Can Turtles Fly?

I'm bearish on commodities but the only commodity that I would consider is natural gas. Compared to the rest of the commodity complex, natural gas remains quite contrarian, with prices hovering near 7-year lows. Unfortunately for the bulls, nothing much has changed since I last wrote about it , about an year ago. The price is roughly what it was when I wrote that article: Encana, a bellwether—I believe the largest natgas E&P in North America—is just a tad bit above when I wrote my prior post: Note that just because prices are low doesn't mean it is a good contrarian opportunity. There is a good reason why natgas is trading where it is. Unlike oil, natgas is localized and there has been massive production from unconventional sources (particularly shale gas). In fact, Big Oil has become gassy over the last few years—not sure if this is good or bad for the industry??—and it isn't shy to spend money on drilling for more gas. Believe it or not, many are drilling even...

Hope everyone had a good year and is looking forward to the holidays. Investingwise, it has been a very poor year for me, but, careerwise and in other matters, the year started off rough but it has been good so far. Google introduces Books Ngram viewer (AtlanticWire): Amazing free tool called Books Ngram Viewer that lets users view trends in words on roughly 10% of books printed, in six languages, between 1500 and 2008 (approximately 5.2 million books). Biggest drug recalls in US history (24/7 Wall St): Some of it is not pretty, especially if you consider how humans were harmed. The iPhone increases US trade deficit (The Globe & Mail): A good article that refers to the study, " How the iPhone Widens the United States Trade Deficit with the People’s Republic of China,"  that suggests that Apple's iPhone, although owned, designed and sold by an American company, actually increases the US trade deficit. I was going to write about this in a standalone po...