By Gene Arensberg

Top American Stocks For 2011: AECOM (ACM)

By Georey Seiler

"Our top pick for 2011 is engineering and construction (E&C) firm AECOM Technology (NYSE:ACM)," says Geo?rey Seiler.

In his BullMarket.com the advisor explains, "AECOM, unlike some better-known E&C names, o?ers a relatively low-risk business model. It performs no construction work at all and thus has none of the lump-sum, fixed-rate contracts that other companies might sign.

"The Los Angeles-based company focuses on a broad range of services that includes planning, design, environmental impact studies, project management, logistics and other jobs in the facilities, transportation, environmental, and energy and power segments.

"Transportation is the company's largest end market, representing 28% of the business, followed by environmental at 25%, facilities work at 24%, and Management Support Services (MSS), which delivered 17% of its revenues in fiscal 2010.

"Energy and power is the company's smallest segment, representing about 6% of its total revenues, but the company does view it as a growth opportunity. It is particularly strong in hydroelectric projects.  

"The MSS business is 100% dedicated to working directly for the U.S. government, but government spending of all types -- either from federal state and local governments and foreign governments -- accounts for 70% of the company's revenue. The remainder comes from the private sector.

"AECOM has been under some pressure toward the end of the year, despite initially rallying following a strong fiscal Q4 earnings report in November. The culprit was some weak reports from fellow E&C firms and the Dubai debt debacle.

"However, AECOM isn't subject to the same type of energy sector cancellations that some other E&C companies experienced, and its exposure to Dubai is negligible.

"Impressively, AECOM is one of the few E&C firms to grow its backlog sequentially last quarter. Total backlog stood at a record $9.5 billion on September 30th, a 10% increase year over year and a 3% increase quarter over quarter.

"Meanwhile, AECOM is well positioned to be a beneficiary of increased government stimulus spending in 2011, as well as the possible passage of a substantial highway bill late next year.

"AECOM guided for fiscal year 2011 EPS to be in the range of $1.90 to $2.00. The midpoint of this range reflects 15% growth in earnings per share. We think the guidance is relatively conservative.

"In summary, we like AECOM's position in the marketplace, its consistent growth, and sound low-risk strategy. With a pristine balance sheet, trading at under 14x the midpoint of conservative guidance, and an over 15% expected 5-year growth rate, AECOM is undervalued and our top pick for 2011."

Top American Stocks For 2011: AeroVironment (AVAV)

By Gregg Early

Technology expert Gregg Early looks to AeroVironment (NDSQ: AVAV) as his top pick for the coming year.

The editor of The New Tech Investor -- and the soon-to-be-launched 2020 Portfolio -- explains, "Although the firm's miltary aerospace business should be strong, it is the firm's new 'clean technology' and energy e?ciency projects that should be the real growth kicker.

"AeroVironment started o? 2010 strong but it was hit in the spring by the global economic collapse and the irrational fears of investors -- both individual and institutional -- about what the future held in store for this unique firm.

"But 2011 should be the perfect climate for this company to continue is comeback and head to new highs.

"AeroVironment was founded by the father of human powered flight, Dr. Paul MacCready (1925-2007), the inventor of the human powered Gossamer Condor and Gossamer Albatross (which was flown across the English Channel and resides in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum).

"MacCredy also developed the first solar powered aircraft, the Gossamer Penguin and the Solar Challenger. He also co-developed the GM Sunraycer, one of the first solar powered land vehicles.

"His revolutionary developments in aerospace design were put to good use in AeroVironment's unmanned air systems (UASs) division. The company's hand launched and micro UASs are deployed extensively in Iraq and Afghanistan with special forces units and well loved by the troops who rely on them.

"While general defense spending is on a downtrend, C4ISR (command, control, computing, communications, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) budgets are increasing briskly across all the armed services as well intelligence and homeland security sectors.

"This business has sustained AeroVironment in the past and will continue to generate more business in coming years. But it E?cient Energy division is the real growth kicker.

"The company pioneered electric vehicle (EV) charging stations and has a long and abiding relationship with many car manufacturers as well as government agencies.

"As EV filling stations begin to dot the US landscape--and that development is already growing briskly in the West -- AeroVironment will be a significant player.

"Also, because the stimulus plan had the unintended e?ect of holding up cleantech projects as everyone waited to see who would get government money, it made 2010 a tough year for cleantech.

"Now that the monies have been earmarked, projects will move ahead faster now that companies have better visibility on where the funding will be derived. AeroVironment is a buy up to 35."

Top American Stocks For 2011: BCE (BCE)

By Vivian Lewis

Given her concerns about overall market valuaton, global expert Vivian Lewis is selecting her top pick from among stocks she calls "dividend payers and fallen angels".

In her Global Investing newsletter, she explains, "I consider BCE (NYSE: BCE), with its 6% yield, a great buy." Here's her review of the Canada-based telecom company.

"I'm worried about the speculative coloration of the rise in stock prices globally since the bottom in March 2010. I do not think the markets will continue rising as they have since then, in a straight line to the upper right-hand corner of the page.

"I expect a serious correction because the global economy is still mired in di?culty. There will be more bad news taking share prices down in the coming year.

"To find stocks with ballast for the sell-o? I expect in 2011, I am focusing on dividend payers and fallen angels. Fallen angels have risen less sharply than companies without damaged reputations, and pay out more.

"A year after crash of BCE, the Canada telco supposed to have been taken private by Ontario Teachers Pension Plan and US partners, who pulled out, the former Bell Canada is a good buy.

"The deal collapsed in the financial crisis. BCE CEO George Cope valiantly then cut 2500 jobs; did a wireless deal with Telus and bought out the remaining half of Virgin Mobile Canada; bought electronics store chain The Source; and boosted BCE dividends.

"BCE stock has risen 30% this year in loonies (C$s) and nearly 50% in US dollars. (It trades as BCE both in Toronto and on the NYSE.) But it is still a third cheaper than the former deal price target. That reflects investors' bad memories. Most analysts rate it neutral despite their expecting it to rise to $29.50.

"Further hurting BCE was the decision on Dec. 11 by Canadian regulators to allow Globalive to o?er cellular phone service throughout Canada, reversing an earlier bar on the company part-owned by Orascom of Egypt.

"While the 2010 Xmas telephone market will not see many o?ers from Globalive, next year there will be cellphone price cuts. This could hurt BCE's gross margins, which are at an astonishing 74%.

"However, other telcos without BCE's land-line and multiple cellular options will be hurt more. I consider the stock a great buy yielding 6% with a probability the dividend will be raised."

Top American Stocks For 2011: Blue Coat (BCSI)

By Leo Fasciocco

"My pick for 2011 is Blue Coat Systems (NASDAQ: BCSI), a company that provides web security," says Leo Fasciocco, a leading technical analyst known for his focus on stocks that are breaking out of basing patterns.

In his The Ticker Tape Digest, he explains, "We consider the stock an excellent intermediate-term play because of its strong profit outlook. Blue Coat, based in Sunnyvale, Ca., provides software and services for networking, with annual sales of $444 million. 

"Its products enable its end user customers to secure their Internet gateways and remote computer systems by providing protection from malicious code, or malware and objectionable content.

""The company is benefiting from an expansion of its products. In 2008, BCSI acquired Packeteer, a provider of WAN tra?c prioritization technologies. It most recently came out with an expansion of its Webpulse cloud service for Arabic web content.

"Looking out to fiscal 2011 ending in April, the Street projects a 44% jump  in net to $1.30 cents a share from the 90 cents anticipated for fiscal 2011.

"The stock has been trending higher the past few months recovering from the bear market. The  long-term chart for BCSI shows the stock with a cyclical tendency. It is now in the up trend part of its cycle. We see that as favorable for bulls at this time with the stock now trending higher.

"In our view, BCSI is an outstanding stock poised to breakout. It is holding in its base and poised to show massive earnings gains.We are targeting BCSI for a move to 36 after a breakout. A protective stop can be placed near 24 after a breakout."

Top American Stocks For 2011: BMC Software (BMC)

By Dow Theory

 Dow Theory Forecasts is one of the most respected and venerable players in the financial newsletter community; the service has been published continuously for well over 5 decades.

Editor Richard Moroney looks to BMC Software (NYSE: BMC) as his top pick for 2011. He explains, "BMC develops products that run corporate data centers, which house critical computer systems.

"BMC's long-term contracts sustained stable profits during the downturn. Over the next 12 months, results should benefit as clients resume spending on technology. "Consensus estimates project per-share profits will advance 15% in fiscal 2011 ending March - and grow 14% annually over the next five years.

"Recent acquisitions have bolstered BMC's promising segment for automating datacenter activities. Fortune 500 companies comprise more than 85% of BMC's client list, and such companies are unlikely to abandon cost-cutting initiatives once the environment improves.

"Reflecting this optimism and better-than-expected results for the September quarter, BMC in October raised profit guidance for fiscal 2011. With a trailing price/earnings ratio of 15, BMC trades at a discount to its three-year average P/E of 22 and five-year average of 27.

"If the P/E returned to the three-year average and BMC matched consensus profit estimates, the stock would trade at $58 next year.

"While that target seems a stretch, BMC seems fully capable of reaching $45 to $50. BMC is a Focus List Buy and a Long-Term Buy."

Top American Stocks For 2011: Brazil Small Cap (BRF)

By Nicholas Vardy

"The global bull market is back in Brazil," says international investing expert Nicholas Vardy.

In The Global Bull Market Alert, he explains, "Global markets recovered in the beginning of November; at that time, we looked to one of the hottest markets on the planet, Brazil, through the Market Vectors Brazil Small-Cap ETF (NYSE: BRF). The ETF remains our top pick for 2011. 

"Brazil, as its place on the cover of Economist magazine recently confirmed, was the flavor of the month in emerging markets. Brazil had recently won the right to host the Olympics in 2016, raising its profile much like the Beijing Olympics did for China. Investors were pouring in.

"Its currency, the real, gained 50% against the U.S. dollar since the prior December, with the economy firing on all cylinders, posting an 8%-10% growth in Q3. My forecast has been that, overall, Brazil’s economy will grow by 5% in 2011.

"In December, the Inter-American Development Bank approved a $3-billion conditional credit line with Brazilian small and mid-sized businesses on Thursday.

Around 75% of the new jobs created in Brazil this year were created by small and mid- sized businesses.

"With the market already up 76.9% in local currency terms at the time, betting on Brazil was clearly a momentum play. That's also why I recommended a small cap ETF, which had outperformed its large cap ETF counterpart this year.

"Looking ahead, Brazil's biggest enemy is likely to be its own hubris -- getting too cocky for its own good. But before it does, I'm betting the market has further to go. After all, it went up almost 6-fold in dollar terms during its last bull run starting in 2003.

"This is the reasoning behind my recommendation for Market Vectors Brazil Small- Cap ETF. For a potentially bigger upside, I recommended the April $45 call options. For full disclosure, this is a position that I hold on behalf of my clients at Global Guru Capital."

Top American Stocks For 2011: ChemTrade Logistics (CGIFF)

By Roger Conrad

Roger Conrad, editor of The Canadian Edge, is a leading specialist in the niche investment area of high-income Canada-based trusts.

For his top investment idea for the company year, he turns to chemical company, ChemTrade Logistics (TSX: CHE-U, OTC: CGIFF). 

"ChemTrade Logistics is a major producer of specialty chemicals, particularly sulphuric acid. It's also a Canadian income trust yielding over 12% with most of its operations overseas. That adds up to a unique triple play for investors in 2011.

"First, is the high yield, paid monthly. Even with the market for specialty chemicals chronically weak in 2010, Chemtrade was able to generate cash flow to cover its distribution by a healthy margin.

":Second, cash flow is set to surge as demand from industry rebounds for sulphuric acid. Second half results already show improvement and that trend is set to continue into the new year.

"Third, Chemtrade management expects to pay the same level of distribution in 2011, when Canada's trust tax kicks in. If it succeeds, investors will receive a windfall capital gain, since a big cut is already priced in.

"At a recent conference call, CEO Mark Davis stated 'the e?ect of the new tax would not be significant' since 'Chemtrade receives a large portion of its earnings from non- Canadian sources.

"Accordingly, in 2011 we believe that the new SIFT tax will apply to less than one-third of the Fund's income, resulting in an e?ective tax rate of less than 10 percent.'  Buy ChemTrade up to $11."

Now you need to defend yourself from this collapse. Here's how you might start:

You can actually short the market in the exact same fashion as you might go long, by buying shares of a bearish ETF like ProShares Short S&P 500 (SH:NYSE), which gains roughly 95 cents for every dollar the market falls.

Another slightly more focused vehicle that should interest you would be ProShares Short Dow 30 Fund (DOG:NYSE), which aims to gain 95 cents for every dollar the Dow Industrials peels away.

You might amplify that gain by purchasing shares of ProShares UltraShort Dow 30 Fund (DXD:NYSE), which attempts to double up the gains offered by their "1X" fund, in essence bringing in a buck 90 or so for every dollar lost on the Dow.

Both these funds achieve much of their aims with select puts against various Dow ETFs and their constituent top stocks for 2011.

This is also a tactic that I vigorously pursue.

Three Option Tactics

Today the markets are as volatile and odd as I have ever seen them. One minute the market is discounting quarterly profits and peeling off 4%, 5%, even 6%. In fact, over the past few weeks, we have seen the market sell off on strong earnings reports just as often as they have accepted them as a reason to buy.

The next, top stocks for 2011 are trading up hundreds of points on phony government projections that can't possibly work. (As I sit to write to you today, I have a report out of Washington that claims in its headline that new home sales are "up" 24%. But when you break down the numbers, you find that they only got that figure by secretly downgrading the previous month. In fact, this headline disguises the worst June IN HISTORY!)

That's just a sample of the whipsawing and fog we have to deal with these days. If you want to survive, you have to look past the "reasons" for all these jumps and dips, and see them for what they are: the herd's wavelike cyclic processing of preexisting memes.

Here are three long-term option plays that look to take advantage of these waves.

No. 1: The Long Gold Bullish Wave

As I mentioned in my video, I anticipate that Washington will continue to pump dollars into the system in a Keynesian attempt to forestall a double-dip recession. While physical gold does offer some protection against dollar destruction, you can actually convert interest in gold into a dynamic leveraged asset via calls against the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD:NYSE).

View Larger Image Here

As you can see, the GDL is in the midst of a long rising wave that has already raised its price more than 50% since October 2008. However, price has recently fallen within the context of that long wave.

The next mid-term rising cycle should move GLD's share price through the midpoint of the long wave at $129.80 (+12.08%) and on to the wave's three-quarter line at $141.36 (+22.06%).

As I sit to write this report, GLD December 115 Calls (GLD1018L115) are trading for $6.65 with a posted delta of 0.6091.

My initial predicted move to GLD $129.80 should raise these calls as high as $15.17, for gains of 128.14%. Should we see the follow-on move to GLD $141.36, these calls might even hit $22.21 for a total gain of 234.02%.

I will be using today's price as a peg for future calculations. With that in mind, I recommend that you set an initial 40% trailing stop at $3.99. Don't forget to move this percentage-based stop up with each ensuing high.

No. 2: The Long Blue Chip Bearish Wave

View Larger Image Here

Here is a chart for the iShares S&P 100 Index ETF (OEF:NYSE). This ETF trades against the blue chips of the S&P 100 (OEX) in the same fashion as the Diamond Trust (DIA) works to the Dow 30 and the QQQQ plays on the Nasdaq.

As you can see, the mid-term contrarian bull cycle has just come to an end. Now the blue chips are once again moving in the same general direction as the overall long-term trend. Indeed, as price is currently well above that long-trend's mid point, we should see the rather dramatic downside corrections we have been experiencing continue with a vengeance.

I recommend purchasing OEF December 50 Puts (OEF1018X50), currently trading for $2.90 with a posted delta of 0.4138.

My predicted move to OEF $40.78 should raise these calls as high as $6.88, for gains of 137.12%.

Once again, I will be using today's price as a peg for future calculations. With that in mind, I recommend that you set an initial 40% trailing stop at $1.74. Don't forget to move this percentage-based stop up with each ensuing high.

No. 3: The Long Retail Bearish Wave

View Larger Image Here

Finally, we are looking at a chart for the Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR (ETF) (XLP:NYSE). This ETF represents our country's entire grocery supply chain.

Once again, the mid-term contrarian bull cycle has come to an end. Now these purveyors of diapers and potato chips are all moving in the same general direction as the failing long-term trend. And we can expect the same the dramatic downside corrections.

I recommend purchasing XLP December 27 Puts (XLP1018X27), currently trading for $1.43 with a posted delta of 0.4006.

A 14% drop to XLP $23.38 should raise these calls as high as $2.97 for gains of 107.57%.

I will be using today's price as a peg for future calculations. With that in mind, I recommend that you set an initial 40% trailing stop at $0.85. And as always, don't forget to move this percentage-based stop up with each ensuing high.

In the aftermath of the $19 billion Agricultural Bank of China IPO, the dragon is struggling… and there are plenty of reasons to consider selling.

A few months back we broke down the major China ETFs – FXI, HAO and PGJ. (You can access that piece here.)

Today the technical and fundamental picture looks bearish for all three…

View Larger Chart

The chart above is for the most popular of the three ETFs, the Xinhua China 25 (FXI:NYSE). The red line represents the 200-day exponential moving average, a sort of key waterline for bullish and bearish sentiment. FXI is below that waterline and struggling.

After a sharp upward thrust in June, FXI quickly lost its mojo. A clean break of support in the $38.50 range could invite a new downdraft; on the fundamental side there are very good reasons for this.

A Country of Superlatives

China is, in many ways, a country of superlatives. For instance: Within 20 years, China’s urban areas are expected to swell by another 350 million people – more than the full population of the United States. There will soon be more Christians in China than anywhere else on Earth. And China’s steel consumption is more than twice that of the United States, Europe and Japan put together.

Adding to that list, the International Energy Agency (IEA) now reports that China has become the world’s largest energy user. “In 2000, the U.S. consumed twice as much energy as China,” says IEA chief economist Faith Birol. “Now China consumes more than the U.S.”

Indeed, the dragon is big… but the dragon also has some very big problems, many of which are coming to a head.

Subprime Redux

First and foremost among China’s worries is the growing rottenness of the banking system. Based on the evidence, it is not an exaggeration to say China is repeating the mistakes of the United States and Europe. Chinese banks are making dodgy loans, piling up toxic assets, and using various parlor tricks to keep the dreck off their balance sheets.

(By the way, if you want hear my other reasons to sell China later this week, sign up for Taipan Daily to receive my investment commentary.)

Fitch, one of the big three ratings agencies, released a report last week detailing how China is “distorting credit data.” (You can find a copy of that report here.)

As The New York Times reports, Fitch bluntly charges that “Chinese banks were increasingly engaging in complex deals that hid the size and nature of their lending, obscuring hundreds of billions of dollars in loans and possibly even masking a coming wave of bad real estate and infrastructure loans.”

Hmm. Sound familiar?

Along with that unsavory charge, Fitch further reports that “Chinese regulators understated loan growth in the first half of the year, by 28 percent, or about $190 billion, and that many banks continued to secretly shift loans off the books, creating a ‘pervasive understatement of credit growth and credit exposure.’”

Does human nature ever change? Nope. As Yogi Berra might say, it’s “déjà vu all over again.”

An IPO Hail Mary?

Some in fact argue that the initial public offering (IPO) for AgBank, the Agricultural Bank of China, was in fact something of a desperate cash grab, in the hopes of propping up an increasingly shaky structure. (Prior to the IPO, AgBank was “technically insolvent.”)

“Agricultural Bank of China's $19 billion IPO made a lackluster debut in Shanghai,” Reuters reports, “weighing on the market and underscoring the difficulty other Chinese banks will face tapping investors for billions more.”

"There's a lot profit-taking pressure from investors, who are not optimistic about the long-term prospects of China's economy or the banking sector," said Liu Jun, analyst at Changjiang Securities in Wuhan.

"The debut reflects worries over slower growth and rising bad loans at Chinese lenders, and continued weakness in the stock may prompt a renewed slump in the overall market."

As with the recent Tesla IPO, which put $226 million into the company’s coffers but burned late-to-the-party investors badly, the AgBank offering looks like another example of greater fool theory at work.

And just who are these fool-me-twice investors rushing to buy what insiders are selling? Did they not learn from the infamous Blackstone IPO of 2007, in which the proprietors quite literally top-ticked the market with their cash outs?

If you are, say, the Qatar Investment Authority (who invested $2.8 billion in the Agbank deal), there are at least theoretical reasons to justify participation: Mountains of excess cash, the sovereign relations motive, and so on. But if you are a nimble private investor, why oh why give up your two best edges – flexibility and selectivity – to throw precious capital at such a dog?

Bigger Fish to Fry

If China’s banks were the only reason to worry, the bulls might have a leg to stand on. Beijing is not shy, after all, about blurring the lines between public and private enterprise, and the dragon is theoretically cash-rich enough to absorb a deluge of bad debts.

The trouble, though, is that China’s dodgy banks are only the highly visible tip of a much bigger iceberg… and the macro level problems brewing in housing and labor markets are even more worrisome.

Human nature being what it is, Beijing is following in Washington's footsteps. The mandarins are propping up rotten institutions with public cash, then looking the other way as toxic problems get papered over.

If banks were the only problem, the odds of a "soft landing" for China would be higher. Trillions of dollars in reserves can come in handy for writing off bad debts. Record reserves don't count out the possibility of a crash, however, as we saw with Japan in the late 1980s and the United States prior to 1929.

Apart from the banks, China's big troubles come down to real estate, labor and exports. China's insanely inflated real estate market is tottering... labor costs are rising... and the mighty export machine is under threat.

Home Is Where the Hype Is

"China views soaring house prices as a threat to social stability," the U.K. Telegraph reports, "since workers are shut out of the market. The price-to-earnings ratio is 13 in Beijing and Shanghai, four times Western levels."

Charles Dumas, of Lombard Street Research, argues that real estate has soared because wealthier Chinese investors - the moneyed class - have a distinct lack of options for their cash. Real interest rates in China are "negative," meaning the official rate of interest is below the rate of inflation, and capital controls make it hard to invest abroad. So China's wealthy buy up real estate as a fallback option, and thus create a self-reinforcing feedback loop of rising prices and confidence.

"Wealthier families often hold three, four, or more properties as a hard asset to store wealth," the Telegraph adds, "leaving many vacant. This has disguised the scale of excess inventory..."

It is hard to know just how big the "excess inventory" truly is, but every indication suggests that it is huge. One prominent Chinese economist, as cited by the South China Morning Post, believes there could be as many as 64.5 million dwellings with nobody home:

Yi Xianrong, an economist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a government think tank in Beijing, noted estimates from electricity meter readings that there are about 64.5 million empty apartments and houses in urban areas of the country, many of them bought up by people wagering on a constantly rising property market...

Ken Rogoff, a former IMF chief economist known for historical analysis of sovereign debt issues, thinks the Chinese real estate market is already on the verge of imploding. "You're starting to see that collapse in property and it's going to hit the banking system," Rogoff says.

Ah yes, the banking system. Because it's all connected of course...

Not everyone thinks the China real estate bubble is about to burst. Stephen Roach, chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, publicly argues there is no true bubble at all, because a steady flow of rural Chinese migrating to the cities should prop up demand.

Your humble editor would love to ask Mr. Roach just how these migrants will be able to afford a new home at current sky-high prices. At the height of the U.S. housing bubble, California unveiled the "50-year mortgage" as a way to keep middle-class families from being priced out of the market. Will China do one better and unveil the 100-year mortgage, or even the 150-year mortgage, thus extending the "engagement till death" compact to second and third generations?

The notion that China's bubble can be sustained is madness... but it's an old familiar madness. It is the same combination of blind hope and compromised self interest that has temporarily forestalled collapse so many times before, put forth by those who want to keep the good times going at all costs.

One might further note that Mr. Roach, he of the "no bubble" persuasion, is head of an investment bank division that seeks, above all, to maintain good business relations with China. As Upton Sinclair once said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on not understanding it." That goes triple on Wall Street.

Labor Also Rises

What's more, the bloom is coming off the real estate rose just as labor competition intensifies. As The New York Times reports,

As costs have risen in China, long the world's shop floor, it is slowly losing work to countries like Bangladesh, Vietnam and Cambodia - at least for cheaper, labor-intensive goods like casual clothes, toys and simple electronics that do not necessarily require literate workers and can tolerate unreliable transportation systems and electrical grids.

Li & Fung, a Hong Kong company that handles sourcing and apparel manufacturing for companies like Wal-Mart and Liz Claiborne, reported that its production in Bangladesh jumped 20 percent last year, while China, its biggest supplier, slid 5 percent...

Workers in Chinese factories, once cheaper than dirt, are now demanding higher wages. The wage component may still be modest as a function of total production cost, but that can be no comfort to many of China's embattled export companies, who were already working with razor-thin profit margins.

The optimistic argument is that China is merely going through a stretch of growing pains, and that labor hiccups involving strikes and wage increases can be sorted out. It is suggested that wage-sensitive giants, like China's FoxConn, can simply move operations inland, arbitraging cheap labor away from the coasts as general wage pressures rise.

The part about growing pains is undoubtedly true - but it comes at a most delicate time. China may find that its legendary cheap-labor engine is stuttering and backfiring just as a massive property bubble threatens to burst, against a backdrop of creeping global slowdown.

How Much Capacity?

There are other burning questions as to just how export-dependent China really is, and how exposed China might be to capacity investments gone bad. (Picture a billion-dollar factory, built on credit, with half the assembly lines gone dark for lack of demand.) It is no good for the "shop floor to the world" when the world collectively tightens its belt.

Yao Jian, spokesman for China's Ministry of Commerce, warned last week that the export picture would darken. The picture is "still complicated and grim," he said, adding that "the room for the further growth of Chinese exports is limited."

This raises a point of serious concern. Just how much has China already invested in what was once believed to be a rosy growth outlook? How many roads, bridges, highways, factories, ports and so on have been constructed - many of them with stimulus funds - in the assumption that the dragon would soon "grow into" their use?

Consider the stimulative impact of, say, building an eight-lane highway. The actual construction of the highway may create a short-term economic boost. As the highway is being built, contractors and construction workers are being put to work, raw materials are being used, jobs are created and sustained, and so on.

But once the highway is built, then what? If no one is in place to use it, or more importantly enhance their productivity by using it... if there is no positive longer-term economic impact from its creation... then the stimulus effect simply fades away, and the project reverts to an inert slab of concrete. The highway - or factory, or office building, or shopping mall - becomes another empty artifact in an empty landscape, of little more use than a monument to folly.

The views of optimists and pessimists again diverge widely here. Optimists hear all the reports of buildings unused, roads left idle, and cheerily assume that China's economy will quickly "grow into" this shiny new infrastructure, like an energetic young boy growing into his older brother's clothes.

The pessimists, on the other hand, concede that China may eventually grow into the glut of infrastructure it has built - but with the caveat that the process could take years, or even decades, depending on just how badly China overestimated the appetites of its customers.

Meanwhile, the pressures of global economic slowdown, combined with a collapse-prone real estate market and low-end labor competition, mean that the dragon's much-vaunted growth rate could simply fall off a cliff.

The potential for a "numbers shock" lies in the nature of stimulus-supported infrastructure growth, idle production capacity, and thin profit margins on the labor side of the equation. It is all too easy for a small profit, magnified through leverage, to swing to a large loss.

And on the whole, the problems are too big to throw cash at, even with pockets as deep as Beijing's...

• John Mauldin - Buy emerging markets, sell sovereign debt...but not now. Treasuries are going to go lower in the short term
• Andrew Lowenthal - John is 100% right: Rolling over US debt is going to be so much easier than what people think...it's too early to short Treasuries
• Eric Kraus - Buy resource producers in places where people are afraid to invest. Short finance sectors of developed countries
• Barry Ritholtz - Short the euro, long top stocks for 2016, when the next bull market begins
• Byron King - Sell the euro: It's doomed, just a question of time. Buy crude oil. There's just not enough of it. I'm long the Tea Party, too
• Doug Casey - I'm inclined to own a lot of gold, cattle and agricultural land...keep it simple. I would short the euro, yen and US stock market
• Gary Gibson - I own nothing. If I had anything, I would have dollars now, uranium later. Buy energy.
• Eric Fry - Short euro, long uranium
• Porter Stansberry - There are just too many good shorts. Short Treasuries, especially in US and Italy. Buy gold, silver, timber and super-high-quality blue chips when they yield 10% or more
• Chris Mayer - Short the state of California and Illinois. Long uranium and high-quality farmland.

It’s the “Wild West” of investing…

You can’t find anything on the Pinks that isn’t a sub-penny or shell company…

Stock promoters and scam artists – and their helpless victims – are the only forms of life inhabiting the Pink Sheets…

However, the Pink Sheets landscape is changing dramatically. And these changes could mean a more investor-friendly environment is finally making its way to the once-murky waters of bulletin boards. In fact, you might already be relying on the Pink Sheets for all of your over-the-counter trades – even if you’ve never put your money in a Pink Sheets stock before.

I’ll explain how it all works in a minute. First, it’s important to see how the Pinks have evolved into a major player in the listing game.

The Pink Sheets put its plan into motion back in 2007 when it began to differentiate between transparent, reporting companies and the shell companies that make up the Pink’s notorious grey market. Most of these newly listed OTCQX stocks were larger, foreign firms looking for a foothold in the US markets. Even multi-billion dollar firms such as Adidas and Wall Mart of Mexico count themselves as members of the OTCQX.

The Pink Sheets boasts that the OTCQX is the “premier tier of the US over-the-counter market… Investor-focused companies use the quality controlled OTCQX listing platform to offer investors transparent trading, superior information and easy access through their regulated US broker-dealers.”

And it’s not just foreign firms that are populating the Pink’s transparent listings. Since its 2007 inception, the program has expanded to include multiple market tiers designed to help traders and investors know exactly what they’re getting into when they throw their money at a Pink’s listing.

The OTCQB was the next step. This is the latest market tier for transparent, reporting, fully up-to-date listings. A public relations push has accompanied the OTCQB launch. The Pink’s domain has changed to “otcmarkets.com.” Front-and-center on the page is a link to the market tiers, along with clear designations and descriptions for even the speculative and grey market securities.

It would appear the PR blitz and OTCQB launch are part of the Pink’s plan for OTC listing dominance. That’s the important part: the Pink Sheets is not an exchange – it’s a listing service, competing with the OTCBB, which is run by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).

Despite its less-than-stellar reputation, the Pink’s are winning the technology race. Market makers have turned to the Pink’s quotation system in droves. In fact, more than 80% of all market maker quotes in OTC stocks are now published on the Pink’s platform, with just 20% on the OTCBB. So if you’re buying an OTC stock, chances are the Pink’s system is the one pulling the lever.

I can’t say how quickly the Pink Sheet’s reputation will change, if at all. But the listing service is positioning itself to turn the OTCBB into a thing of the past. That in itself is reason enough to pay close attention…

First, securitization of UK consumer, mortgage and business debt has all but collapsed. Net-net, there haven't been any sizeable securitizations of UK bank lending for six months running - the longest period since 1998.

The two months before that actually saw securitizations paid back, and at the fastest pace on record, down by £26 billion. Which is a pity for the UK's formerly go-go-crazy-bones credit bonanza.

In the 10 years ending Dec. 2009, securitization added £325 billion to the growth in UK bank lending, expanding new credit by more than 20%. And why not? Securitizing bank loans, by parceling them up and then selling the debt to investors both foreign and domestic, gave banks the chance to lend the same Pound twice, skimming a profit both times. It also gave insurance and pension funds the chance to invest in Britain's record debt bubble...a boom which ended with more people working more hours to service more debt than ever before in history.

That bout of collective insanity has now got the DTs. Because second, and as a result of securitization's collapse (or so we guess here at BullionVault), private-sector UK loan growth overall last quarter did what it's never done before (not since records began in June 1963, at least) and actually turned negative.

The Bank of England's decision thus looks timely, if ineffective against the credit deflation already underway.

To repeat: UK bank lending to the private sector has never previously shrunk, not in the 47 years of available data. And lending cash to commercial banks Walter Bagehot-style - albeit by accepting their debtors in turn as collateral, and not charging that "high rate" the 19th-century economist recommended either - is what central bankers are for, after all.

Concluding her 3-month consultation with the banking sector, the Old Lady said Monday that she'll start accepting "raw loans" as collateral for short-term liquidity, dispensed via the Discount Window Facility, in 2011. That expands the list of eligible collateral which banks can post from securitized debt (those asset-backed bonds accepted since Dec. 2007 on top of government gilts), just so long as the loans are residential or commercial real-estate mortgages, consumer loans (but not including credit cards), or corporate loans to non-bank borrowers.

Unlike the Bank's failed attempt to inject cash into the UK economy via Quantitative Easing, this latest wheeze to underwrite the credit-supply will at least keep the Old Lady's cash onshore. Because the raw loan's end-borrower "must be UK-based." Which should stop the tabloids screaming about "foreigners stealing" this particular chunk of Britain's monetary easing when it begins.

Whether it stems the UK's credit deflation remains to be seen. And whether that deflation ever gets to stem the ongoing inflation in prices still awaits history's verdict, too. Because while private net lending shrank between April and July, quarterly consumer-price inflation meantime rose to 1.3%, knocking 3.3 pence off the purchasing power of each Pound Sterling compared with 12 months prior.

Deflation in credit but inflation in prices? With the fastest GDP growth in four years coming in at 1.1% at market (i.e. unadjusted) prices across the quarter? Economists from Mervyn "monetarist" King to Paul "Keynes re-born" Krugman say this confluence of pain can never happen. So best wheel out the Bank of England's printing press yet again, just to get reality back on track with theory.

But make no mistake...

What I'm about to show you could be the deadliest surprise threat to your money and livelihood of the coming year.

I say "new" because as you'll see there's not much new about it at all — the pressure's been building behind this for the last 1,354 years!

Yet for the first time in history, that pressure has found its release. I’m imagining a volcano of blood.

When it blows, you could see your savings get SLAMMED... the dollar thrown into a TAILSPIN... and, here's what will stun the still-recovering world economy, gas and oil prices doubling or even tripling by sometime early in the coming year.

How on earth is that possible?

It's the last thing most people expect, from market pros to bumbling D.C. bureaucrats... but if nothing changes in what I'm about to show you... this is a page in future history books that's already writing itself.

I'll show you the evidence myself.

If I'm right, as many as eight key Islamic countries are hurtling headlong toward a bloody "new" war — with each other — that's been FOURTEEN CENTURIES in the making.

This could begin as early as the next 12 to 18 months. And with no less than 66% of the world's key energy reserves smack dab in the crosshairs.

Sound impossible?

Even if I'm only half right, and we get an oil-state stalemate unlike anything the world has ever seen — you could see oil soar past the old high of $147.30 per barrel, well on its way to as much as $220... with gasoline bucking against a ceiling of $8 per gallon.

I'll show you how this unfolds below.

You'll see the maps, I'll name the names. And I'll reveal to you the stunning web of "secret revenge" that lies behind it all... waiting over 1,354 years for this moment!

Of course, events like these echo around the world.

And nobody gets the chance to just "sit on the sidelines."

But there's good news too.

Because, you see, just like every major shift of history... deep within every crisis... you'll also find an opportunity to protect yourself. And this event is no exception.

For instance, the last time we saw politics push up the price of petroleum, my readers found strategic gains in a "self-defense" move that shot up by 668%.

In fact, we've used all kinds of moments in flux to make protective and even impressive gains. Take a look at this small sample, drawn straight from our posted track record...

And we continue to post new gains, even now. Some of today's open positions have already shot up 37%... 45%... 46%... 53%... 61%... 64%... 70%... 75%... 128%... 146%... 155%... 160%... 200%... 403%... and 466%... with more to come!

(I can't name those best energy stocks for you right now. That wouldn't be fair to my readers. But I'll tell you how to find out about all of them, right after you finish reading this letter.)

My point is, today's moment is even larger than anything we've seen before. But so are the opportunities I see right now for you to protect yourself. I'd hate for you to miss any of them, while you still have the opportunity to make your move.

Over the next four minutes, I'll show you how.

But before I do, let's step back so I can explain how this "war" begins.

Long before $147 oil... before the war over 9/11 or the war in Afghanistan... before either war in Iraq, the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, or even the oil crisis of 1973.

All the way back to a lamb dinner, served up one evening in the year 629 AD...

The Murder That's About to Change the World

Nobody could have known that the dinner they were about to eat would one day change history. Some say it was goat. Others say it was lamb.

Either way, it was poisoned.

And the guest of honor was Mohammed, the controversial founder of Islam.

It was just one bite, that's all it took. He tasted the poison and immediately spit it out. But it was too late. He would soon die, sparking a bitter and deadly divide. 

See, when Mohammed died nobody could agree on who should take over...

And they've been killing each other as a result ever since.

On the one side, you've got the Sunni Muslims. They're the ones that run Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and many of the other countries in the Middle East.

On the other, you've got the Shia Muslims. It's the Shia that run Iran. And now run Iraq, as well as Lebanon and Syria.

Think Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland... Serbs vs. Croats in Bosnia... or even the religious Thirty Years War that ripped apart Europe in the 16th century.

Only this Sunni-Shia split has built up pressure now for the last 1,354 years.

But it's only now that this pressure has found its ultimate release — with Iran driving a new Shia uprising smack dab in the middle of the most dangerous place on Earth — the oil-soaked Middle East.

Isn't the Middle East already a mess? Yes, it is.

What's different is that too many in the West... right up to the White House and the Pentagon... don't "get" just how deep this Islam divide could go or how far it could run.

Take a look at this map...

The Deadly Sunni-Shia Divide — 2010-2011

If it's black in this map, it's Shia ground. It's also mostly oil heartland
and some of the most strategic territory in the entire Middle East!

One terrorist with a grudge can do a lot of damage.

Iran, all by itself, could even be a deadly force.

But can you imagine what millions of Shiites with a 1,354-year old ax to grind could do?

The 162-Million-Man March

Nobody knows exactly how many Shia there are right now in the Middle East. That's because in all but four Middle Eastern countries, Sunni leaders don't bother to count.

Sunni schools teach that Shiites aren't real Muslims. Shias don't get a seat in government. They can't become judges or even testify in high courts. In Sunni-run Saudi Arabia, Shias and Sunni can't even marry.

For centuries, the Shia have been the underclass.

But now, for the first time in history, they see this as their chance to turn the tide. And how big a tide is it? Hands down, saber-rattling Iran has the most — 70 million Shia.

But then you've got the "liberated" Shia of Iraq — 22 million. Plus as many as 2 million Shia in Iran-backed Lebanon. And up to 4 million Shia in Iran's top ally, Syria.

Then you've got another 700,000 Shia in Kuwait... up to 500,000 Shia in Bahrain... up to 400,000 Shia in the United Arab Emirates... 300,000 Shia in Oman... and around 100,000 Shia in Qatar, according to the Pew Research Center in Washington.

On top of that, as many as 10 million Shia in Yemen... another 7 million Shia in Azerbaijan... and 11 million Shia in Turkey... not to mention the combined 30 million Shia in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Not all Shia want a revolution.

But out of between the 147 million to 162 million Shia spread from Pakistan to Lebanon and Azerbaijan to Yemen, enough do that this is the river of "Secret Revenge" and common blood running through the entire Middle East.

The Sunnis are worried.

Especially in Sunni-run Saudi Arabia.

And especially now.

Here's why...

"New" Oil War Flashpoint #1:
The Real Reason Iran Wants the Bomb

Don't forget, Iran used to be Persia.

At one point Persia was the biggest and most powerful empire in history!

Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Egypt — even Israel — the Persians controlled them all. Along with all of Afghanistan and Pakistan and most of the oil-rich coast of the Caspian.

For 300 years, Persian armies held off the Roman Empire. Their scholars walked with Aristotle and Plato. And influenced Greek art.

It was the Persians who invented chess. And the windmill.

Not to mention bricks, algebra, trigonometry, and wine.

The bottom line is... no Empire forgets its past glory.

The Iranians resent losing theirs.

But now they see a chance to get it back.

The nuclear bomb? Tehran's crackpot leaders don't just want it to scare Israel. They want it so they can throw a dark shadow over their Sunni Arab neighbors, too!

Take a look at this...

Iran's First Move...

With total control of the Hormuz "oil chokepoint" in the Persian Gulf
and new power in "liberated" Iraq, the Iranians have a brand new foothold
for kicking off the long-awaited "Shia Revolution."

You'll notice two things.

First, you'll see how Iran's Shia influence has spilled across the border into southern Iraq. Southern Iraq is where you'll find six of Iraq's eight "Supergiant" oil fields. It's also where you'll find a key border with Shia Islam's mortal enemy — Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia is Sunni.

For eight years back in the 1980s, Saudi Arabia helped Iraq wage a bloody war against Iran. Along with other Sunni governments, the Saudis even gave Saddam over $47 billion to launch missiles and nerve gas attacks over the Iranian border.

Iran hasn't forgotten. Or forgiven.

(Imagine if Canada or Mexico had given money to Japan to help them bomb Pearl Harbor. Iran has waited to make the Saudis pay — and now they have their chance.)

The second thing you'll see in the map above is that Iran has almost total control over the Strait of Hormuz.

Hormuz is the tight waterway that connects the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean. Over 17 million barrels of oil have to pass through Hormuz every day.

That's 40% of all the oil shipped in the world.

And 90% of all the daily oil shipments from the entire Middle East.

With Hormuz alone, Iran could cripple the world overnight.

Today, Iran backs Shia militants in Iraq. They give them money and guns. They've even helped Shia politicians take over the Iraqi government. Why?

Because gaining control in Iraq takes the Iranians one step closer in their twisted plot for secret revenge. For another one of those steps, just look further south... to Yemen.

"New" Oil War Flashpoint #2:Yemen's Ugly Secret

The Pentagon has just tripled its budget on Yemen.

Top U.S. General Patraeus just had a not-so-secret meeting with Yemen's president.

And our own State Department calls Yemen a “threat... to global stability.”

What gives?

Even ABC News just called Yemen the next "top target" in the terror war and a "near-perfect haven for terrorists." Obama just sent Yemen our troops, ships, and weapons.

Yemen's on/off Shia revolution gives and "Gate of Tears" oil chokepoint could soon give Iran a strategic "backdoor" attack point into Saudi Arabia...

Yemen might be a failed country... with a collapsing government, a shrinking oil supply, an exploding population and not much of anything else but lawlessness and chaos.

But what Yemen does have is position.

It sits just on the tip of the Arab peninsula... south of another key Saudi border and on the coast of another key oil strait called Bab-el-Mandeb.

That name means the "Gate of Tears."

And like Hormuz, most oil states on the Red Sea can't get a drop of oil out without shipping it through the Bab-el-Mandeb. Over 3.3 million barrels go through every day.

Blocking this chokepoint alone could slap a $30 "political premium" on the price of every barrel of oil... but there's an even bigger threat taking shape.

For the last six years, Yemen has fought a vicious and bloody war with Shia rebels. These rebels are poor. There's no way, says a Yemen general, these rebels "could fund and fight this war with pomegranates and grapes... no doubt there is Iranian support."

Could it be true? Absolutely.

Iran loves to buy loyalty.

Take the $1 billion Tehran now "donates" every year to Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon. Or the billions they gave Syria's Shia president to build cement factories, car factories, power plants, and storage silos.

In return, Iran gets Hezbollah's Arabic-speaking terrorists to run militant Shia training camps in Iraq. And gets Syria to distribute Iran's money and weapons to others in the Shia network.

The secret money Iran sends to Shia rebels in Yemen could soon have a payoff too — by opening up another route for "backdoor" Shia access into Saudi Arabia.

Yemen's rebels have already hit towns across the Saudi border. And the Saudis have hit back, losing dozens of troops in the process. We’re just in the first innings of this one.

How bad is it? 

So far, 50 Saudi schools along the border have had to close. Another 240 border towns have already been evacuated. And Saudi jets have already dropped bombs in Yemen.

What exactly has the Saudis running scared?

Final Oil War Flashpoint #3:Iran's Final Prize — Saudi Oil

Don't think for a minute that I think Iran's plot for "secret revenge" could succeed.

But the threat alone could be enough to kick oil much higher.

And sooner than you might think.

For instance...

• Our CIA, Britain's M16, and other top spy agencies say Iran could have a working nuclear bomb as soon as April 2011...

• The Times of London uncovered a confidential document that says Iran already has a "neutron initiator" ready to test. That's the part you need to trigger a warhead.

• And Der Spiegel, the German magazine, says Iran may even have the tech and material to build a simple nuclear bomb before the end of THIS year.

But the Bomb is just a beginning.

Even if the go ahead to build a nuke never comes from Iran's top cleric, the more immediate danger is a wildfire of Shia-Sunni unrest... starting in Iran's new hotbeds of Shia support... and spreading across the rest of the Sunni-run oil states... with the richest oil fields in the world's richest oil nation as the final battleground.

Suddenly, Iran has its mortal enemy, Saudi Arabia, surrounded — millions of Shia even live on top of the Saudis OWN biggest oilfields.

As you can see, Saudi Arabia looks like a sitting duck.

Iran has a Shia network that reaches from Afghanistan to Lebanon once again... more connections building along the Persian Gulf... Yemeni Shias to the south... and Shia connections along the oil rich Caspian Sea.

You could see this spread to the nearly two million Shia that live and work on Saudi Arabia's oil fields very soon. Even though that's exactly what the Saudis — and our own Pentagon — hope will never happen.

As you read this, big and small Gulf states are piling up weapons, stocking anti-missile batteries, and sandbagging their oil terminals, ports, and water desalinization plants...

Abu Dhabi alone has already bought $17 billion worth of U.S. anti-missile hardware. And the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia just splurged on weapons, to the tune of $25 billion.

As you read this, our own F-16 fighter jets, Patriot missile systems, giant cruisers and up to 20,000 more U.S. troops are quietly digging in for an epic fight... that could spread past Iraq and Yemen... and even into Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain.

All to get ready for what could be the fight of a lifetime...

Say Hello to the "Jihad Generation"

It's not just our experts saying it.

Leaders in all three of America's biggest Middle East allied countries — Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia — claim the epic Sunni-Shia showdown is in the cards.

It could start from any one of the flashpoints I just named.

But no matter how it starts, Saudi Arabia is where it's most likely to end up. Why?

Not only is Saudi Arabia home to Mecca, Islam's holiest place... but it's also home to the corrupt and U.S.-allied Royal House of Saud, considered an insult to all Islam.

Think about it.

In a country where they'll cut off your hand for stealing and whip you for holding a glass of whiskey... Saudi princes gorge on cocaine and prostitutes, gambling, palaces, and more.

All while the vast Saudi underclass starves on just $6,000 per year and 30% unemployment. And as many as two million of that underclass is Shia. With a 1,354-year-old ax to grind and billions of dollars in oil revenues as the prize.

It's a near-perfect formula for a FULL-ON war.

And the fuse is already lit.

Iran is ready to assert its place in the world. Think Japan or Germany in the 1930s. The threat is there, it's large, and it's not going away anytime soon.

How the world responds, we can't know. 

But I can tell you how oil could respond... by exploding to new record highs. Possibly as high as $220 per barrel by spring of the coming year... with gas not topping out until it hits as much as $8 per gallon.

That's very bad news for millions around the world.

And yet...

When Historical Shifts Happen, Getting Rich Can Be Your Best Protection

Have no illusions — any military response, on any front — could only accelerate the spike in oil prices. So the first thing you're going to want to do is simply get out of the way.

But you're also going to make defensive moves with your money.

And the best way to defend yourself and your wealth in this kind of crisis couldn't be more obvious — you need to hitch a ride on the prices that will go UP as this unfolds.

In a moment like this, that can be easier than you might think.

Over and over again, throughout history, things that are key to survival are also among the first things to go up in a time of chaos like I foresee ahead.

Not just with oil. But other raw resources that nations, advancing armies, and even innocent bystanders simply can't do without. These are the assets you can see, use, and touch.

Think about it.

What critical resource need helped drive Germany into BOTH world wars... drove Japan to bomb Pearl Harbor... and helped fuel the Allies that crushed them? Oil.

After the Yom Kippur War... during the Iranian hostage crisis... during countless clashes in Palestine and Israel... during both Gulf Wars... we saw oil prices take off.

Couldn't it happen again?

Of course it could.

Like I said, the rising threat alone... so close to nearly 66% of the world's shrinking oil and gas reserves... could be enough to set this price explosion into motion.

When that happens, you could still get very rich...

Take the 174% gain my readers and I recently posted on PetroChina... or our 160% gain on Western Oil Sands... another 182% on Talisman Energy... 104% on the ICON Energy Fund... and 476% so far on Suncor Energy...

And of course, energy's not the only "defensive" power play...

My readers and I also posted 118% gains on the diversified mining company, Anglo American Ltd... plus another 151% gain that we discovered with Tocqueville Gold... our 263% gain with Couer d'Alene, plus another 177% gain on the same stock, a second time around... and another 270% gain that we saw on silver call options...

The bottom line?

Markets, up or down, hate uncertainty.

And that's what you could see driving this shocking new opportunity. That's why I'm URGING you to send for my new FREE 2010-2011 Crude Awakening Countdown Library.

Inside, I've included five FREE reports — all detailing which special money moves to act on NOW if you want to protect yourself and your money during the crisis ahead.

These reports name 14 plays you could be missing.

I'm offering to share all 14 moves with you FREE — even as I also share these same moves with my paid-up subscribers. And yes, I'll even cover shipping and handling.

The reports are yours, no questions asked.

Let me give you a glimpse of what you'll find inside...

Defensive Energy Power Play #1:
The Single Best Energy Stock For 2011 
to Own Over the Next 20 Years
(Hint: it’s 6,859 miles from the Mid-East…)

One easy way to "get out of the way" and still gain as oil goes up... is simply to go outside of the Middle East to find the best oil providers.

In 1973, the smart money ran from OPEC oil... and into oil opportunities in Canada, Mexico, and the UK. Today you've got even more smart energy "safe havens."

Today that strategy can work even better.

But that's only part of the reason I believe this first major "defensive energy" stock could be the single best oil company opportunity for you to own over the next 20 years.

How so?

Let me take you to a place that's thousands of miles from the Middle East... and well beyond the reach of any crackpot dictator or terrorist.

Yes, it's also an oil field.

Nobody even knew much about it until 2006, the first year they cracked through the field's overlying layer of salt — more than a mile of it — and into dense carbonate rock — and about eight billion barrels of oil.

That's more than the entire proven reserves of Norway.

But then they kept looking and found — in a deposit almost 500 miles long and 100 miles wide — what could be as much as 100 billion barrels of oil.

Easily, that's the biggest single oil-bearing zone anywhere in the world.

Bigger than almost all the oil fields in Iraq, combined. Bigger than all the reserves in Russia. Or Iran, for that matter. Bigger than the Saudi's legendary Ghawar.

Yet, until just recently, nobody even knew it was there...

The Greatest Energy Discovery in 100 Years

See, here's the thing...

This massive new find I'm telling you about — they call it the Tupi Field — isn't really what you picture when you think of a "field" of oil at all.

You can't drive past it. You can't see it. In fact, no human can actually get close to it... and live. You see, the Tupi Field is hidden some two miles below the blackest, roughest seas just about anywhere on the planet...  as far as 240 miles off the coast of Brazil.

It is, in fact, so far below the surface of the ocean that the water pressure alone would crush a steel-fortified Navy sub like you could crush a soda can.

And that's just the ocean floor. You need to go even deeper — 19,000 feet through multi-million year-old anthracite and salt deposits — to get to the beds of ancient limestone that hold the oil.

Crews go out on massive ships to set up the rigs. They use satellite images to find the deposits and then automated underwater robots to lock the drilling equipment into place.

Just tapping the deposit can take as many as three months to set up... at a cost of as much as $600,000 per day. Even to hire a helicopter to fly to the offshore drilling sites can take as long as two-hours over open water and up to $50,000 for the fuel and pilot... for each flight.

You can see why this massive oil deposit took so long to discover.

It wasn't long ago that we had the technology.

Then again, it wasn't long ago that anybody but the energy industry pros understood just how desperate we are to find and tap more and more remote oil discoveries like this one.

They call this kind of oil opportunity "deepwater crude."

This company I'm telling you about dominates this new field. They also have their geologists and engineers looking for even more breakthrough offshore energy discoveries just like this one.

Of course this isn't the only deepwater crude fortune-maker in town.

I've got three more I'd love to show you.

In fact, you'll find the full story in just one of the five special reports I'd like to send you, called Deepwater Crude Bonanza: Four Ways to Get Rich on the New Oil Frontier.

It's included with your free 2010-2011 Crude Awakening Countdown Library.

Inside, not only do I name the single best energy stock of the next 20 years... but I also give you all my research on three other must-own "deepwater crude" plays, including...

• The cutting-edge American deepwater technology company that has oil majors worldwide lined up to use their specialized rigs. Only a handful of companies worldwide can do what they do. And with up to 300 new deepwater rigs to come online by 2012, this company is lining up contracts by the score — this could be an easy 50% gainer over the 12 to 18 months ahead.

• A trusted family-owned company that you already know, but what you might not know is that they're sitting on top of a second huge "deepwater" deposit almost as big as the one I just mentioned. They're also one of the few companies with the tech-savvy to drill the now-famous Bakken Oil Formation here in the U.S. This one has matched rising oil prices dollar for dollar before... and could triple from where it sits today.

• And finally, what my readers and I now call the "most important oil equipment company in the world." Why? Because right now they're the single largest deepwater equipment supplier not only to the top offshore company I mentioned, but also to the other majors now crowding in — including Exxon Mobil, Shell, Chevron, BP, and more. What they make, nobody else can quite do. You'll see why in your free copy of my newest "deepwater" report.

Remember, I don't come at these opportunities like a broker trying to make commissions. This area is my trained specialty. I've spent years as a working oil exploration geologist. I study these opportunities with an understanding of the science and discoveries they're talking about.

And even when you factor that in, I'm convinced this new era in deepwater crude technology is a game changer. Not just the future of Big Oil, but also the single best way for you to get rich during the radical shift in energy politics headed down the pipe.

Once you let me rush you a free copy of Deepwater Crude Bonanza: Four Ways to Get Rich on the New Oil Frontier — one of the five special FREE reports in your 2010-2011 Crude Awakening Countdown Library — you'll quickly see why.

And then there's more...

Defensive Energy Power Play #2:
Two More Ways to Get Rich...As Shanghai Goes Dark!

Obviously, it's not just the U.S. with an eye on oil anymore. 

Even through the worldwide financial bust, China's kept on growing at a record clip... with oil and other energy needs to match.

Some of what they've done is make deals for more power, including multi-billion dollar deals with our enemies in Iran.

But even then, booming China could go bust if they don't fix their growing energy problems. Take China's situation with coal —– at one point during the winter of this year they were down to a 10-day supply.

The problem for China is that the country uses coal to crank out 80% of its electricity.  For over 1 billion customers, that's a lot of coal. They can't get it out of the ground fast enough. Or safely.

So they're ramping up to go nuclear instead.

As you read this, China has 11 nuclear reactors producing electricity.

They're already building 17 more.

But they want to rocket that number to 124 full capacity reactors over the next several years. By the year 2030, that could pump up their demand for uranium 10 times over.

The last full year on record, China used 769 tons of uranium.

Beijing's new plan would call for 20,000 tons per year.

Yeah, but what about wind, solar, or geothermal?

Not one is nearly as ready for prime time as nuclear.

Think about it. Right now around the world, you've got 436 nuclear reactors up and running. Plus another 50 being built. And another 137 reactors in the blueprint stage. Along with 295 more new reactors on the table for approval.

The U.S. just announced plans to start building more — on top of the 104 reactors we've already got going. In fact, the U.S. already gets about 20% of its power from reactors. And we're on track to make more.

Even Belgium, Sweden, South Korea, Switzerland, Japan, Spain, the U.S., the U.K., and France all get between 23% and 75% of their power from nuke plants. And those numbers are going up too.

According to a study by researchers at MIT, power demand could triple over the coming decades — and a huge portion of that new demand will be met with nuclear power!

That makes the next big question easy...

Who Has Uranium?

First, guess who doesn't. Uranium deposits are hard to come by in the Middle East. Instead, you've got Australia, the U.S., Canada, France, Argentina, Brazil, and India dominating the market. Along with South Africa, Nigeria, Algeria, and Gabon.

I'm sure you remember, best nergy stocks for 2011 more than doubled from 2003, during the first half of the second Gulf War. Uranium also shot up from $10 to $130 a pound.

Along with everything else, it crashed in 2008.

Now it's at a bottom price... new uranium production has flat-out stalled... yet all the surging power demands are still there. Especially from China.

Take a look at this chart...

It's not hard to do the math.

China has $1 trillion parked in U.S. dollar reserves. Most of the time, those dollars are a wasting asset. Meanwhile, cheap uranium can meet China's exploding energy needs many times over... compared to increasingly expensive oil.

In their shoes, what would you do?

Shanghai alone has already sucked up most of the energy output of the massive Three Gorges Dam. China's other enormous cities are hungry for cheap power, too. So is their massive industrial machine. And India, with plans to up their nuclear power output eight times over during the next decade, isn't far behind.

That could easily make 2010 the "year for uranium."

And that's why I'd love to share two easy ways for you to gain from the coming reawakening in uranium and nuclear-driven energy stocks for 2011.

One gives you a simple way to move on every uranium sector that could jump higher over the year ahead, from miners and storage, to nuclear equipment, plants, enrichment, and transportation.

It's a single play, tracking the whole uranium boom. Including moves that get you outside of the dollar. Yet you can act on this without sending a nickel outside the U.S.

I'm already sharing this same research with my paid-up Outstanding Investments subscribers. But I'd like to send it to you right now, as part of special invitation, FREE.

You'll find both this special move and a second one in another brand new report I call China's Next Big Crisis: Two Ways to Get Rich... As Shanghai Goes Dark!

It's included as one of five FREE reports you'll get when you give me permission to send you my new 2010-2011 Crude Awakening Countdown Library.

You'll find everything you need inside, from more on how and why uranium could hit over $60 this year... to why some call for $250 uranium in the near future... plus everything about the only two uranium moves you'll need to make to see huge gains on this, over the months and years ahead.

In just a moment I'll show you how to send for this special report, along with the rest of your FREE library. But first let me ask you an important question...

What's the Single Biggest Secret Behind History's Greatest Fortunes?

Oscar Wilde once said, "Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot."

I don't need to tell you, between plundering banks and blundering bureaucrats, a lot of regular Americans have watched their 401k and retirement "riches" stolen right out from under them, these past couple of years.

But when push comes to shove... in times of historic growth and epic crisis... what's the one thing that's endured? For as long as anybody's kept track, it's "stuff"... real, tangible, usable, tradable, blatantly valuable wealth.

In short, the raw resources you need to thrive and survive.

It's really that simple. It's no accident that's where the smart money flocks in good times and bad. It's also no accident that this is the story of one great fortune after another.

Think about it...

• John D. Rockefeller built a staggering fortune  — worth $212 billion in today's dollars and nearly four times bigger than Bill Gates stash of $57 billion — with Standard Oil.

• Just before the crash of 1929, Rockefeller and other mega-rich investors like J.P. Morgan, Joseph F. Kennedy, and Bernard Baruch ALL shifted out of best energy stocks for 2011 and into gold — getting even richer in the process.

• Andrew Carnegie — who also crushes Gates with a fortune worth nearly $112 billion in today's dollars — got that rich making steel.

• Frederick Weyerhauser, worth more than $72.2 billion in today's money, made all of that after starting out with timber, land, and saw mills.

• Andrew Mellon and his brother Richard each made about $36 billion, in today's terms, by branching out from banking and into oil, steel, aluminum, and coal.

Real assets are more than just the building blocks of great family fortunes, they're also the backbone of history. Not just with oil and the Middle East, but the timber riches that made Europe... the aqueducts that fed Roman fields... and Aztec gold and silver...

Forests that became armadas... coal and iron that made behind England an industrial power... steel that made America... the list goes on. And this has never been more true than right now.

Nearly 42,000 people read my research letter Outstanding Investments and they're already mastering those same cycles, watching resource riches pile up — even now.

Independent industry watchdog, Mark Hulbert, has even ranked us as the #1 Performing Investment Letter of the Last FIVE YEARS... not once but three times, in 2005... 2006... and 2007.

I'm proud of that record.

I'm even more proud of what some of my readers say...

What Others Say

Outstanding Investments reader Jeff Burke wrote in,

"It's difficult to be unhappy when all of the recommendations I hold from Outstanding Investments are up a minimum of 36%!"

Then there's reader Charles Bowman,

"I made a 140% gain with Tocqueville Gold - great pick! And 64% on Northgate, another winner!"

And paid-up reader Garry Coyne wrote,

"On Monday, I sold my last coffee contract for a net profit of 560%... [today] I took another net gain of 652% on two of the soybean contracts you recommended... and a profit of 205% on two soybean oil contracts... I'm absolutely wrapped, as I have never traded commodities until now."

My publisher has a whole pile of reader letters.

Here's a sample from just a few more...

"My stock portfolio has increased 52% in eight months as a result of the insight of Outstanding Investments. I plan to be a subscriber for years to come..."  — paid-up subscriber Fred Hanson.

"I made back the cost of the subscription on my first buy, within about a week... Your newsletter is a great deal!" — paid-up subscriber Adam Dillard.

"Thanks for all the good analysis. Subscribing to Outstanding Investments is one of the best investment decisions I've ever made." — paid-up subscriber Wade George.

I'd love the chance for you to see what everybody's talking about, too. That's why I'd like to invite you to try my research letter Outstanding Investments for yourself.

And you can start FREE, by letting me rush you the entire 2010-2011 Crude Awakening Countdown Library we talked about. That's yours to keep, at no charge.

Once you've had a chance to look that over, I've got an even better invitation for you. One I think you'll like very much. You'll find the details at the end of this letter.

But first, let me give you another small sample of what you'll discover...

Defensive Energy Power Play #3:  The Gold Secret Nobody's Telling

What's the single best money move you could have made, from 1999 until now?

You must already know... it's gold.

With the yellow metal alone, you could have quadrupled your wealth.

While S&P stocks fell 9.7%... gold shot up 323%.

If that sounds like a fluke, go back over the last 25 years.

You'll find the single best year for best energy stocks was just 31%... while gold's best year topped 100.2%... and precious metal coins did even better, up 198.8%!

But you've got to wonder now...

Has Gold Had Its Run?

From 1979 to 1982, during the Iranian hostage crisis and the worst inflation the U.S. has seen yet, the yellow metal surged 2,329%.

At 323%, we haven't even covered a fraction of that ground.

But all over the news, you can hear mainstreamers call for an "end" to gold's bull run. It's the same message they read back in 2009, during gold's seven corrections that year.

Yet gold prices shot up again each time — and finished the year hundreds of dollars higher than its low. Anyone who listened missed out on all those gains.

Will we see even more corrections? No doubt.

But the bottom line is that just like with oil, instability can drive gold higher.

My Outstanding Investments readers have already seen gains on 12 out of the 14 energy stocks we're tracking right now. And half of those have posted triple-digit gains, as high as 131.4%, 133%, 165%, 167%, 202%, and 557%.

For years, I've helped my Outstanding Investments readers stay ahead of gold and silver markets, too. And right now... I'm still urging them to pay attention.

I hope you're paying attention too.

Because I'm convinced that today's gold story is far from done.

That's why I'd like to include a third FREE report with your 2010-2011 Crude Awakening Countdown Library. I call this third report, Bullion and Beyond: Ultimate Wealth Protection Against the Coming Dollar Collapse.

Inside, here's just some of what you'll find...

Three Ways You Could Still See Triple Your Money on Gold

What if you could take any remaining move in gold... even a small one... and as much as triple those gains? Because I firmly believe you could, in ways that could soon take even "gold bugs" by surprise.

How?

You can read all about it in another FREE report I'll send you, called Bullion and Beyond: Ultimate Wealth Protection Against the Coming Dollar Collapse.

Take a look...

First, Discover How to Own Gold at Just $174 Per Ounce — The first move I'll show you is easily one of the cheapest ways to get a piece of booming gold ownership, from a company that trades for $174 of market capitalization per ounce of gold. Translation: This senior miner is on track to become the lowest cost gold producer in the world. Big institutions have already soaked up more than half these shares (64%), and some of the best geologists, corporate mining talent and mine managers, are flocking to work with this company.

Then I'll Show You How to Lock in Up To $600 in Gains on Every Ounce — As you read this, the next gold company I reveal for you in this special report is still getting gold out of the ground at less than $400 an ounce. With gold still hovering around the $1,000 threshold... that's like locking in a $600 gain on every ounce. And that just means a fatter gain for shareholders. What's more, this is a miner with a huge cash pile. They're putting that cash to good use too, snapping up other top-performing miners and soaking up their gold and silver reserves.

And Finally, You'll Discover Years of Gains to Come, Thanks to New Breakthroughs in "Deep Gold" — Just as how high-tech breakthroughs now make "deepwater oil" discoveries possible, new tech breakthroughs have also opened up the future of "deep gold." These are the rich veins of yellow metal locked in rock as deep as 16,000 feet down. This top gold producer — with 20 different mining operations in 10 different countries — has perfected the technique. And now they're bringing up the rock nobody else can get... to add to their pile of 229 million ounces of gold resources, another 36 million ounces of silver, and 42 million pounds of uranium. I've been down in their mines myself — and I'm sold, this is one of the best long-haul gold plays you'll ever come across.

Like I said, you'll find all three of these companies covered in deep detail, in your free copy of Bullion and Beyond: Ultimate Wealth Protection Against the Coming Dollar Collapse. You'll find more inside, too.

Including...

• How to lock in as much gold as you like for pennies on the dollar.
• How to pile up your gold and silver gains tax-free.
• How to buy coins and bullion without getting ripped off.
• The absolute two best gold stocks for you to own right now.
• Nine ways to own gold preferred by America's "super rich."
• How to store your metals safely and without management fees.
• The shocking story nobody's telling you about "peak gold."
• How to get Lloyd's of London to insure your gold at no cost.
• Why one gold exchange-traded fund (ETF) beats the others.
• The "bank account" where you can park physical silver and gold.
• "Name Your Price" gold — decide how much you want to pay.
• How to safely collect gains and income on "outside-the-dollar" gold.
• How to pick junior mining shares with much less risk.
• The single easiest way to own either silver or gold.
• Home-run gains on gold at a tiny fraction of spot gold prices.
• How to buy all the gold you want without paying huge brokerage fees.

I hope you'll let me rush you a FREE copy, at my expense... along with a total of NINE free gifts altogether, all yours immediately if you simply accept my invitation below.

Here's what you'll get, once you do...

A Fortress of Protection During the Epic Crisis Ahead

Say yes to a simple trial subscription to Outstanding Investments, and the first thing I'll do is rush you my entire 2010-2011 Crude Awakening Countdown Library — FREE.

Inside you'll get...

FREE REPORT #1:
Crude Awakening: How to Survive the Global Oil War of 2010-2011

Brace yourself for a whole new surge in global oil prices — as a 1,354-year-old schism in Islam fills the vacuum left by war in the Middle East, and spreads like wildfire from one petroleum-producing country to the next. The new Yemen threat, "post-war" bombings in Baghdad, even Iran's race for nukes — it turns out they're all deeply connected to this coming catastrophic political and financial event. Not only does this first FREE report show you at least three market moves that could protect you financially, it shows you how an impending oil spike will change the way the entire world deals with energy over the years ahead (worth $49, but yours FREE).

FREE REPORT #2:
Bullion and Beyond: Ultimate Wealth Protection Against the Coming Dollar Collapse

There's just no way, with near-zero interest rates and trillion-dollar cash injections by the Federal Reserve, to ignore the threat of crushing inflation ahead. Fortunately, there IS a way to protect yourself and even grow your money — with the nine powerful strategies you'll find in this timely FREE report, from how to own "name your price" gold at a fraction of the bullion value... how to pile up precious metal gains tax-free... and how to pick up gold and silver coins at a huge discount... plus, the only mining shares you need to own right now... all in this second FREE report (worth $49, but yours FREE).

FREE REPORT #3:
Deepwater Crude Bonanza: Four Ways to Get Rich on the New Oil Frontier

While the rest of the world was caught up in the financial crisis, the single biggest energy breakthrough in 100 years just took place — nearly five miles below the surface of the sea. Brand new technology finally makes it possible to tap as much as 100 billion barrels of new oil. Yet it's still early enough to make a fortune on the four breakout "deepwater oil" plays you'll find in this special new report (worth $49, but yours FREE).

FREE REPORT #4:
China's Next Big Crisis: Two Ways to Get Rich... As Shanghai Goes Dark!

With just two best energy stocks for 2011, you could get rich — as China's biggest cities go dark. How so? See, China is already so short on coal to fuel their power plants... they have to shut out the lights in Shanghai and other big cities, just to save on electricity! Long-term, that can't work — so they're going nuclear, with plans to build three times as many uranium-fueled power plants. These two best energy stocks for 2011 should both soar. And you can read all about them in this fourth FREE report (worth $49, but yours FREE).

FREE BONUS REPORT #5:
"Tight Gas" and High Yields: The Energy Breakthrough That Can Pay You Double-Digit Dividends

Just added — this fifth extra bonus report reveals the breaking story behind "tight gas" — easily the next big thing in U.S.-based energy. What the experts love is that "tight gas" could be the breakthrough that could cover America's gas needs for decades to come. What my readers and I love is that owning these shares also lets you collect regular double-digit dividend income... while letting you pile up gains on the shares at the same time. You'll find it all in this added extra fifth bonus report (worth $49, but yours FREE).

All together, that's $245 worth of gifts — and it's all yours to keep at no charge, just for agreeing to give my top-ranked advisory newsletter, Outstanding Investments, a try.

And that's just the beginning...

FREE GIFT #6:
Never Miss a Market Move, With Our Members-Only Portfolio Updates and E-Mailed "Hot Opportunities" — Included FREE

Every week, I'd also like to send you a commodities investment update, straight to your e-mail account. You'll read about the best energy stocks for 2011 in my Outstanding Investments model portfolio. Plus, other hot opportunities I have percolating on the stove. No charge whatsoever.

FREE GIFT #7:
Check Up on the Portfolio Anytime You Want, With Our Private Members-Only Website — Also Included at NO Charge

I also want to give you FREE access to my 24-hour Outstanding Investments Web site. This site is strictly members-only and password protected. I'm inviting you to use it whenever you like to look up my newest picks, latest news and more. Also yours at no charge.

FREE GIFT #8:
Yours FREE, One of the World's Most Popular and Well-Written Market Dailies — Praised by the New York Times and Money Magazine

When our friend and New York Times bestselling author Bill Bonner first launched his widely read e-letter The Daily Reckoning, nobody imagined it would one day top over 350,000 readers worldwide. Or that it would win praise from the New York Times Magazine, Money, and The Financial Times. If you're not already a subscriber, my publisher would like to invite you to start receiving it daily at no charge.

FREE GIFT #9:
My Publisher's Special "Executives Only" Resource — Reserved for Paying Subscribers Only and Worth $495, But Yours FREE

I want to make sure we leave no key market detail uncovered, so I've made a special arrangement with my publisher to make SURE that — if you don't already have invited access to their valuable Agora Financial Executive Series service — you'll also get the daily 5 Min. Forecast report, at no additional charge. This is for paid-up subscribers only — and it's yours FREE with your trial invitation.

That's nine free gifts altogether. And again, everything you'll receive is yours to keep, no matter what and with no hidden shipping and handling charges or anything.

You can even download your reports right now and get my full research on all the opportunities we've just talked about immediately if that's what you'd like to do.

Here's the best part...

For Up to a Full Year, Let Me Also GIVE You Our Top-Ranked Investment Insights!

In addition to the nine free gifts, I want to give you Outstanding Investments... absolutely FREE... for up to a full year. Yours to try and evaluate at your own pace.

Here's how it works.

You choose either one year for $49 (12 issues) or two years for $89 (24 issues) of our award-winning advisory letter. Inside every issue, you’ll discover how to pile up a fortune on the explosive resource investments we'll research and cover for you in detail.

Not just blockbuster oil, natural gas or coal investments... but also the moneymakers we continue to find in other vital real resources... like copper, cotton and platinum... gold and silver... and plenty more.

And you risk nothing to give it a try.

You'll even get the first half of either subscription absolutely free. That is, you pay nothing for the first six months of a one-year subscription... or the first 12 months of a two-year subscription. All our research, our best picks and all nine gifts... yours at no charge.

And even then, the remainder of your subscription is still protected by a full and unconditional 100% satisfaction guarantee. You can cancel anytime, even after the trial period of your subscription is over. And get a full refund, no questions asked.

Let me repeat those details...

"Cancel Anytime, Keep Everything."

Imagine if you'd just bought a top-of-the-line Mercedes S600. A year later, you roll back into the dealership, drop the keys on the counter and say you want your money back. You'd get laughed off the lot!

But this is exactly what I'm asking you to do here.

I'm asking you to simply give us a chance to show you how Outstanding Investments earned its ranking in 2005, 2006, and 2007 as the #1 Performing Advisory Letter of the Last Five Years — at no risk to you.

It's like taking a luxury sedan for a lifetime test drive.

Take the FREE reports and other gifts. Get our investing recommendations for a year, or even two years. Half of your subscription is completely free. The other half you can cancel anytime for a complete refund.

Even if you're reading your last issue on the last day of the subscription, you can still change your mind. Cancel on the spot, call me at the number I'll provide and I'll send you a check to cover every penny you paid to sign on. It's that simple.

And of course, you still get to keep all the issues and free gifts I've sent. No questions asked. Maybe that will sound crazy. Maybe someone else will read this offer and start rubbing his hands, knowing full well he could take advantage of me... simply by signing up now, enjoying all the recommendations and then canceling.

But I'm not worried.

I'm confident you'll read the reports I'm ready to send... and all the issues... and you'll see immediately just how valuable this investment research can be. You'll get the chance again and again to rake in returns. And you'll thank me for it long before your subscription ends. Maybe you'll even feel eager to sign on again. That's what I believe will happen. In the meantime, I will do everything I can to meet your high standard of excellence, just to make sure I can count on you coming back for more over the years ahead.

It's that simple.

I hope that sounds fair to you. I also hope it's something you'll decide on quickly. See, a lot of investors think that this last soaring cycle of the commodities market was all we get. We believe there's a whole lot more ahead. But you don't want to wait too long to get in position, or you'll miss out. So don't wait too long to make up your mind.

I call this secret the "slingshot option."

Because, like a regular option play on a best gold stock for 2011, this little-used strategy gives you a way to magnify the forces that lift the gold price — to get an even bigger return, even on small moves.

Almost like a slingshot, propelling your gains forward.

If gold goes up $1, you could see as much as $3.

If it goes up $10, you could see $30.

And so on.

Of course, years of evidence say this could go even higher.

With gains topping 620% or better over the coming year.

I'll show you how I get to that number in just a second.

By the way, don't let me give you the wrong idea...

In no way am I saying that you should not buy gold or that you should do this instead. In fact, I've got a pile of research that proves owning gold right now is a very smart thing to do.

And I'll send you that research, so you can see the proof too.

With the coming dollar wipeout, you'll want to take steps — using gold — to protect your wealth. And the free report full of research I'll give you shows you how — with no fewer than nine different ways you can safely tap the coming new wave of gains in the yellow metal.

But beyond that, this "slingshot option" strategy I'm telling you about is also something you'll want to know how to do — simply for the money-multiplying power it could give you.

Over the next four minutes, I'll show you how.

It's not something complicated.

And it's time-tested, too.

With a historically verifiable track record of gains, in conditions nowhere near as severe but still very similar to the ones we're seeing now... that have run not just 3-to-1, but as high as 433%... 488%... even 5,556%!

How high do I see this going over the months ahead?

• If gold runs to $1,200 per ounce — only 15% above where it is, as I write — this "slingshot option" could soar by 332%.

• If gold runs to $1,500 — both MarketWatch and Merrill Lynch say it could — this "slingshot option" could easily blow past 440%.

• With gold at $1,750 — less than the target named by CNBC — this "slingshot option" could easily hit for gains as high as 530%.

• If gold goes to $2,000 — the call already made in Forbes — you're looking at "slingshot option" gains that could run as high as 620%!

I'll give you all the evidence that backs up those numbers.

You'll see how the higher gold goes, the faster these related "slingshot option" gains could accelerate. Plus, the bigger they're likely to get.

Especially given all the upward pricing tension building under gold itself right now.

What's more, you'll also see how the "slingshot option" — much like the leveraged gains paid out by best gold stock options — lets you tap these gold's coming gains for pennies on the dollar.

And maybe most important, I'll show you one big way my "slingshot option" strategy doesn't act like a regular option play at all. See, for all the wealth-multiplying power of regular options, they've got one big disadvantage: they expire.

Not so for the "slingshot option" on gold moves.

Option-like Gains That Never Expire

See, as I'm sure you know, best gold stock options come with time limits.

That's why not all investors like to use them, even if they can multiply gains on best gold stocks for 2011.

Because if they hold them too long, they risk watching those best gold stock options run down to zero.

But that's not a risk you have using this "slingshot option" to multiply your gains in gold.

Because the "slingshot option" also never expires.

It can't go to zero. Period.

Are there times when the "slingshot option" doesn't pay?

Sure. If gold slows to a trickle, you might see a smaller gain — maybe a double — in this move.

If gold freezes altogether or even backpedals, then you would have to wait a little longer.

But how likely is it that gold's boom freezes up anytime soon?

The reality is, gold's boom is just getting started...

$5,000 Gold?

Priced for inflation, we're nowhere near where gold topped out in January of 1980.

In fact, today's gold price — in real terms — is barely over half as high.

And today isn't 1980.

It's much more serious...

From the collapsing worldwide credibility of the U.S. dollar... to near-zero interest rates... to the billions more in hidden bank losses... to still-soaring unemployment, boatloads of private debt, and exploding foreclosure rates all across America... we've got many miles to go before we're out of the woods on this, no matter what the talking heads and political pundits tell you.

Even the world's second richest man and history's richest investor, Warren Buffet, wrote in the New York Times that about the dollar-devastating risks ahead:

"Enormous dosages of monetary medicine continue to be administered... before long, we will need to deal with their side effects... their threat may be as ominous as that posed by the financial crisis itself."

It's also no accident hedge fund manager John Paulson, who made $2.5 billion on the subprime crash, now has nearly 50% of his money in gold or gold-related investments.

Because gold is where the smart money goes when inflation looms.

It's the easy bet. And right now, the smart money is "all-in."

As I said, I can't think of anything smarter for you to do right now — when it comes to safeguarding your wealth — than owning gold in one way or another.

And I'm ready right now to rush you a FREE report that shows you nine different safe and sensible ways to do exactly that — safeguard your wealth with gold.

But this "slingshot option" strategy is a way for you to take those wealth-guarding gold gains and multiply them by three or more times larger. For as long as the gold price keeps rising.

By the way, keep in mind, gold has already shot up an average $87 every year since 2001. That's big. But as central banks blow through more paper, it's a bake sale compared to what's coming.

How much higher could gold go?

Some say $3,000 an ounce. Guru Jim Rogers says $3,500. Famous bear Peter Schiff calls the U.S. dollar the "new peso" and says gold could soar to $5,000 before we're through.

Frankly, I don't see gold running that high. Even so, using this "slingshot option" strategy during smaller moves up in the spot gold price could still make you very rich...

What if gold does go to $5,000?

In that case, a lot of mayhem would have to hit the market... and your dollar-denominated savings would be in serious trouble... but those same forces could drive this "slingshot option" as high as 1,701%, just based on historical averages.

Of course, I can't tell you exactly where all this is going. Nobody can.

But you can look at it this way. There's a train leaving the station, heading to a place where the once-powerful U.S. dollar might mean a lot less than it does right now.

It's happened to other currencies before. And there's no reason to think it can't happen to us now.

Wouldn't you want to act on this while you still have time?

Just be aware, the longer you wait, the less time you'll have to make your move.

Already, others have seen gains pile up.

Just recently, while the dollar was tanking 15%... gold raced ahead 38%. Not bad. But on top of that gain, you could have seen the related "slingshot option" play shoot up nearly 86%.

That was just the beginning.

Because, of course, the "slingshot option" play also crushed every "rebounding" major market index over the same period...

Hands down, this may be the single best way right now to get rich.

What If Gold Doesn't Go Any Higher?

Even if gold doesn't budge, there's still a chance — backed by one of the longest-standing natural market laws in history — you could still see as much as 260% gains on this play.

See, the real driving force behind the "slingshot option" strategy — like those forces driving the price of gold itself — aren't just tied to today's credit crunch.

Soaring deficits and toxic debt? Of course they matter.

So do the moves of Ben Bernanke or the Fed.

But the real reason this "slingshot option" play works goes much deeper than troubled banks... high-risk bets on mortgage-backed-securities... or even disappearing interest rates.

Even the brainy debates over "inflation" or "deflation" are just small potatoes compared to how gold and raw resources and related strategies like this "slingshot option" move have generated fortunes time and time again, throughout history.

When you understand those larger forces — and I'm going to reveal them to you right now — you begin to see how some of the world's richest families have gotten so rich, sometimes regardless of what was going on in the day-to-day marketplace.

You're wondering what I'm talking about.

So I'll explain...

Where Wealth Really Comes From

First, I should introduce myself...

My name is Byron King.

Gold is just one of my passions. And it's what alerted me to the "slingshot option" move I'm ready to share with you today. But the fact is, I've tracked resources of all kinds for years.

In fact, I'm what you might call a "rock hound" — a professional geologist with a Harvard degree, where I got so wrapped up in this stuff, I graduated with honors.

That distinction helped land me a job as an analyst in the exploration division of one of the world's top oil companies. I loved it but decided I wanted a little more adventure.

So I joined the Navy.

After flying over 1,000 total hours as a fighter pilot and landing my share of planes on the decks of carrier ships, I went back to Pittsburgh, my hometown, and logged 17 years as an attorney.

But my fascination for making money in resource markets never went away.

Today, that's what I still do... analyzing gold and metals markets, digging up the names of money-making companies in oil and gas, reporting on copper and steel, studying up on shale gas, uranium, and opportunities in wind and geothermal energy... I could go on forever.

I love it all and it's what I know best.

You may have seen me on CNN or other media outlets, in fact, speaking about all the moneymaking opportunities out there — both right now and for the long-term — in raw resource markets.

It's tangible wealth.

And we've rarely seen a better opportunity — maybe your last opportunity — to get into raw assets in a major way at a still-reasonable price. I feel so strongly about this, I've gone nationwide to speaking engagements, just to talk about it with others just like you.

I'm writing to you today not just to talk to you about gold and related moves, but because I have reason to think you see what I do. And that you're already hearing what I'm hearing too.

Not just the massive dollar flood set to destroy our savings ... or the derivatives time bomb still ticking under Wall Street... and the coming global walkout on U.S. debt... but about the radical shift that's happening between East and West... and the coming battle over the supply and demand of raw resources that will fuel those changes.

These are radical times.

With radical changes ahead.

In many ways, the way you'll make money in the future is about to change forever.

In other ways, it's reverting back to how it's always been.

Let me show you what I mean...

The Big Picture Most People Can't See

See, I believe right now you see what I see... that beyond the hyped-out headlines and chattering "guru" TV... you and I and everyone else with money stand in the vortex of history.

Ask yourself, what's the real force behind building tension in gold markets, for example? Is it really just a temporary accident of bad mortgages and strategic slipups by our Federal Reserve?

Or could it be something much larger?

Something more provable and permanent?

I say that it is. And I'm not alone.

Centuries-old cycles of wealth and opportunity confirm what I'm saying to you right now. Cycles so tightly woven into the fabric of history, only a few are able to step back and see them.

Cycles driven by the simple fact that... long before we had the Bank of America, AIG, or Citigroup... long before the property mania and dotcom bubbles... or many market crashes of the last several decades... something else, something much stronger and more enduring, has always been the real driver of lasting family fortunes... not to mention the fuel for the growth of nations... and the rising tide of history itself.

I'm talking about real assets. Resources.

The kind of tangible, visible wealth you can trade and touch and build upon.

Timber for fuel, land for farming, the aqueducts that fed Roman fields... Aztec gold and silver that funded the Spanish empire. European forests used to build armadas, clipper ships, and navies... the coal and iron behind Britain's Industrial Revolution... the steel that made America.

See, that's what I love now about gold and the related opportunities we've talked about... not to mention tapping the riches of the energy and oil trade... studying surging copper and steel demand... even watching for moves we can make in wheat, soy, sugar, and corn.

Why? Because all my research into these resource cycles confirms everything I'm sure you also know in your gut... that it's these very same thousands-of-years old cycles that keep restoring value and new wealth opportunities to the markets, time after time.

I believe in this so strongly, I've dedicated my time to following it. And I believe you share this same understanding, too. That's why I can't wait to share all my research with you, so you can tap the same stream of potential resource riches I already give regularly to my other readers.

There's so much I can help you discover that way too many others in the markets completely overlook. Especially right now. And this special "slingshot option" strategy we've talked about is the perfect place for us to start.

Which is why I hope you'll let me rush you my research on how simple this is to follow and how well it can work for you, during the wave of inflation and dollar crisis ahead.

It's all detailed in a completely new special report I've put together, called The Slingshot Option: An Extremely Easy Way For You to Triple Your Gains on Gold.

I'll send this to you immediately, at no charge.

Why the "Slingshot Option" Strategy Works, When It Works

Like I said, not every moment is right for the "slingshot option" play you'll read about in your free report. But when the time is right, it can work extremely well.

• During World War I, the U.S. government kept gold prices frozen at $20.67 per ounce, thanks to the Gold Standard Act of 1900. But a kind of "slingshot option" existed even then, and from 1914 to 1919... it shot up 168%.

• During World War II, Franklin Roosevelt's "fix" on gold remained locked in place. But those same forces that would have sent bullion prices soaring send the "slingshot option" play of the day up instead... by over 488%.

• After the OPEC oil crisis of the 1970s, gold — unleashed from the dollar — exploded just under 150% in only four years. But the golden constant commanding the "slingshot options" helped reset the natural balance with a gain of 433%.

• During the most famous gold run of living memory, from 1960 to 1980, the yellow metal exploded for a 2,429% return... but the "slingshot option" position churned out a gain of 5,556%.

In fact, during the 1960s so many investors got rich using the "slingshot option" strategy, President Lyndon Johnson and his cronies actually moved to make it illegal!

Of course, it didn't stick.

As successful as the "slingshot option" I'm telling you about can be, there's no restriction on using it now. And a few savvy players are already using that fact to get very rich.

• Recently, Lewis Walde cashed out one of his "slingshot option" positions for $30,000.

• Vicki Veltkamp tucked away a $60,000 gain on a "slingshot option" play.

• Ronald Clayton used the "slingshot option" to collect $62,000.

• Dean McDonald has already picked up a gain of $119,300.

• Phil Baker exercised one of his "slingshot option" positions for a haul of $216,000.

• And Michael Callanhan walked with a net "slingshot option" take of $422,000!

In your free copy of The Slingshot Option: An Extremely Easy Way For You to Triple Your Gains on Gold, I show you how to get your own "slingshot option" payoff.

I've even included three open "slingshot option" positions you can tap right now.

All three have already crossed a key breakout point... and all three have already started delivering multiplied gains over the rising price of gold.

And as I show you in the report, each is tied to the larger natural resource cycles we've talked about... cycles that span centuries of evidence, proving how reliably resources can build wealth.

In each of the positions I'll show you, you'll see that these plays are already on the move... but you'll also find out why each offers you plenty more room to run higher. 

Your copy of The Slingshot Option: An Extremely Easy Way For You to Triple Your Gains on Gold explains more about each move, including why each one could move a lot higher over the next eight to 12 months ahead.

You'll also read about a special strategy that could let you double your gold holdings at less than half the cost... and you can use this simple move no matter which way gold markets are headed.

I want you to enjoy this report "on me." It's yours free.

In exchange, though, there's one small thing I'd like you to do for me. I'd like you to give me your permission to start sending you my monthly resource newsletter Outstanding Investments for up to a year... and also FREE.

Why Free?

Why would I want to give up to 12 months of my best research at no charge?

Simple. Because I know what you'll find inside every issue.

From more opportunities just like the one you're reading about today... to all kinds of other ways to make gains... not just on gold or silver, but on peak oil and shale gas...

Solar and nuclear power... wind and geothermal power... corn, sugar, and soybeans... copper and steel... and all the game-changing resource demand now coming from Asia...

These are interesting times.

Even while some gold stock investments can crash and fall to zero... even as the world lurches from one bad-news headline to another... the bottom line stays the same. We simply cannot exist without the resources that matter.

Oil to burn... land to stand on... copper pipes and wires in our walls... circuitry in our computers... electricity to power our lights, our appliances and the Internet... lumber, steel and grain... and precious metals like gold and silver to help us protect our wealth.

This is what Outstanding Investments is all about.

And that's why I'd like you to try it FREE for up to 12 months.

Because I'm confident I'm right about you... and I'm even more confident you'll like what you see. Enough that you'll gladly come back for more. It's really that simple.

You don't have to take my word on this.

Just listen to what some of the readers who write to me have to say...

Let me put it this way.

A little while ago, two journalists — Michael Klepper and Robert Gunther — wrote a book called The Wealthy 100. The book lists history's wealthiest people and asks how each made money.

These guys all had one thing in common: they got rich by investing in REAL STUFF.

John Rockefeller — with a fortune in 1937 that would have been worth $212 billion today — got rich not with conventional gold stock investing or by inventing something like computer software... but with Standard Oil.

Andrew Carnegie — worth $112 billion in today's dollars — did it with another vital resource, steel. Frederick Weyerhauser, who made the equivalent of $48 billion in 1914, made it all on land.

Andrew Mellon and his brother Richard each made about $36 billion, by feeding resource investments into the Industrial Revolution.

I'm writing to you because I believe you share our sense of history. And because you instinctively understand what these giants of wealth and industry also lived to prove:

That real assets represent real wealth.

I'm sure you'll agree, that's never been more obvious than right now. As worthless dollars, empty promises, and worthless bank shares pile up... the building blocks of civilization remain intact, moving in a dependable, cyclical flow.  Understand those cycles, and the forces that drive them, and you can get very rich.

I'd like you to join us so you can understand them as we do.

To help you decide, there's something else I'd like to give you...

Ultimate Wealth Protection

As excited as I am about the "slingshot option" over the months ahead, you'll also need a way to protect the money you've already made. That's why I'd like to send you a second free report.

I call it Bullion and Beyond: Ultimate Wealth Protection Against the Coming Dollar Collapse. And it's all about new ways for you to own gold, many that you might not know about.

Why gold and why now?

• Gold demand is higher now than ever, but gold supplies are down. Mine output peaked back in 2001. Now we're digging mines as deep as 13,000 feet to get to new deposits.

• Governments can print money. But they can't print silver or gold. That's why the smart money runs to metals when currency inflation rears its head.

• Gold rises during periods of deflation too, as governments print money in a panic, trying to keep stalled economies from falling apart.

• Gold is "wealth insurance" during wartime and gold stock market crashes, too.

• Gold is back big time on the world stage. No doubt you've heard how Beijing is urging Chinese citizens to buy gold and silver. Hoarding is underway in Russia, India, and elsewhere too.

I could go on.

But like I said, not much of this is news to you.

If you hold dollars, you already know how your buying power has gone down over the last decade. If you held gold, you've seen your buying power rise.

It's really that simple.

And if you still want more proof — along with nine different ways to soak up gains during gold's next boom — let me send you a free copy of Bullion and Beyond: Ultimate Wealth Protection Against the Coming Dollar Collapse so you can see for yourself what I'm talking about.

Inside you'll discover...

• How to lock in as much gold as you like for pennies on the dollar.
• How to pile up both your gold and silver gains tax-free.
• How to buy coins and bullion without getting ripped off.
• The absolute three best gold stocks for you to own right now.
• Nine ways to own gold preferred by America's "super rich."
• How to store your metals safely and without management fees.
• The shocking story nobody's telling you about "peak gold."
• How to get Lloyd's of London to insure your gold at no cost.
• Why one gold exchange-traded fund (ETF) beats the others.
• The "bank account" where you can park physical silver and gold.
• How to safely collect gains and income on "outside-the-dollar" gold.
• How to pick junior mining shares with much less risk.
• The single easiest way to own either silver or gold.
• Home-run gains on gold at a tiny fraction of spot gold prices.
• How to buy all the gold you want without paying huge brokerage fees.

Use the link at the end of this letter to find out how to download or send for your free copy of Bullion and Beyond: Ultimate Wealth Protection Against the Coming Dollar Collapse immediately.

And then I'll also start sending you your free issues of Outstanding Investments...

"Top-Ranked For Performance Three Years in a Row"

In 2005, no-nonsense newsletter industry watchdog, Mark Hulbert, ranked Outstanding Investments the #1 Top-performing Investment Advisory Letter of the Last Five Years.

In 2006, Hulbert put us among his top-ranked performers again. And yet again in 2007.

That makes both my publisher and me proud. But I can't say we didn't see it coming.

Especially with winning picks like our 151% gain on Wheaton River Minerals... 162% gains on Intrepid Minerals... a solid 332% gain on Glamis/Francisco Gold... and 668% gains on Metallica Resources...

Plus, another 105% gain on Gentry Resources... 151% gains on Tocqueville Gold... 228% gains on Niko Resources... and 263% gains on Coeur d'Alene Mines, all in 2003...

Or our 116% gains on Cameco... 174% gains on PetroChina... and 270% gains on the July silver calls, all in 2004... and the 104% gain readers saw on the ICON Energy Fund...

Not to mention the 108% gain we posted in 2005 on Norsk Hydro, plus another 118% gain on Anglo American PLC... 160% gains on Western Oil Sands... and our 182% gain on Talisman Energy...

In 2006 and 2007, we locked in 83% on Placer Dome... 142% on BG Group PLC... 87% gains on Walter Industries... and another 177% gain on Coeur d'Alene Mines...

And in 2008 and so far in 2009, we're looking at 33% on Foundation Coal Holdings... 40% on Alleghany Technologies... 43% on Consol Energy... 96% on Goldcorp...

166% on Newmont Mining... plus open positions already up 37%... 45%... 46%... 53%... 61%... 64%... 70%... 75%... 128%... 146%... 155%... 160%... 200%... 403%... and 466%...

In fact, as of October 1, 2009, our average on open Outstanding Investments plays is already 32%... with a cumulative gain of a market-shattering 1,490%. That's extraordinary.

And, looking back all the way to 2002, our overall portfolio average on just our closed annual portfolios alone is a stunning 61% — without a single negative year in that time!

What's more, right now you'll find we've got 21 different recommendations already posting double-digit returns or higher. And of those, seven now show triple-digit gains... with five of those already posting over 150% returns.

Plus, you'll find at least 26 different shares in the Outstanding Investments portfolio that can pay you income, with 15 of those gladly doling out more than $1 per share.

We've even got a hugely successful takeover play that's already paid out 155% gains since we first mentioned it in one of our Outstanding Investments monthly issues.

I'm confident you can expect to see a lot more of that over the months and years ahead.

So here's what I recommend...

How to Start Making Money Now

To get you started right away, let me rush you a free copy of The Slingshot Option: An Extremely Easy Way For You to Triple Your Gains on Gold.

You'll get everything you need to know about this unique "slingshot strategy" inside.

From how to turn get $3 for every $1 gain in gold prices... and how to pick up 260% more, even if gold doesn't budge... to how to multiply those gains again with three more non-expiring "slingshot option" plays, all detailed in your copy of this report...

You don't have to pay me for this.

It's yours free. I can mail it to you or you can simply download it minutes from now.

You'll have everything to look over tonight.

Then I'd also like to send you the second free report I mentioned, Bullion and Beyond: Ultimate Wealth Protection Against the Coming Dollar Collapse — detailing the nine wealth-protecting gold strategies used by the super-rich all across America.

Including how to lock in gold ounces for pennies on the dollar... how to pile up your gold gains tax-free... and how to get the absolute best deal when buying coins or bullion... plus, the single three best undervalued gold mining shares to own today.

I hope you see how just these two reports combined could both protect your current savings AND start putting thousands of extra dollars into your account over the next few months.

Just one of the "slingshot options" I name could turn every $1,000 into $8,010. And the three other "slingshot option" plays I also name could multiply your gains again, by 3-to-1 or better... even if gold doesn't budge from where it is now.

Plus, I see the three undervalued best gold stocks for 2011 named in your second free report having room to give you at least a double from where they stand right now.

Wall Street brokers and resource companies pay fortunes to the mineral and energy experts that give them this same level of information. I know because, as a Harvard-trained geologist, I'm one of them.

Yet, I want to give you both these reports free.

And there's only one small thing I'd like you to do in return. I'd like you to agree to try Outstanding Investments, my monthly newsletter, risk-free...

My  "Double-Every-Dollar" Guarantee

See, I'm so confident you'll like what you see in the two reports I'll send, I've talked my publisher into backing everything with a special "Double-Every-Dollar" Guarantee.

How's that going to work?

Before I explain, let me also offer you something else. Along with everything above, I'd like to give you up to a full year (12 issues) of my Outstanding Investments newsletter, also free.

Here's what you'll get if you agree...

• Every month, you'll get a brand new issue of Outstanding Investments from me. Gold and silver... oil... platinum... steel and copper... natural gas, cotton, and coal... each issue gives you the best research and recommendations into ways to make money in "stuff" that's real.

• What's more, once a week I also send you a FREE Outstanding Investments portfolio and market update. This goes straight to your e-mail account and tells you everything you need to know about what's happening with the plays we're following... plus everything else I've got lined up for future reports.

• You'll also immediately get FREE access to the members-only Outstanding Investments web site. Your password comes with your welcome kit and lets you tap into the update and newsletter archives at any time, around the clock. Plus you can log in to check the portfolio, instantly pick up your free reports, and more.

• I make sure that every new Outstanding Investments subscriber also gets two extremely valuable resources that I subscribe to myself — the hugely popular Daily Reckoning e-letter from New York Times best-selling author, Bill Bonner and the private members-only dispatch, Agora's 5 Min. Forecast. Both give you research and recommendations you won't find anywhere else. They're both also yours FREE.

• And of course, you'll immediately get a link where you can download — or request printed copies of — the two special new FREE reports we talked about, The Slingshot Option: An Extremely Easy Way For You to Triple Your Gains on Gold and The Ultimate "Dollar Demise" Protection Portfolio — as your combined wealth-protection and gain-multiplying strategy.

Normally, a year of my newsletter is $99. 

That's less than 28 cents per day for research that's helped others see gains of 274% on American Century Global Gold... 286% on Suncor Energy... 235% gains on Niko Resources... and 249% gains on Coeur d'Alene Mines, just to name a few.

But like I said, I've worked out a special deal.

If you'll agree to pay for the second half of your subscription upfront — to cover costs and make it worthwhile for us to keep on sharing this research — my publisher will cover the entire first half of your trial subscription absolutely free.

Sign on for a year (12 issues) and instead of paying $99, you'll pay only $49 — because your first six full issues are included at no charge. Sign on for 24 months — a two-year trial — instead of paying $198, you'll pay just $89. That means you're getting a whole year free.

What's more, even the paid portion of your trial subscription is 100% protected by my "Double-Every-Dollar" Guarantee. If you don't at least see a chance to double every dollar on the "slingshot options" we talked about, you can cancel for a 100% full refund.

This is a lifetime money-back guarantee.

You can change your mind at anytime, for any reason.

And my publisher will send you a 100% refund, guaranteed.

You can still keep everything — the issues, the alerts, and the reports — regardless.

No questions asked and at no cost to you.

Doesn't that sound like a good deal?

Before you answer, hang on...

Because here's something more...

How to Get Rich on the Biggest Oil Breakthrough in 100 Years

On top of what we've already talked about, let me throw in something else to sweeten the deal. It's an incredible chance for you to get rich on the most important oil discovery in decades.

How big?

Imagine owning Exxon twenty years ago, now up 1,208%. Or shares of the world's largest oil company, PetroChina, already up 889% just since the start of this decade.

And the three other "slingshot option" plays I also name could multiply your gains again, by 3-to-1 or better... even if gold doesn't budge from where it is now.

What's more, this massive energy breakthrough just happened... outside of OPEC and thousands of miles from any war zone... in fact, miles from anywhere you'd expect.

Because it happened an amazing 27,000 feet beneath the rolling black surface of the sea. I'm talking, of course, about a stunning new store of "deepwater crude."

27,000 feet is nearly as high as some airlines fly on international flights.

Just five years ago, we didn't have the technology to find oil or even gain access that deep. Now we do. And suddenly a few bold explorers are coming across huge, untapped resources.

But this one I'm telling you about is the mother of all new discoveries.

At almost 500 miles long and 100 miles wide... with an estimated 100 billion barrels of oil... we're looking at the biggest single bed of oil anywhere in the world. Bigger than all the reserves in Iran or Russia. Bigger than the legendary Ghawar oil field in Saudi Arabia. Bigger than almost all the oil fields in Iraq, put together.

This is a game changer.

Fortunes will be made.

And I'd like to tell you all about it by sending you a third FREE report Deepwater Crude Bonanza: Four Ways to Get Rich on the New Oil Frontier.

I'll throw in a copy with everything we've already talked about, at no extra charge.

Inside, you'll discover three "up-and-comers" of the explosive deepwater energy bonanza... plus the single most important deepwater crude stock for you to own right now.

Again, this copy of Deepwater Crude Bonanza: Four Ways to Get Rich on the New Oil Frontier is also yours FREE, along with your trial subscription and your other reports.

And then there's one more thing I'd also like to add...

Double-Digit Energy Dividends

I also want to give you a fourth FREE report.

It's called "Tight Gas" and High Yields: The Energy Breakthrough That Can Pay You Double-Digit Dividends. I've just revealed this same opportunity to my readers.

If you haven't heard of "tight gas" yet, the big thing you need to know is that this is a breakthrough that could cover America's gas needs for the next several decades.

You'll start reading about it soon in mainstream headlines.

You may even know already about a few of the regular ways to play it.

But I've just discovered an even better move, with all the upside of top "tight gas" stock plays... but outside of conventional gold stocks for 2011... and paying a stunning 11% dividend.

As energy gets even scarcer... and the coming wave of inflation sends resource prices soaring... shares could take off. Meanwhile, you could be pocketing regular income.

This plus your bonus report on "deepwater crude" are both included with everything else we've talked about above, at no extra charge. All together this is an unbeatable deal...

And all you need to do to get everything we've talked about is agree to try my Outstanding Investments newsletter on a trial basis, 100% risk-free.

Look, it's no accident Outstanding Investments wins awards.

It's no accident Hulbert ranked it the No. 1 performing advisory letter of the last five years three years in a row — from 2005 to 2007 — either. See, we're onto something.

I'm confident you'll think so too, just as soon as you've given Outstanding Investments a try.

As long as I keep giving you the best, most profitable market research anywhere... you'll keep coming back for more. I consider that a win-win for everybody. I'm sure you'll agree.

Just listen to what my other readers write in to say:

Davey Dawson, a longtime reader with over 20 years experience in the resource industry, says he locked in 100% gains in six days on one of our gas plays.

Reader Chris Beyer says he pocketed 64% on our Northgate pick and another 140% gain when we recommended Tocqueville Gold. Plus more on Cemex and Newmont Mining.

"On Monday," wrote paid-up subscriber George Clatt, "I sold my last coffee contract for a net profit of 560%... [today] I took another net gain of 652% on two of the soybean contracts you recommended... and a profit of 205% on two soybean oil contracts... I'm absolutely wrapped as I have never traded commodities until now."

Says reader Al Dresden, "I made back the cost of the subscription on my first buy, within about a week... Your newsletter is a great deal!"

Let me remind you too, your entire trial subscription — right up to your last issue — is covered by my one-of-a-kind "Double-Every-Dollar" guarantee.

If you don't see at least one "double-your-money" opportunity thanks to my "slingshot strategy"... or you're not satisfied for any other reason... simply cancel and your entire subscription, including everything else you've received, is yours free.

You keep everything I've already sent. My publisher will rush you a check to cover everything you've paid us to sign on, no matter what. Even the cost of issues you haven't received.

I don't know anybody who offers a stronger satisfaction guarantee.

But then, I also can't imagine a better or bigger opportunity than the one we're seeing right now.

It won't last forever.

The longer you wait, the bigger the chance gold will have already accelerated higher... taking this rare "slingshot option" opportunity higher, too... and then you'll be out of luck.

These are extraordinary times. And this is an extraordinary chance for you to make a lot of money... on a very rare set of market conditions... in a very short time.

I would hate for you to miss it.

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