Archives for February 2013

February 2013 - Page 3 of 17 - Money Morning - Only the News You Can Profit From

The Arckaringa Basin Could Be the Largest Shale Oil Find of All Time

Over the past few days, I have released information on what could be the largest shale oil find ever recorded.

It's located in an area of Australia called the Arckaringa Basin and contains as much as 233 billion barrels (or more) of recoverable shale oil.

That's more than all of the estimated oil in Iran, Iraq, Canada, or Venezuela.  And it's just 30 billion barrels shy of the estimated reserves in all of Saudi Arabia.

The discovery at the Arckaringa basin is so big it's already prompting some observers to begin talking about energy independence for Australia, much in the same way Americans did after similar discoveries in the Bakken, Marcellus, Eagle Ford, and Utica basins.

And there is one small company that controls what is shaping up to be the biggest worldwide oil project to hit in decades.

Is America's Middle Class Caught in a Vise?

This is a chicken and egg kind of discussion about what caused the housing crash.

It's not that there's a right answer (but I am right) or a wrong answer, it's about looking at what happened to determine whether it's going to happen again. It is.

I'm always right.

Really, it's about America's middle class mostly, and the vise they're caught in.

Notice, the title here poses that as a question. Are they caught in a vise?

I say, "Yes!"

But, I'll get to that.

First, it's back to the chicken… or the egg.

What Wal-Mart's Dismal Sales Mean for These Retail Stocks

While we showed you last week how high-end retail stocks were soaring right now, on the flipside of things is Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT).

A Wal-Mart executive offered a candid view of just how bad sales have been of late in an e-mail to other company execs obtained by Bloomberg News.

"In case you haven't seen a sales report these days, February [month-to-date] sales are a total disaster," Jerry Murray, VP of finance and logistics, said in the Feb. 12 e-mail. "[It's] the worst start to a month I have seen in my seven years with the company."

The retail giant's woes stem from a confluence of factors hurting sales: the 2% increase in the payroll tax, the recent surge in gas and food prices and consumer confidence levels sinking to their lowest since 2011.

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Stunning Bionic Advances Mean the Return of the Six Million Dollar Man

As a teen growing up in the 1970s, I was a fan of the popular TV show The Six Million Man, and often dreamed of being a real-life version of Steve Austin, the world's original bionic being.

For millions of us, that dream may soon come true.

Austin, you'll no doubt recall, was the bigger-than-life main character of the long-running drama. The former astronaut was battered in a horrid test-flight crash ("I can't hold her … she's breaking up, she's breaking up!") and was expected to die.

But doctors not only saved Austin's life … they decided they could "rebuild him" by using bionic implants.

And those high-tech devices boosted Austin's speed, strength and vision far beyond human levels.

Now a global research team is reporting great progress in building the first fully functional "bionic man."

Like Steve Austin, the lab-created being – nicknamed "Rex" – has advanced prosthetic limbs. He also has an artificial heart-lung system that pumps synthetic blood. He even has a functional, machine-built pancreas and liver.

Team members say the project shows that, in the very near future, we will be able to give humans a wide range of bionic implants to replace those damaged by disease or trauma.

My colleagues here at Money Map Press know that I'm fond of describing the Era of Radical Change as one in which "science fiction is becoming science fact."

With the case of bionics, that prediction is literally coming true.

For investors, that means this new segment of high-tech/biotech will soon become another subset of the digital realm that's ripe for picking. And when that happens, I'll make sure you're the first to know.

But this engineering marvel isn't the only fascinating piece of technology I came across this month. Take a look…

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Italian Elections: Split Vote "Worst-Case" for Eurozone

If preliminary results prove accurate, the Italian elections will result in a "hung" parliament, meaning no party will have enough seats to form a government.

The lack of a definitive result could temporarily paralyze the Eurozone's third-largest economy and revive fears that Italian voters will ultimately reject austerity and the euro itself.

Such a development would threaten to reignite the Eurozone debt crisis, setting off an economic shock that would ripple out to markets around the world.

As of Monday afternoon, the center-left forces of Pier Luigi Bersani appeared set to win Italy's lower house, while the center-right party of former Premier Silvio Berlusconi looked headed for victory in the Italian Senate.

In the Italian political system, a prime minister must have a majority coalition in both legislative houses in order to form a government. Unless one of the leading parties can form a majority in both houses by partnering with one or more other parties, a new round of Italian elections will be needed.

"A hung parliament would be a guarantee of stillness both in terms of economic program and structural reforms," Annalisa Piazza, a fixed-income analyst at Newedge Group in London, told Bloomberg News. "Such a scenario would be the worst-case outlook."

Italian and European markets, which rose on early reports that Bersani's group was ahead in both houses, fell later on the news that Berlusconi would probably prevail in the Senate. The reports also helped turn U.S. markets negative.

Exactly how all this will play out won't be known for certain for days.

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The $20 Trillion Showdown at Coober Pedy

Exactly one month ago, on Jan. 23, news leaked that a gigantic new shale oil field had been discovered… right in the middle of nowhere. The location is a secluded town in southern Australia – Coober Pedy. It's about 850 kilometers north of Adelaide. The population is only 1,695 people. And it's about to become […]

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How to Invest in Cybersecurity

More and more companies are asking how to invest in cybersecurity, as the industry looks to be the only area of U.S. defense spending that will escape the looming budget cuts slated for March 1.

As Money Morning Executive Editor William Patalon III explained in his recent report, "The Cyber-Hacking of America," the booming interest in cyber-defense stems from the increasing number of threats targeting the United States.

Patalon said the intelligence community's National Intelligence Estimate, used to brief lawmakers, found "the U.S. is the target of a massive, sustained, cyber-espionage campaign."

A separate report released last week by Virginia-based cybersecurity firm Mandiant Corp. found a Chinese military unit was behind cyberattacks on at least 141 organizations since 2006.

"We know that the U.S. Federal Reserve has been hacked, we know that The New York Times has been hacked, and that's just the beginning," said Patalon. "This is going to be a major, major story and something that investors need to watch."




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The $20 Trillion Showdown at Coober Pedy

Exactly one month ago, on Jan. 23, news leaked that a gigantic new shale oil field had been discovered… right in the middle of nowhere. The location is a secluded town in southern Australia – Coober Pedy. It's about 850 kilometers north of Adelaide. The population is only 1,695 people. And it's about to become […]

Read More…