BP Near-Term Quandary

BP has successfully capped their leaking oil well… mostly… for now… probably. Though the hole is capped, seeps are already emerging, the Coast Guard said this morning. Plus, the cap is just a temporary solution until a relief well can be completed… then there's that whole issue of the ? million gallons of oil in the Gulf.

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Uranium is Heating Up

Uranium prices appear to be bottoming, as China buys major supplies from Cameco (NYSE:CCJ). On June 24, China agreed to buy more than 10,000 tons of uranium oxide – yellowcake – over 10 years from Cameco.

According to Thomas Neff, a physicist and uranium industry analyst at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, China is buying unprecedented amounts of uranium. Based on public information, China may purchase about 5,000 metric tonnes of yellowcake this year. That's more than twice as much as China consumes.

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Minimizing the Impact of Next Year’s Tax Increases

Just so you know, your taxes are going up next year. Yes, the Bush era tax cuts are due to expire at the end of 2010. Among other taxes, the federal estate tax – aka the ‘death tax' – is coming back in 2011. In a perverse way, it creates an incentive to check out in 2010, but I’m not encouraging anyone along those lines. Move at your own pace.

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Crisis Investing

Not long ago, several Outstanding Investments subscribers invited me for a sit-down chat. I told them that I love to talk with readers, but I can only chat general themes. I CANNOT offer personal investment advice in the context of a small group.

That is, when it comes to specific recommendations, I only do that in the pages of my newsletters. Everyone was OK with the ground rules. So after juggling our schedules, we wound up in the beautiful oak-paneled lobby of the old Summit Inn, south of Pittsburgh near Uniontown. It's right alongside historic US Highway 40 – the road carved by British colonists from the East Coast into the Western frontier.

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Invest in Mines, Oil Wells and Farms All at Once!

What do gold mines in South Africa and Alaska have in common with tar sand operations in Canada? And what do these kinds of operations have in common with a gigantic deep-water drilling vessel in the Gulf of Mexico? What major systems do they have in common?

The fancy name is fluid control. The more common name is pumps.

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Transocean (NYSE:RIG) Dont Throw the RIG Out with the Bathwater

Transocean (NYSE:RIG) shares hit $65 last week, and I think that’s a near-term bottom. Yes, there’s a lot of finger-pointing at Transocean, mostly by people who are immensely ignorant of how the drilling business works. Or they have a vested interest in shifting the blame.

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Dont Sell BP or RIG on Oil Spill Disaster

Things are bad in the Gulf of Mexico. Oil is gushing out of the ill-fated BP well. The spill is out of control, despite the best even heroic efforts of many industry and government players. Theres no quick solution on the horizon. In my view, things are likely to get worse before they get better.

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Oil Price Declines in the Ash of an Icelandic Volcano

This Icelandic volcano is not just a quaint story about some faraway place.

The most immediate, and most public, effect of the Icelandic volcano is that transatlantic flight has reverted to the pre-Charles Lindbergh days. Basically, there is no more flying to and from Europe across the North Atlantic. And so, the airline industry is losing about $200 million in revenues per day, while stranding millions of passengers.

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Deep Sea Gold Rush

By the time you read this, Ill be at sea in the Gulf of Mexico. I will have taken off from an airport near New Orleans in a helicopter, and flown south for over two hours. The distance will be well over 200 miles, toward a spot in the open ocean where the water depth is over 7,000 feet…

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