Last Sunday was an all day spent with me nephew. We went off to the New Jersey Aquarium to see the otters, whales, and seals. Afterwards, we went to the Waterfront to play in the park and eat ice cream on a chilly weekend. Have you ever noticed that kids get so messy playing in the mud with all the dirt and mud? They surely have no care in the world with playing in the dirt.

It should bring back memories of your childhood. Yet, kids are much smarter than you think. They love dirt, sand, and soil. That is basically all they do: play with dirt. Well, all of us as grownups can also do the same and make out like a bandit from investing. Yes, you heard me right: investing in dirt. One of the most overlooked investments today is potash, better known as fertilizer. Both graphs below are two of the largest corporations. Plus they are two of the most hated companies by Wall Street because of that deep dive you see we had last August on the industry.

 

Motley Fool

 

 

 

Motley Fool

 

This is the secret to investing wisely and making huge profits:

• Industry is hated by everyone on Wall Street
• It is cheap
• And it has an uptrend

Looking at both companies, they were poorly performing last year compared to the S and P 500. In both companies, I put in 3 percent of my own portfolio each. This is the secret to diversification: do not put all your eggs in one basket. The same with dollars: do not put all your dollars in one investment.

Coming from a beef cattle family in Upstate New York, I can for sure be one of the many to tell you that agricultural investments is a great strategy. There are many different companies involved in your T-Bone steak dinner:

• Potash and fertilizers
• Food Processing Companies, E.X. Archer Daniels Midland
• Seed manufacturers, E.X. Monsanto
• Additives and Preservatives
• Packaging and Bottling, Crown Holdings

People are generally interested in High Technology, Big Pharma, or Banking as their key industries to focus on for investing. I strongly believe that diversification is the key to successful portfolio management. A diversified investor is one who hedges against the trying to beat Wall Street. Instead of gambling, invest by going with the flow and use Wall Street for your advantages. Do your homework and you will get an A+ in diversified investing.

 

To Your Health…

To Your Wealth…

To Your Wisdom.

Article from Tellurium Investing News

Source: Investing News Network

 

Unknown to many mainstream investors, tellurium (te-LOOR-ee-um) is a metal of rapidly-growing importance. While technically a metalloid in elemental form, tellurium’s role as a semiconductor has made its use in solar panels highly valuable with the expansion of solar power since 2008.

From its less-than-humble beginnings as a metal alloy used to increase steel and copper’s machining characteristics (it was used in the construction of the outer shell of the first atom bomb), tellurium’s role in thermoelectric applications and its ability to produce some of the highest efficiencies for electric power generation have pushed the element into resource market spotlights in recent years.

Outside of solar production, tellurium is used in rewritable optical discs (CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray), and for the new generation of random access memory (RAM) known as PRAM. However, it is in solar production that most tellurium investors have found the greatest prospects for the resource.

When alloyed with a number of other elements, such as cadmium, mercury, bismuth, and zinc, tellurium forms a telluride compound that enhances a material’s ability to conduct electricity; this ability is enhanced when also exposed to light. For that reason, tellurium, and cadmium telluride (CdTe) in particular, has become increasingly sought after as a source of thin-film photovoltaic solar panels since First Solar (NASDAQ:FSLR) proved the compound’s economic viability when it began mass commercial production of CdTe solar panels.

Tellurium production

In nature, tellurium is typically found fused in telluride ores of gold, copper, and silver. Currently, more than 90 percent of production is extracted as a by-product of copper mining and processing. Mined primarily in the United States, China, Japan, Canada, Russia, and Peru, the US Geological Survey predicts yearly production at levels of around 400 to 500 metric tonnes, but estimates are hard to gauge.

Some gold, bismuth, silver, and lead producers have also been able to extract tellurium in small quantities, but unless these companies focus directly on tellurium, their impact on this market is minimal. Confusion between gold and tellurium led settlers in Telluride, Colorado to mistakenly believe that tellurium was present in high quantities in the former gold mining town.

Market use

The growth of low-cost thin-film solar cells in recent years has quickly pushed its predecessor to the backburner as thin-film panels represent a fraction of their production cost. As solar producers seek out new sources of tellurium for CdTe cell production, the market supply has been pushed to the brink of production as no surpluses in the market were present before the market demand crunch.

As a measure of its growing importance, tellurium prices in 2000 were around US $14/lb for 99.5 percent purity. Since 2009, the price of tellurium almost tripled from US $130/kg to around $400/kg in 2011. Prices have come down since the latter half of 2011, and are now trading at a high of $170/kg.

While the solar panel market is deeply influential in shaping tellurium market dynamics, tellurium is also highly dependent on copper market trends. But, with recent developments in copper production techniques, the availability of tellurium coming out of copper mining has reduced tellurium production. Combined with the rising demand for the material, the price of tellurium is expected to continue trending substantially upwards over the next five years.

While substitutes of the material do exist, including selenium, niobium, and tantalum, based on their thermodynamic characteristics, none of these materials possesses the high application quality of tellurium. As such, thin-film solar cell production is regarded as the primary end-use industry for tellurium that drives demand at the moment.

Active companies

Currently only a small handful of companies are engaged in producing tellurium. British Columbia exploration and development company,  Deer Horn Metals Inc. (TSXV:DHM) is one of the newest companies focused on bringing tellurium to market.

Montreal, Quebec-based 5N Plus, Inc. (TSX:VNP) is focused on both metal tellurium production and telluride compounds such as cadmium telluride, cadmium zinc telluride, and zinc telluride.

Chinese companies based in Yunnan province are also heavily active in tellurium production. Yunnan Chihong Zinc & Germanium Co. is among the largest currently operating, but it has only a minority focus on tellurium ingots.

Other companies, such as the Chinese subsidiary of Apollo Solar Energy (HK:0556,OTC Pink:ASOE), have focused on integrating telluride-based materials into their thermal exchange system production processes to cut out tellurium production supply risks.

While a growing number of companies will likely seek out tellurium production in the wake of growing demand, only those that can produce high-purity tellurium, 99.5 percent or higher, will be able to adequately supply thin-film solar panel producers.

Commercial-grade tellurium is usually marketed as minus 200-mesh powder but is also available as slabs, ingots, sticks, or lumps.

 

To Your Health…

To Your Wealth…

To Your Wisdom.

Source: InvestDiamond.com  This article was written by DiamondInvestingNews.com

Interest in diamond investing is on the rise, but many investors still have questions about the best way to get involved. After all, choosing a diamond company to invest in can be difficult, as can figuring out if a physical stone is a good investment. 

InvestDiamond.com, which was launched last year by gold and silver trading platform LinGOLD.com, believes that it has the solution to those — and other — problems. The company describes itself as “the only online platform that allows members to trade in diamond fractions rather than entire stones,” and is aimed at making diamond trading easy and affordable.

To find out more about what InvestDiamond.com offers, Diamond Investing News (DIN) spoke with Linnea Bruce, project manager at the company. In the interview below, she explains how the website works and who it is aimed at. In closing, she gives her outlook on where diamond prices are headed in the short and long term.

DIN: Starting off with an easy question, what is InvestDiamond.com and what inspired LinGOLD.com to create it?

LB: The concept behind InvestDiamond.com is that there are batches of diamonds that have specific characteristics, and members become co-owners of these batches — they can buy fractions as small as 0.001 carats, which means investing can start at US$15. The idea is to bring diamond investment to everyone.

LinGOLD.com is a gold and silver trading platform, and they were looking for a way to further diversify with tangible assets. They researched, doing market studies and looking at the Bain reports, and diamonds seemed like the next logical step for a new project.

DIN: Can you tell me more about the fraction trading system that InvestDiamond.com uses? It sounds pretty unusual.

LB: It is. As mentioned, members can buy fractions as small as 0.001 carats; on the website there’s a trading panel, so they can decide how many millicarats they want to buy and also put in their price. The price that’s there by default is a price quotation from the website, and it’s calculated via a mix of supply and demand on the website, and also with respect to the Rapaport price.

The Rapaport price that we use is for a 1-carat diamond, E color, VVS1. If we see that the price on the website is starting to become a speculative bubble, or is getting too far away from the Rapaport price, then we inject diamonds into the system at a reasonable price to bring the price quotation down to near the Rapaport price.

Members can also sell their fractions using the same trading panel — they put in the number they want to sell, or they can put in their own price. If they are above the quotation price, that’s fine, it just means they may need to wait a little while to find someone to buy at that price.

DIN: Normally diamonds are valued subjectively (ie. there’s no simple cost-per-ounce valuation system), which can make some people hesitant to invest. Does using batches address that concern?

LB: Yes. We decided to have batches of several different types of quality — we’ve chosen to have investment-grade diamonds, but not all stones of 1 carat, D color, internally flawless, which are really rare and could create a speculative bubble effect. That allows us to show what an average InvestDiamond.com carat would look like and come up with an average price.

DIN: And reselling diamonds is fairly easy? I know that can also be a big concern for people interested in investing in diamonds.

LB: It’s definitely easy to resell because the diamonds are stored in Switzerland in a free port zone. That means members don’t have to pay the value-added tax (VAT). As a result, it’s easier to resell and make a profit on reselling.

And, as there are many other members buying at the same time, members always have a buyer ready as they’re selling.

DIN: Okay, so the diamonds held by your clients are actually physical products. Where do you source those diamonds from? And what kind of diamonds are they?

LB: We have a supplier located in Antwerp. They actually cut the rough diamonds, and all the diamonds they receive come from countries that respect the Kimberley Process — they’re not conflict diamonds.

Those diamonds are between 0.5 and 2 carats, and they’re between internally flawless and VVS2. They’re between D, E and F and they’re all colorless.

DIN: Would a client be able to take possession of their diamonds if they wanted, or does that not work with the fraction system?

LB: They can’t take a diamond out of its batch, but if they’ve invested in the site, what they can do is sell those fractions and then buy a diamond from our supplier.

However, if they do that, then they have to pay the VAT tax and it’s less of an investment. In France, at least, it’s 20 percent, and getting that back would be pretty difficult.

DIN: Do people often choose to buy in that way?

LB: No, not really. We get requests sometimes, but people who do that are generally doing it for jewelry purposes, more for pleasure than for investment.

DIN: Who is InvestDiamond.com aimed at? Can someone who’s new to the diamond space get involved, or is it for more experienced investors?

LB: It’s actually for both. Since the trading panel for buying and selling is pretty simple, you don’t have to be an experienced trader to understand how it works. We also have a 40-page guide with lots of information to educate people, and the FAQs on our help page explain a lot about diamonds — where they come from, what criteria there are, things like that.

At the same time, we of course welcome people who are experts in diamonds. Right now we’re developing an expert mode so clients can place different kinds of orders — they’ll be able to pass more complicated orders and decide what the expiration date is, or what prices they want to buy between.

DIN: Have you seen a lot of investor interest thus far?

LB: We launched in France in November, and since then we’ve had somewhere around 750 members. Our English site just went up a couple of weeks ago, so I don’t have stats on that one. But yes, we’ve had a good deal of interest.

DIN: Finally, what’s your 2014 price outlook for diamonds?

LB: Our outlook for 2014 is that diamond prices will be relatively stable. Looking farther than a year, we think diamond prices will increase because they’re becoming more rare — even though there are new mines opening, there haven’t been many discoveries of new deposits. Also, demand is increasing, especially in China and India.

 

To Your Health…

To Your Wealth…

To Your Wisdom.

We all know what is shale gas. We see Bakken reserves in North Dakota and many other reserves in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Texas. Back in 1970′s it sounds science fiction that we get energy from solar heat called sun gas. Yet, researchers claim that natural gas power plant efficiency can be as high as 25 %. Solar ThermoChemical, LLC has coughed up a good $ 850,000 to do research in hopes of commercializing sun gas very soon.

This is great technology. But, the graph above comes from the US Environmental Protection Agency. The question is how much good it sun gas when many places have moderate or below moderate sun exposure the whole year. While it would be great technology for New Orleans, how would it be for Alaska or Manitoba? Is solar energy a dead idea on Wall Street? We can look at General Electric as an example.

General Electric has also thrown down its arms. GE had boasted of building America’s biggest solar panel factory using technology acquired from a Cd-Te startup Prime Solar. The company had said its efficiency would be higher than FSLR and its costs would be lower. GE had earlier announced that it was going slow in its expansion plans and now the company has given up by selling its technology to its arch rival FSLR and firing 50 workers. Again to any solar industry watcher, this was inevitable. I don’t foresee more than 5 thin film solar companies surviving this downturn and am not sure that First Solar will be able to keep up its thin film technology. Green World Investor

 

We see how solar energy stocks have started out the new year. People have thought of it as a hated stock with no confidence from Wall Street. These are two of the three keys to invest in a hated industry. It is missing one more; it needs to start an uptrend. When the uptrend is in motion, then all contrarian investors can make a bang with their bucks.

Just like America, Europe has has backed off the idea of solar energy being the future. China is jumping on the hay wagon while most advanced economies have lost confidence in solar energy. It would be a great technology for China because it would lessen their dependence on Russia, US, and Canada for natural resources for their 1.4 billion citizens. It is interesting also to see where China is going in 2014:

• Buying lots of gold to go back to gold standard
• Invest in solar technology to eliminate dependency of other nations
• Eliminate US Dollar in trade relations with other countries

The ideas we back off, China takes and turns it into a new age technology. I see a great opportunity in investing in solar energy in the long run. For a quick buck, go to Atlantic City and see if you can win. For growing your wealth, look at long term. With solar at the bottom, it can only go up from here. When an uptrend comes in, look for opportunities.

To Your Health…

To Your Wealth…

To Your Wisdom.

Today’s economy after the Mortgage Crisis in 2008 is what makes most Americans fear investing. Because of such fear, the everyday American is scared about another crisis happening any day now. This fear is what makes most people stay in debt. This debt is what takes our hope of the future away from us. Well, this is going to change after learning how to invest for the future.

Best Investments For the Future

So many get a phone call from their stockbroker to buy a “hot stock”. They spend $ 10,000 for the stock suggestion. A week later it drops 20 % because poor quarterly profits. You just lost $ 2,000 in one week. Now you grow bitter and negative on investing in the stock market. Maybe you will never invest in it again because of this loss. This is why investing in one particular stock is very risky for any individual investor. So, what are we supposed to do to build money for our retirement and college education costs in the next decade?

Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) are mutual funds that invest in many corporations at once. For example, SPDR Financial ETF (XLF) invests in all banks from Wells Fargo to Goldman Sachs. Let us say that Goldman Sachs has a 10 % loss this quarter. You would lose a lot of your investment if invested all in Goldman Sachs. But, with an ETF you invest equally in all banks in the fund; not just one.
Hence, you still make a profit and get re-invested dividends from XLF fund.

How To Find The Best Long-Term Mutual and ETF Funds

First, get a financial advisor to help guide you through the purchasing of mutual funds. They show you 1 and 3 year returns on the mutual fund. You are interested in long term investing. hence, look at the past 5 years performance on the financial instrument. Let us say that you get 12 % from such an ETF. That is 12 % of you investment getting re-investing for next year.

The Cost For Such An Investment

You pay the financial advisor and his financial institution a management fee, usually 1-2 percent. Plus, we have to include inflation in the cost. Inflation is at most 2 % yearly. Thus, we have an expense of 4 percent of our returns. We get 8 % profit on our mutual fund with our advisor. Does that sound better than getting 0.05 % from your bank for leaving the cash in a savings account?

Gateway To Retiring Wealthy

Now we see how Wall Street can make up rich in the long-run. We have learned that there is no Get Rich Quick ways to wealth. Slow and steady with re-investing dividends is the key to wealth and prosperity. With your investments being watched by a financial professional and financial analysts control the mutual fund investments (since they need profits to exist) you will always make money in the long run. It is up to you to put your foot down and make your savings work for you. In the future, you will have a large amount of money for retirement and other future expenses.

I just had a flashback of my childhood living in Brooklyn during the 1980′s. People were more into socializing and talking to people as if they were human beings. Small business owners knew pretty much everyone in the neighborhood. One person I enjoyed was the landlord. He was more interested in how my grandmother’s surgery went then being one day late in the rent. Here in the 21st century, everything changed:

• No more mom and pop society
• We buy online instead of retail stores
• Oh yeh, our landlords today are giant investment banks

Blackstone Group has bought over 43,000 homes for over $ 8 billion after the mortgage crisis in 2008. The private equity behemoth rents out homes from its tenants from the Redwood Forest to Long Island. It is amazing to note that 40 % of home purchases came from investors. Instead of The American Dream, it now looks like “The Wall Street Dream”. The Mortgage Crisis of 2008 really has changed the way society functions on a small business/mom and pop personable way.

Blackstone is not the only one in the game of taking over The American Dream and turning it into a large rental market. Colony Capital and Silver Bay Realty Trust Corporation have spent near $ 20 billion for almost 200,000 homes on the rental market. The zero interest policy of the Federal Reserve Bank is the cause of investment banks taking over the real estate market. If only simpleton people like us can get a zero percent mortgage. The big behemoth banks and private equity can borrow unlimited amounts of money for basically free while the everyday Americans pay for it all with the high 40 % income tax.

Does this agitate you and annoy the thought that the American Dream is dead for us little people? Do you have almost no hope in the future of your wealth? Well, do not get mad when you can get even! How do we get even? Buy buying the private equity firms heavily invested in foreclosures and making a huge profit:

• Blackstone Group (BX)
• Oaktree Capital Group (OAK)
• Och-Ziff Capital Management Group (OZM)
• KKR (KKR)

These are four of the largest private equity firms traded on the stock exchange. Do your homework. Speak to your financial advisor. When people lose their homes and livelihoods, the money they lost goes somewhere. Why give the greedy Wall Street Fat Cats all the money to pocket when you can build a nest egg and retire early?

 

To Your Health…

To Your Wealth…

To Your Wisdom…

This week a a big breakthrough in United States history. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke stepped down and we now have our first female Federal Reserve Chairwoman, Janet Yellen. There was a unanimous vote from all 10 Fed Presidents to cut Quantitative Easing by another $ 10 billion to $ 65 billion. This was a great surprise. Why? It was the first unanimous vote from Fed Presidents since June 2011.

Just consider that Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher said::  “Were a stock market correction to ensue while I have the vote, I would not flinch from supporting continued reductions in the size of our asset purchases as long as the real economy is growing, cyclical unemployment is declining and demand-driven deflation remains a small tail risk; I would vote for continued reductions in our asset purchases, with an eye toward eliminating them entirely at the earliest practicable date.”

Many Fed Presidents claim that we should not see a huge decline in the stock market. This is because everyone was expecting that sometime they would have to pull back on their tapering. Furthermore, Atlanta’s Fed President Dennis Lockhart calls tapering the “default mode” for policy. He stated: “Absent a marked adverse change in the outlook for the economy, I think it is reasonable to expect a progression of similar moves, with the asset purchase program completely wound down by the fourth quarter of the year.”

Lockhart’s comment can not be any clearer of why policymakers have been waiting to hear. Interest rates would go sky high even when one whispers cutting the tapering. Eliminating the tapering would have interest rates rise to what the market says is the right rates, not Keynesian governments. All of this makes new strategies for you to invest your money safely and wisely:

• Avoid long-term Treasury bonds
• Avoid all long-term municipal bonds
• Avoid all long-term corporate bonds
• Avoid emerging markets debt instruments, especially in highly volatile BRICS
• Keep all fixed income in short-maturity (e.x. 18 months)
• Avoid REIT’s because of strong volatility to interest rates

To be a head of the game, one has to keep watching watch Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen keeps saying to the press. Great place to learn more is Bloomberg and Fox Business News.

 

To Your Health…

To Your Wealth…

To Your Wisdom…

 

Retreat and Sharing are always welcome.

Jim Morrison of The Doors is one of the greatest singers since the Hippie Days some 50 years ago. Who ever knew that his lyrics made on an acid trip would be so true for America one of these days. Which lyric? “This is the end. My only friend, the end.” Well, Washington’s political leaders have just made us one step closer to the end.

The House had absolutely no confrontations this time around on raising the United States debt limit. There were no reductions this time around by House Speaker Boehner. The Republican Party had failed proposals of tying Keystone pipeline or military reduction pensions into the compromise game. I guess Republicans have stabbed a stiletto into the backs of veterans and job creation.

One of the reasons for playing chicken and coward is because of the republicans getting the bad reputation for closing down Washington, DC last year. To keep their image and their jobs, they decided to give the economy another stab in the stomach. When will they just use the knife and cut America’s throat and just end it all for the world’s reserve currency? Why do they play such games in DC?

This clean debt ceiling resolution due in March 2014 gives President Obama just what he wants: TO SPEND YOUR HARD EARNED MONEY! This no confrontation means that there is no stopping the fast growing government spending. It is a sour note to have House Speaker Boehner give no confrontation to the higher taxes and more bond issuing. The GOP has invited the Democrat Senate to keep control and take The House next election.

How does this effect you, The Everyday Hard Working American? It basically means more money out of your pocket. Less money to pay employees and their benefits. Thus, higher unemployment. It means keep that printing press rolling to print more dollars (decrease value of the dollar). What really hurt me personally was the failure to restore military pensions cut in 2013 budget.

In my viewpoint, this is a big breakthrough in politics. How so? It proves that Republicans and Democrats are the same political party. There is no difference between one and the other. We, The United States, is actually a one party system and almost no one recognizes it. What does a one party government turn into?

We have to go back in history and see what happens:

• Nazi Party in Germany
• Communist Party of China
• Communist Party of Cuba
• Lao People’s Revolutionary Party
• Worker’s Party of Korea
• Communist Party of Vietnam

Where is America headed? I want you to not believe anything I say. I might be lying. I would like you to always do a Google search and research for yourself. The United States is getting closer and closer to the end. We already live in a Stasi Government Style (government of East Germany during Cold War).

IT IS UP TO YOU TO DECIDE ON WHAT THE FUTURE LOOKS LIKE FOR YOURSELF AND YOUR LOVED ONES!

To Your Health…

To Your Wealth…

To Your Wisdom…

Source: MSNBC

After a long day seeing his patients, Jason came home and turned on the six o’clock news. He sees the scares in Russia for the Olympics, the violence in Ukraine, and the 14 % Argentina peso crash. Jason can not fathom what is happening to all the world currencies from Japanese yen to the Israeli shekel. Jason knows that the Fed and ECB are playing a huge roll in this worldwide crisis.

Fter seeing all this news, Jason is wondering where is there a safe place today to put his extra money He is filled with fear and worry because of what he sees on the national news channel. Just like what we saw in Spain and Italy defaulting in 2013. Almost a year later, Jason drives the same traffic every morning, drinks the same Folgers coffee, and comes home to the same house. Nothing has changed and life seems to keep on going.

While everyone is running wild and emotionally selling their stakes in emerging markets, Jason can foresee 7 reasons on why he should buy emerging markets today.

Jason recalls seeing Lloyd Blankfein (CEO of Goldman Sachs) on live TV in Davos, Switzerland telling viewers that he is long on emerging markets. Thinking to himself, Jason would rather listen to a big shot CEO at one of the largest investment banks than watch the insanity of everyone on TV.  Jason keeps looking into why he should sell out now and not invest more. Amazingly, he discovers interesting facts on the emerging market:

1) It is HATED by all investors now.

2) They are extremely cheap with price to earning below 10.

3) The value spread is extremely wide in developed markets

Is this definitely all true? The answer would be a big yes. But, there is always possibility of downtrend to continue. I can not say this enough: ALWAYS USE TRAILING STOPS! This is the reason why most people lose their money on Wall Street. They treat it more as a trip to Atlantic City then a strategic plan for both success and failure.

Instead of buying individual stocks, there are many ETFs to purchase to ride the long term success in future emerging markets. The following is from www.TheStreet.com.

To Good Health… To Good Wealth… To Good Wisdom

Top Emerging Market ETFs as of 12/31/13

 

Fund Name	Get Info	Overall Rating	Risk Grade
iShares MSCI Frontier 100 ETF	FM	A+	B
WisdomTree Middle East Dividend Fd	GULF	B+	B
Market Vectors Gulf States Idx ETF	MES	B	B
PowerShares Chinese YDS Bd	DSUM	B	B+
Global X NASDAQ China Tech ETF	QQQC	B-	C+
Guggenheim China Technology ETF	CQQQ	C+	C+
PowerShares Golden Dragon China	PGJ	C+	C+
Market Vectors Renminbi Bond ETF	CHLC	C+	B+
First Trust South Korea AlphaDEX	FKO	C+	B-
First Trust EM Small Cap AlphaDEX	FEMS	C	B-