the latest quarterly review from BIS which is a whopper of a publication filled with interesting articles, data, and charts.I have just scanned the "overview" and thus only scratched the surface but still, and in case you have spent the last 6 months on a beach, the first 10 pages provide a nice summary of a Q3-09/Q4-09 dominated by an outright risky asset rally as well as a rebound in economic activity driven by especially stimulus (and inventories) and the expectation that favorable policies will stay in effect well into 2010. They do mention Dubai, and while I agree that this was indeed significant, I think we defer the importance of this for the time being since risky assets seem, for now, to have shrugged off the implications. (Update: I may be wrong though)Complete Story »

  Trader Mark submits:Wow. Our top long position AsiaInfo Holdings (ASIA) is currently up 25% on a purchase / merger with competitor Linkage Technologies (BOSS). Linkage was set to go IPO this week - we spoke of both companies just last week. [Dec 1, 2009: IBD AsiaInfo Holdings China's 3G Conversion Boom Boosts Telecom Software Firm's Holdings; Competitor Linkage Technologies to IPO Next Week]Complete Story »

  Jim Delaney submits: The reality that things might not be horrible forever sent shivers down the spine of the market on Friday as losing only 11,000 jobs (with whatever hocus pocus was needed to pull that number out of the hat) raised the prospect that at some point in the future the Fed was going to have to do a bit of raising of its own. As horrible as this concept is to those folks now executing carry trades in hard commodities as well as the old fashion yield curve variety, a zero Fed Funds rate is neither healthy nor sustainable.Complete Story »

  Calafia Beach Pundit submits: Fed Chairman Bernanke Monday morning attempted to answer everyone's most pressing concerns about monetary policy, the economy, and inflation. Bernanke's answers revealed a lot about his system of beliefs. From my perspective, he has some problems. There's really nothing new here, but it's worth repeating because this is a subject that has enormous importance for just about everyone in the world, given the Fed's power and influence. Bernanke is fundamentally a Keynesian when it comes to the economy. He notes:Complete Story »

  Edward Hugh submits: In the long run we are all dead. But as someone else famously put it: we ain't dead yet, and in the space between these two undeniable truths move forex traders, financial markets and a host of other would be economic participants. The financial press is full right now of headline catching stories about how Greece is at imminent risk of sovereign default. The German newspaper Die Welt even had a lengthy piece this weekend with the catchy title After Dubai, Who Will Be Next (the answer is obvious isn't, otherwise what is the point of the question). One has the impression of a Europe filled to the brim with financial journalists busily rumaging the entrails, in search of the least glimmer of light which will confirm that something decisive and earthshattering might actually happen (soon), what with the German Der Spiegel announcing at the weekend that Greece's growing public deficit problem is to be an item on the agenda at the next Governing Council meeting of the European Central Bank on December 17 (surely the big news would be if it wasn't going to be there), and Bloomberg's Maria Petrakis telling us that Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou is toiling away in what many might consider was a vain attempt to "convince investors he can tackle the worst fiscal crisis in 15 years".Complete Story »

  Equitymaster submits: Managing to recoup almost all the damage that was done yesterday and in the early session today, the Indian indices charted a strong up move in the final hours and closed firmly in the positive today. While the BSE Sensex edged higher by around 245 points (up 1.4%), the NSE Nifty gained around 81 points (up 1.6%). Strength was also seen amongst BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices as they were stronger by around 1.3% and 1.4% respectively. Realty and commodity stocks, in particular, seemed to be in favor, in tune with the IPOs in real estate and infrastructure-related sectors. Other Asian indices largely closed flat to negative today while the European indices have opened higher. The rupee was trading at Rs 46.58 to the dollar at the time of writing. Complete Story »

  Tom Lydon (ETF Trends) submits: Direxion first appeared on the ETF scene in late 2008, when the firm launched the first of a growing line of triple-leveraged funds. Since then, the provider has ballooned to hold $5.1 billion in assets under management. We caught up with Direxion President and Chief Investment Officer Dan O’Neill to talk about the firm’s history, where they’re going and their thoughts about the future of leveraged and inverse ETFs.Complete Story »

  At least that’s what has usually happened in recent years. One of my greatest regrets as a Seeking Alpha contributor is that I don’t have the time to respond to many of the excellent and insightful comments.Complete Story »

  Michael Johnston submits:Last week, Deutsche Bank announced that it will increase the fees of seven PowerShares exchange-traded funds, citing “increased costs of managing the Funds due to changing regulatory requirements.” The changes will be effective beginning January 4, and will affect five commodity funds and two currency products.click to enlargeComplete Story »

  Tim Iacono submits: For anyone wondering what was behind that late-day drop in the U.S. Dollar and the surge in nearly everything else - Fed chief Ben Bernanke was talking about the economy and monetary policy yesterday afternoon in Washington, apparently squashing rumors that the central bank plans to raise interest rates sooner, rather than later, after Friday's labor report.It looks as though the gold price jumped about $20 an ounce starting shortly after his speech began at 12PM EST and then another $10 in Asia. Thank God things are back to normal.Complete Story »