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On Monday, Rick was interviewed by Kerry Lutz of The Financial Survival Network. Topics included: The uptrend in the dollar More bad news for Europe. How the ECB blew through $1 trillion in a very short time. How the bond markets are being "stage-managed" by the Fed and the ECB to try to create the appearance of normalcy.

(We are indebted to our good friend Jonathan Auerbach for the following, a fine summary of global investment opportunities from his colleague Mike Churchill.  Jonathan notes that "Mike in round numbers has outperformed the S&P by 50% over the past 5 years," and that his firm's current strategies resonate with those of Auerbach & Grayson. RA) Over the past seven years I have done significantly better in emerging markets than in developed markets (i.e. commodity stocks). There is less intellectual competition in emerging markets so an investor is more likely to be rewarded for his work on individual stocks. Moreover,emerging markets lend themselves much better to supply-side top-down analysis. That's partly because there are so many emerging markets and EM policymakers often make "big" moves that can be seen a mile away. One can always find at least one country that meets the necessary criteria and has attractive valuations. This year Pakistan and Japan (which I now consider an honorary emerging market) are among the most appealing places. In years past the fund has gone heavily into Turkey, Sri Lanka and Brazil. Pakistan now tops the list in terms of having the best combination of low P/E and high GDP growth in nominal US$, followed by Vietnam, Argentina (avoid-more later), Egypt, Russia, Ukraine, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Turkey, and Serbia. Best growth/value combinations:  A big part of the appeal of Japan and Pakistan is that many companies in these countries are throwing off tons of cash. You wouldn't normally think of Japan as a cheap market, but it is. This Japan call is reminiscent of the commodity call 10 years ago: Nobody is on the theme, nobody covers the stocks, the Nikkei is emerging from a 20-year bear market, stocks are super cheap and there is a macro tailwind. Japan now

There is talk of further talks with Iran today in the headlines. Lest we delude ourselves into believing they might lead somewhere, here's a trenchant essay on peace-mongering by Daniel Greenfield, aka "Sultan Knish". An excerpt: "Peace happens when ordinary people of goodwill under the leadership of a few enlightened peacemongers get together and realize how much they have in common and that any disputes they have can be settled over some coffee or tea. "No mythical ideal propounded by the postmoderns is quite as dully stupid and thoroughly delusional as this one. It is progressive in its insistence that we are all alike because we are human and that being the same means that there is no reason for conflict. Its irrational insistence that war is irrational perfectly captures the false reason of progressive paradigms which treat their own philosophical constructs as more real than reality."

This weekend, Rick was a guest on The Korelin Economic report. Rick and Al Koreling discussed gold, silver and junior mining issues. The link can be found here. Rick's is segment #3.

From the peerless 'Spengler,' here's an excerpt from his provocative essay, titled above: “The psychology profession, by contrast, thinks that the brain is a machine, and the best way to engage it is to use another machine, namely a computer. Computers, to be sure, do not kill brains; people kill brains with computers. Computers in the hands of people who believe that gratification is the highest human goal, and the quicker the gratification, the better, have devastated our mental landscape. Our children do not read; they only surf. They do not write; they only text. They do not plan and strategize in games; they react to visual and aural stimuli while inflicting simulated mayhem. They do not follow a plot: they cut among disjoined images in the style of rap videos. And when they fail to concentrate, we give them Adderall and Ritalin.” Click here to read the entire essay.

This impromptu session from Thursday morning runs a little more than an hour, touching on B of A, the E-mini S&Ps and Comex gold. But of greatest interest, perhaps, in the final 15 minutes, is a detailed (and bullish) look at the HUI Gold Bugs Index. My suggestion is to fast-forward to this segment (unless you’re interested in the real-time ‘camo’ portion related to other vehicles).

Romance your sweetie on Valentine's Day with the songs of  Sinatra.  One of my oldest friends, Rick Apt, runs the best Old Blue Eyes memorabilia-and-music site on the web. For an earful -- and some terrific February 14th specials -- click here.

Lurkers sometimes come into this forum to take potshots at my forecasts, evidently unaware that the techncial analysis they might find in my commentaries is often less precise, timely and finely nuanced than that which paying subscribers receive every day. One such lurker was ‘Steve,’ who culled an $18.355 target for March Silver from a list of "Predictions for 2012" I’d published early in the New Year. Steve questioned how this very bearish forecast could differ so dramatically from a $30.35 target featured shortly thereafter in the Touts section and in this forum. Because Steve himself blogs professionally (I gather) on the subject of Silver, one might infer that he had an ulterior motive for bashing my forecast.  Whatever the case, I have reprinted his comments and my response below so that lurkers can better understand what they are missing by not paying for the good stuff that subscribers receive daily.  (Click here to access the original discussion, or to add to it.) Steve's post: Rick, I had a few questions. I recently wrote [an article] where I discuss that the majority of analysis on the Internet is contradictory and frustrating. I have been following your articles for some time. I remember you DEC 30, 2011 TEN PREDICTIONS for 2012. Here was one of them: Gold will stage a powerful rally after bottoming at $1445 in January, but the buying spree will fall well short of $2000. Silver will fare relatively worse, falling to $18.35 before finding traction and recovering into the low $30s. ——————————————————– A little more than a month ago you were predicting $18.35 silver in JAN. Today, in your most recent article, you are now seeing “AN EASY MOVE TO $35.53″. What I would like to know is this. How on earth can you have that much

Stocks are sharply higher today on the supposed news that job growth surged, pushing unemployment down to a near three-year low of 8.3 percent.  In contrast to this absolutely meaningless, Goebbelsian statistic is the inescapable reality of a U.S. economy that is not only not recovering but which is virtually incapable of doing so. So strong is the evidence of this that anyone who believes otherwise should be presumed deranged. As for a mainstream news media that would have us believe the recession ended in 2009, their contemptible laziness, stupidity and dishonesty in failing to recognize the economy's steepening descent into Depression ranks with their obliviousness to the Holocaust and Stalin's purge. For bracing counterpoint to this morning's grotesque hubris on Wall Street, I suggest reading the excellent essay Peak Money Arrives at the Economic Populist web site. Here's an excerpt: "The world is running out of money. If money is credit, and credit relies on confidence, there is not enough confidence in the financial system to supply the world with the money it needs. Since the initial credit crisis struck in 2008, credit and money have been withdrawn from the system in such staggering amounts that international trade can no longer grow. The world’s central banks are playing a rear guard action by acting as lender of last resort to banks that no longer trust each other and have stopped lending in the interbank market. As liquidity flows out from the system, the rottenness that has corrupted the foundations of global finance is now exposed for all to see."