Uranium and Specialty Metals: A Few of My Favorite Things, Part II

Uranium – One of the best investments you can make right now is to pick up relatively secure, low-cost uranium – the feedstock for nuclear reactors.

The demand for uranium is building in intensity like a heap of hot coals. There are already 436 reactors up and running today. And there is a surge in demand coming in the next decade from the hundred or so new reactors expected to come online. Yet the industry is about 400 million pounds short of meeting that demand, as shown in the chart below.

Water Stocks: A Few of My Favorite Things, Part I

Water – I’ve been urging my subscribers to invest in water stocks for several years…and Hyflux is one of my favorites. Hyflux (HYFXF: OTC Bulletin Board) operates in China, Southeast Asia, India, the Middle East and North Africa. It is involved in a variety of water projects, from desalination to recycling. It was among the first stocks ever recommended in my investment service, Mayer’s Special Situations, when I launched the “Blue Gold Portfolio” back in the summer of 2006. Since I recommended it, Hyflux is up 75%, while the S&P 500 is down 10%.

Is Bakken Shale the New American Gold Rush?

You know the labor market is tight when the local McDonald’s starts handing out $300 signing bonuses. Workers are coming in from all over, making it tough to find housing. They might sleep in their trucks or pitch tents, but it can get 50 degrees below zero, which makes such a move dangerous.

Arrow Energy (ASX:AOE): Rising Demand in Aussie LNG

Big news: Arrow Energy (ASX:AOE), a modest energy producer, received a $3 billion takeover bid yesterday. Why was this benchwarmer story the leadoff hitter in today’s 5 Min. Forecast? Ahh, the drama’s in the details…some big trends in the making here:

Griffon Corp (NYSE:GFF): Buy Cockroaches, Get Rich

The lowly cockroach has a tough chin. It’s survived all kinds of shocks over the years. Jungles gave way to deserts. Flatlands succumbed to urban habitats. Predators came and went over many millennia. Yet there the cockroach stood, undaunted upon its six spindly legs.

Investors could learn a few things from the cockroach.

Titanium Metals (NYSE:TIE): Investing in Aviation Growth

The economic center of gravity will not always reside in the United States. In fact, it’s already in the process of shifting from the US to Asia and the Middle East. Forward-looking investors cannot afford to ignore this trend.

One of my favorite ways to invest in the rapidly growing emerging markets is through the back door, so to speak. Invest in companies, wherever they are, that have what these economies need or want, but don’t have. Airliner production is a classic example.

Coming Investment Boom: Curing American Obesity

Weight loss is an area we’ve been looking at for a long time now.

Obesity is a major risk factor in various diseases, from arthritis and cancer to diabetes, hypertension and heart disease. Any drug that can help people lose weight safely is, therefore, going to offer true value. Moreover, obesity increases with age. As the baby boom, the wealthiest generation in history, rolls into its senior years, the demand and the need for an obesity treatment is growing dramatically.

Canadian Dollar More than Just a Commodity Currency

I like the Canadian dollar (CAD) more and more. It has some fundamentals that are definitely improving, and some other aspects that are definitely worth considering. Here’s why…

Traditionally, the loonie has been linked with the Australian (AUD) and New Zealand dollars (NZD). Now in the current market, currencies are often linked together by at least one of three elements: They either produce a high yield, they are commodity-based or they are funding currencies for a carry trade.

Emerging Markets Are Still a Buy

Oranges were once expensive luxuries in northern climes. “In 1916,” Paul Fussell writes in Abroad, “oranges, like other exotic things that had to travel by sea, were excessively rare in England. If you could find them at all, they cost the shocking sum of 5d each.”

Today, we take for granted that we can eat apples and oranges and bananas all year round if we choose. It doesn’t matter where you live. We can eat strawberries in the dead of winter. In fact, we routinely enjoy goods that come from places very far from our own doorstep.

Market Vectors Nuclear Energy ETF (NYSE:NLR): Taking Your Position in the “Go Nukes” Era

The “No Nukes” era has been replaced by the “Go Nukes” era…and uranium stocks are a great way to play the trend.

The nuclear industry is about to experience a breakout, and it’s going to be a major investment opportunity. Lately, I’ve been talking with people in the nuclear business, from uranium miners to reactor designers to government minders and check signers. Everything I’ve heard leads me to believe that 2010 will be a good year – finally – for the nuclear industry.

Schlumberger Scores One for the Oil Biz

According to Addison Wiggin at The 5 Minute Forecast, “Schlumberger just pulled off a super-sized acquisition of Smith Intl. In an all-stock, $11 billion transaction, SLB is now by far the world’s biggest oil service company. Should revenues stay the same, Schlumberger will be double the size of Halliburton, its closest competitor.”

The Topsoil Crisis

“All life is a process of breaking down,” the great F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote. “But the blows that do the dramatic side of the work…don’t show their effect all at once.” These other blows you don’t feel until it is too late to do anything. Fitzgerald was writing about his own famous crackup in the 1930s, but his comments also apply to the agricultural scene circa 2010.