Features of the week

Are you in the mood for a little weekend reading? Good, because we have some great stories and interview clips for you today. Enjoy our, "Features of the week".

1. Congress passes $168 billion "stimulus" package. Yep...

2. Please don't help. "Mr. Practical to the bureaucrats: don't try to fix the markets".

3. The rogue rebuttal. Questions over Société Générale's role in the Jerome Kervail "rogue trader" scandal. More on the unfolding drama from FT.com.

4. Financial Sense Newshour "Energy Roundtable" interview with Matt Simmons, Dr. Robert L. Hirsch, and Jeffrey G. Rubin.

Check this one out. There were some very interesting points made about the economics of finding and producing oil. It is, as far as we know, a finite resource (something economists tend to overlook).

5. So you want to be in charge of monetary policy? Bloomberg's Mark Gilbert on how to be Federal Reserve Chairman.

6. Chapter II: A commerical real estate bust. The Journal thinks the commercial real estate sector might be in trouble.

7. More Fun with the S&P Case-Shiller index. Tim Iacono looks at the economy and home prices.

8. Is natural gas an undervalued commodity? Elliot Gue thinks so.

9. Biofuels deemed a greenhouse threat. Yeah, we know.

10. Khodorkovsky still defiant. Mikhail Khodorkovsky in a face-to-face interview with the Financial Times, his first since 2003.

11. Putin: Russia will match West in new arms race.

12. Controlled Greed points to a Forbes profile of "Superinvestor" Walter Schloss. He's thrifty, follows simple investment guidelines, and loves simple pleasures. My kinda guy.

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Enjoy your weekend!

Nasdaq credit rating junked.

S&P cut Nasdaq's credit rating to junk status citing debt burdens and its questionable strategy to buy a controlling interest in the London Stock Exchange. Financial Times reported that the exchange's counterparty credit & bank loan rating were lowered fromm BBB- (lowest investment grade rating) to BB+. The change will increase Nasdaq's borrowing costs should it wish to pursue aquisition targets. For an earlier look at the exchange consolidation trend that brought about Nasdaq's push for a stake in the LSE, please see "Exchange fever" .

Clean Money - John Rubino: Book review

Clean Money by John Rubino 274 pages. Hoboken, New Jersey John Wiley & Sons. 2009. 1st Edition. The bouyant stock market environment of the past several years is gone, and the financial wreckage of 2008 is still sharp in our minds as a new year starts to unfold. Given the recent across-the-board-declines in global stock markets (and most asset classes) that have left many investors shell-shocked, you might wonder if there is any good reason to consider the merits of a hot new investment theme, such as clean energy. However, we shouldn't be too hasty to write off all future stock investments. After all, the market declines of 2008 may continue into 2009, but they may also leave interesting investment opportunities in their wake. Which brings us to the subject of this review. John Rubino, author and editor of GreenStockInvesting.com , recently released a new book on renewable energy and clean-tech investing entitled, Clean Money: Picking Winners in the Green Tech Boom . In Clean ...

Jesse Livermore: How to Trade in Stocks (1940 Ed. E-book)

If you've been around markets for any length of time, you've probably heard of 20th century supertrader, Jesse Livermore . Today we're highlighting his rare 1940 work, How to Trade in Stocks (ebook, pdf). But first, a brief overview of Livermore's life and trading career (bio from Jesse Livermore's Wikipedia entry). "During his lifetime, Livermore gained and lost several multi-million dollar fortunes. Most notably, he was worth $3 million and $100 million after the 1907 and 1929 market crashes, respectively. He subsequently lost both fortunes. Apart from his success as a securities speculator, Livermore left traders a working philosophy for trading securities that emphasizes increasing the size of one's position as it goes in the right direction and cutting losses quickly. Ironically, Livermore sometimes did not follow his rules strictly. He claimed that lack of adherence to his own rules was the main reason for his losses after making his 1907 and...

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