Big-time Climate Change Ad Campaign

ADAMANT (see he has Ad in his non-mADison Avenue name!) directs us to a major media/ad buy:

Madison Ave. Warms to Climate Change
Shops Vie for Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection Biz

Not too long ago, a premier ad agency wouldn't touch a campaign warning about the effects of global warming, fearing backlash from the automakers and oil companies that keep Madison Avenue's lights on. But now one of the most hotly contended pitches out there is for the Alliance for Climate Protection, the organization formed last year by Al Gore.

Four elite agencies -- Crispin Porter & Bogusky, Bartle Bogle Hegarty, the Martin Agency and Y&R -- are squaring off for the business and are expected to present to the former vice president himself early next month, according to executives familiar with the review. The budget for the "historic, three-to-five-year, multimedia global campaign," as the request for proposals puts it, is contingent on how much money the alliance raises. Media spending will likely be more than $100 million a year.

That elite shops aren't scared off from crafting environmental messaging that could be tacitly critical of big business's sometimes unsustainable ways is yet another sign of the mainstreaming of green thinking within the corporate world at large. And within the ad community it points to newfound willingness to embrace hot-button social causes. The alliance account, some are saying, could even lend some luster to the winner's roster, given many major marketers' recent embrace of sustainability throughout their value chains, from product development to manufacturing to marketing communications.
More from Ad Age
Here's the version with the picture of Mr. Gore.

Mr. Seitz also outdid himself with the headline for another post:

Crazy Bayes & That Rascal Pascal
“Science ” was a word quite unknown when London's Royal Society was founded in 1660. Until a generation after the American revolution, the Society's focus was referred to as "natural philosophy", but nature and philosophy parted company as the natural philosophers assumed power in the Victorian Establishment....More at ADAMANT.

Ken Fisher: Ballyhoo and the return of greed

Something I meant to post last week, From FT Alphaville:

More calming views this morning, this time courtesy of Ken Fisher, chairman of Fisher Wealth management, writing in the FT’s Insight column.

It’s all just a typical bull market correction, says Fisher:

Conclusion: this is a much ballyhooed, much ado phony credit crunch, not yet recognised as such.

Fisher’s main point is that market players are hoarding cash - not a typical sign of an early bear market, but rather the last stages of a correction:

How to know that? For most of history, US Treasury bill rates have been inelastic relative to Fed Fund rates.

The T-bills have been just a hair below the Fed Funds rate. (Note: T-bills can’t exceed the Fed Funds rate for long or banks would borrow Fed Funds endlessly to buy T-Bills).

When that gap, T-bills below the Fed Funds, has widened very far, say more than 1.25 per cent, it has almost always been from the Federal Reserve jerking its benchmark up in the short-to-intermediate term.

When the gap widens solely from the T-bills falling – while the Fed Funds rate remains steady – it means non-profitable cash hoarding and that is what is going on now....More

And a different view from The Economist:
Enjoy the relative calm, it may not last

THE relief is palpable, though it may prove short-lived. Efforts by central banks to jump-start stalled financial markets by injecting huge amounts of liquidity—and, in the Federal Reserve’s case, by cutting the lending rate at its banks-only “discount window”—have kept worst-case scenarios at bay. But uncertainty over who holds what assets, and what losses have hit where, should keep prudent investors on edge.

For better or worse, there are signs that investors are tiptoeing back into riskier assets, one toe at a time. On August 24th the yield on “safe-haven” three-month US Treasury bills rose for a fourth straight day, reversing an earlier collapse when money-market funds and others switched out of commercial paper and other short-term corporate IOUs (see chart)....

What's Really Heating Up the Planet?

How's this for a commentary on the priorities of the mainstream media. Here's Parade Magazine (Parade Magazine!!!) on a stupid problem that causes 3% of the world's CO2 emissions. Climateer Investing has had a couple posts. Kudos to Parade for recognizing the problem.

Coal-mine fires in China and India could be huge culprits in global warming. In China alone, up to 200 million tons of coal go up in flames each year—which may be equivalent to America’s total carbon-dioxide emissions from gasoline. India’s mine fires waste up to 10 million tons of coal annually. The pollution has made land in both countries uninhabitable. And the problem is expected to worsen....MORE

The despised business of videoconferencing is about to get a new lease on life

FOR most of the 23 years Kenneth Crangle has spent at Hewlett-Packard, a big computer and printer company, he was a typical road warrior, constantly travelling for business. He was usually miserable. He hated the jet lag. Then came 9/11, shoe bombers, SARS and bird flu. His daughter became sick, exacerbating his reluctance to travel. There must be a better way to meet and do business, Mr Crangle recalls thinking. So he started work on an alternative.

The result is something called “telepresence”, which HP and other technology firms are just beginning to sell. It is basically a spruced-up version of videoconferencing, but its creators insist that the technology is so improved as to be unrecognisable. Users still communicate via live audio and video feeds, but the speed and quality of transmission have increased, and the screens have grown and multiplied, in order to create the illusion that the two parties to a conversation are not continents apart but at opposite ends of the same table (as in the picture above). The aim, telepresence's boosters say, is to get participants in such meetings to forget, or at least stop caring, that they are not in the same room.

Videoconferencing was supposed to put an end to corporate travel. But positioning people in front of a camera, fiddling endlessly with controls and then either giving up or proceeding to stare at a tiny picture of a blurry face often seems less satisfactory than the humble telephone. Such “conversations” are often a sequence of time-delayed interruptions and missed social signals. Just as the technologies that were supposed to deliver “the paperless office” actually deluged it in print-outs, videoconferencing sometimes works so badly that it leaves users feeling alienated, and so keener to meet face-to-face than they had been in the first place, say Andrew Davis and Ira Weinstein at Wainhouse Research, a consultancy....More from The Economist

The agonies of agflation

Two stories from The Economist. The first, headlined above you're probably aware of. The second, on teleconferencing is just as important.

There is so much hypocrisy in travel. When I look at the UN's traveling fun show, I am disgusted. So many preachers and pontificators (great word by the way, so many of them are at the archbishopric level [or think they are]) fly around and claim that offsetting makes it okay.

For the most part we fly because we want to.

Not all that many medical emergencies or world-changing events facilitated by our physical presence.This intro got rather long, we'll post the teleconferencing story above. Thanks for getting through the jeremiad, here's some good writing.

The Agonies of Food Inflation: Fuel for the body and the car

SHARING pain is usually deemed a good thing. So advocates of dishing out agony will be gladdened that the wallet-crunching pangs of car drivers filling up with petrol are now equalled by the wince-inducing stabs felt by shoppers piling up their supermarket trolleys. As oil prices stay high, wheat prices hit an all-time peak of over $7.50 a bushel for December delivery at the end of trading in Chicago on Thursday August 23rd.

The soaring prices of bushels and barrels are not unconnected. The cost of agricultural commodities, just like oil and metals, has gone up sharply over the past couple of years. Aside from wheat, the prices of corn, rice and barley have all risen by over a third since 2005. Food prices around the world are rising so quickly that a new term has been coined to describe the ballooning price of breakfast staples and dinner-time favourites: agflation.

The latest spike in wheat prices has come in response to news that Canada’s crop could be reduced by roughly a fifth this year after bad weather hit the world’s second-largest exporter. This sent countries that rely on imported wheat, such as Japan and Taiwan, scampering to the market to secure supplies. Whether climate change is to blame for Canada’s poor summer is unclear but its underlying pressure on prices is in less doubt....MORE

Biofuels may wipe out UK wheat exports

LONDON, June 29 (Reuters) - Surging demand for British grain around 2010 as major bioethanol plants come on line will wipe out the UK's wheat exports unless there is a big jump in output by domestic farmers. "They (bioethanol plants) are positioned so they can take imports, which are sensible. We are not far from wiping out the exportable surplus," said Mark Isaacson, chief executive of farmer cooperative Fengrain. Britain's wheat outlook has been transformed
this week by news that UK oil major BP Plc , Associated British Foods Plc and U.S. chemical company DuPont plan to build a bioethanol plant in Hull, northeast England.

Modern IQ Ranges for Various Occupations

You don't want to know.













Here it is.
HT: Respectful Insolence
Who is not an M.B.A.; CPA; J.D.; M.D.
Me neither but I met one once.

Blackmail, Sex & Corporate Secrets

When a London tabloid threatened to out Lord Browne, the BP C.E.O. was forced to step down. Now, as the global oil giant struggles with a change in management and a crush of wrongful-death lawsuits, shareholders are learning that his company may also have been leading a double life.

Mimi Swartz puts together a rollicking good read for Portfolio.com. Some exerpts:

...What has emerged in the wake of Browne’s departure is a picture of an executive who had begun to believe his own spin. Browne saw himself as the embodiment of his company, and he banked on the idea that what is ­basically a very grimy and combustible business could run on gloss and glitz. In the end, of course, it couldn’t. As Browne’s life grew ever more glamorous and then cratered, BP was left to flounder: Profits tumbled and the stock price flatlined. It’s telling that Hayward, a 25-year BP executive, has had to spend his first few months at the helm reconnecting the C.E.O.’s office to the business of oil and gas.

...He styled himself as a distinctly British oilman: cultured and eccentric, so polished that his ruthlessness was nearly impossible to detect, so forward-looking and intellectual that reporters listened raptly. In some ways, Browne’s persona is one very familiar to Americans, who have endured their share of recent corporate scandals: a sophisticated C.E.O. in a bespoke suit who can converse about anyone else’s business as easily as his own, who can hold forth on topics ranging from hedge funds to Broadway shows to fine art, from philanthropy to a lovely cabernet to the latest novel by Salman Rushdie. This is the kind of leader who gets a pass from the press, at least until disaster strikes.

...One look at BP’s headquarters in St. James’s Square and you get it: The building is a monument to impeccable taste and assertive understatement. Nestled quietly among Georgian mansions, the squat, sunlit brick edifice nods to the past, and inside is as spare and hushed as a monastery. A large, contemporary landscape photograph by Thomas Struth and a video projection of moving grasses serve as the only adornment. A stranger venturing in would not necessarily suspect this is the headquarters of a corporation, much less a global oil company. It is as if someone wanted to pretend that BP was something else ­entirely—a thriving nonprofit dedicated to furthering the arts, for example. And John Browne, the anti-oilman, could have been its leader.

Here's the whole piece on this_____ (words fail me).
And the dénouement?

Former BP Chief Executive John Browne has made a return to the oil industry, taking up a senior position at one of the world's largest private equity funds just three months after his scandal-tainted departure from BP.

In a surprise announcement Friday, New-York based Riverstone Holdings LLC, a private equity firm specializing in the energy and power sectors, said it had appointed Browne as head of its European operations.

...Brown will have the benefit of avoiding public shareholder scrutiny at Riverstone, which conducts buyout and growth capital investments in the midstream, upstream, power, oilfield services and renewable sectors of the energy industry....MORE

From Forbes Aug. 24, 2007

Mystery trader bets market will crash by a third

16 Aug 2007 An anonymous investor has placed a bet on an index of Europe's top 50 stocks falling by a third by the end of September, as world equity markets plunged for a third day and volatility hit a three-year high.

The mystery investor has bought put option contracts on the DJ Eurostoxx 50 index that will result in a profit if it plunges to 2,800 or below by the end of September. Based on the 2,800 strike price, the position covers a notional €6.9bn, and potentially even more using a market price of about 4,100 when the trades were done on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The identity of the investor is unknown but market sources speculated it was either a large hedge fund hedging itself against deepening losses, or a long-only fund manager pressing the panic button to protect its gains.

The investor has bought a total of 245,000 put options on the index. The September put option with a 2,800 strike was the most popular DJ Eurostoxx 50 contract yesterday, according to data from Bloomberg....

From Financial News Online US

On the Road Again: UN Climate Caravan Meeting in Vienna

The fourth session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG 4) and the fourth workshop under the dialogue on long-term cooperative action to address climate change by enhancing implementation of the Convention will take place at the Austrian Center Vienna (ACV), Vienna, Austria on 27-31 August 2007.
From the UNFCCC (That's how they talk)

And from Reuters:

"Momentum building" for new climate deal: U.N
The United Nations says momentum is building for broader long-term action to fight global warming beyond the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol and a climate meeting starting in Vienna on Monday will be a crucial test.

About 1,000 delegates from more than 100 countries at the Aug 27-31 talks will seek common ground between industrial nations with Kyoto greenhouse gas caps until 2012 and outsiders led by the United States and China, the top two emitters....

Ah, Vienna. Then it's off to Bali, December 3-14.

They never hold these confabs in Malawi. I checked.

Predatory Borrowers

Mathew Dalton writing for DJ Newswires has the story of a market-savvy borrower.

Calpine told the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan June 20 that the credit markets were offering an amazing deal that might not last.

"It is impossible to know, and risky to assume, that the low interest rates and favorable terms currently offered by the capital markets will continue," Calpine said in documents filed with the court

Calpine Debt Another Weight On Wall Street Balance Sheets

Add one more to the list of companies that locked in cheap debt from Wall Street banks shortly before credit markets tanked at the end of July.

Calpine Corp. (CPNLQ), the San Jose, Calif.-based power company that's plotting a course out of bankruptcy, secured $8 billion in loans June 20 from four Wall Street banks, led by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS).

While much of the cheap corporate debt banks have issued in the past year has been used to help finance headline-grabbing leveraged buyouts, Calpine's deal shows how Wall Street's eagerness to lend extended beyond the buyout boom.

Goldman Sachs tried to syndicate part of Calpine's loans starting on July 10, according to data collected by S&P Leveraged Commentary and Data, which tracks the loan market. Goldman pulled the syndication on July 25 after investors were unwilling to take the debt off the banks' hands, S&P said.

If credit markets don't recover soon, Goldman Sachs and the other lenders likely will have to leave Calpine's debt on their balance sheets, perhaps at a significant loss....MORE via CNN Money

Nigeria’s Grand Plan to Become a Top 20 Economy

An annual economic growth rate target of 13 percent with a stable and predictable macro-economic environment was set for the country at the weekend when ministers and other presidential aides ended a three-day retreat in Abuja.

A communiqué released at the end of the retreat declared that the Federal Government would design specific interventions targeted at sectors in which the country has comparative advantage.

The government also said it would develop major commercial and industrial centres and mega cities such as Lagos, Port Harcourt, Ibadan, Kaduna, Kano and Enugu based on their potential as catalysts for enhanced industrial development.... MORE from AllAfrica

It seems ambitious. Ton the other hand the country does have 140 million people and oil that hasn't been kleptocricized yet.

Here's another story:
Experts divided on making Nigeria top 20 economy

Economic experts at a workshop on Financial System Strategy (FSS 2020) here are divided on the feasibility or otherwise of Nigeria attaining its goal of being among the top 20 economies in the world by 2020.

"I do not think the Nigeria financial sector is ready enough to compete in the world leading best economy, given what is on the ground as regards the state of infrastructure and others," said Ayo Teriba, a leading Nigerian economist.

He said the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), rather than coming up with the FSS proposal, should critically look at what the state of the financial system is at today and where it would likely to be in the next five years before talking about 2020....

From AfriquEnligne

Merrill Lynch on European Banks Aug. 21

Conduits, LBOs etc should not sink the banks

In this report we have reviewed the downside risks for the banks from conduits, SIVs and upcoming LBO financing. Even on bearish assumptions, we estimate the combined impact of these factors would be to reduce the average Tier 1 ratio of the largest banks from 8.4% to 7.8%. This will not sink any banks covered in this report.

However, we do see some risks that share buy-back progammes could need to be curtailed at Deutsche, HBOS, UBS and CS. The impacts on valuation from these combined factors is also modest – equal on average to just a 2% downside risk to our estimated SoP valuations.

The real swing factor is the macro outlook

Our strategists point out that no asset bubble has ever corrected in an orderly manner. While we want to believe we are simply seeing a very bad case of the “jitters” in financial markets, the risks are clearly growing that the after-effects harm the real economy outlook for 2008.

We have modelled the estimated impacts of a normalising credit environment for the banks’ wholesale businesses. On average, this suggests a 10% downside risk to our forecasts – far outweighing the likely impacts of conduits etc. There is a wide dispersion around this average
figure – from a 2% risk to earnings at Intesa up to 20% at Deutsche and Natixis.

Valuations are not compelling given the risks

If we stress our SoP valuations for the potential bad news on conduits, LBOs and lower 2008 wholesale banking earnings, the upside in the sector declines from the base case 25% to 14%. The sector has on average traded 10% below our SoP valuations, so this figure of 14% is not compelling in our view, given the lack of disclosures on most banks’ subprime and CDO exposures. We think disclosure needs to improve significantly – hopefully with the Q3 results.

Clear stock calls – Buy Unicredit & Danske

No matter how we cut the numbers, Unicredit and Danske look to offer compelling upside potential of 20%+. By contrast Deutsche, HSBC and SEB look to offer the least attractive relative value given the potential downside risks....

...MORE from Mother Merrill (40 page PDF)

Uranium Futures Close at $79.00-Dec. and a MUST READ story on Commodities

That price is from the Nymex.
We have dueling headlines, an insightful story and a reminder.

From Bloomberg via the Globe and Mail:

Oversupply sinks price of uranium

Uranium tumbled 14 per cent last week as supply exceeded demand and the U.S. Department of Energy prepared to sell inventories of the metal used to fuel nuclear reactors, said industry pricing service Ux Consulting Co. LLC.

The radioactive metal fell $15 (U.S.) to $90 a pound, Roswell, Ga.-based Ux said Monday in its Ux Weekly report. The decline is the biggest ever recorded by Ux. The price of uranium for immediate delivery has dropped 35 per cent since trading at a record $138 a pound in June.

"Maybe in the fourth quarter we'd look for uranium to move up, but it could head lower before it goes higher," Glyn Lawcock, head of resources research at UBS AG in Sydney, said yesterday, adding he is "surprised" at the extent of the drop.

In a must read story from the Telegraph:

Do freight rates tell the true story?

The focus has been on the credit crunch but the Baltic Index may give a better picture of the state of the world economy, writes Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

The cost of leasing cargo ships to carry coal and metal to China reached an all-time high this week, defiantly ignoring a month of panic and tumbling prices across the commodity markets....

...If he is right, uranium may soon be ready for a rebound after slumping from $136 a pound in June to $90 as hedge funds dumped their 25m-pound stash and Japan shut down the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant after the latest earthquake.

"We like uranium," said Michael Lewis, head of commodity research at Deutsche Bank. "A lot of reactors are being built and there's a fundamental tightness coming back into the market,"

China aims to build 30 nuclear plants over the next 15 years.

India is planning 19 and Russia is switching a quarter of its energy supply to nuclear power, despite Chernobyl scars.

The US is at last getting over its nuclear allergy after Three Mile Island, sketching in 17 plants over the next six years.

In total, there are 76 reactors on drawing boards worldwide - and uranium is scarce.

Mind you, uranium was just $7 a pound in 2001. Copper, lead, nickel and zinc were seven times cheaper. They have a very long way to fall if the world economy slips into a full-blown recession on anything like the scale of the dotcom bust.

Read the whole story. Do Not forget this announcement:

DOE TO SELL UP TO 200 METRIC TONS URANIUM HEXAFLUORIDE

...Proposals are due August 17, 2007; the anticipated award date of the Sales Agreement is August 31, 2007. This solicitation is for full and open competition, with full payments for the eight lots of uranium due on September 21, 2007.

Green Rupert: News Corporation's Energy Initiative

Remarks by Rupert Murdoch
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer,
News Corporation

Good morning. Thank you for joining us here today. This morning is the first time we have ever done a global event for all News Corp. employees, many of whom are joining us live by webcast. So I should say good morning, but to those of you who are watching: good afternoon, and good evening...

I'm here to tell you about a new initiative we're undertaking at News, one that will affect us all.

As many of you know, I grew up in Melbourne, Australia and the last few months and years have brought some changes there:

In Melbourne, 2006 was the 10th consecutive year with below average rainfall. And 2005 was the hottest year on record throughout Australia.

Australia is suffering its worst drought in 100 years.

Now, I realize we can't take just one year in one city or even one continent as proof that something unusual is happening. And I am no scientist.

But there are signs around the world, and I do know how to assess a risk....MORE from News Corp.

As we've pointed out, Mr. Murdoch is no Greenie come lately.

Cow-powered Fuel Cells Grow Smaller, Mightier

Cows could one day help to meet the rise in demand for alternative energy sources, say Ohio State University researchers that used microbe-rich fluid from a cow to generate electricity in a small fuel cell.

This new microbial fuel cell is a redesign of a larger model that the researchers created a few years ago. The new cell is a quarter of the size of the original model, yet can produce about three times the power, said Hamid Rismani-Yazdi, a doctoral student in food, agricultural and biological engineering at Ohio State University.

Experiments showed that it took two of the new cells to produce enough electricity to recharge a AA-sized battery. It took four of the first-generation fuel cells to recharge just one of these batteries....

From ScienceDaily

Climate Change Despair and Empowerment RoadShow and Workshop

The CLIMATE CHANGE DESPAIR AND EMPOWERMENT ROADSHOW with Kelly Tudhope will motivate people to take action against climate change in the wake of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," The Stern Report, and the IPCC Report. This multi-media presentation focuses its discussion on the roles that public and personal denial, helplessness and despair play in the fight against climate change, and addresses the false and "business as usual" solutions being offered.

... The one-day "Climate Change Despair & Empowerment" workshop, will offer experiential processes that generate empowerment. Through Joanna Macy's body of work known as "despair and empowerment" we allow ourselves to recognize our feelings about what is happening to our world. By acknowledging this level of our being rather than just our thoughts on the subject, people around the world have found that feelings of helplessness and hopelessness are transformed into inspired and empowered positive action.

... There is a sliding scale fee($60-$80) for a day that includes a catered dinner.

By: APPLE of Nevada County, Social Forum Film Series at YubaNet

Modest start to Kyoto trade on Chicago exchange

One contract representing Kyoto Treaty greenhouse gas reductions traded on the Chicago Climate Futures Exchange on Friday, the first such trade to take place in the United States, a trade source said.

The CCFE launched trade on the certified emissions reductions contract on Friday. December 2008 CER futures settled 25 cents weaker at $21.60....

From Reuters

China warns US against anti-dumping duties

China has warned the United States against slapping anti-dumping duties on its products as it could hurt American interests.

Consumers in US have benefited from the Sino-US trade as they have saved more than $600 billion by buying Made in China products in the last decade, Chinese Vice Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng said....

From The Business-Standard

Five ways to go green from Al Gore

From Oprah.com via CNN:

You can become a part of the fight against global warming. Former Vice President Al Gore shares the five things you can buy now that will help solve the climate crisis -- and save you a few bucks! Plus, more of his easy going green tips!

Five things you can buy

1. Compact fluorescent lightbulbs

These energy-efficient bulbs cost less than $4 and are produced by major corporations like GE. If every household in America switched five regular light bulbs for five fluorescent bulbs, it would be the equivalent of taking 1 million cars off the highways for a full year.

2. Outdoor solar lighting

These yard or patio lights cost less than $20, and they don't burn any electricity or produce any CO2.

3. Programmable thermostats

Though these thermostats cost from $50 to $100, they can actually cut your heating and cooling costs. Set the setting so it's a little bit cooler in the winter and warmer in the summer when you're not in the house. A difference of 2 degrees can reduce a home's CO2 emissions by up to 9 percent over the course of a year.

4. Air filters

Changing the air filters in your heating and cooling systems regularly can knock 2 percent off of your CO2 output each year.

5. Electric water heater blanket

Water heaters use a lot of energy and generate a lot of CO2. A blanket costs less than $18 and can cut your home's CO2 emissions by almost 4½ percent....

Oprah also offers the opportunity to Party with Al Gore! »

Trading Oil and Gold

Kids, don't try this at the kitchen table.
In "Some Thoughts on Gold (on and off topic)"we said:

While this blog is not focused on commodity trading per se and is definitely not a gold bug hangout, partly because I am convinced by Roy W. Jastram's arguments in "The Golden Constant" summarised at the Mises Economics blog:...

And:

It is a subject of which I am experienced.

On-topic: About six months ago I noticed the gold/oil correlation was acting tradable.
During a mis-spent youth I remember the correlation was about .92, pretty tight, not that interesting, better things to trade.

Here's someone else who's noticed, from the June 20, 2007 Resource Investor:...

Today MarketWatch crossed this Headline:

1:44Dec. gold closes at its highest level since Aug. 15

This morning it took 9.49 barrels of oil to buy an ounce of gold. At 2:30 EDT 9.52.
If you're sharp enough to understand what I'm saying, you're smart enough to figure out some fancy (or not) trades.

In 2002 I wanted to know the behavior of AU under deflation. The academic arguments were conflicting and hard core gold-bugs pointed to the action of HM in the '29-'39 time period to make a case.

So I headed out to Dakota and am probably the last person (outside of company employees and the movers) to see some of the HM records.
I wrote myself a monograph.
Have fun. Make money.