Asian Tigers should be dubbed Asian Radiation (work in progress)

Asia is all over the place the past few weeks in making deals that are tied to the nuclear industry.

1) China and Cameco
2) Japan and India
3) India and Canada
4) Hong Kong and USEC (was in New York Times)

This provides validity on the long term growth of the industry, but not on price appreciation of corporations. But at least one knows if he parks money in the industry that it is a growing and viable one, where in the long run should provide profits for the current risk-taker and investor.

Flag at half staff, Market at half staff

Another black swan has popped up. The market selloff in the past 30 minutes is attributed to Senator Bird's passing. Or is it because of profit taking from the bets on Friday? Or light volume before NY opens and positioning for the next leg up?

You're not going to make money reading this article. But coal stocks may be overpriced since for his entire career he protected the industry and now may have environmental regulators flood West Virginia.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/sen-robert-byrd-dies-at-92-2010-06-28?dist=beforebell

G20 meeting = Cheap bets

For some cheap bets before the G20 meeting, there are Bank of America and Banco Santander call options that are very low.

STD's 12.50 call option is trading for 10 cents.
Stratfor, the Geopolitical rag, believes Spain will hang in there.
Maybe there'll be a short squeeze?

Bank of America's 16 call options are for 29 cents so the writers believe the US banks have a better chance of a rally.

Also, the financial regulations coming out of Washington was a drag on prices.

Lets see!

I thought so, concerning Pimco's strategy

The past 30 years since the nosebleed interest rate levels of the late 70s was one hell of a bull market for bonds that stiffly stopped during the crash of 2008.

It was a credit bust, not a stock market crash. I feel that stocks haven't gone up at all if you figure the Euro appreciation and bond appreciation and that the time for stock ownership is now. Bill Gross is coming out saying the same

http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aZ4xD1Gxe3XY&pos=10

Of course, Warren Buffett was saying it at the bottom.

Bill Gross has been right for quite sometime. Warren Buffett, presently, has his hand stuck in the cookie jar.

Does this mean that corporations will thrive by not being under the tyranny of interest rates?

Biggest short in 719 years of existence

The Swiss have just caved in and compromised their independence by signing away the unique feature that gave the Swiss their renown, privacy.

The Swiss are now just another overpriced European destination. While other European nations may leave the Euro, the Swiss are most definitely entering.

What occurred yesterday with the Swiss National Bank is counterintuitive, but easily explained. The Swiss have been trying to keep their Franc from appreciating then just stopped yesterday with the Central banker's comments yesterday. It must be seen in conjuction with the agreement in the US. The US agreement is bearish the Franc, so now the Central bank's job is to keep the Franc from falling. It will, but they are going to slow the process - starting yesterday.

I can't be more specific The Franc has ceased to be.

Buy the EUR/CHF and just keep buying.

You're not going to hear this anywhere else because anyone that is anyone is not going to share this billion dollar trade.

Just like every pundit that I enjoy reading from Nicholas Taleb to Marc Faber to Jim Rogers, from Barrons to Financial Times, didn't mention the Euro short until it was well underway.

The only ones were the ElliottWave group who get it wrong on a daily, but not in years. And a special shout out goes to James Dines on his Dollar call.

Laramide Resources: Company + Management = LT success

Laramide and its charismatic chariman, Marc Henderson, are inextricably linked together.

He has had several successes and accomplishments in the past decade's resourced boom.

1) Getting Laramide Resources out of bankruptcy (as told to me by him verbally many years ago)
2) Buying Laramide's key asset for $1 million bucks from Rio Tinto
3) Buying Homestake's uranium assets in the US
4) Buying then selling the big silver deposit in Argentina through Aquiline Resources
5) Having a stake in the US's largest area for deposits: Virginia. A location that is similar to the Australian one due to the fact it is a coal mining area and anti-nuclear.
6) Raising a bunch of money to develop and expland the flagship Westmoreland property

The negatives were

1) Where did all the money that he raised go? Now down to $6 million. It's hard to understand reading the reports. I hope not in the executives pockets, but even so he is the type of executive that will put more money in the company if the opportunity is there or in another promising projects.
2) Some of the money in question went into Khan Resources, another great asset but in Mongolia that basically cancelled Khan's right to explore on its property.
3) The Laramide property is on Native land so there was a delay in exploration
4) Australia just announced a mining tax that to the observer would appear to be negative for miners and explorers in Australia

Going forward:
1) Tax or no tax. Laramide is trading with a market cap of $50 million. They have two key untapped mines in the world: Australia and the US. If you need the stuff there will be investments.
2) You can't buy and develop these two deposits for the market cap traded at
3) He's a veteran of the boom bust cycles of commodities so he is a good asset allocator
4) I don't believe that the big miners like BHP and Rio Tinto were caught with their pants down when the mining tax was announced. This was long time coming.
5) Cameco bought a big prospective mine in the land down under and I believe they factored in the risk of 40% tax. It's the cost of doing business.

Is Laramide worth investing in ?
1) If one believes in the growth of nuclear energy without new technology diminishing the demand for new deposits of uranium
2) It's trading below mineral value

Any negatives?
1) The big money have been burned in uranium investments so it may be awhile before valuations are truly worth what they should be. I'm thinking 2016.
2) There may be other better investments out there