Stock Investing

Tesla Motors (TSLA) it has hired the man responsible for developing Apple’s (AAPL) retail strategy which has been an important part of the success of the iPod, iPhone, iPad..  The company wants to create a unique shopping experience and believes it has found the right man for the job in George Blankenship, who most recently worked for Microsoft and brings 30 years of retail experience to Tesla.  Blankenship will hit the ground running, opening stores in Tokyo, Japan, Toronto, Canada, and Washington, DC.

“George has a record of building customer-focused stores that revolutionize their industries, and he does it on time and on budget,” said Tesla CEO Elon Musk. “Tesla

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Major US equity markets closed higher this week as investors showed a willingness to put fears of a double dip recession aside. All three major US indexes were up for the week.

Crude oil futures popped sharply higher for the week, gaining nearly $5 a barrel and trading for $75.70 a barrel late on Friday afternoon.

Gold futures were higher on Friday, jumping nearly $17 an ounce to $1,212. Gold was selling for $1,209 an ounce on late Friday afternoon.

On the economic front, the Institute for Supply Management’s US non-manufacturing index for June was released on Tuesday, coming in at 53.8. This was below the consensus index level of 55 for June.

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As of last Friday, I had little confidence that the market would stage this strong a move up, close enough for the Index to possibly show an increase during this phase. But, amazingly, it has.

As I see it, nothing is really that different. We’re essentially back to where we were at the end of June. So don’t listen to all the talk about “the bottom”, the “recovery beginning”, “optimistic earnings season” and an uptick in the 2-year Treasury yields. It’s what comes after that I’m focusing on.

I used this run up as an opportunity to lighten up further and to add to some market index shorts. Sorry, all, but I’m hoping for no more than a 0.5% increase tomorrow and then, with some disappointing earnings reports, for significant declines over the remainder of the summer.

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By Jeff Clark, Senior Editor, Casey’s Gold & Resource Report
One of the big hints that gold stocks will be ready for take-off is when they stop following the broader markets and strictly track gold, particularly if the market falls and gold stocks don’t. We now have data showing this has just occurred.
From April 2009 to April 2010, gold stocks mirrored the S&P. The two markets held hands as often as high school sweethearts; there was very little separation between them. While it wasn’t always a daily connection, any weekly and especially monthly chart showed them moving in tandem.
Until now.

For the quarterly period of April through June, gold stocks advanced 11%, tracking gold’s gain of 10.7%. The S&P

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10 Pounds for a 5 Pound Bag

Our economic data review of last week’s reports illustrates the overwhelming and continuous flow of evidence for double-dip recession

“The Greek” earned clients a 23% average annual return over five years as a stock analyst on Wall Street. While writing for Wall Street Greek and others, he presciently predicted the financial crisis and housing and banking failures of the Great Recession.

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