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It has been 65 years since Europe's last major war. Still, when Germany gets up off its knees, the continent trembles.

Last week, the Berlin government announced the best results since the wall fell in '89. From the first quarter to the second one the republic's GDP rose 2.2%. At that rate - about 9% a year if it continues - Germany is running neck and neck with China. Compared to France and the US, Germany is flying nearly 4 times as fast. Greece meanwhile is backing up. Its economy shrank 1.5% last quarter.

The Teuton tribes are an aggressive lot. The Usipetes, Tenchteri, Batavi, Cherusci, Chatti, Vandals, Goths, Franks, Alans, Suebians - all jostled each other for centuries. They must have gotten a taste for competition. And when Rome wheezed her last gasps they fell on her like French tax collectors on a widow's estate. The Vandals pushed all the way across Gaul and Iberia, crossed to North Africa, and from their new base in Carthage, continued to tickle the old Empire until it rolled over on them. Everybody has his elbows out. But competition takes many forms. Better to build Audis and Mercedes than Tigers and Messerschmitts. Better to race for market share than for the Champs Élysée. Whatever form it takes, competition isn't likely to stop. Happily, most of the time, it is a boon to everyone - even to the losers. That's why Germany's current success is only a threat to the economists and commentarists who've been giving her advice. The rest of us hold our breath and hope for more.

What's the score from yesterday? Dow down 144. Gold plus 4.

The stock market looks like it wants to roll over. Whether it will or not, we don't know. We'll just have to wait to find out.

In the meantime...

"Dad... I guess I should be back in LA working..." said Maria, after we reviewed her finances.

She earns her living as a model and actress. But it is not a great living. Her chosen career is like that of a professional athlete. A few of them make big money. Most struggle to make ends meet.

You know they have to be thinking about it...

Well, if we could just shift to production... It's jolly well sealed at the top, after all.

Do the math and it's easy to see why.

Let's say BP could get 60,000 bpd from Macondo. That's $1.75 billion in annual revenue (assuming $80/barrel oil).

If the field lasts five years, that'd go a long way toward paying for BP's Macondo expenses — costs which are not anywhere near being totaled, by the way. These lawsuits and fines will drag out for years (though hopefully not a decade).

And that 60,000 bpd figure is conservative. The nearby Thunderhorse field peaked at around 250,000 bpd in 2009. Those production numbers are spread out among multiple rigs, of course.

If we estimate that Macondo prospect could produce 180k bpd, that's $5.25 billion in revenue per year. That's more than halfway to restoring BP's previous annual $10b/year dividend. And BP has already said it "may" drill into the reservoir again at some point in the future.

 am writing today to explain how even just a small stake can turn quite large over the next 12 months, or so.

If your trading fund is $1,000, you can turn it into $10,000. If you start with $10,000, you can grow it into $100,000.

I target a 10-to-1 return over time, but in truth, people often suggest their returns have been much higher than that.

They all started like you – reading a message from me… taking a small leap of faith to try trading my way… and then reaping quite spectacular trading profits, leading to unsolicited comments like these:

In the past two weeks, we’ve received two very important developments in the fight against Alzheimer’s disease — one good, one bad.

I’ll begin with the bad.

On Tuesday, drug giant Eli Lilly announced it was halting development of its late-stage Alzheimer’s drug, Semagacestat.

According to Lilly's press release: “Patients taking Semagacestat saw their cognition, or memory and reasoning skills, and their ability to complete daily living activities like getting dressed worsen ‘to a statistically significantly greater degree’ than patients taking a placebo.”