Many thanks for your thoughts on the Hong Kong market. For a while I have been scared that we could easily see a major downward correction on the price of gold.

On a different note, have you ever considered investing in currency. I am told that based on history, as the global financial market continues to wobble, one of the safest havens in the Swiss Frank. Your opinion?

The policy statement released by the Federal Open Market Committee on Wednesday contained few surprises. It reiterated that the pace of recovery in output and employment continues to be slow, with high unemployment, modest income growth, lower housing wealth and tight credit remaining the major draggers. Even business spending on equipment and software is slowing from the pronounced rebound earlier in the year. Lending valid ground for the Fed to continue its accommodative policy, longer-term inflation expectations have remained stable but measures of underlying inflation have trended lower in recent quarters.

As expected, the FOMC decided to expand its holdings of securities by reinvesting principal payments from those holdings and purchasing a further US$600b of longer-term Treasury securities by the end of the second quarter of 2011, a reduction compared to QE1's US$1.75t during December 2008 and March 2010. However, adjustments will be made in respect of the pace of the FOMC's securities purchases and the overall size of the asset-purchase program in order to achieve the best possible results for employment and price stability.

Local property stocks still reacted positively to the interest rate outlook, as the Fed continued to foresee exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for an extended period. In general, property investment stocks chalked up the mightiest advances as the valuation of their investment properties is highly sensitive to the capitalization rates used. In fact, the actual yields on transacted investment properties were significantly lower than the capitalization rates adopted for valuation purposes. Our top pick in the sector is Wheelock (0020.HK, $30.25, BUY), the parent of Wharf (Holdings) (0004.HK, $56.25, HOLD) that traded at a 1H10 P/B of 1.2x, versus Wheelock's 0.8x. The valuation gap is not justified in view of their shared management and strategies.

Despite the hectic market, the IPO for CJ Land has been withdrawn. The mainland developer boasts of its niche in developing high-end residential and premium commercial properties in Shanghai. The initial plan called for the raising of up to $4.8b. In fact, the company is operating a business model that will likely be followed by other industry players - achieving a balance between property investment, which aims at growing recurrent income and capital appreciation, and property development, which produces properties for sale like a home factory. Cheung Kong (0001.HK, $129.90, HOLD) had promised to subscribe for US$50m worth of CJ Land shares, though its own business strategy deviates from CJ's as CK's own strength has been mass residential development and it only kept selected commercial properties for long-term investment.

The Big man @Pkoli,

Please take your time do not rush to any investment you do not understand, but take it from me I have been investing on commodoties for 5 years now , but be aware that I invest on only commodity blue chip stocks and my approabh is cautios speculation (max of 2 to 3 trades a year).

Let me restate that my strategy is to invest on commodityblue chip stocks not the commodity itself.

For example this year I took position in Barrick Gold at CAD 39 (world biggest gold producer) ticker symbol ABX.TO in Feb this year when spot gold price was 1,105 USD. I sold it at 44 CAD in May when Gold was 1240 USD. In June I bought Suncor energy SU.TO at 30 CAD when oil price was 69 USD., IT is now 35 CAD and I plan to exit at 39 CAD. At the moment oil is 86 USD.
With this 2 trades I will be satisfied and re-strategize for 2011. I am more than satisfied to make annualized 30 percent gain in a strong currency.



There is no way in this universe there will no opportunity to position in this long list :-

Gold
Platinum
Silver
Iron Ore
Copper
Nickel
Uranium
Coal
Ethanol
Citrus
Wheat
Rice
Oil
Natural Gas
Oil Sands
Cocoa
Sugar
Zinc
Aluminium
Diamond
Pottasium
Lead
Steel
bitumen
Tin



I have not yet researched into most of them and identify top listed stocks in different countries
so far me I have where to invest on in my life time even to the next generation after me.
On the interim it may interest you to check the following web sites .

www.infomine.com
www,mineweb,com
www.kitco.com



The advanced world cannot operate without commodities & Energy as they are the main drivers of industries (Airlines, Building Industries, Automobiles, Power Generation, Nuclear Energy,Semi Conductors,ship building, Telecommunications etc etc)

The hype about Gold and Oil for now is just that it is the raining commodities.. It is estimated that 2014/2015 it may not be attractive to invest in Gold stocks. But there are numerous alternatives.

Gold is driven as investors heaven as a store of value when due to weakness of major world currencies. Analyst expectation is that in 4 years time the world currencies would have fully recovered. This is one out of several school of thoughts.

As stated earlier my basis of opinion is the current commodity price before I even look at the fundamentals of the chosen blue chip.


Let me also ask, do you give part of your funds to be managed by fund managers as a leverage ?

Hong Kong shares ended higher for a sixth straight session Monday to close at a more than 29-month high, led by shipping companies, but HSBC weighed on the broader index after posting lackluster third-quarter results Friday.

The blue-chip Hang Seng Index rose 87.55 points, or 0.35%, to 24,964.37, its highest closing level since it ended at 25,043 on May 22, 2008. It traded between 24,732.52 and 35,988.57. Market volume fell to HK$102.92 billion from HK$133.81 billion Friday.

Analysts said local shares will likely maintain their upward momentum this week given the high market volume, though profit-taking pressure is growing as the index has risen 8.1% in the past six sessions.

Francis Lun, general manager of Fulbright Securities, said the index is likely to surpass 25,000 this week given the ample liquidity in the market.

Daily market volume jumped above HK$100 billion last week due to surging fund flows into the region as investors have been seeking out higher returns after the U.S. Federal Reserve's announcement Wednesday that it was undertaking a second round of quantitative easing.

However, Belle Liang, a director at Core Pacific-Yamaichi Research, was more cautious in her outlook.

'In the near term, we will see some more consolidation in equities after the market fully digests the second round of quantitative easing, and we suggest short-term investors accumulate on market corrections,' she said.

Shipping companies led the blue-chip index's rise Monday as freight rates have recovered on the back of strong global economic growth. Cosco Pacific jumped 1.5% to HK$13.70.

China Merchants Holdings (International) rose 3.6% to HK$31.85 after it said Friday it agreed to buy a 47.5% stake in a container-terminal operator in Nigeria via a joint venture for US$154 million.

'While we estimate the effective earnings contribution will be limited to around 2% for China Merchants, we believe (the acquisition) should help expand China Merchants' global network to capture emerging growth opportunities,' Morgan Stanley said Monday.

Standard Chartered ended up 0.7% at HK$244.00 after the U.K.-based lender said Monday that shareholders had subscribed to 98.53% of its GBP3.26 billion rights issue.

Bucking the broader index's upward trend, HSBC fell 1.6% to HK$86.70 after the London-based lender said Friday its pretax profit in the third quarter grew more slowly than in the first half of the year and that revenue during the January-September period fell compared with a year earlier. -By Yvonne Lee, Dow Jones Newswires; 852-2802-7002; yvonne.lee@dowjones.com

Sands China Ltd. (1928.HK) said Tuesday its third-quarter net profit more than doubled from a year earlier, driven by soaring gambling revenue growth in Macau and strong performances at its casinos in Macau's Cotai area.

The company, which listed in Hong Kong in November 2009, said its net profit for the three months ended Sept. 30 totaled US$199.15 million under International Financial Reporting Standards, up from US$86.84 million a year earlier.

Revenue rose 27% to US$1.08 billion from US$846.03 million.

Sands China's adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, a measure widely used to evaluate the performance of gambling companies, rose 44% to US$327.9 million from US$228.2 million.

The company, around 70%-owned by Las Vegas Sands Corp. (LVS), didn't recommend a dividend.

Las Vegas Sands last month reported Sands China's third-quarter results on a U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles basis. It said Sands China's third-quarter net income more than doubled under GAAP to US$196.6 million from US$87.4 million a year earlier

Hong Kong shares ended lower Wednesday, tracking Wall Street's overnight decline and weakness in China's equities markets, led by Chinese lenders and property developers because of concerns Beijing may take further tightening measures in the banking sector.

The blue-chip Hang Seng Index fell 209.99 points, or 0.9%, to 24,500.61 after falling to an intraday low of 24,421.03 during the afternoon session. Market volume totaled HK$109.28 billion, down from HK$116.70 billion Tuesday.

Analysts said the benchmark index is consolidating after it gained 19% since the start of September. They said they expect the index to trade in a 24,300-25,000 range this week.

The decline in the local market came after the Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 0.53% Tuesday, while the Shanghai Composite Index ended down 0.6% Wednesday.

Chinese lenders weighed on the market as China's central bank plans to raise the reserve requirement ratio for the country's biggest banks by 0.50 percentage point Monday, two people familiar with the situation said.

'I don't see any significant impact (from the central bank move) this time around, but investors took it as an excuse to sell and consolidate their portfolio,' said Patrick Yiu, managing director of CASH Asset Management.

Bank of China fell 2.9% to HK$4.64, follwoing a 1.8% decline Tuesday.

Bank of Communications also fell 2.9% to HK$8.70 and ICBC was down 1.9% at HK$6.63.

Some investors retreated to the sidelines ahead of the issuance of China economic data. China's statistics bureau is due to issue consumer price index data for October on Thursday, with economists expecting a 4% rise, an uptick from September's 3.6% increase and higher than China's full-year CPI target of under 3%.

'China will likely hike interest rates by the end of this year if inflation remains at high levels,' said Peter So, managing director at CCB International Securities.

Interest rate-sensitive stocks fell. Property developer China Overseas Land was down 3.6% at HK$16.38 and China Resources Land fell 3.5% to HK$15.64.

Bourse operator Hong Kong Exchanges fell 0.6% to HK$193.00 after it reported Wednesday a third-quarter net profit of HK$1.22 billion, almost unchanged from HK$1.23 billion a year earlier, as a rise in income from listing fees was offset by a decline in daily trading volume.

Bucking the downtrend, aluminum producer Chalco advanced 0.9% to HK$7.78 after it raised its alumina spot price by 5.5% to CNY2,900 a metric ton effective Wednesday, its second price hike since August.

.
As Ghana prepares to join the oil club

.Ghana is a cherished bride in international circles compared to its big regional brother, Nigeria. It remains a favourite of foreign donors and Western governments in a region often known for brutal civil wars, corruption and tyranny. With its growing economy and squeaky-clean image, Ghana is a frequently cited success story in Africa. Somehow, Ghana has a couple of things going for it: a thriving democracy, peace and security, the availability of basic infrastructure particularly electricity, and a stable educational system in which students who enter for four year degree courses actually spend four years without the fear of lecturers’ strike extending the years. These are Ghana’s golden spots.
Imagine never worrying about generators at night or travelling around the Niger Delta or the south-eastern states in choice cars without the fear of being kidnapped. Oppositions rarely win elections in Nigeria, but in Ghana, it can be anybody’s game. The last presidential elections saw the dethronement of a ruling president’s party for the second time since the West African country returned to democracy in 1992, something that has never happened in Nigeria’s democratic experiment and doesn’t seem likely in the next presidential elections scheduled for 2011.


Ghana is a much united country compared to many of its neighbours; its centripetal forces are much stronger than the centrifugal elements. No part of the country has attempted secession in its entire post-colonial history. Kwame Nkrumah, the acclaimed pan-Africanist and founding father of the country, deliberately laid a foundation that ensures that ethnicity is under-played in Ghana’s politics. No politician campaigns on the basis of where he or she comes from and there is no debate as to which part of the country should produce a president.
These are some of the things that delight the West about Ghana. The question many are now asking, however, is: Can Ghana resist the resource curse as it joins the league of oil producing and exporting countries from next month? Discovered around the time of its 50th anniversary celebrations, Ghana’s oil reserves currently run to more than 1.8 billion barrels, expected to earn the country at least $1 billion a year between 2011 and 2029. That will add more than 25 per cent to government revenues which were just $3.7 billion in 2008.


Ghana’s oil reserves are not anywhere near Nigeria’s which is estimated at more than 38 billion barrels, but it is enough to transform its economy if well-managed. The proper management of the resources remains the critical challenge.
Oil smears reputation and the petro-dollar that comes from it increases the temptation to be corrupt, and often, the intense scramble for a slice of the wealth could sometimes stir conflict.
That, perhaps, accounts for why Juan Pablo Perez Alfonzo, Venezuelan oil minister in the 1960s, described oil in a most unpleasant manner.
Oil, he said, was not black gold; it was the devil’s excrement. “Ten years from now, 20 years from now, you will see,” Alfonzo predicted in the 1970s, “oil will bring us ruin”.


When it hit the jackpot, Venezuela had a functioning democracy and the highest per capita income on the continent. Now, it has a despotic government and a per capita income lower than its 1960 level.
Venezuela supplies the United States one fifth of the oil it consumes. Outside of Africa, Venezuela is a classic example of resource curse.
Can Ghana avoid the curse? A few smaller countries--Malaysia, Norway, Mauritius--curbed its worst effects by spending slowly and using the money to diversify their economies.
Ghana must learn from Nigeria and other nations where oil has harmed economies rather than prosper them. But much more, it must learn from its own history. For more than a century, Ghana has depended on gold, yet, gold has added little to its economy. The gold producing communities today are environmental disasters. Besides, many young people who feel they are not getting their own slice of the gold wealth have tried to mine for themselves in some way. A good number of them have ended up dying inside their ‘galamsey’ gold pits.


Prospering from oil would mean using the wealth from it to diversify the economy. Renowned Venezuelan writer, Arturo Uslar Pietri, has the best description for how Ghana’s oil money should be handled – sow it.
Pietri originated the phrase “sow the oil”. Ghana must sow the oil wealth so that politicians don’t plunder it. Some have described oil as the true enemy of democracy. What is presently happening in Pietri’s homeland and here in Nigeria suggest that that assertion might not be wrong after all.

Hong Kong shares ended lower Monday as concerns about possible further tightening measures in China dragged down Chinese financial and commodity firms.

The blue-chip Hang Seng Index fell 195.40 points, or 0.81%, to 24,027.18 after trading between 24,002.65 and 24,382.14.

Market volume totaled HK$93.05 billion, down from HK$127.15 billion Friday.

Analysts said they expect the city's benchmark index to fall further in coming sessions due to concerns Beijing may step up tightening measures in the banking sector because of inflation worries, but that the index will likely find support at 23,800 this week.

Castor Pang, research director of Cinda International, said he expects the index to trade between 23,800 and 24,500 this week.

'Some investors are hunting for bargains after recent falls, and I believe trading will remain volatile in the near term,' he said.

Belle Liang, a director at Core Pacific-Yamaichi Research, said she expects the People's Bank of China to increase interest rates four times in 2011 to rein in liquidity and loan growth.

'We expect banks and insurance firms to outperform in the medium term on the back of an undemanding valuation and intact earnings growth potential,' she said.

Financial firms led Monday's decline because of continued worries about possible monetary policy tightening in China such as a cap on bank loans and hikes in interest rates after the country's consumer price index rose 4.4% in October, accelerating from September's 3.6% increase.

ICBC fell 1.8% to HK$6.49, China Construction Bank was 1.2% lower at HK$7.34 and Bank of China fell 1.5% to HK$4.49.

Commodities firms also fell because of concerns China may impose price controls on the resources sector to combat inflation pressure.

Aluminum producer Chalco dropped 2.5% to HK$7.27 and coal producer Shenhua Energy fell 3.2% to HK$34.65.

China Coal fell 4.1% to HK$13.18, despite the country's second-largest coal producer by revenue after Shenhua Energy reporting Friday its October output rose 23% from a year earlier to 10.46 million metric tons.

Bucking the downward trend, Hong Kong & China Gas rose 0.6% to HK$19.28 after it said Sunday it will raise its stake in Towngas China to 66.49% from 56.28%.

Towngas China rose 4.4% to HK$3.79.

'I think the earnings outlook of Towngas China remains strong and it's likely to rise further in the medium term, but as overall trading sentiment remains uncertain for now, further gains in the stock are likely to be capped under HK$4.00,' Pang said.

Hong Kong stock market performance was very volatile. The Hang Seng Index opened 150 points higher but weakness of China plays triggered HK stock to retreat from the high with the Hang Seng Index once lost 220 points. However, the benchmark saw support at 24,000 and finally closed above this level. The Hang Seng Index lost 195 points (to 24,027) while H share index dropped 246 points to 13,416. Market turnover reduced to HK$9.3bn, reflecting cautiousness of most investors. Coal sector, which performed well before, rose 2-4% yoy. Besides, media sources saying that four major state-owned banks will stop lending to property developers in the coming 2 months, mainland bank and property sector turned weak.

Since A share persisted its recent weakness, together with the rebound of US dollar, the Hang Seng Index opened 260 points lower on Wednesday. The extension of the loss of A share triggered further selling pressure on Hong Kong stock market. The Hang Seng Index once lost 500 points and finished the day 479 points lower at 23,214. The H share index also dropped 316 points to 12,876. Market turnover is HK$103bn. Benefit from US dollar rebound, as well as the Da Lin stock exchange launching measures to cool down speculation, China commodity plays hard hit with Jiangxi Copper (0358.HK) and Yanzhou Coal (1171.HK) losing 8.2% and 5.3% each. For new shares, Shirble Store (0312.HK) lost 18%.