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Features of the week

Hey everyone, hope you're ready to run down some of the week's more interesting stories and market related events.

As promised, we have a lot of news to share on the energy front, plus interviews with a few well known investors and some timeless wisdom to share as well. So sit back and peruse our, "Features of the week"!

1. WSJ MarketBeat on, "The Merrill-Citigroup Bad-News Fiesta".

2. Now problems are starting to emerge for Goldman as well. A discussion of how banks are accounting for "level three" assets. Also, the SEC is wondering how Goldman Sachs managed to manuever so successfully out of subprime danger and deftly short the decline.

Fintag wondered the same as rumors circulated earlier in October.

3. BusinessWeek claims that $800 gold is not likely to surprise anyone. Really? Because I don't recall any of these glossy media outlets predicting it, even as late as 2006.

4. The Big Picture on "benign" inflation and added surcharges. More follow-up here.

5. An interesting email to Fintag on China's long-term game plan.

6. Are oil prices a speculative bubble? Commentary from The Oil Drum.

7. Total chief warns on oil output. Christophe de Margerie, Total CEO, now thinks it will be difficult to reach even 100 million barrels a day of global production.

8. Biofuels: a tale of special interests and subsidies. FT's Martin Wolf.

9. The US dollar continues to slump against the euro following the Fed's most recent rate cut. And yes, Jim Rogers has a few things to say about that.

10. Video of Jim Rogers speaking at a recent London conference.

11. Bloomberg sits down with Michael Steinhardt and Jim Chanos, of Kynikos Associates, in their "Hedge Hunters" profiles.

12. Who is Garet Garrett? Mises Institute's Jeffrey Tucker takes a look at this author's neglected body of work and shares some interesting insights on free markets and the lure of socialism.

Have a great weekend! Thanks for reading Finance Trends Matter.

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