The Investment U Conference Wrap-Up:
“Don’t Miss Your Million Dollar Opportunity”

by Dr. Scott Brown, Education Director
Tuesday, March 31, 2009: Issue #968

It was quite a week at the Investment U Conference in sunny St. Petersburg. It’s been a few days and I’m still a little exhausted at the sheer amount of information covered.

Over the past week we’ve discussed gold, emerging markets and foreign currency Exchanges. In addition we’ve discussed options strategies, commodities, small caps, biotechs and the state of our economy. And yet we’ve really just scratched the surface of the kind of useful, actionable information given out…

There’s a lot that we’ve missed.

And if you weren’t there, then you have no way of knowing what the insiders are thinking, you have no way of knowing if you have just passed over the next big thing – those “million dollar investments” we all dream of.

I highly encourage you to purchase the audio recordings of this event. While they will be available for the next few weeks, the price will only go up. You’ll miss your chance to “buy in low” for the bargain price of $79.

But that’s not all you’ll miss…

Commodities and Precious Metals

Our “Commodities and Precious Metals” panel discussion was moderated by our own Mark Skousen, and involved four metals and mining experts including Rick Rule from Global Resource Investments, Rich Checken from Asset Strategies International, Van Simmons of David Hall Rare Coins and Brent Cook from Exploration Insights.

Mark asked the audience a few questions, and the results, one in particular, were quite interesting.

He asked those attending, with a show of hands, how many had purchased gold in the past year – almost every hand shot up. He followed up by asking how many had sold gold in the past year. Not one.

It was a telling point about our gold market right now, of just how many investors are pulling gold off the market. It raises a few questions about the likelihood and timeline of those coins and bars making it back onto the market.

The panel’s responses suggested they believe the current trend will continue, and most importantly, where gold’s price will move in the coming months.

For the benefit of those in attendance, Mark Skousen pushed the panel for specific recommendations on where they would put their money over the next six months. In addition to the wide range of answers put forth, Mark succeeded in pinning the elusive Rick Rule down on his view of oil stocks as an investment for the next six months.

I think his answer surprised many – myself included.

But we’ve heard a number of things that’s surprised us in the past couple of days. We’ve also heard our experts and panelists give some concrete investment recommendations for the remainder of 2009. For example…

• Alexander Green discussed the “vice” stocks he’s recommended  – like Diageo (NYSE: DEO), the world’s largest spirits producer. He went on to name six other stocks that have skyrocketed in conditions very similar to right now. These companies could see incredible gains in our current recession.
• Louis Basenese talked about the process of innovation, and finding “breakout” investments. He mentioned three that he considers the most successful innovators today, including TeleCommunication Systems (Nasdaq: TSYS), the leading provider of technology for facilitating text messaging. If you have a teenager, you already know that texting is a communication revolution. He also recommended a desalinization water play and a nanotechnology company with incredible potential.
• We heard from Chuck Butler, President of Everbank – World Markets Division, on why now more than ever individuals need to diversify their investment portfolios, along with one of the best foreign currencies he thinks investors should be in right now.
• Thomas Fischer, Senior Vice President of Jyske Global Asset Management put it this way, “The currency market doesn’t correlate with stock or bond markets. You can always find a currency that you can own outright that will outperform another currency. If you pick your currencies wisely.” In addition to a EUR bond BBB yielding 15%, Thomas recommended some intriguing currency opportunities.
• Donald Hosmer, President and CEO of Royale Energy, pointed out that 50% of total energy production depends on coal. But almost all the clean burning coal is used up. He emphasized that other alternatives like wind, solar and ethanol have never worked compared to this clean energy alternative.
• Jack Crooks, Currency Editor of The Sovereign Society showed an interesting correlation between the increase and decrease of the CRB index chart and emerging stock markets. The euro-zone banking system owns 70% of the loans in the emerging markets. That’s a large liability for the euro over the BRIC nations of Brazil, Russia, India and China. He sees the CRB index dropping another 30%.

The Best Small Caps

Karim Rahemtulla moderated our second panel, “The Best of Small Caps,” with David Fessler, Marc Lichtenfeld and Louis Basenese.

With a familiarity of topic and comfort with the experts, Karim managed to keep both the panel and the audience on their toes during this lively and wide-ranging discussion.

One of the more interesting parts was when he asked each expert what their favorite sector was. The first round of answers was relatively expected based off of their expertise. Marc chose biotechnology, David chose green energy and Louis declared any sector was good for him – as long as the stocks were right.

But in the second round, Karim drilled the speakers further and asked them to highlight specifics on their watchlists. While he likes a large range of alternative energy, solar was a sector that David Fessler particularly liked.

With in the next few years, solar energy will see a revolution brought on by a number of things:

• One, the cost of producing solar will drop as the amount of energy that can be harvested from solar panels skyrockets.
• Two, there is a new revolution in solar applications. Instead of having bulky solar panels on roofs, the future of solar is inconspicuous building materials. Imagine every side of your house with photovoltaic properties.

From shingles to siding, the future of solar is within ordinary building materials that do not look like solar arrays. It has the potential to create mini solar electric plants across the entire country.

The “Green” Debate Continues

One of the details that stuck out was the fact that there are 143 companies working on thin-film solar applications. But over the course of the next year or so, David expects that number to consolidate and drop to about a dozen.

It helped open the door to the discussion that David and Louis started a few weeks ago, and the argument over whether green energy was a bubble or not. The debate raged on, with Marc Lichtenfeld stuck, quite literally, in the middle.

And I believe the point that was made was to stick with proven, not probable, technologies when you look at green investing…

Afterwards, we heard a number of audience members remark that they hadn’t thought of that perspective or considered the points made. And ultimately, they made up their own minds.

It’s what our astute readers do every day…

The fact of the matter is that over the past week these sessions contained a wealth of information from some of the smartest men and women in their fields.

Each one of their talks was filled with actionable recommendations and concrete ideas on what they see happening over the next year.

It all starts with education,

Dr. Scott Brown

One Response to “The Investment U Conference Wrap-Up: “Don’t Miss Your Million Dollar Opportunity””

1. Buck Says:
   
   April 1st, 2009 at 2:49 pm

   Well… it’s good to see that Karim can do something productive besides producing a very ‘cheesy’ well copywritten sales letter about the very secrative ‘Dark Equities’ (or known on earth here as …. LEAPS) LOL

   Reply

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