Penny Trader Hot Penny Stocks for Pinksheet and OTCBB

After weeks of strong signals that it was ready for a surge upwards, Gold finally broke through not only several levels of resistance, but the all-important psychological barrier of $1000 and has soared to a new all-time high of $1,042 per oz.

Since early last year, gold has attacked the $1,000 per oz. price level numerous times, and now has succeeded in breaking through the $1,000 per oz. barrier handily.

Gold today (October 6th) rose to a record on speculation that inflation will accelerate and erode the value of the dollar, boosting the appeal of the precious metal for investors seeking to preserve their wealth.

Gold futures climbed as high as $1,042 an ounce in New York, topping the previous record of $1,033.90 in March 2008. The spot price headed for a ninth straight annual gain, the longest rally since at least 1948. The dollar fell as much as 0.6 percent against a basket of six major currencies.

“Gold has just begun its ascent,” said John Brynjolfsson, the chief investment officer of Armored Wolf LLC, a hedge fund in Aliso Viejo, California. “As central banks print more and more money, the private demand for gold as an investment and inflation hedge is destined to grow. It’s pretty clear that gold will be at $2,000 by 2012, and it could happen a lot faster.” (more…)

In the middle of April, we posed the question, “Is now the time to get back into the home builders?” With the Philadelphia Housing Index ($HGX) having closed at $79.89, we cited several reasons why we felt it was, in fact, time to get the sector back on the radar. We cited, “… an unexpected sales jump in February and a rise in mortgage applications in March may also signal the housing market is stabilizing.”

In addition, we noticed that the price of copper, a principal component used in home construction was surging in price and that its multi-month high suggested that demand by home builders could be growing.

So where are we now? Well…we are pleased to report that PennyTrader members who followed our lead have certainly outperformed the broader market. In fact, the Philadelphia Housing Index, the very same index we referenced back in April at $79.89, recently reached a nearly a 10 month high at $102.75—nearly 29% since our original report.

And where do we go from here? From a technical perspective, we believe the $HGX, a useful proxy for all the homebuilding stocks, is in the process of completing a very bullish “reverse head-and –shoulders bottom.” In fact, this next leg of the pattern is likely to be extremely profitable as the index retests the $150 resistance level from last fall.

From a fundamental perspective, the data released in the month of July was almost universally positive. New homes sales jumped 11%, inventories have continued on a downward trend, mortgage rates have remained at low levels, and existing home sales climbed for the third straight month. Even house prices as measured by the Case-Shiller Index showed the first month increase since their peak in 2006. The only negative in any of the recent housing reports is the fact that foreclosures remain at elevated levels. (more…)

America’s 78 million baby boomers are richer than any group in history; the group controls 50% of all U.S. discretionary income and accounts for 75% of drug spending. As an investor you cannot afford to ignore this demographic in the coming years and where they will be spending their retirement money.

As more boomers approach retirement, forecasters expect a huge bump up in certain kinds of expenditures. Two that should see the biggest jump are Health care and Travel/Leisure stocks

National health-care spending is estimated to increase as a percentage of GDP by 22 percent over the next 10 years. For that the health-care industry can thank the boomers, who are just beginning to enter the time of their lives when drug, hospital and other expenditures rise dramatically. In fact, it is estimated that people 50 and older will account for more than half of all health-care spending.

Picking winning companies here isn’t as easy as it might appear. With power in numbers, the boomers could put pressure on prices, making new medical developments less profitable for some companies. (more…)

It looks as though President Obama and the Democrat controlled Congress will definitely attempt to pass some type of environmental legislation in 2009 or 2010. This legislation would be aimed directly at carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions and their role in global warming.

In the coming months and years, either a “Cap and Trade” system or a straight up carbon tax will be likely be passed by U.S. legistators. The moderates in Congress and most of the heavy industrial world, faced with the reality of some type of legislation, are rallying behind a carbon tax for its simplicity and for the fact that the cost can be passed along to the consumer much more efficiently and without the distortion and potential fraud of a cap and trade system.

The U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation on June 26 that would place caps on U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and sets nationals standard for the production of renewable electricity by 2020. The American Clean Energy and Security Act (H.R. 2454) would cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 17% by 2020, from 2005 levels, and by 83% by 2050.

While much of the focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions will be on the development of next generation renewable energy resources, natural gas can and will play a significant role in this evolving story. Natural gas per BTU of energy is much cleaner than oil or coal, the two primary fossil fuel alternatives, and thanks to new drilling technologies that are unlocking substantial amounts of natural gas from shale rocks, the nation’s estimated natural gas reserves have surged by 35 percent according to new studies. (more…)