Features of the week

Enjoy our Friday "Features".

1. The Dow sank 358 points on Thursday, closing at its lowest level in almost two years.

2. Oil surges above $140; is $150 oil around the corner?

3. Drilling for oil in Beverly Hills.

4. Global oil supply worries fuel debate in Saudi Arabia.

5. Gold moves up to $920 an ounce on dollar weakness, risk aversion.

6. Video: Warren Buffett concerned about stagflation.

7. Uranium prices could rebound due to increased demand.

8. Jim Rogers and Van Eck Global have formed the Rogers Van Eck Hard Assets Producer Index, a comprehensive global commodities share index (Hat tip: Abnormal Returns).

9. "Danseuse", the Severini painting highlighted in Wednesday's art market update, ends up fetching £15.04 million, twice its pre-sale estimate.

10. Four years of home price gains wiped out. Case-Shiller home price index is down 15.3% in the past year, shows declines in all 20 cities tracked.

11. Public surveillance grows in America's emerging police state.

12. Aristotle on mixed economies (this applies to liberty as well).

13. Baby Bust! The world is panicking over falling birthrates.

14. Carbon trading set to dominate commodities.

15. Cap and Trade is not a "market solution". Discuss.

16. Who owns your friends? Social networking sites fight for control over users' personal information.

Enjoy your weekend, and thanks for reading Finance Trends Matter.

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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