Feature Stories

Respected commentator Marc Faber explains why the commodity boom has just begun, why the US is becoming increasingly alienated, and why you should buy gold.

Due to reader response, FN Arena delves further into the groundswell of belief that there is a world-wide conspiracy to keep the gold price down. If the theory is right, gold should at least be over US$1,000/oz.

Foster’s is no longer going to bother advertising its beer on US television. Why? Australians, and Australian media companies, have been very slow to wake up (but not all of them).

Paladin Resources, Resolute Mining, Valhalla Uranium, Summit Resources, the Queensland government, the coal industry, trade unions, the federal government and the federal opposition are just some of the protagonists locked in a battle to exploit, or not, Australia’s fifth largest uranium reserves.

As interest rates push higher the natural effect is that stocks purchased for yield become less attractive. Using sophisticated derivatives it is possible to enhance that yield.

A new price target has served to reinforce the difficulties in valuing oil companies, as discussed in our earlier feature.

Putting a price on an oil exploration and production company is a very complex business. Just how do oil analysts go about it, and are their efforts of any real value?

Once commercially unviable, various alternative sources have been put forward as a counter to the global oil shortage argument. Are these sources recoverable? And at what cost?

The technology exists to convert coal into oil. It’s not cheap, and requires the crude oil price to exceed about US$50/bbl for the sake of economic viability. Experts have largely given up on seeing that price again in the near future, if ever. And while the world still has plenty of coal, it may not have a lot more oil.

As the US has become the debtor to the world, faith has been lost in the US dollar as a safe haven. The world has turned to hard commodities as investment assets, and gold is primary amongst them. Further fuelling gold’s inevitable rise is one of the greatest marketing ploys in history – the exchange traded fund.