Montreal, Canada

The last overhang of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) gold sales has now been digested by the market as we shortly conclude 2010. That’s bullish for the market since it neutralizes the scope for additional surprise sales by any single institution.

Montreal, Canada

In 2010, junior gold stocks bolted into the stratosphere as investors finally returned to the sector following a crash in 2008. With gold prices about to complete their tenth consecutive year of gains, the bull market is changing direction as large-cap miner’s hunt for reserves the old-fashioned way – through acquisitions. And juniors and mid-cap producers are the targets.

Now it’s junior oil and gas stocks that are poised to blast even higher amid a rush by investors to grab the bull by the horns.

Over the last decade I’ve spent numerous summers vacationing in Spain. I’m incredibly fond of Spanish culture, its architecture (especially Gaudi) and the great food (tapas) and Rioja. Spain is still home to the single largest destination for global tourists.

Dugald Malcolm, Montreal, Canada.

While US markets continue their climb higher this December, they still have a significant ways to go for re-establishing previous 2007 highs. This may be the case for the DOW and S&P 500, but other leading indicators have already recovered the lost ground of 2007 to 2009.

Montreal, Canada

Corrections and stock market dislocations should be used to aggressively accumulate the entire grain investment theme in 2011. No other sector in the commodity markets offers a more attractive risk-reward scenario going forward with supply and demand likely to reward investors.

Montreal, Canada

The Great Leap Forward, which started in 1958, was China’s long-term drive to modernize her economy. Though she didn’t do much under Mao’s authority, that certainly changed direction starting in 1978 under Deng Xiao Ping, the father of China’s version of modern laissez-faire capitalism.

China’s owes its incredible economic success to Deng’s experiment with SEZs, or Special Economic Zones, introduced in 1978 in Southern China.

Montreal, Canada

Increasingly, governments are seizing national pensions. This is the biggest raid in private pension assets in modern history and it’s barely being covered by the press.

In 2008, Argentina seized about $30 billion dollars of domestic pension assets. The news barely made headlines in the popular financial press. But we took notice.

We might be at the cusp of an important event unfolding in commodities markets next year. And Russia will be the determining factor along with Mother Nature as she possibly shifts from a net exporter of wheat to a net importer for the first time in almost two decades.

Running down her dollar reserves, Russia was literally broke by the summer of 1998; what followed was a crash of the economy, a plunging rouble and a debt default of her GKO foreign bonds.

Dugald Malcolm, Montreal, Canada.

When the markets started heading south in 2008, the go to investment vehicle quickly became U.S. Treasury bonds. In a world of market uncertainty and fear, Treasury bonds represented a haven of safety of investors. Again, in May of this year, with markets in panic over the European debt crisis, investors rushed back into Treasury bonds. Recently, however, that interest has waned and, as Eric pointed out yesterday, bond yields have spiked.

London, England

The significant spike in global bond yields this week has punctured gold and other metals as investors react to the rapid rise in interest rates. Despite the Fed’s planned $900 billion dollar purchases of government securities from now until next June, investors are dumping Treasury bonds. European and Japanese bond prices are also falling sharply.