The collapse of the US-centric global credit bubble caused what is now labeled a financial crisis in 2008. At heart, this process amounts to a necessary rebalancing of economic and financial market distortions that had built up over many years, the gargantuan US trade deficit being the most obvious and problematic manifestation of an untenable situation. Clearly, a cleansing of excesses was called for and, in the long run, rebalancing should be beneficial despite the short-term pain. Short-term pain, however, is evidently anathema to politicians and their captive central bankers. Their efforts to prevent rebalancing in the name of economic and financial market stability are laying the groundwork for a far more devastating crisis. The world would go on with a 50% drop in share prices and real estate values, some major bank failures, and 5,000 fewer hedge funds. A doubling of unemployment and several years of recession could be endured, even if the pain to those directly affected seems insurmountable.

This week I spent most of my time in Vancouver, British Columbia, because I was invited to be on Business News Network (“BNN”) television, doing the Small Caps segment (view here). Later in the week I did a presentation for subscribers with the Coffin brothers and Lawrence Roulston at the Metropolitan Hotel. Gibson Marketing hosted this event.

What I found interesting about my interview on BNN was the amount of e-mails the producer sent me before I appeared on the show. I was asked to pick five or so companies that I could or would comment upon. There were 75 e-mails from viewers who wanted my opinion on junior resource companies. What was amazing is the fact that I had heard of so few of these companies. Certainly, with more than 4,000 junior resource companies, no one can know them all.

In most circles, Robert Prechter is known as a perma-bear: all doom and gloom, all the time. In the early eighties, in contrast, he was dismissed by the mainstream for having the audacity to forecast a quadrupling of the Dow from the then 1,000-or-so-level. Never a fence sitter or word mincer, he declares himself presently to be a shout-from-the-rooftop bear. Deflation and depression in all their shocking ugliness. But alas, even Prechter sees light at the end of the tunnel in the form of the seemingly natural transition from the winter to the spring phases of the Kondratieff cycle. This deterministic logic is groundless. For investors and savers, it is potentially misleading with disastrous consequences. In man’s world, spring is not the inevitable consequence of winter.

What are you thinking about right now? The Law of Attraction states that "whatever we think about, we bring about". This law may initially seem like new age fluff but believe it or not, there are scientific merits to this proposition. The top quantum physicists of our time have discovered that our universe and our reality is very much directed by the "observer".

When studying quantum particles (the smallest observable unit of matter), these scientists discovered that such particles behave in accordance with the person conducting the experiment. It the scientists "predict" that quantum particles behave in a certain way, they do. And yet, if the scientists "predict" that quantum particles behave in another way, they do. It is the "observer" that dictates the outcome of the experiment!

Have you ever wondered why certain people attract all the good things in life, whilst the majority live by just getting by? Well, The Law of Attraction states "whatever we think about, we bring about". What does all this mean for us normal people? Well actually be careful of what you think about!

When you think "I don't understand why bad things always happen to me?", you are "attracting" bad things into your life. When you think, "I want to get out of debt", you are attracting more debt into your life. When you think, "I'm worried I will get sick", you are attracting sickness into your life! The Law of Attraction brings about what you focus on even if it is not what you want. Get it?

Perhaps this (totally ignored by the media) snippet will pique your attention: on December 18, 2007, nearly 50% of all Investment Grade Value Stocks were down an average of over 30% from their 52-week highs... the Dow and the S & P 500 had fallen just 7%!

One would think that there would be a pretty clear distinction between Value Stocks and Growth Stocks. But an hour or less research, and some non Wall Street analysis, will muddy the waters significantly. In the back of our minds, most investors think of Value Stocks as more conservative investments than Growth Stocks, mostly larger, proven, and profitable companies that are quite a bit safer than their Growth Stock brethren. Value stocks, you will determine, are those that:

There are two fundamental problems with long-term financial planning under the regime of irredeemable currency. First, and most obvious, it is impossible to forecast the future purchasing power of money. Irredeemable currencies don’t float, they sink. At what rate, though, is unknowable. Second, and less well understood, is the systemic reliance on intermediaries. Hold financial assets, for instance, and you are beholden to the leveraged broker or dealer with which you have an account. Eliminating risk means eliminating the middleman, but this has become increasingly impractical by design. An individual’s future financial well-being depends to a large extent on dealing with these two problems successfully.

By choosing novel types of indexes, PowerShares has widened the range of options available for sector and thematic investors.

Starting off with two ETF offerings in 2003, PowerShares is emerging as a strong player in the sector ETF arena. The company introduced 22 sector and industry ETFs in 2005. This was followed by another 21 sector and industry ETFs in 2006. PowerShares is expected to expand the lineup of these ETFs further in the current year.

Vinny Yip

The Science of Getting Rich is a timeless classic written in 1910 by Wallace D. Wattles. It is a bold title for a book and suggests that getting rich is a predictable outcome if one can master the principles outlined in the book. Here is how Wallace D. Wattles puts it in his own words, "The ownership of money and property comes as a result of doing things in a certain way. Those who do things in this certain way, whether on purpose or accidentally, get rich. Those who do not do things in this certain way, no matter how hard they work or how able they are, remain poor. It is a natural law that like causes always produce like effects. Therefore, any man or woman who learns to do things in this certain way will infallibly get rich."

If you are a trader and you have tried to find a forex trading system that might work for you and have curiously looked up the words “forex trading system” in Google, haven’t you been surprised and annoyed at the amount of rubbish and useless material on this subject out there? I know I have. It seems everybody is a forex expert these days. Or a Internet Marketer? – difficult to decide.