It’s been one of those weeks – and it’s only Tuesday. Already, the deadlines are piling up and some of them even getting missed... put back to another day.
Such is life in the exciting, heady world of the financial markets.
You see, no matter how good our intentions are on getting our dossier on “uranium stocks not to be ignored” wrapped up... or finalizing the due diligence on that research on the “wonder food for a drought- ridden China”... or crossing the “T”s and dotting the “I”s on the eagerly awaited “copy cat credit boom” report – no matter how committed we are to getting these insights out of our minds and into your inbox, we keep on getting put off track.
But, hey – that’s how the markets play it. There’s always something a little more pressing that comes along and screams for immediate attention.
Today we got a call from the Moneyweek team – desperate for some ideas for soft commodity plays. They’re running a story on the bull market in soft commodities – as opposed to the normal commodities people talk about such as oil, gold, silver. Things like coffee, sugar, cocoa and wheat.
Knowing we’re always on the case for ways to play any bull market, they wanted our ideas. Not having my ‘soft commodities hat’ on today... and up against a wall of deadlines... I was unable to help in new research. But I did point them towards one cunning play we featured a couple of months ago in our Profit Hunter service.
It’s a London-listed orange plantation stock that makes money by selling oranges to the Chinese. The Chinese, whose nation is one of the fastest growing in the world, are big into oranges.
The Profit Hunter team reports that “as the standard of living in China improves and the desire for fitness and vitamins increases, its people will eat more oranges.
“Apparently demand is already outstripping supply and [company chairman, Tony] Tong sees this continuing. This remains an interesting play on China’s growth.”
The Profit Hunter team spent a lot of time researching that particular recommendation – as they do with all their ideas. And with regular updates on when to close the positions, this is valuable information – especially when you know it’s information that you’re not likely to get from anyone else.
So I can’t share the name of the company, I’m afraid. That’s premium content that Profit Hunter members have paid for. I’m sure you understand.
But what I will tell you is that this particular stock is given to anybody who takes a three-month, no obligation trial to the Profit Hunter service. I’m talking about the full, in-depth report on how this tiny stock can benefit from an explosion in demand for oranges from the Chinese.
That, plus two other fascinating plays – one which could deliver gains of up to 366% - you’ll get all three reports and a chance to try out the services of one of the most interesting and forward thinking investment advisory teams I’ve met.
*** It’s never right to profit from someone else’s misery – and we sure as hell don’t advocate that kind of stuff here at Profit Watch.
But I cannot help but wonder how many people have spotted the opportunity to make a quick buck from the Dow Jones this afternoon. I even toyed with the idea myself after I read an email from a colleague.
You’ll doubtless by now have heard the shocking news out if India. 137 dead and over 450 injured as cowardly scum have launched a devastating attack on the commuter trains of Mumbai.
We all knew it was going to happen somewhere in the world and soon. International terrorism has been off the front pages too long.
But India? That wasn’t expected was it?
I just read a snippet on Bloomberg and it reports: “The Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist group, which seeks an end to Indian control of Jammu & Kashmir state, claimed responsibility, according to the CNN-IBN television channel.”
But it doesn’t matter who did the bombing, the effect is the same: more senseless killings. Terrorism ruins the day again.
What I think a lot of traders have done, though, is take advantage of the apparent shock selling this mayhem has caused. The Dow slumped after traders caught wind off the news and, of course, US-listed Indian stocks were especially badly hit.
But at the same time as all this news was coming out, “bullish” vibes about the state of the US budget deficit were coming out of the White House.
The end result is that once all the news came out about Mumbai – once the death and injury toll became known, once the perpetrators of this heinous crime owned up (and it became clear it was a fairly localised threat, being India focussed, rather than the Public Enemy No 1, al-Qaeda), in other words, once all the uncertainty was cleared up – then US traders bought the US index hand over fist. They drove it from a low of 11,023 to a high of 11,100.
Some quick thinking people have just made 80 points profit from guessing that the markets have overreacted to a problem “the other side of the world”.
And anyone holding gold made a decent profit, too, as the ultimate safe haven investment sucked in huge amounts of money, a flight to safety from the bomb disaster.
Like I said, it’s wrong to go looking to profit from these catastrophes. But I don’t see there is necessarily anything wrong in betting on the inevitable correction once the dust has settled.
What do you think?
Above all, let’s all spare some time thinking about the victims of this cowardly crime and their families. Londoners, especially, know exactly what the feeling is in Mumbai right now.
*** That’s all from me until this time next week.
Be prepared, you’re in for a real treat tomorrow. Commodity nutter, James Woodburn, is back from his well-deserved two-week break in Portugal, where the only commodity he spent any time analysing were grains and grapes in their fermented form.
Woody is bound to have some great ideas for you in Commodity Watch tomorrow.
My best regards,
Frank Hemsley
Profit Watch
P.S. One thing we should consider is that terrorism in its many disguises is here to stay. I don’t think anybody doubts that. I do strongly believe that part of your money should be in what I would call the “ultimate disaster hedge” – in other words, gold. Not necessarily as a way to profit – but as a way to protect your wealth and future.
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