Okay ITALY, I love Italy by the way. Their shoes and clothes are to die for. We have found several stock picks and penny stocks before related to shoes and clothes. Spending time in fashion shows in Milan there is A LOT to realize about Italy. Gelato at the canals of Milan, Gelato with an Italian model on the canals of Milan even better, or Double Chocolate Gelato with two Italian models on the canals at Milan may be the best. BUT BULGARIA, and even worse if you ask any northern Italian are the Chinese sweatshops outside Florence and further to the South. Bulgaria now knocks off shoes and sells them to the EU and pays its works a fraction of the skilled Italian artisan. Even Italians are ripping off Italians. What is the effect??? The largest industry fashion is in BIG trouble in Italy with 5% of companies already shutting down and another 30% on the fence. PETA has actually dented the industry a bit and I sadly say as I think any person who would walk right by a homeless man begging in LA on their way to attend a PETA rally should be tried in court for being a trader to their species. To each their own, after all, there are no homeless in the US. Then PETA can tell me to take off my crocodile shoes. The point of this mild digression was to point out that there are problems everywhere in the EU before they even really try to take on the issue of getting Greece out of default then what about Spain, Portugal, Ireland, and France???

Hmm… South America may have earthquakes, but that is part of the reason for the vast variety and yield of crops from there. The durable goods sector in South American can yield some hot stocks and penny stocks. I still say fade regional banks and go strong exporters (S.A.) and S.A. funds, and sell the EU. The Euro may fall for a while vs. the Dollar. I don’t care who is in political office particularly who is President as we have to make money either way, but at least entertain me and make a decision. At least Bush the sequel constantly made decisions followed by decisions about his decisions and made us laugh about it. Our current President took a nation so ultra left pulling where I heard comments from some of the hardest leaning right wingers out there that maybe the line between religion and politics had been breached in the GOP and that a bit of Democratic control might help and he actually turned this notion by inviting the Republicans right back into power. Putting down certain politicians would be redundant so I can’t say buy the dollar, but I really, really, really want to.

That’s all…hope you enjoyed the full moon over the weekend…expect a full moon Monday at the open and opening volatility… Enjoy our penny stock picks, stock market analysis, hot stocks, stock newsletter and stock market trends.

So I’m just going to break it down on investing in the current market from the macro side.  I just spoke to a close friend who returned from Columbia.  Basically everything laid out from an economic analysis of their observations regarding the country further strengthens the stock market trends that we have been observing and reporting in our various stock newsletters.  The fact is that the strongest economies currently are those of exporters.

More specifically exporters of non durables where the country has limited exposure to the primary tidal wave of bank debacles associated with mortgage backed securities and the coming tidal wave of potentially devastating exposure of banks that own the debt from the commercial real estate market.  In the US, the regional banks have been falling like dominos and are either taken over by the FDIC or absorbed by investing groups that plan on creating the next round of debt related exotic securities.  This time the notes are from the billions of bad debt related to commercial property.

It is a simple pattern in the US that has been repeated a number of times.  This is perhaps the most devastating economic crisis the country has ever faced.  Basically the dollar is weak.  Companies in the US laid people off. This in combination with a huge number of loans on residential property handed out like hot cakes to non qualified investors.  Then the trading of this d and f or Omega in reality as my economist friend likes to liken it too, the last letter in a dead language quality wise.  Companies are no longer able to pay their rent.  Retail space has also been built out too quickly and even those buildings and strip malls once considered sure bets for high occupancy rates instead have record rates of available space.  This creates another phenomenon of commercial notes becoming non-performing and the banks are forced to rate it as bad debt.

Now the big four banks are decently positioned with their (our) TARP bailout money and other revenue streams to handle the bad debt on their books.  They have just stopped loaning and are pushing towards opening new accounts and fee based money management.  The huge problem is the billions of commercial real estate debt owned by the regional banks that did not receive any bailout money.  In Southern California, there are many regional banks that fit into this sad reality.  In fact, we’ve had a chance to look over many opportunities for investing in notes from various regional banks.  So investing tip number one, and this is difficult for us to admit as my life has been surrounded by stock picks for more than 15 years, BUY debt on commercial properties.  There are amazing opportunities out there to pick up the debt on commercial properties that are still performing.  Often the debt can be purchased for a 50%-70% discount to face value.  Further negotiations with the current owners of the property can increase that margin significantly as eventual failure and non-performance on the debt is likely and complete ownership will ensue.