Have you ever heard of the Dogs-of-the-Dow system. It’s a well known system in the stock and trading business. There are several stock brokers who have earned a lot of money by working with this system. They are using at for several years now. They think it’s a safe way to let your money grow slowly but consistently.

If you know the Dogs-of-the-Dow system you know that the system makes yearly a better percentage then the index.

If you have started using the system several years ago and used it properly for those years you would have earned a nice percentage each year. Double figures are more then ones made. A high yield income of 17.7 % average annual return since 1973 has been made.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average overall return was 11.9 % during that same periode.
So you would have made almost 6 % more each year. Not bad at all.

If you never heard about it let me explain how that system works.
At some point in the year, mostly early January, you take a look at all the companies that gives you the highest dividend payment.

You make a basket (several companies added together) then you decide how much percentage you will spent on each company. Next you buy stocks of each company to a curtain amount of money you have available and wait until the year passes.
When the year has passed you make op the balance and see how much you have earned.

If you don’t want to trade frequently the Dogs-of-the-Dow system is a very relaxing and defensive and profitable way of money investment.
(more…)

Over the last eight weeks [June, 2006] I’ve been spending a lot of time reading articles describing the current market conditions…trying to figure if it really affects penny stock investors.

Are we in a bull market…are we wading into a bear market. Or is the recent rally just a dead-cat bounce?

The dead cat bounce refers to a short-term recovery in a declining trend. There’s a (relatively) old saying in investing: even a dead cat will bounce if it’s dropped from high enough.

No matter how you slice it…I’m not sure it even matters to penny stock investors like you and me.

For example…stocks surged in Japan this week as reports showed growth in manufacturing and exports. Markets rose across Asia as investors were encouraged by Wednesday’s gains on Wall Street.

Strong earnings reports from two bellwether stocks gave penny stock investors hope that rising interest rates wouldn’t kill profits. The recent sell-off, said one economist was “just turbulence.”

The turbulence, it seems, is continuing on this side of the pond. U.S. stocks traded flat to lower Thursday as the market took a breather as higher oil prices and downbeat economic data curbed Wall Street’s momentum. So, what are we to believe, is the market heading up…or heading down?

How does the market look in general terms? As far as stocks are concerned, the S&P index is up just 0.3 percent for the year, the Dow is up 3.4 percent and the NASDAQ is down 2.9 percent. Not sparkling data.
(more…)

Where are the hot and cold spots around the world for resource investors? The stampeding bull market in commodities has investors reaching for new ideas. Highly respected newsletter writer Lawrence Roulston of “Resource Opportunities” favors Canada, Alaska and China for investing in mining and energy companies.

StockInterview: Let’s get the cold spots out of the way so investors are forewarned about which countries to avoid.

Lawrence Roulston:
A lot of the (mining) companies that went overseas in decades back are recognizing the political difficulties with dealing in some jurisdictions. These include places like Indonesia, Columbia, and several of the African countries, such as Congo, Sudan and Eritrea. All of those places where there are great geological prospects, but are more and more risky to deal in. I think some of that mining is coming back closer to home, which is right here in Canada.

StockInterview: So Canada is on your “favorite countries” list?

Lawrence Roulston:
At the very top of the list would be Canada. As of right now, taking into account the geological potential, political situation, infrastructure and all the other issues, I would (highly) rate Canada and British Columbia. They have had decades of work. But for the last decade, there hasn’t been very much going on. The companies are just coming back and picking up with what’s been going on. Similarly, Ontario, Quebec – tremendous geological potential – and it’s been kind of ignored for a long time. Canada is now the most important place in the world for diamonds, representing 50 percent on exploration spending for diamonds.

StockInterview: Is there a specific mineral or metal that makes Canada especially appealing?

Lawrence Roulston:
It’s the whole gambit. Canada has always been one of the top metal producers, and it’s coming back to life. Of course, gold is at the top of the list, but also base metals and uranium. The Athabasca Basin in northern Saskatchewan is far and away the most important area to be looking at, geologically. It’s currently the biggest source of uranium and contains the highest grade deposit. There are other uranium prospective areas in Canada that are just emerging. The Thelon Basin in the Northwest Territories, north of the Athabasca Basin, is very similar, geologically, to the Athabasca Basin. It had some work done in the 1970s, and it’s been pretty much ignored until very recently. Going a little further north to Hornby Basin, it is a similar kind of situation. In Labrador, the central mineral belt is just emerging as a very important place to be looking for uranium.

StockInterview: Do you have any favorite companies, which you are following and which have good prospects?

Lawrence Roulston:
NovaGold Resources (TSX: NG; Amex: NG), for example, with the Galore Creek. It’s a billion ton deposit with enormous metal content. (Editor’s Note: Galore Creek has been called one of the largest and highest grade undeveloped porphyry-related gold-silver-copper deposits in North America.)

StockInterview: What is another of your favorite areas, which has gone largely undetected during this bull market?

Lawrence Roulston:
Nevada would be at the top of the list of anywhere in the world to be working and Alaska right behind it. There is huge potential in Alaska. Mining companies have only scratched the surface of exploration up there. Two of the largest metal deposits in the world are in Alaska. These are both discoveries going back decades, but work over the last couple of years has brought them to the point where they’re now recognized as among the largest metal deposits in the world: Donlin Creek, a 25-plus million ounce gold deposit, and the Pebble deposit, held by Northern Dynasty (TSX: NDM). The Pebble deposit is significantly larger than, and of comparable grade to, Ivanhoe’s (NYSE: IVN) Oyu Tolgoi (copper-gold) deposit in Mongolia. (Editor’s Note: The Donlin Creek project is a joint venture between NovaGold and Barrick Gold.)

StockInterview: Anywhere else in the world where you can find a great, but still “new” resource investment opportunity, in light of how hard the commodities bull has been stampeding the past few years?

Lawrence Roulston:
Often the better value to be had, or the better opportunity, is in being a little bit out of step with the crowd. One of the areas offering some outstanding opportunities is China.
China has done a tremendous amount of geological work, over the last few decades, but all from the perspective of finding, and then quickly developing, small deposits. There has been very little effort devoted to taking a bigger picture type look at China. The companies that have been able to take a kind of bigger picture look at China have begun to develop what I think are going to be some pretty spectacular results over time.

StockInterview: Isn’t it tough, though, doing business in China?

Lawrence Roulston:
There is still a perception out there that China is a difficult place to do business. Most people from the west walk into China cold and try to do a deal. It would be impossible for them. But, for western companies that are able to team up with groups that are well established within China – so that they’re able to find their way through the system over there – then there are outstanding opportunities. There are mountains of geological information – all in Chinese, of course. You’ve got to be able to work within that system and get the information, know how to put the deals together.

StockInterview: What do you mean by “knowing how to put the deals together?”

Lawrence Roulston:
If I was to go over to China and try to do a deal to get access to a coalbed methane property, I wouldn’t have a clue about how to begin. On the other hand, I could walk into the Petroleum Club in Calgary, and meet a half dozen guys and talk to them. I could build on my leads, and probably in a day be talking about a deal. When you go into China, unless you have somebody on your team that can get into the system and deal with the people, because of language issues, cultural issues and just having access to the information and knowing what sort of terms that they might be looking for… It’s a different culture from every perspective, and not the least of which is a different way of doing business.

StockInterview: In your April issue, you recommended one company, which overcame those hurdles, meets your criteria and already has a coalbed methane deal in China.

Lawrence Roulston:
Pacific Asia China Energy (TSX: PCE) established connections in China. They can draw on their contacts and their network. They can get into see the right people, where they can actually talk seriously about doing deals, and have an enormous leg up over somebody that walked in cold and tried to establish and build contacts and put a deal together. I think it is an absolutely outstanding opportunity that they’ve seized on.

StockInterview: There are many coalbed methane opportunities in Alberta. Why look to China?

Lawrence Roulston:
One of the things that makes China interesting is the entry cost to get into a coalbed methane (CBM) play in China is fairly modest. For example, to go to Alberta, or anywhere in the United States, and get access to the exploration rights, or exploitation rights, is enormously expensive. In China, they walked in and, for a fairly modest up-front commitment, obtained a control position in a CBM prospect.

StockInterview: How does Pacific Asia China Energy’s coalbed methane property in Guizhou, China rate against other coalbed methane plays?

Lawrence Roulston:
I think it’s an outstanding opportunity. Chinese government agencies have done an enormous amount of work at delineating the coal. To be able to step into that amount of data as a starting point to build up their CBM resource? The bottom line is that they’re not out there looking for coal. They know exactly where the material is, and they’re able to quickly start defining the issues like recoverability. They’re drilling in order to establish the basic physical parameters of the flow rates and the content within the coal. I think the companies which are able to effectively exploit the CBM technology in China are going to be the pioneers in that area.

StockInterview: To Americans, any business in China might appear to be “pioneering,” since most of still think of China as a third world country.

Lawrence Roulston:
I’ve been to China many times and I’ve been to parts of China where most people, as tourists, would never get anywhere near, because I go there to look at mineral exploration projects and mining projects. I’ve been to every corner of the country as well as the major cities. What I see happening everywhere I go is a pace of development that I’ve never seen anywhere else in my life, anywhere in the world. That is, 1.3 billion people are going from a basically rural farm-based economy to a modern industrial economy at a pace that has just never before been conceived.

StockInterview: How do you quantify that?

Lawrence Roulston:
This is a number that most people won’t get, and you won’t get until you’ve been over there and have seen it. There are 300 million people in China that are already well into the middle class. By middle class, I am comparing (the Chinese middle class) to the same absolute standards as we would apply in Canada or the United States in terms of dollars in your bank account, value of your house and your car, and everything else. There are 300 million people that have already achieved that status, which is more than the people at that status in North America. There are another 1 billion people who are busting their butts to get to that level.
(more…)

The usual description of any market assumes that every trader wishes to purchase or sell a known quantity at each possible price. All the traders come together, and in one way or another price is found that clears the market – that is, makes the quantity demanded as close as possible to the quantity supplied.

After all it has been said by the authoritative stock trader W. Haddad of B.K. Labovitch that ultimately economics is supply and demand.

This may or may not be an adequate description of the markets for consumer goods, but it is clearly inadequate when describing security markets. The value of any capital asset depends on its future prospects, which are almost always uncertain. Any information that bears on such prospects may lead to a, which s we know are always uncertain. Any information that depends on its future prospects may lead to a revised estimate of value. The fact that a knowledgeable trader is willing to buy or sell some quantity of a security or commodity at a particular price is bound to be information just of that sort. Offers to trade May this affect other offers. Prices may, therefore, both clear markets and covey information.

The dual role of prices has a number of implications. For example, it behooves the liquidity motivated trader to publicize his or her motives and thereby avoid an adverse effect on the market. Thus, an institution purchasing securities for a pension fund that intends, simply to hold a representative cross section of securities should make it clear that it does not consider the financial interments under priced. On the other hand, any firm trying to buy or sell al large number of shares that it considers wrongly underpriced should try to conceal its motives, its identity or both (and may try). Such attempts may be ineffective, however, as those asked to take the other side of such trades try very hard as you know to find out exactly what is going on and many do well succeed in these days of rapid communications and access to many sources of information succeed.
(more…)