Brian Hicks - Angel Publishing

What Lilly's Failed Drug Means for Investors

Last Saturday, the New York Times ran a rather lengthy piece on the Alzheimer’s epidemic. The article came on the heels of the high-profile failure of Lilly’s late-stage AD drug, Semagacestat.

Titled "Years Later, No Magic Bullet Against Alzheimer's Disease," it chronicled drug failure after drug failure.

I recently spoke with Anavex Chariman Dr. Cameron Durrant for a comment on the NYT piece...

According to Dr. Durrant:

Anavex Life Sciences has generated evidence of improving and reversing the memory and learning deficits of animals with Alzheimer’s in its animal studies. Human trials are schedule to start later this year. There is evidence that ‘neuroprotection’ — in other words brain cells that ordinarily would be lost through Alzheimer's — are preserved.

Experts are increasingly agreeing that the process of Alzheimer's begins very early — perhaps in our thirties — though clinical signs that do not typically manifest until much later in life.

So, tackling upstream causes, which is the Anavex approach, may offer potential in prevention strategies, especially in high risk groups. This is different than the majority of pharmaceutical interventions which have all failed.

Many of them attempt to intervene much later in the process, after amyloid plaque has been laid down in the brain. We have to forget about amyloid plaque being the cause. It is more likely to be a consequence, not a cause of Alzheimer's processes, and we must move research interventions upstream in the process of the disease.

(I also want to mention that last week, Dr. Durrant was named by PharmaVOICE as one of the 100 most inspiring people in the pharmaceutical industry for 2010. Dr. Durrant was recognized by colleagues and peers in the pharmaceutical industry in this prestigious annual ranking for his innovative approach and leadership ability.)

With all the recent high-profile failures in the Alzheimer's space, Anavex stands out as one of the only bright spots in the race to find a cure for a disease that is affecting more and more people every day.

As Western populations age, this disease will continue to command a huge amount of attention.

Indeed, for major pharmaceutical companies, it’s a space that cannot be ignored.

The market — depending on which metrics you use — is currently worth north of $5 billion. Of course the major companies want a presence, and they're willing to pay for it.

In Lilly's case, it's heading for a huge patent cliff in the next three years, as some of its biggest drugs will lose patent protection and cheaper generics will be competing directly.

If this makes you think of AVXL as a potential takeover candidate, you're on the right track...

As you're aware, there's currently no cure for the disease. Once contracted, it’s a slow death sentence; a walk into oblivion.

And it scares the hell out of the baby boomers, in particular.

There's going to be a torrent of news coming from the company throughout the fourth quarter, starting with the beginning of patient trials possibly as early as September and continuing throughout next year.

A company like Anavex — coming off a successful Phase I program, with efficacy data from the Phase I, IIA portion, and fully Phase II-ready — should command a market cap of between $250 million to $500 million.

To put that in perspective, the company currently commands a $75 million market cap. That's a share price of between $9 and $16. (You can currently pick up Anavex for less than $4 a share.)

Now, this isn't some pie-in-the-sky exercise...

The chances of this company exiting the Phase I study with positive results are excellent. I'm even tempted to say it’s a lock cinch.

That's why the excitement level at our meetings was so high. And when the Lilly announcement came through, it just hammered home the point that this tiny company is on the brink of something huge. The odds of success are as good as they get.

And there are a lot of desperate companies out there looking for partners. The big pharma companies are getting nervous, and their drugs have been failing left and right.

There's a quiet race going on right now. And things are about to heat up.

The thing is, there just aren't that many viable candidates out there — partly evidenced by the number of spectacular flameouts we've seen just this year.

It's an urgent situation — and for us, that means the excitement is just getting started.

And it's why Anavex is such a strong buy at current levels.

Long-time readers know we've been waiting for this for a few years now...

Congratulations. Your patience is about to pay off.

Profitably yours,

Brian Hicks

How You Could Make 508% Gains Off the End of Offshore Drilling

Deep-sea drilling is public enemy # 1 these days... President Obama is freezing any and all new projects from entering the water...

Is this the end of offshore drilling?

Three small American companies are taking advantage of the huge gamechange in the oil industry and drilling in the most oil-rich inland reserve in the country today.

Find out how you can get on board with the profits to be made in domestic drilling, and take huge advantage of this new ocean-less era.

Alzheimer's Drugs: The Good, the Bad, and the Prospects

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

I’ll begin with the bad.

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

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

A Forbes report published yesterday — The Man Who Predicted Eli Lilly’s Alzheimer Failure — explains what may have went wrong:

Eli Lilly is one of numerous drug companies, including Pfizer, Elan, Bristol-Myers Squibb and others, who are betting that stopping production of amyloid clumps in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients will slow the disease. All along, a handful of researchers have predicted that amyloid-blocking drugs could actually make the disease worse. One critic is Mark Smith at Case-Western-Reserve University in Cleveland. He is on vacation abroad now, but here is what he said in 2008:

Others say the Alzheimer’s field has it backwards. Far from being harmful, amyloid is “actually a response to injury that the brain secretes to protect itself, like a scar,” argues Mark Smith, a neuroscientist at Case Western Reserve University. By removing it, “you will make the disease worse.” Amyloid deposits are often found near cerebral blood vessels, hinting that amyloid may act as a sealant for damaged blood vessels.

If you recognize the name Mark Smith, that’s because Dr. Smith joined Anavex’s scientific advisory board in February 2009.

And that brings us to the good news regarding a biotech stock we’ve covered in these very pages for the last couple years...

Thanks to a little-known California law, this wind energy stock is about to become

One of the most sought after wind plays on the planet.

Get in now, and ride it for a quick 112% gain.

Click here

Last week, Anavex Life Sciences (AVXL-OTCBB) announced details of its upcoming Phase I/IIa clinical tests.

This development is a huge achievement for the company, and for its sigma receptor approach for treating and preventing Alzheimer’s.

The trial will take place in Germany, using human volunteers. Most of the data will be oriented toward safety, but some information about the effectiveness of the drug will also be generated via the IIa tests.

Anavex Chairman Dr. Cameron Durrant, who I spoke to, expects results to be available next year.

The companies involved are, specifically, Genesis BioPharma Group and ABX-CRO. Both companies are experienced in this field of research, and their methods are in compliance with FDA standards.

According to the Anavex announcement:

"Selecting Genesis and ABX-CRO to advance ANAVEX 2-73 to the clinical research phase is a major milestone for us," states Dr. Cameron Durrant, Executive Chairman of Anavex. "Both partner organizations have a strong track record of conducting and managing, successful pre-clinical and clinical studies in Alzheimer's disease, including regulatory approaches. Genesis' competence in constructing and managing a strong and well thought out study plan makes them an ideal partner for ANAVEX 2-73. Furthermore, we have been impressed with the expertise ABX-CRO has demonstrated in the conduct of Phase I/IIa studies and their excellent relationships with leading academic centers."

Phase I dosing of healthy human volunteers with ANAVEX 2-73 is scheduled to begin this year, followed by Phase IIa work in early 2011 which is expected to provide some initial patient efficacy data.

There are many reasons why I’m confident in Anavex's prospects.

One is that prior animal tests (on rats, mice, and dogs) of ANAVEX 2-73 showed real benefits at very low doses.

Obviously, a drug that works in extremely low doses provides far more dosing and testing options. With lower doses, safety issues are more easily addressed. Moreover, it means that costs are lower and margins are greater when a drug comes to market.

We have seen several Alzheimer’s clinical trial failures this year, with Medivation being the most visible.

This has increased the media and investor exposure to Anavex’s sigma receptor research, which is emerging as a revolutionary platform to treat Alzheimer’s, as well as other diseases like cancer.

This may be one reason why Avanex’s stock has not only been stable during this year’s market volatility, but is up dramatically for 2010.

Take a look:

I’ve recently spent a couple days talking and meeting with the scientific team of Anavex.

I will have a more thorough report for you in September.

In the meantime, Anavex is strong buy at current levels under $4 a share.

Profitably yours,

Brian
Wealth Daily

This Oil Stock is up 354% Since We Recommended It

The little-known Mongolian company we've been touting for months just struck it big...

Drilling commenced and they've hit oil — and lots of it.

Oil from an incredible source that no one had considered for years...

This is just the beginning of what could turn out to be a HUGE run. We're talking thousands of percent gains here.

Click here for all the information you need to get in on this oil outfit before its share price hits the ceiling.

European Revolution by December?

The problem with revelations is that they always come when you least expect them.

I was in Athens this past weekend — on vacation, against all odds, and not on business.

I did the tourist thing: went to the Acropolis; checked out the national museum; found the most out-of-the-way restaurant I could and tried (in vain) to order in Greek.

It was the last leg of voyage that I'd been waiting for — that I'd needed — for quite some time.

But, as usual, the shadow of work was following me. Even when I intentionally isolated myself from my e-mail accounts and my Blackberry, my professional mind just couldn't ignore the signs.

Between the closed shops and the graffiti that was, quite literally, providing the writing on the walls, clues about Europe's economic future were impossible to ignore.

Of course, it wasn't anything I didn't know already... Anybody with a pulse has been hearing about Europe's financial woes for much of the last year.

Between the trillion-dollar bailout, the multitude of bank failures, skyrocketing inflation, and the euro's collapse, the world's second biggest economy is a giant on life support.

And now, it seems its citizens themselves are getting ready to pull the plug.

This particular revelation happened in the final hours of my trip.

We were on the way to the airport, riding in a Skoda Taxi driven by Andreas, a mid-thirties native Greek who had once owned his own residential contracting company.

His English was a bit spotty, but he had no problem at all expressing himself when it came to his life, and where he saw it going if things didn't change soon.

"Foreigners can come in and buy the land as much as they want. It has never been as popular," he said after I reflexively mentioned the idea of vacation property in the Greek Isles. "But I cannot make my payments. My business is gone... My money is gone."

With three times the average inflation rate of the Eurozone, and with an annual budget deficit of 13.4%, Andreas's pains were easy to understand.

But at least he had a job, which is much more than 12% (a 10-year high for Greece) of the population can say.

I knew these numbers almost by heart, but it wasn't until he delivered his next statement that I realized what this meant, on a personal level, to the Greek people.

"We are not the kind of people who talk; we are the kind of people who do. By December, when there is no money to pay end-of-year bonus, when there is no money to go on holiday, the people will force changes," he said, smacking the steering wheel with the heel of his palm.

It was silent in the car for a moment when he said that. He didn't need to elaborate.

And I knew what he meant: Greece's imminent break with the European Union.

It had been on everyone's mind since the EU stripped Greece of voting rights on decisions regarding its own taxing and spending rights at a meeting in mid-March of this year.

But even this was just a sign of things to come.

Greece may have been the worst example of European economic calamity as of late, but it's certainly not the only example.

Italy and Spain are not far behind, and with countries like Estonia joining the EU, the once elite club is starting to look more and more like Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler — well past its glory days and on the brink of sudden cardiac arrest.

So if you thought that things like credit collapses, inflation, higher taxes, and unemployment were problems that were inherently American in nature, you couldn't have been more far from the truth.

The gradual erosion of currency value is a problem that spans the globe today — a predictable and natural side effect of advanced economies like the United States and the EU taking on record-setting amounts of debt to fuel unsustainable growth expectations.

The end result to this — as it is with all unnatural spurts of expansion — is recession.

For the last three years, fortunes built on this unrealized expansion have been dissolving, turning right back to the worthless paper on which they were founded in the first place.

Unfortunately, the citizens on the street — the people who work, pay their bills, and buy the things they need to live day to day — are the ones who pay the ultimate price.

Devalued savings accounts... soaring food and gas prices... unemployment...

It's the sort of crisis that crosses boarders and socio-economic boundaries like a World War. And ultimately, everyone is affected.

However, World Wars and recessions, as damaging as they are, also have a funny way of benefiting a small percentage of those involved...

The U.S. economy was virtually built on the industrial appetites fueled by near destruction of Europe in the WWII. America's infrastructure, fed by unprecedented government spending, was created in the years following the 1929 Stock Market collapse.

And this time will be no different.

While much of the world writhes in a near universal currency devaluation, a select group of people will profit immensely. These will be the people who store their wealth not in unstable currencies of government bonds; but in the one commodity that holds value better than anything else...

The one commodity that — even without profitable applications, or sudden, fad-like explosions in demand (such as lithium or rare earth metals of recent years) — will be as valuable tomorrow as it was today.

I'm talking, of course, about precious metals.

Specifically, gold.

For thousands of years, gold has been the world's most famous and most sought-after precious metal. And today, its popularity is soaring on the back of deepening world-wide recession.

In fact according to most authorities on the subject, the recent jump in price is only the first step in gold's historic rise.

"Believe it or not, $3,000-an-ounce gold may yet prove to be a conservative forecast. If the gold price to world GDP ratio were ever to scale up to the peak three decades ago, it would an imply an ultimate peak of $5,300 an ounce," says David Rosenberg, chief economist and strategist of Gluskin Scheff and Associates.

So if you want to know ahead of time who is going to come out of this economic dark age better than they went in, just look for somebody who's heavily invested in gold at today's prices.

It's as sure a shot as there is in this inherently uncertain economic world.

But there's an even more elite group out there — a group that won't just double or triple their investments as the worldwide hard asset markets go bullish for the next several years...

This group of investors will multiply their fortunes by factors of 10 or more by positioning themselves on the very cutting edge of the gold industry.

If you've been reading my articles for the last couple of weeks, you've heard me talking about gold exploration before. It's the most prospective way to invest in gold today, and will often return several-fold on your investment within just a few months of hold time.

Here are just a few stocks that I've personally tracked over the last three years, and each of them made thousands for investors:

Animas Resources - up 410% in 10 months
Romios Gold - up 610% in 5 months
AUEX Ventures - up 295% in 5 months
Terraco Gold - up 333% in 3.5 months
Miranda Gold - up 221% in 2 months
Midway Gold - up 461% in 4 months
Paramount gold - up 583% in 7 months
Starcore International Ventures - up 366% in 2 months
Evolving Gold Corp - up 410% in 1 month
Southern Arc Minerals - up 770% in 3 weeks

But even these sorts of numbers are tame by comparison to what's possible today.

Because with the credit crisis reaching farther and deeper, gold exploration is on the cusp of an industrial boom the likes of which we haven't seen since the rushes of the mid 19th century, or the American oil mania of the early 20th.

The key is to find which company will lead the charge.

With my newest discovery — a Nevada-based mining exploration outfit — I've done just that.

It's a relatively tiny company ($19 million market cap, trading for around 21 cents today), but with a geological analysis virtually guaranteeing an annual production rate of 36,000 ounces, investors are expecting minimal profits of 150% per year for the next eight years — even if gold prices themselves don't go up another cent.

With a 3900 acre site located in the western flank of the White Pine Mountains (about 40 miles west of Ely, Nevada), however, these projections are most likely severely underestimated.

I say this based on historic productivity in this region — evidenced by this list of neighboring mining operations:

Chimney Creek Mine - annual gold production: 222,500 ounces
Crofoot Mine - annual gold production: 82,000 ounces
Sleeper Mine - annual gold production: 256,000 ounces
Fortitude Complex - annual gold production: 254,500 ounces
McCoy/Cove Mine - annual gold production: 214,000 ounces
Barrick Goldstrike - annual gold production: 207,000 ounces
Newmont Gold Operations - annual gold production: 1,467,800 ounces

This 21 cent stock has the potential to blow up, making up to nine times more than initial estimates — and banking investors as much as 1350% per year. That translates to a total return of 10,800% in the next eight years.

Why You Should Listen to Walmart

Whatever you think of their politics, you can't argue that Walmart makes money.

So when they make a business decision, 9 times out of 10 it's wise to listen...

In fact, we've been following one energy investment of theirs that could end up handing you over 19 times your money.

Click here to find out more.

And this is all before you even consider that this company has a very unique business model, even for the fast-moving mining exploration industry.

With geological reports and ground-penetrating radar technology more accurate than ever, this company has put its production schedule into overdrive by skipping the traditionally expensive and time-consuming drill test phase.

Sound crazy? Well, just a decade ago the experts would have probably agreed with you.

But five years back, another mining company made this same unorthodox decision. And what resulted in the 18 months that followed was this:

This company is called Rochester Resources, and if you'd been lucky enough to sink just $1,000 on July 18th, 2005, you would have had over $70k by December!

But that was in 2006, when the economy was still growing. As a result, it was an investment we had no reason to research and write to you about.

Today, things are different. And with gold moving towards $3000 and beyond, my new mining exploration company is likely to break even Rochester's record growth.

So stay ahead of the inflation, and ahead of the curve.

I know I will.

For a full report on this company, complete with name and ticker symbol, click here.

Remember that it takes financial instability of the magnitude we are now experiencing today to cause stocks to move like this.

Which means that, for anybody who has cash lying around in the bank right now, there are only two options: Make a move and get richer than ever... Or go broke.

The choice is yours.

To your wealth,

Brian Hicks

Why You Should Buy Gold Before China Does

A couple of weeks ago, I told you how to front-run Chinese traders in the energy market.

This week, I will show you how to front-run the Chinese in gold.

This morning gold spiked in price more than $17 per ounce to again break above $1,200/oz.

What was the catalyst?

News out of Beijing that the Chinese government was relaxing its rules on who can own the yellow metal...

According to the Financial Times:

China has moved to liberalize its gold market further, increasing the number of banks allowed to trade bullion internationally and announcing measures that will encourage development of gold-linked investment products.

The move by Beijing’s central bank comes as the country’s investors pour record amounts of money into gold, in a trend that is becoming a significant factor on global prices.

“This is a positive sign for the gold market,” said James Steel, precious metals strategist at HSBC in New York.

“The Chinese statement reaffirms the vigor of the emerging markets’ demand for retail physical bullion.”

New gold-linked investment products?

Currently gold makes up less than 2% of China’s foreign reserves right now.

In fact the exchange-traded fund GLD holds more gold than China does.

Take a look at the top 10 owners of gold:

As you can see by the above chart, China would have to increase its gold reserves seven-fold to reach the gross tonnage levels of the United States. But on a percentage basis, forget about it.

So how big can the gold market in China get?

Growth figures coming out of China are astounding. Automobile manufacturers — including the high-end car producers like BMW — cannot keep up with the demand from newly-enriched middle class Chinese.

According to BMW’s quarterly report that was released yesterday:

The number of BMW, Mini and Rolls-Royce cars sold rose by 12.5% in the quarter.

This included a 3.6% growth in Europe and a 5.6% rise in the U.S.

The most spectacular growth was seen in Asia, where quarterly sales were up by 59.4% at just under 70,000 cars.

More than 45,000 of these sales were in China and Taiwan — almost double the volume seen in the same period in 2009.

The Chinese middle class is growing in both gross numbers and percentage terms dramatically, as this nation of 1.4 billion people is developing on every front.

Their disposable income is rising faster than even they imagined.

Historically, China is a nation of savers. The last time I checked, the average Chinese saver saves up to 40% of his income. So it is not surprising, then, that the Chinese government is encouraging investment in gold.

Again historically, the Chinese have been only able to stash away money in bank accounts. But that’s changing rapidly...

The recent volatility of the Chinese stock market tends to deter the new prudent Chinese investor.

Gold is therefore seen has a much better safe haven than stocks.

So two things will have to occur for the Chinese to build its gold reserves:

1) Bid up the price and buy current supply at a premium; or

2) Increase supply through production.

Or maybe both.

Over the next several years, profiting from gold will be like shooting fish in a barrel.

I want me gold,

Brian Hicks

P.S. If you want to front-run the Chinese in gold, this is — without the doubt — the easiest, most profitable way to do it.

Making Our Oil Addiction a Thing of the Past

BP's catastrophic spill proved once again that our addiction to oil is downright dangerous.

With our need for new fuels comes a new frontier for investors of these cheaper and more reliable future fuels...

Alternative energy expert Nick Hodge has come across a company that he expects can hand you over 1,925% gains with the transportation technology that will lead the pack in clean, efficient energy.

Find out more about this company now — before the news of this transportation technology makes headlines, sending its share price soaring.

Greed Has Never Been Better

A few weeks ago, I received a reader response mildly chastising me for taking on what he referred to as a "greed is good" tone in an article I wrote about Mongolian oil exploration.

To those of you who are not instantly reminded of where this phrase comes from, let me jog your memory:

Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind.

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street (1987)

Now, I know what you're probably thinking right now...

How dare this financial publisher, this self-proclaimed provider of financial advice and sound investing possibly be advocating more of the same behavior that landed this nation, and most of the developed world, into a financial disaster the likes of which only my grandparents' generation can remember first-hand?

Well, let me be the first to tell you that I'm not advocating irresponsibility or the blind quest for the bottom dollar.

That's the exact opposite of what I'm doing.

Greed, you see — the kind that Mr. Gekko spoke about 23 years ago, and the kind that is now being credited with sowing the seeds of global economic calamity — is actually the only thing that will ever pull us out of this death spiral.

The desire for more than is required for basic survival has driven human endeavor up to this point.

The constant quest for more, for better, for quicker, faster, and more potent satisfaction has been the impetus behind all human greatness.

And contrary to what my detractors will go to their grave screaming, it's not greed, but the lack of greed; the lack of personal ambition; the increased reliance on credit in place of productivity; the increased appetite for saturated fat over muscle-building protein, that has landed us in this mess.

If all of us had been working, laboring, greedily searching out opportunities and carrying them through to fruition instead of sitting around and waiting for the next wave of success to land on our heads as it did when our parents and grandparents passed it off to us...

We would be growing now — not declining.

I grew up in a working class family, went to public school, and had maybe 15 square feet of personal space in the house which I shared with my parents and siblings.

Today I'm my own man: the employer of dozens of talented, ambitious individuals, and a creator of both wealth and yes, I dare say, tax dollars.

And I'm not alone...

Among my friends are immigrants from all the world's continents; self-made men and women who were not satisfied with what they were born into...

Individuals who, through this concept called "greed," pulled themselves and their families into the rarified air of wealth.

Greed is, therefore, the most human of instincts.

The drive for more than the bare minimum is what took us out of the caves, compelled us to go from hunting wild animals with obsidian-tipped spears, to planting and harvesting crops, to manufacturing food products in factories...

Greed pushed us to go from horses to cars to planes.

It led the first voyagers to the new world; the American settlers west; and eventually, took us to the moon and beyond.

And it will compel us to make the next step forward.

Greed is good, ladies and gentlemen — and specifically in times like these, it's never been better.

“We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.” — Warren Buffett

Because this is no longer just a quest for your readership, but a quest to salvage that element of our character that made this nation into the superpower we still remember it to be...

I am now appealing to you to toss aside this politically correct misconception that anything done for money is necessarily done to the detriment of everything and everyone.

Don't get rich for me; get rich for yourself.

Get rich for your kids. Get rich so that the next generation knows to do the same.

Get rich to help finance the next period of growth, the next golden age in history.

Get rich because not having what you need, when you need it, is just another form of oppression.

Because it should be clear now that success isn't handed out anymore...

It has to be created.

~~SIGNUP_WD~~

And it starts right here, right now...

As those of you who've been following me through the years know, I'm big into gold.

It's rare and it doesn't corrode; because of these two basic characteristics, it's been the go-to metal of the wealthy for millennia when it comes to storing value.

But if you're greedy in the best sense of the word, simply storing away your dollars in a precious metal versus a bank or a stock isn't good enough anymore.

To the truly greedy — to those who will not let recession or inflation stand in the way of their financial freedom — gold can also be the great deliverer.

Which is why I'm writing to you today about a company that has embraced this philosophy at its absolute fullest.

Gold's blown up in the last ten years:

But nothing's blown up like gold mining exploration...

In fact in the last decade — while physical gold has blown away the Dow, crushed the NASDAQ, trounced tech giant Microsoft, and even outpaced Google from the very first days since the search icon's 2004 IPO — the companies that have been on the front lines of finding and mining this gold have left both the metal itself (and just about every other industry) in the dust.

Take a good look at the gains, but pay special attention to the hold times:

Animas resources - up 410% in 10 months
Romios Gold - up 610% in 5 months
AUEX Ventures - up 295% in 5 months
Terraco Gold - up 333% in 3.5 months
Miranda Gold - up 221% in 2 months
Midway Gold - Up 461% in 4 months
Paramount gold - up 583% in 7 months
Starcore International Ventures - up 366% in 2 months
Evolving Gold Corp - up 410% in 1 month
Southern Arc Minerals - up 770% in 3 weeks

The company I discovered just a few weeks ago, however, has taken this concept to the next level...

A mining exploration company based in Idaho, my new discovery only trades for 21 cents and has a market cap of $19 million.

But as this outfit barrels headfirst directly from the exploration stage to the mining stage (skipping the middle drill testing stage), they're about to repeat history.

This move is a controversial one by most standards and considered "reckless" by a few experts. It's been done once before by a mining outfit known as Rochester resources.

Just take a look at what "controversial" or "reckless" looks like in the hands of those who know what they're doing:

Let me ask you this: Does that look like the downfall of human civilization to you?

On the contrary...

To me, a corporate policy of aggressive pursuit of resources may seem greedy, but it's also the only way to succeed.

This holds true for individuals, for companies — and yes, for entire nations.

Right now, this company owns and operates one 3900 acre site located in the western flank of the White Pine Mountains, about 40 miles west of Ely, Nevada.

Geological analysis of the area has set an annual production target of 36,000 ounces, for the next 8 years.

That means that even at today's gold prices — and with a production cost of $450/ounce — this company expects returns of at least 150% per year, every year, for the life of the project.

But the reality is far more striking.

Gold could be at $3000 by the end of the year, and the mineral densities of the surrounding land makes the preliminary geological analysis pale by comparison.

Here is just a partial list of their neighbors in Nevada, the most fertile gold mining region in the world:

Chimney Creek Mine - annual gold production: 222,500 ounces
Crofoot Mine - annual gold production: 82,000 ounces
Sleeper Mine - annual gold production: 256,000 ounces
Fortitude Complex - annual gold production: 254,500 ounces
McCoy/Cove Mine - annual gold production: 214,000 ounces
Barrick Goldstrike - annual gold production: 207,000 ounces
Newmont Gold Operations - annual gold production: 1,467,800 ounces

In all likelihood, when this outfit executes its highly aggressive production schedule, this 21 cent stock has the potential to blow up, making up to 9 times more than their initial estimates — and banking investors as much as 1350% per year, for a total return of 10800% in the next 8 years.

For a full profile on this company, and the incredible opportunity they've opened in Nevada, you'll need to read my upcoming report.

But before you do, answer these 3 questions — not for me, but for yourself:

Are you going to be greedy, and create the future for yourself and your family that you've dreamed of?

Are you going to follow the advice of Warren Buffett, and leverage a recession into a windfall?

Or are you going to go down the path of fear and wait for somebody else to take care of you?

You already know where I stand.

To your wealth,

Brian Hicks

P.S. For those of you already invested in gold, or looking for alternatives in high-yielding precious metals investments, I've just received long-awaited news from a Mexican Silver company that just happens to be sitting on the world's biggest carbonate-replacement deposit.

Carbonate replacement deposits are superior to all other geological formations in silver densities... And as Mexico becomes poised to become a top silver producer once again, this tiny North Mexican company will be leading the charge with lightening-fast triple digit gains.

For the full report, including company name and ticker symbol, click here.

How to Front-run the Chinese, Legally

"The 19th century was the century of the UK, the 20th century was the century of the US, the 21st century is going to be the century of China." — Jim Rogers

"China is going to be an enormous force that will make the Japanese threats of the seventies and eighties look like a water pistol." — former CE CEO, Jack Welch, 2001

According to British author and soldier Sir John Bagot Glubb’s book The Fate of Empires, the seven stages of an empire’s life cycle are as follows:

1. The age of outburst (or pioneers)

2. The age of conquests

3. The age of commerce

4. The age of affluence

5. The age of intellect

6. The age of decadence

7. The age of decline and collapse

It’s not hard to figure out where the United States stands in this life cycle.

We just experienced the greatest housing and credit bubble in history… when homeless people were given mortgages.

We’re also experiencing epidemics in obesity, heart disease, and debt.

The U.S. finds itself in stage #6: decadence.

That’s right, we’re in decadence. At what phase of decadence, I’m not sure...

But decadence will soon turn to decline… if we haven’t already fallen off the cliff.

Nothing proves this point more than the following chart from the International Energy Agency (IEA) that shows that China now consumes more energy than America:

You can draw a circle around where the two lines intersect and write “Historic!”

This chart represents an epic shift in global power, both economically and politically.

Wall Street Journal broke the story on July 18th:

China's ascent marks "a new age in the history of energy," IEA chief economist Fatih Birol said in an interview. The country's surging appetite has transformed global energy markets and propped up prices of oil and coal in recent years, and its continued growth stands to have long-term implications for U.S. energy security.

The Paris-based IEA, energy adviser to most of the world's biggest economies, said China consumed 2.252 billion tons of oil equivalent last year, about 4% more than the U.S., which burned through 2.170 billion tons of oil equivalent. The oil-equivalent metric represents all forms of energy consumed, including crude oil, nuclear power, coal, natural gas and renewable sources such as hydropower.

For many energy and China observers, this wasn’t a surprise — although it occurred much sooner than expected.

But, dear reader, this is a mega-trend that will continue for decades.

And the investment potential is mind-blowing.

You see, later in the WSJ piece…

Mr. Birol, previously an economist at the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, said China is expected to build over the next 15 years some 1,000 gigawatts of new power-generation capacity. That is about the total amount of electricity-generation capacity in the U.S. currently, and the construction of all those gigawatts occurred over several decades. "This demonstrates the major growth we are talking about" in energy demand and capacity growth in China.

Now, China has been all over the world inking deals with oil sand firms in Canada, resource rights in Africa, Australia… and Mongolia.

They’ve been doing this for years. This is not new.

They’ve also been hoarding resources to supply their infrastructure build-out for years to come.

This brings me to the point of this article.

If you know what resources the Chinese will need to maintain their rising energy consumption, you can buy now, sit on the investment… and let the Chinese buy you out.

Chris DeHaemer has already shown you how to front-run the Chinese. He’s done this with a Mongolian gold stock and Mongolian oil.

In fact his latest home run — a Mongolian oil stock — has rallied over 700% this year alone. His readers are making money hand-over-fist.

And that’s just the beginning...

Imagine buying Suncor Energy (one of Canada’s largest oil sands companies) when it went public in 1993 for just a $1.08 per share!

Today Suncor trades for $33… a gain of 2,900%.

That’s what you’re looking at with Chris’s Mongolian oil play.

Mongolia is in an ideal situation. It borders a nation with a voracious appetite for resources… coal, oil, natural gas, etc.

Think about it like this...

Canada is a resource-based economy. Its GDP for 2009 was $1.287 trillion. Canada is in an ideal position because its neighbor to the south still has the #1 economy in the world. So, Canada essentially ships all of its resource production to the U.S.

Now look at Mongolia. It’s also a resource-rich nation. It too has a huge neighbor that needs its resources — China.

And the thing about China is that it appears to be in stages 2 to 4 in the empire life cycle.

China has more millionaires now than the UK and France.

And like energy, it’s only a matter of time before China’s overtakes America in that economic category as well.

Profitably yours,

Brian Hicks

Washington's starting ANOTHER undeclared war...

It's not against terrorists, Communists or drug cartels - but against you and me, right here in the U.S. of A.

Click here to discover the secret $6.3 trillion offensive against America's IRAs and 401(k)s...

And the one "guerilla wealth" move you'll need to survive it with your retirement assets intact - or even far larger than you're figuring right now.

Learn more here.

New Law Guarantees this LED Company Shines

It’s not often that new government rules and regulations actually help everyday Americans...

Or money-hungry investors.

But back in 2007, amazingly, the boys on Capitol Hill did just that when they passed the Energy Independence and Security Act.

Granted, the 317-page bill — small by today’s standards — is filled with more legal jargon than Tiger Woods’ divorce papers...

In other words, if you didn’t spend several years buried in the libraries at Yale Law School, you most likely wouldn’t understand most of it.

But to the trained eye, what starts on page 82 could be the easiest moneymaker you’ll see this decade.

In short, to save energy, the government declared war on the incandescent light bulb.

It will be completely phased out, starting in 2012 for American households.

The initial shock that we'll have to rid our homes of one of the country's earliest and longstanding appliances is infuriating...

That is, until you realize that the bulbs replacing the incandescent light bulb — LEDs — are more than 80% more efficient.

And depending on how often you use your lights... that means electricity bills are going to plummet.

But that’s not even the best part...

This early in the game — with the government forcing LEDs onto the market — finding the right LED companies to hold in your portfolio could be the easiest moneymaker you’ll encounter.

In fact the LED market as a whole is expected to increase 35% year over year through 2012.

Take a look:

And the right companies — the ones landing the BIG contracts right now — are already being shoved into the spotlight.

One of my favorite players in this sector for some years now has been Cree Inc. (NASDAQ: CREE).

And while I love Cree, at $65 a share, it isn’t my first choice when looking for an LED company that is really set to take off...

That award goes to a relatively new up-and-comer in the LED business.

One that recently unleashed some of the most cutting-edge LED technology on the planet.

This company is so far ahead of the game that multi-billion dollar corporations and government agencies are already lining up at its door, waiting to sign contracts.

One of the biggest contracts is coming from the United States Navy; they've hired this outfit to retrofit every ship in its fleet with this company’s signature LED lights.

And it’s the only company in the world that has the technology that the Department of Defense deems well enough for the job.

Right now, shares trade for just $1.20.

But the company’s currently so tiny that with every new contract — no matter the size — the share price skyrockets.

And with 285 more ships in the fleet to go, it could be the easiest way for you to make money over the coming years.

To find out more about this company — and, more importantly, how you could take advantage of it before the next contract pushes their share price even higher — just follow this link.

Profitably yours,

Brian Hicks
Publisher, Green Chip Stocks

Is Mongolia the Next Dubai?

I wish you could have seen what I awoke to last Saturday morning.

My room was perched on a slight hill, in a clearing overlooking the edge of the water.

Through the picture window just beyond the foot of my bed, I could see the green outline of a giant lake's mountainous rim sloping gradually into the blue vastness.

The only thing wrong with the image was the clock on the nightstand.

It claimed that it was 2 PM... I almost never slept past 7 in the morning.

And then I remembered...

I was 13 times zones from home.

Welcome to Gusinoye Ozera — Goose Lake to us English speakers.

Located just a few dozen miles from the Russian/Mongolian border — not far from the famous world's deepest lake, Baikal — the area around Goose Lake populated by a grand total of about 2,300 permanent and several hundred part-time, very wealthy residents.

It was the dead middle of central Asia; 2,000 miles from the nearest ocean and about as far away from the big city as I've ever gone.

Which initially made it all the more confusing why my buddy Jouquin picked this location, over all the others in the world, to build a 7,000 square foot home.

And why others like him seemed to be doing the same.

That was until I opened my eyes and saw that view.

And not long after, the smell of the roasting meat that I remembered from the previous night came back, and pulled me out of bed.

Born in Argentina, Jouquin Ramos (not his real name) was brought to the states by his family as a child back in the early 70s.

He was kind of tall, gangly, and lately, seemed physically adverse to any clothing besides light linen pants, loose-fitting short-sleeve shirts and footwear that didn't require socks.

But that was the mistake most people made with Jouquin.

His easy demeanor and the eternal appearance of being headed to a party (or back from one) hid the sort of drive that few had.

He knew what he wanted from an early age — and knew how to get it.

After college, with the help of some seed capital from his uncle, Jouquin got his start in the shipping business.

Since then, like a whirlwind, he's had his fingers in everything from metals to oil.

His true passion, however, involved finding views just like this one... and making them his own.

Of the 6 or 7 homes that I knew him to own, most were in places where "nobody could find me no matter how hard they looked", as he liked to say.

But this took the cake.

If the 9 hour flight from Dulles wasn't enough, it took another 7 on a private charter just to get to within helicopter distance of the house.

When all was said and done, the view had cost me over 20 hours in various air vehicles and God knows how many permanently gray hairs...

But as I sat down at a table on giant stone terrace and watched Jouquin's kitchen staff assemble an impromptu breakfast right where I sat (according to Jouquin, freshly delivered caviar alone accounts for several thousand dollars in fuel costs every time he makes the visit), I realized it was all worth it.

Like many of my friends, Jouquin is a true global capitalist; an entrepreneur who built himself up from anonymity by knowing where to invest ahead of the curve.

"The markets do not tolerate personal preference," he always told me. "Do not treat your investments like your wife. Treat them like your girlfriend. Once your interest dissipates, cut the strings."

I'd just finished eating the mind-bending braised pig-belly (a local favorite), and settled back with a glass of champagne when Jouquin stood up from the table.

I could tell by his urgency that my relaxation was going to be short-lived that day.

"Come on," he said, waving my up from my chair. "I've got something to show you."

"You have something to show me?" I asked, letting my eyes make a demonstrative pass over the storybook landscape unfolding from the patio's edge. "Are you serious?"

"Yeah man, this is nothing, come on... I want to show you something really big. Something important. In the next ten years, it'll could make this whole region the next Dubai."

I guess I don't need to tell you that no matter how relaxed I may have been at the time, when a guy like Jouquin refers to something as "really big", it doesn't take me long to change gears...

Within 15 minutes we were back in his helicopter, settling into the two-hour trip back to the airport in Irkutsk.

I almost couldn't believe my eyes as I set foot back into the very same charter jet I'd gotten off of less than a day before.

When we touched down just a little less than 90 minutes later, however, there were no mountains or lakes or untamed wilderness to greet us. There was no fresh air, or clear skies, or kitchen staffers waiting to bring me my next ounce of prized caviar.

There was nothing but an old airbase, dotted with aging buildings, rusty hangars, and trucks that looked like they may have seen combat against the Nazis in their younger days.

We were processed into the country of Mongolia by a single man who took a cash payment instead of any form of documentation or a declaration of goods, and we were on our way.

As our rented Land Cruisers took us away from the airfield, the desolation just continued.

Who would ever want to be out here? I asked myself.

Moreover, who would ever want to leave that lake house — with a smile on his face — and spend half the day getting here?

Forty teeth-rattling minutes later, our two-car caravan pulled to a stop.

The only thing that really distinguished our destination from the road we took to get there was a chain link fence, with warnings written out in a foreign language I could tell was neither Russian or Chinese.

"Here it is." Jouquin said, spreading his arms before the vast expanse of dust. "You're looking at the future, my friend."

"The future" was a handful of utility vehicles, some construction equipment, and a couple one and two story metal-roofed buildings...

... And stacks and stacks of building material, some of which already had a fresh coating of rust on it.

"Ok, Jouquin," I sighed. "What's the punch line? Where are we?"

"Welcome to the heart of the new Dubai! This is where it all begins," he said with a smile so big I started to wonder if maybe he'd been sneaking drinks on the plane.

"You brought me all the way out here, for this? You know how much I wanted to take a dip in that lake?"

"When I tell you what's under your feet, my friend, I think you'll want to take a dip in this one much more."

It made me feel silly, but I looked down at the ground, like I'd missed something initially.

Just as I'd thought... dust and rocks. I looked at Jouquin, slightly annoyed now.

"Look closely," he said, his smile fading. "Look around you... what do you see?"

He looked at me, then glanced over at a stack of building material several hundred feet from where we were standing.

And then it hit me. It was everywhere. Mountains of it.

"Pipeline?"

"Bingo," Jouquin grinned. "Pipeline. Several hundred miles worth."

I looked at the ground again.

"You're standing on over 6 billion barrels of oil, my friend," Jouquin said, tapping the dirt with his foot.

This is the point where my memory became a bit hazy.

Luckily, I had plenty of time to collect myself on the flight back to Irkutsk...

And plenty of time to digest the magnitude of what my old friend had just shown me.

This oil reserve — one of the biggest ever discovered — had initially been owned by the Soviets under Stalin.

However, after finding oil that was geographically easier to access, they shelved the development of the site until a later time.

That time, of course, never came... The USSR fell apart in the early 90s, and with nobody to develop the site, the region was left abandoned.

"Chinese domestic oil production hasn't been able to keep up with demand since 1992." Jouquin told me as we sipped chilled vodka in our plane seats.

"They were at a 60% deficiency 4 years ago... Soon, they'll be the biggest oil consumers in the world, but instead of shipping it in from the Middle East, or drilling out at sea, they'll be pumping it out of the ground right here, and piping it across straight across the border."

"Six billion barrels," I said to myself, "that's over $430 billion worth."

"At today's prices," he added, "and not only that, but it's some of the easiest oil to get to in the whole world. The reserve's one of the shallowest known. I know it didn't look like much, but that site I just showed you holds over 600 million barrels all by itself, and they're just a couple of weeks away from production."

He paused. "This is going to be some of the last cheap oil on earth, my friend."

It was a striking revelation, and from then on after, other things started to make sense to me as well.

It was no accident that Jouquin had chosen this lakeside tranquility for his vacation home. In fact it was no accident that dozens of other wealthy venture capitalists were flocking to this once untouched piece of real estate.

The smart money always came ahead of the next boom.

The plane landed and we returned to his lake house in the early hours, but now it wasn't so easy to relax.

The next morning — or I should say, afternoon — Jouquin told me all about the outfit that owned and operated that field we'd visited.

They're small — valued at $107 million — but with the reserve lying just a few thousand feet beneath the surface (1500-6000 feet), they're also in the best spot imaginable to benefit from their estimated 638 million barrel share (11%) of Mongolia's entire awakening oil empire.

With increasing demand and scarcity of supply, however, crude prices could surpass 2008's peak and reach as high as $150/barrel by summertime...

Which would push Mongolia's total oil wealth up toward the $1 trillion mark.

Best of all, the world's second biggest consumer of oil, China, has already earmarked $30 billion to ensure that they get first crack at it.

In a time when the Middle East is scrambling for a way to maintain post-oil economies, Mongolia — overlooked by the cheap oil rushes of mid twentieth century — is about to ride the Chinese oil-craze into a golden age.

Ultimately, it'll bring hundreds of billions — perhaps even trillions — into the region... Which is exactly what Jouquin and his neighbors are banking on.

Personally, I don't think I'll be buying up any land around the Mongolian border anytime soon.

I will, however, be taking a closer look at this company.

With an oil reserve already valued at more than 400 times the company's current market cap, we could be looking at one of the last great oil-empires during its very infancy.

For more on this company, and the rest of the story of Stalin's Lost Oil... click here.

To your wealth,

Brian Hicks
Publisher, Energy and Capital

2 Ways to Profit from a Bear Market

In 1994 when I was starting out in stocks, I asked an old, grizzled — yet highly successful — commodities trader for his secret to surviving a bear market.

“Son,” he replied in a cigarette-hoarsed voice, “it’s quite simple. My first course of action… a bear market is like dealing with a crazy wife.

Don’t waste your time trying to rationalize with her, because it’ll never work.

A crazy wife is a crazy wife. A bear market is a bear market.

Accept it for what it is… and run.”

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He continued…

“Rule #2 — and this is very important, so listen closely — hide your cash.”

I began to laugh.

“Your first survival response will be to throw money at her… hoping that the new pumps she buys off of QVC will make her happy.

But nothing is further from the truth.

The euphoria she gets from getting your money is like a sucker’s rally in a bear market. It doesn’t last very long.”

Finally, he left me with this…

“When the bear market ends… just like your marriage, you’ll know.”

What’s next for the market?

Unfortunately, I think this dance macabre market will continue until the end of the year.

There are two events coming in the second half of 2010 that could prolong the bear market:

A new wave of Option ARMs to rest starting in 3Q10
Bush tax cuts set to expire on December 31, 2010, and democrats have no intention of extending the tax cuts

Check out the graph below. As you can see, Option ARM resets start to become an issue during the third quarter of this year, and really shoot up in 2011.

As Wealth Daily’s resident housing and mortgage expert Steve Christ has pointed out numerous times in these very pages, most Option ARMs are negative equity.

The prevailing interest rate isn’t likely be a problem, since mortgage interest rates are lower now than they were five years ago...

The problem is that most Option ARM borrowers have probably not been paying down their principal.

Back to the chart below. Notice that at its peak, the Option ARM wave will be a little bit smaller than the subprime wave of 2007-2008. The subprime crisis has over.

Thousands of American homeowners are starting to see their monthly mortgage payments skyrocket, dealing a fresh blow to the already shaky housing recovery.

So the market could get hit with a fresh slug of foreclosures… adding to the deflation fears we currently see in the bond market.

If that wasn’t bad enough, tax rates on capital gains are set to increase next year.

Obama has publicly said that he will let the Bush-era capital gains tax cuts expire on schedule this year, so it’s important to know how they will affect your investments.

Take a look at the tax rate charts below:

Here’s what the rates are this tax year:

One of the changes Bush implemented was an adjustment to the tax brackets themselves. The Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 introduced a 10% tax bracket and the brackets themselves were lowered.

The 28% bracket was lowered to 25%, the 31% went to 28%, etc. If we assume the pre-cut brackets along with the pre-cut capital gains rates, we have the following:

As for dividend income, they are set to be taxed as ordinary income in 2011.

Every professional investor and trader I’ve talked to has told me they have or plan to sell any profitable positions they have before the end of this year.

Selling is always a net negative for the market.

So what do we do now?

Protect your cash; that’s how fortunes are made
Be a trader, not an investor
Look for stocks and/or trends bucking the bear trend

An excellent example of bullet point #3 is Nick Hodge’s natural gas play. Here at Wealth Daily and at Angel Publishing in general, we scour the earth looking for highly profitable investment.

Nick’s natural gas play is one of them.

This stock was sitting at a five-year high just a few weeks ago.

And my Grey Plague stock is also sitting at a near a one-year high:

Winning stocks are out there… but in a bear market you’ll have to look closer.

Profitably yours,

Brian
Publisher, Wealth Daily

673 Years Worth of Oil!

Thanks to a much needed breakthrough, scientists recently unlocked the largest oil deposits on Earth!

... More than 11 Saudi Arabia's worth - right in North America!

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Molybdenum: The Metal that Could have Saved 9/11

There are many things I love about the summertime.

Warm weather, light clothing, trips to the beach, more time with the kids, back yard cookouts...

The list goes on and on. But there's one thing it doesn't include, and that's drunken 50-something women making spectacles of themselves in front of my family.

Jenny McDermott was a friend of my wife's cousin.

She had summer house a couple miles down the road in Fenwick Island; when she showed up at my Bethany Beach home 2 weekends ago, she seemed charming enough.

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I had her all sized up in the first 5 seconds...

She was one of those older, free-spirited women you just know was extremely popular and fun to be around during the carefree seventies.

Unfortunately, the 70s ended 30 years ago... and Jenny still hadn't gotten the memo.

Fifteen minutes after arriving, she was barefoot and halfway through her second glass of sangria. An hour later, at just barely past noon, she'd had moved up to vodka shooters.

By 1:30 she was nagging somebody to drive her to the nearest convenience store to get some cigarettes.

And in between those milestones, she did everything from lovingly groping my children, to breathing her liquor breath directly into my ear as she uttered incoherent yet unmistakably suggestive phrases right in front of my wife.

Jenny was a world-class train-wreck...

But for one big reason, I'm glad she came along that Saturday.

You see Jenny brought along her boyfriend William, a Syracuse attorney with almost 30 years of experience in the field of construction litigation.

He was tall — at least 6'4'' — and a former basketball and lacrosse player for the Orangemen. He also looked remarkably good for a man pushing 60, and in stark contrast to Jenny, he was soft spoken and sharp as a tack.

So the time I wasn't spending watching Jenny to make sure she didn't jump in my pool, or take her sundress off in front of everyone, I spent talking with William...

Actually, to be fair, I did most of the listening... Because when he started to tell me, in frightening detail, about what might become the most controversial industrial litigation case to come around in decades, I knew it was time to shut my mouth and open my ears.

It all started innocently enough...

We were drinking beers beside my outdoor wood-burning oven — indulging in the aroma of the 20-pound leg of lamb cooking inside it — when I casually mentioned an investment angle we'd been looking into for the last couple of weeks.

If you recall, a little while back I wrote about molybdenum (moly for short) — a key component in a wide variety modern high-strength, heat-resistant steel alloys.

Now, if it wasn't for my investment background, heat-resistant alloys would have been only of interest to me because the custom-built stove we were using to cook the lamb had nearly caught fire couple times before we switched to a special metal to line its interior.

To a vast majority of people the topic was of little interest.

When I mentioned molybdenum to William, however, his facial expression — which up to that point had been the standard impassive look I usually get from people listening to me ramble on about my work — lit up with interest.

“My firm's spent the last five years building a wrongful-death case against the designers and builders of the World Trade Center. The whole theory of the case hinges on molybdenum,” he said, sipping his Corona.

The hair on the back of my neck stood up. “What do you mean?”

“Pretty simple really... Tishman Realty and Construction — the company that erected the WTC in the early 70s — used ASTM A36 steel, a non-molybdenum carbon steel, for the towers' framework.”

It didn't take a specialist in the field to figure out the implications... “That would have affected the metal's breaking point, right?”

“It sure would've.” William nodded. “When engineers talk about breaking points, they're talking about 'tensile strength'. It's how much strain something can take before failing. A36 has a tensile strength of about 60,000 pounds per square inch and melts at around 2500 degrees Fahrenheit. Raw Molybdenum has a tensile strength of 120,000 pounds per square inch and melts at 4700 degrees Fahrenheit.”

“I've been reading that molybdenum is primarily used for alloys usually, though... ”

“Right, of course; and the some of the alloys that use Molybdenum are twice as strong as pure molybdenum itself. TZM is a prime example. It's used for things like rocket engine nozzles.”

“So that would make it,” I did the math in my head, “what, about 4 times as strong as non-molybdenum steel?

“In very special forms, yes... But more a more realistic example is kind of molybdenum alloy called type1 316 LM. It's commonly used in construction, and it's got a minimum tensile strength of 75,000 pounds per square inch, and a melt point about 300 degrees higher than a36.”

I thought about the temperature in the wood-burning oven, which could go as high as 800 degrees... “300 degrees doesn't seem like much a difference when it comes to thousands of gallons of jet burning jet fuel, though.”

“Well, it doesn't seem like a lot, but there's more to it than just melt points. The really important factor in the World Trade Center was thermal expansion - which is a measure much density a metal looses under heat... Less density makes things softer. Molybdenum alloys are much better at resisting heat even before they start to liquefy.”

“I remember the forensics saying that The World Trade Center's metal framework failed a couple hundred degrees below the steel's melting point.”

“Exactly. The beams just got hot and bent. And the thermal expansion of a moly-based metal like type 316 would have been about half that of the stuff they used in the towers.”

"Which means the moly metal would have been twice as good at retaining tensile strength at high temperatures?"

"Twice as good," he replied with a sigh.

“That would have given the people more time to escape,” I muttered.

He nodded sadly. “It could have saved September 11^th...”

The chills tingled up and down my spine like a procession of marching cockroaches. Somewhere in the background, the sound of Jenny's bellowing laughter pulled me back to reality.

“Funny thing is," he added, "with most new construction today, this is a dead issue... The super high rises like the Burj Khalifa in Dubai and the Patronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur are all built out of molybdenum-alloy reinforced concrete — not steel.”

“You think they learned from our mistakes?”

William just looked at me for a moment and shrugged. “Given the way things are in the world today, I'd be amazed if any Muslim nation took a chance with a non-molybdenum highrise. Frankly, I can't believe we still do it here today.”

“Yeah,” I sighed, finishing off my beer.

Having heard everything William had to say, I was more than ready to join Jenny for a couple vodka shooters.

“World's a much different place when you start opening your eyes,” he said softly as he finished his beer.

Later that night, after we'd finally reclaimed our house from the horde of guests — and recovered emotionally from Jenny's onslaught — I sat at my desk and surfed the web, doing some more research.

It didn't take long to reconfirm what I'd already knew.

Even if William's multimillion dollar law suit never sees the light of day, molybdenum is far and away the most important alloy metal there is on the market today.

Not only is it pretty much essential to things like car engines, air frames and oil pipelines; but with modern construction pushing the boundaries of possibility every day, demand is set to rise for decades to come.

In fact, even the major economic downturn of 2008 hardly did anything to stem molybdenum demand globally.

These years of consumption did, however, take a major bite out of global supply...

Of course, the problem that guys like William don't worry about — and guys like me do — is who will benefit from this growing demand.

The answer to this, as it so often is these days, is the Chinese.

I have to admit... With foresight like the kind they showed in buying up all the world's major Molybdenum producers for the last 15 years, they deserve the success that's coming their way.

In 2009, they had close to 97% of the active molybdenum producing mines under their control.

Predictably, as they'd done before with rare earth metals and lithium, as they closed in on a monopoly, they started to cut exports in an attempt to control prices.

Now to most people, this situation looks like basic extortion.

One nation can't monopolize something as crucial as molybdenum just to control prices, can it?

The answer, unfortunately, appears to be yes, they can... or at least they can try...

Because even with the Chinese undergoing a relentless molybdenum shopping spree, they missed perhaps the most important molybdenum reserve ever discovered.

And this is the part that should make you happy. It made me ecstatic.

This reserve is located in Idaho, and once the site is mined, this one deposit will be big enough to supply global demand — all by itself — for an entire decade.

In all, there's about $70 billion in molybdenum (at current prices) in the ground, and all of it is owned by a single North American company.

The real irony here is that as hard as the Chinese tried to control the market, all they really did was set this tiny mining exploration company up to multiply its market cap by a factor of hundreds, maybe thousands.

It's the sort of investment that's got 'early retirement' practically stenciled on it.

For a full report on this company, and the record-setting profits they're about to make spoiling China's carefully constructed plan to control the world molybdenum market, click here.

And Jenny, if you're out there somewhere, it was a pleasure meeting you. When you realize that you left your license and cell phone at my house, just give me a call.

William's got my number.

To your wealth,

Brian Hicks

Platinum Thieves Clean Up Emissions

I hate thieves.

To me, they’re nothing but a bunch of worthless punks.

Yet, as I found out today, they’re helping to make cars a little more eco-friendly. Let me explain…

Military's Latest Energy Report Will Give You the Willies

Inside, they confess a shocking truth... without any new developments, we only have 16 months of oil left!

Before the media catches wind and panic drives the price of oil through the roof, I'll show you how one group of companies solving the problem could make you filthy rich by Christmas.

Click here to find out more.

I was on my way to the office this morning when I received a call from my mother.

She was a bit flustered and needed to gossip.

As I found out, yesterday, her neighbor was robbed.

It happened sometime between noon and 2pm. In the middle of an upscale shopping complex, somebody approached her 1996 Toyota Rav4.

As other shoppers and families casually walked by, he laid on his back and shuffled himself a few feet underneath the car.

Next, he brandished a small, battery-operated electric saw and proceeded to cut a three food section away from her exhaust.

Within two minutes, the piece — containing the car’s catalytic converter — was free.

As nonchalantly as he approached, he left.

And he took with him $300 worth of black market platinum.

When her neighbor came back, she couldn’t tell from walking around the car that anything was wrong.

But she knew it when her car sounded like a Harley Davidson after the engine turned over. Fortunately, she made the three miles home with her groceries and over to her mechanic before any severe damage happened.

It’s hardly an isolated incident...

For the past three years — with platinum prices still sky high — catalytic converters have been a smart thief’s target of choice.

But as I found out this morning, after starting up my computer and conducting some research of my own, these thefts are soon going to stop.

You see, the world’s auto industry is currently switching away from platinum catalytic converters. They’re integrating a much more useful metal: palladium.

Not only is it cheaper, but after the surging number of thefts, the auto industry wanted to make stealing these valuable devices nearly impossible.

So they started putting them closer to the engine, instead of near the end of the exhaust.

And get this…

It turns out that not only is palladium more capable to handle the intense heat coming right off the engine, but the location of the converter reduces greenhouse gas emissions even further.

The win-win situation has virtually every automaker in the world preparing to switch to palladium catalytic converters, as their contracts for platinum expire.

According to my friend and metals expert, Luke Burgess, the move is guaranteed to send palladium prices — and a few of the companies supplying the auto industry — soaring.

In fact, he just uncovered a unique way for you to actually use this recent switch to make money from every car, truck, van, or motorcycle built.

Click here for his most recent ground-breaking research report.

Until next time,

Brian Hicks

Profit from Natural Gas Price Cycles

On May 19th of this year, $20 Trillion Report Analyst Ian Cooper called the bottom in natural gas… and told his readers to go super long.

In his article “The Ultimate Contrarian Bet,” Ian writes:

Time to Go Long Natural Gas

You've heard it all before: Supply is out-pacing demand... Our ability to horizontally drill for shale gas has made the supply picture seem unlimited... The short-term outlook is bleak...

Those are all fine examples of herd-mentality thinking.

Contrarians like us, on the other hand, keep a close eye on natural gas. Companies like Chesapeake Energy (CHK) have the potential to make you a killing.

Millions of Lives Saved -- A Handful of Early Investors Made RICH...

According to our resident biotech expert, one small American company's "cell-shock" technology will soon be the global Gold Standard for the treatment and prevention of all the major cancers, influenza, malaria, HIV, and more...

Saving tens of millions of lives annually worldwide.

Click HERE before the news spreads to get in on the 100,000% gains that are all but guaranteed to follow this breakthrough.

Cooper’s call was spot on. Take a look at a daily chart of natty gas:

As we head into the summer months, now is the time to buy natural gas and natural gas stocks.

The reason to buy now is that every year, summer is the weakest time of the year for natural gas consumption. This sets up a trade for natural gas stocks — buy in June-August, sell in December-January when North American heating demand should have natural gas trading at its year highs.

Last summer, natty gas stocks suffered. But like clockwork, September 2009 saw natural gas experience a large seasonal jump in prices.

In fact natty gas prices roughly doubled from $2.50/mmcf to $5 by January 2010. This occurred even though the market fundamentals for gas were poor. This was a good 4-month trading rally. Easy money in the bank.

Will this year be the same for natural gas traders?

According to energy analyst Keith Schaefer…

Natural gas prices in the US and Canada actually turned up last week, enough to get the market excited. I see that the market wants this trade to work so desperately. I am not bullish intermediate or even long term on natural gas, so I expect that if there is a rally in gas, it will just be a traders rally. But like I said, last year gave investors a fantastic seasonal rally in natural gas stocks — as long as you sold in January, the seasonal high.

As a trader, natural gas does have some positive things going for it besides seasonality:

Technically, it had a minor breakout this week. The 28-week moving average for natural gas this week was $4.52. This is just my sense, but as the price neared that level, more speculative fever came into the market that it would break through this level; when it did, natural gas got a pop. And the Canadian market followed suit in sympathy.
The market is clearly willing to bid natural gas up on weekly injections that are only a bit smaller than last year.
It’s possible that at some point in the coming weeks, the cumulative amount of gas going into storage will slip below last year. The market could take that as a bullish point to move up the gas price. U.S. gas is only about 2% above last year’s storage levels at this time. (See chart below).
And U.S. gas prices will certainly get an emotional boost whenever the first hurricane is named.
Coal prices are trending higher, making natural gas more competitive in some areas.
U.S. gas demand is up year over year and crude inventories are declining.
The blowout of a U.S. gas rig in Marcellus shale could bring in new drilling regulations-increasing the cost and time to get wells into production.

The best trade for this decade...

Natural gas might be the best trade for this decade. In fact I’m buying as much natural gas as I can.

And I think you should, too.

In the coming weeks, Ian Cooper will be giving you more opportunities in the natural gas market.

Stay tuned.

Brian Hicks
Publisher, Wealth Daily

Why Stalin's "lost oil" could bank you 180 times your money by this time next year

Joseph Stalin isn't widely known for the mistake he made nearly 70 years ago...

But he should be, because it stands to make a handful of savvy investors quite rich in the coming months.

In fact those who know what we've just uncovered could make as much as 180 times their money.

Read our latest report now before this story makes headline news.

Senate to Lay the Smack Down on Oil Companies

After what seems like an eternity of bad news, BP finally announced yesterday that it had something good to share with the world...

A containment cap recently attached to the sunken Deepwater Horizon well that’s been spewing 1 million gallons of oil per day into the Gulf of Mexico is actually capturing a portion of the runaway crude.

Time to break out the party hats?

Well a portion is, of course, better than none — which is what BP was stopping up until yesterday.

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Inside, they confess a shocking truth... without any new developments, we only have 16 months of oil left!

Before the media catches wind and panic drives the price of oil through the roof, I'll show you how one group of companies solving the problem could make you filthy rich by Christmas.

Click here to find out more.

However, the consensus seems to be that this spill won’t be fully contained until the fall… which means hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil will continue to gush into the water for the rest of the summer, killing wildlife and industry alike.

So while a couple of high fives may have been exchanged at BP headquarters yesterday, they’re hardly deserved.

Besides, this capping isn’t even the biggest story in the oil industry today...

In fact it’s a potential UNCAPPING that’s got petro barons talking.

You see, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has announced that he’s planning to move comprehensive energy legislation up to July’s docket. He’s also requesting that Senate chairmen come up with recommendations on direct legislation dealing with the Gulf spill.

“I think it is extremely important that you each examine what could be included in a comprehensive energy bill that would address the unfolding disaster in the Gulf of Mexico,” Reid said in a recent letter to the Senate chairmen.

And what might that legislation include?

Up until now, oil companies have only been liable for up to $75 million in damages when it comes to oil spills. Consider that the estimated cost of BP’s blunder is set to reach as much as $14 billion, and I’m sure you can see the writing on the wall.

Reid is pushing to uncap that liability limit and force BP to pony up the dough for their accident.

"Among the actions I think we need to explore are ensuring that the oil companies are held accountable for their actions and the damages caused by their operations,” he states in his letter.

Given the absolute horror show that the Deepwater spill has become — and the onslaught of negative publicity anything associated with offshore drilling has been hit with — it’s very likely that Reid will have the public’s support on this one.

After all, BP is getting away with paying a paltry $75 million. (For the same amount, an MLB team can buy a slightly above-average ball player for only about five years.)

It seems absolutely criminal in the eyes of the public, and anyone who voted against them having to pay far more than that for their mess would be vilified beyond belief.

If the legislation passes, and no matter how much BP ends up paying, one thing is for certain…

Oil companies are going to think long and hard about how important offshore drilling truly is to them these days.

Plain and simple: Does the risk outweigh the reward?

Do petro firms wants to drill 35,000 feet into the ocean for black gold when the potential cost of an accident is completely on their shoulders? Tens of billions of dollars at stake if a single thing goes wrong…

At least in the short term, the threat of new legislation like could serve to spook oil companies from setting foot back in the water. The potential for a PR and financial nightmare is just too great right now.

Bad news for our oil supplies, no doubt… but great news for inland oil reserves who will see focus swung squarely around to them in the meantime.

Reserves like North Dakota’s Bakken formation, which you’ve read so much about in the pages of Energy and Capital.

The Bakken region is so far estimated to hold over 4 billion barrels of untapped oil… but that figure could now be as high as 9 billion with the discovery of the Three Forks/Sanish zone underneath the Bakken shale.

Big firms like Hess are already involved there. But it’s the smaller oil companies that are really going to make their mark here — and make their shareholders some big profits.

Just a couple weeks ago, Brigham Exploration Co. — an independent oil exploration firm from Texas — saw their share price shoot up 11% in a single day, thanks to positive well results from their Bakken properties.

The BP spill is only going to produce more stories like these over the next few months.

President Obama has put at least a 6-month freeze on new offshore drilling permits, so we’re looking at a minimum of half a year’s worth of major activity in the inland oil market...

As always, we'll keep you up to date on the latest hot zone in domestic energy production as it develops.

You’ll want to keep your eyes peeled in the next couple of weeks for a brand-new report we’re putting the finishing touches on right now. This report will detail 3 small American drillers all with big prospects in the Bakken region.

The U.S. Government is practically putting a mile-high fence up around its waters right now and daring oil companies to be so bold as to even think about hopping it to drill again.

It’s not a dare I believe they’ll take — not while the threat of uncapped liability is staring them straight in the eye.

Their only solution is to move inland and take their chances there. And you better believe those drills will be flocking to North Dakota very soon.

So check back with us soon for your free report giving you complete details on what your next move should be in this new oil landscape of ours.

To your wealth,

Brian Hicks
Publisher, Energy and Capital

How To Make Money From Every Car Produced

Despite what you may read in the papers, the global auto industry is thriving…

In fact auto production world-wide is increasing 6% this year.

And after a four-year study, we uncovered how you could get paid from every single one made — no matter what happens to an automaker’s share price.

Click here to find out how...

LED Stocks Set to Light Up the Sector

It's been an icon of the modern household since Thomas Edison invented it over 130 years ago...

Our most famous inventor's most famous invention is, of course, the incandescent light bulb.

But you may be surprised by just how much you didn't know about what is perhaps the most familiar single object in your entire house.

Here are just a few of these facts that may change the way you think about the way you illuminate your home...

1.) Producing light isn't what the light-bulb does best. You may have never thought about this, but we've all been burned at least once or twice by touching a glowing light bulb. The reason for this annoying, sometimes dangerous heat is that incandescent light bulbs aren't very efficient.

In fact as little as 1 watt out of every 50 that you put in contributes to actual light. The rest are lost to — you guessed it — background heat. (A tungsten filament must be heated to between 3,000 and 5,000 degrees F to get it to glow). Now, what can be dangerous to your fingertips or lampshades is even more costly to your power bill...

2.) They could power 2 cities the size of New York for free — if we did away with them. By recent estimates, households and businesses in the United States lose about $18 billion every year to inefficiencies in lighting. In terms of power, that's enough to light up a city twice the size of New York for a whole year.

You think maybe Edison was considering these things when he was working on the magical glowing light bulb filament? It was his company, after all, that was also supplying the power that made them glow... Makes you wonder...

3.) Producing light isn't what the light bulb does second best, either: Another thing that incandescents are known for, besides the radiant heat, is their lifespan. Glowing for an average of about 1000 hours before burning out gives most light bulbs a practical life expectancy of around 1 year. By comparison, alternative light sources arriving on the commercial scene right now can outlast incandescents by between 10 and 50 times.

This short life span is also a built-in benefit for the light bulb companies. Bulbs that burn out once a year are replaced at a rate of 650 million per year in the U.S. alone. That's close to $2 billion in household spending directly attributed to incandescent inefficiency.

4.) Replacing the light bulb hasn't been easy. In reality, this modern household icon has been on the way out for decades, but the transition hasn't been easy... Offices stopped using incandescents as their primary source of light back in the 1950s; today, the bulb's apparent replacement (the fluorescent tube) has emerged as a major culprit in the battle for the environment.

You see, with mercury being a key ingredient in the millions of fluorescent tubes we use at work every day, disposal is turning into an industrial nightmare. Today, the costs of cleanup — not to mention other shortcomings in the technology — have caused many businesses to start turning their backs on the once revered florescent.

5.) Buying light bulbs usually means sending money overseas. And not just to any ol' place overseas... but directly to our biggest economic competitor: China.

As with many things cheap and mass-produced, the Chinese have taken on the light bulb — and excelled. Today, the Middle Kingdom produces more light bulbs than any other nation in the world. And, with Western economies moving away from cheap manufacturing, Chinese market share is expected only to expand.

Hope did not die with the fluorescent alternative...

As you see, this one-time household icon — the object that even became the symbol of the "bright idea" — is currently one of the biggest single drains on our economy... and on our power grids.

Hope, however, did not die with the fluorescent alternative...

Because right now, there is an unprecedented push to make another light source the preferred commercial lighting solution of the 21st century.

It's so effective, in fact, that grocery stores are already using it in their refrigerated display cases because it produces almost no background heat at all.

And it's so efficient that it needs just 9 watts of power to produce the same amount of light as a 100 watt Edison bulb.

To find out the which technology is on the minds of everyone from Wal-Mart Execs to Department of Defense administrators, keep your eye out for my full report, due out next week.

To your wealth,

Brian Hicks

Your IRA and 401(k) are in Washington's sights...

But you'll never hear about it in the mainstream media until it's too late to save your retirement assets.

Click HERE for the "guerilla wealth" secret to keeping your hard-earned nest-egg in your own hands - and perhaps even growing it by 378% every five months.

Investment Lessons from America's Pastime

Today’s stock market lesson comes from New York Yankees shortstop, Derek Jeter.

Jeter, a perennial all-star, has been a professional ballplayer since 1995.

In those 15 years, he’s played in 2,182 games. He has racked-up 2,801 hits, 228 homeruns, and has scored 1,600 runs. His lifetime batting average is .318.

Great statistics, by any measure or comparison.

Any major league coach would love to have Jeter on their team. He's that good.

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But Jeter has also struck out 1,493 times. In fact, he strikes out at least once every 1.5 games.

That sounds like a lot, doesn't it? Yes and no.

Let me ask you this: Do you think Jeter worries about his strikeouts?

Sure, he probably would love to strike out less. But I'll bet you dollars to donuts that he doesn't worry about it too much.

Do you think he apologizes to his teammates or the fans every time he strikes out?

No.

Why?

Because strikeouts are a part of the game. He knows he's an all-star. He knows his team needs him... and that the fans love him.

More importantly, he knows he'll get more hits than strike outs — a lot more.

In fact, I guarantee the striking out makes Jeter a better hitter. He learns from his mistakes and failures.

Dear reader, this same dynamic exists in the stock market...

Each losing trade is a learning experience. It'll make you a better investor, trust me.

My first year in the market was a disaster. I lost more than I made. But with each trade I closed out for a loss, I was learning what NOT to do.

Soon, my "winning percentage" started to increase. Before I knew it, I was making money trading stocks.

And that's the golden rule of the stock market: So long as you buy more winning stocks than losers, you’ll be way ahead of the game.

Most investors are happy with a 60% success rate; i.e., for every 10 investments, six pan out.

But for trading genius Ian Cooper, that’s a baseline number.

Both Ian and I learned under the same trading experts in the mid-1990s. It didn't take long for everybody to realize that Ian was a born trader. And he was obsessed with trying and developing new strategies.

All of his hard work and dedication has paid off. Every week I get at least one call or email from a Wall Street brokerage house asking to interview Ian. Maybe they want to hire him away from me. Or maybe they think Ian will slip up and reveal his trading secrets.

It's easy to understand why they want to talk to him.

In his Pure Asset Trader, Ian has a track record of 61 winners out of 64 trades initiated since February 2009.

But it’s his track record in his Options Trading Pit that has everybody in awe.

Take a look at his performance since 2007...

	Cumulative	Average P/L per trade
2010 YTD	+2,068%	+38%
2009 Full Year	+1,037%	+66%
2008 Full Year	+2,878%	+80%
2007 Full Year	+4,822%	+42%

Q1 2007	+1,488%	+41%
Q2 2007	+281%	+17%
Q3 2007	+1,754%	+32%
Q4 2007	+1,299%	+150%

Q1 2008	No options trading until May 2008*
Q2 2008	+445%	+223%
Q3 2008	+493%	+82%
Q4 2008	+1,729%	+67%

Q1 2009	+860%	+30%
Q2 2009	+203%	+43%
Q3 2009	+16%	-2%
Q4 2009	-42%	-5%

Q1 2010	+256%	+12%
Q2 2010	+348%	+29%

Jan. 2010	+151%	+38%
Feb 2010	+314%	+31%
Mar 2010	+30%	+44%
Apr 2010	+969%	+75

In terms of totals, that makes for +10,805% cumulative gains, with an average P/L per trade of +56.5%.

I’ve been in the market for nearly 20 years… and I can tell you that I’ve never seen results like this.

Ian has described his trading system like a Richter scale for the stock market.

A Richter scale measures the amount of seismic activity released by an earthquake. A Richter scale is always on… it’s always looking for any seismic activity. You might not know this... but every single day, there are over 8,000 "microearthquakes" that score less than 2 on the Richter scale. Generally speaking, they aren't felt... but the Richter scale is so sensitive, it records them every day.

Ideally, a Richter scale will detect a big earthquake before it happens, allowing governments and citizens to prepare for it.

Likewise, Ian’s system scans the market every day for stocks exhibiting unusual, growing seismic activity. Ian has built his system around nearly a dozen technical indicators. Some are common indicators... and a few are proprietary to Ian.

Ian attempts to catch these stocks before they send shockwaves throughout the market.

Again, the results speak for themselves.

In the coming weeks, Ian will reveal to you more about his trading system… and how you can crush the market averages like his traders are doing right now.

If you want to get started making money with Ian's system, read his free report.

Profitably yours,

Brian Hicks

DoD: We've Seen the Future of Light

Growing up, I was pretty much your typical American teenager...

I drank, I partied, I chased girls — not always with success, mind you, but I tried.

As you would expect, most of my friends were just the same way.

A typical Saturday night would involve boozing at the home of whoever’s parents were gone away for that weekend. Maybe a party, maybe a get-together, or maybe just a couple of us getting sloshed off the old man’s gin.

They Just Struck Oil...

Two days ago, around 10 a.m., a tiny Mongolian oil driller I've been watching hit pay dirt.

Once the news hit the mainstream, the stock jumped 42% in what seemed like minutes...

And this is just the beginning of what could be a HUGE run. I'm talking about the possibility of an easy 10-bagger here.

So I urge you to take a look at the full details today before you miss out on even more incredible gains.

And when there was no house available, we’d just hit a local field and do our thing until the cops showed up. Of course, sooner or later, the cops always showed up.

With habits like that, just living to see high school graduation was a feat in and of itself.

We all did it; it was part of growing up, at least for all of us.

All of us, that is, with the exception of my buddy John. He was like our big brother, even though we were all the same age.

John rarely missed our nights out during those years, but in all our little excursions, I never once saw him drunk or out of control.

He was a star athlete and a perfect student, and when all of us were wobbling around, leaning on each other just to maintain balance, he would be walking out in front, making sure that no trouble found us.

He drove when we couldn’t; he negotiated with the state troopers when we were already in the back of the squad car; and when it came to our parents, he could do no wrong.

I lost count how many times John saved our skins — how many times he and he alone kept us alive through our stupidity.

The kid could have gone anywhere, done anything, been anybody... but the day after graduation, when we were — you guessed it, drunk again — he was at the U.S. Navy recruiting office.

John wanted to become a Marine.

And that’s exactly what he did.

He breezed through basic training and something called 'indoctrination.' When the rest of us were embarking on our third year of college, he was heading off to Iraq, to fight in the first gulf war.

He was a scout sniper, operating ahead of the front lines with just one other guy working beside him.

Now, I don’t know much about what he did in those few months in 1991, or in the handful of other operations he served in after that...

But God help whoever wound up in his crosshairs. I am almost certain that as records of his service become declassified, his name will be among some of the greatest there were. That's just the way he was.

Sadly, John and I lost touch for much of this time.

With his deployments, and with my own career and family developing, we grew apart. Years went by, in fact, without me knowing how he was, where he was, or what he was doing...

But all that changed just last week.

In his early 40s now, John is no longer on active duty. After a final tour in Iraq in 2004, he came home for good, and with his choice of posts.

His choice: The Department of Defense — more specifically, the Defense Research Projects Agency, a top secret technology development branch of the DoD known in the inner circles simply as DARPA.

So, as you may expect, when I met John at a bar in Arlington last Wednesday (he’s become a bit of a party animal in his old age and can drink as many as 2 beers a night now), he didn’t have a whole lot to tell me about what he’s been doing.

I know the gist though… Everything you’ve ever seen in sci-fi movies — from lasers to camouflage that makes a man literally invisible, to tissue thin fabric that can stop a rifle bullet — he’s probably seen it all.

Which was why I was especially surprised when he told me what he did.

“LEDs are the new thing man… We’re about to corner the market on them.”

“You mean those little things they‘re putting into high end car headlights nowadays?” I asked, a bit disappointed.

“Nothing little about them,” he replied. “Two years from now, you’re not gonna see an Edison light bulb anywhere anymore. It’s all going to LEDs.”

“Incandescents,” I clarified. “I just bought a cartload at Sam’s Club. Damn things burn out faster than 80s actors named Corey.”

“Well, they’ve been banned by Congress. By 2012, they’ll be off the shelves.”

“No kidding.” I sighed. Light bulbs? Illegal? Was that even possible?

“No kidding. Congressional ban. Biggest of its kind — ever.”

“I had no idea… ” I said, trying to wrap my mind around the concept.

“What about fluorescents?” I asked, quickly recalling how my own power company sent me a couple of those strange, curly bulbs a couple years back when I complained about my skyrocketing electric bill.

“Forget them. EPA hates them almost as much as the incandescents. They don’t waste as much power, but the cost of disposal is several times higher. All that Mercury makes them a hazardous material once the glass casings are broken.”

“I don’t get it, why is the DoD into lighting?”

He leaned in a bit closer and whispered. “We’re retrofitting every ship, sub, and patrol boat with them… They’re so efficient they don’t produce background heat. Makes our subs that much harder to spot underwater. Almost no heat signature.”

“You’re saying that the old bulbs actually made our subs visible... ”

“It’s been a problem for years,” he nodded, sipping his beer.

“Anyway, I know you’d be interested in this stuff. Not too many are. We’re contracting this tiny company to supply us with the LEDs. The contract alone will more than double the company’s size. In a few years, I wouldn’t be surprised if they had the entire market cornered.”

“You mean civilian?”

“You got it,” he nodded. “Flatscreen TVs, computer monitors, brake lights, lamps that don’t affect the temperature in refrigerated display cases... They’re saying it’ll be a $9 billion market by the time incandescents go out for good.”

Was it even possible? I thought to myself... After all, the light bulb’s been around for 130 years...

Well it turns out, for the last 130 years, Edison’s bulbs have been among the worst commercial energy wasters out there.

Just how bad?

Consider this: 98% of the energy you pump into Tom Edison’s old incandescent light bulb is lost to heat. Only 1 watt of every 50 contributes to actual brightness.

So maybe John’s little revelation about the submarines does make sense.

It got me to thinking about what he said and this company he was talking about...

Of course, he wouldn’t give me the name of it.

For him, that’s a breach of trust, and trust isn’t something that gets breached — no matter what the potential profits may be.

But he's John, and that means that deep down inside, he’s still looking out for me.

He gave me just enough details for me to figure it out for myself.

When he said this was a small company, he wasn’t kidding. In fact, with a market cap of right around $26 million, it’s about as small a government contractor as I’ve seen around.

It took me a while to assemble the information, but as I pieced this puzzle together, a very clear image began to emerge...

Just as John told me, this company is on the verge of some major moves that will position it to become a big-time tech player for the next several decades.

Next week, we will be sending readers a full report so they too can find out what John was talking about, and how a DARPA-led $9 billion LED revolution could make millionaires out of strategically-minded private investors in the next 18 months. Keep an eye out for this report in your inbox.

To your wealth,

Brian Hicks
Publisher, Energy and Capital

Gold's "Louisiana Purchase"

Not long ago, the world's largest uranium giant practically gave away billions of dollars worth of gold to one small exploration company... for only $250,000!

Before their next set of drill results are posted, find out how this rare opportunity could easily triple your money by September!

Click Here For Your Free Report Now!

The Chinese Monopoly Monster Takes another Bite

The Chinese Monopoly Monster Takes another Bite

Investment revelations can come at the strangest moments.

This one happened just a few weeks ago...

I was flying down to Miami for the weekend, to visit an old venture capitalist buddy of mine who'd been nagging me to come see his new motor-yacht like it was the newborn heir to his fortune.

I'd checked in late and had been given the window seat. As we neared departure time, however, and the seat next to me remained unoccupied, I started to get hopeful that I may have hit the air travel equivalent of the lottery: the empty row.

Take Advantage Of Gold's "Doubling Effect"

Forget buying physical gold!

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No such luck.

The guy materialized at the last minute before push-off, cutting me off from the freedom of the isle that had almost been in my grasp.

He was older, in his early-to-mid sixties; well past the threshold of morbid obesity and at least four martinis deep as he plopped himself down in the barely-sufficient business class seat.

I leaned up against the side of the fuselage, found a nice cozy corner on which to rest my head, and proceeded to play dead.

"You'd better watch yourself, closing your eyes in public like that."

My heart sank. Dear God, he was one of those... Maybe if I just kept pretending he wasn't there.

"Yeah, you heard me..." He mumbled on. "You keep your head in the sand and they'll take the clothes right off your back."

I opened my eyes slowly, gave them an overdramatized little rub, and responded: "I don't think they let thieves onto these flights, sir.

"If you think that, son, you've got your eyes glued shut," he said, filling the air between us with stale vermouth fumes.

I fought the urge to roll my eyes.

"Ten years from now," he said, massaging his temples. "They'll own everything,"

I figured I had at least half an hour of this to endure before time and the cocktails knocked him out...

But as he kept talking to me — against all odds — some of it actually started to seep into my brain. Gradually, I started to understand what he was trying to say.

I can't tell you his name (as it would have serious implications for him and his long list of clients), but this fat old drunk was actually a very successful commodities trader.

With over 40 years in the business, he'd been there to see the Hunt Brothers' play for a Silver monopoly back in the late 70s; the gold collapse of the early 80s; the copper run-up between the 80s and 2000s; the Uranium boom and bust; and a number of other major events that made and broke fortunes across five continents.

"I've never been this nervous," he said to me as we reached cruising altitude. "They've finally realized what kind of weight they can throw around and they're doing it. Who knows what's gonna be next. There's almost nothing left for them to hoard."

He was — as so many in the financial sectors are these days — talking about China. Specifically, he was talking about what they were doing to the global metals industry. It was no news to me, of course; but to see a seasoned, professional investor losing his marbles over it was a bit disconcerting...

Was I not nervous enough?

The answer is yes.

No investor that I know today — not my VC friend with the new $4.7 million boat, or anybody I work with, or any of the dozens of industry insiders I speak to on a daily basis — is nervous enough about the recent moves the Chinese government has been making in regards to some of the most important metals known to modern industry.

Or if they are, they're certainly not showing it.

Here's a quick synopsis of what the world's fastest growing economy gobbled up a majority of our most critical elements with hardly a peep from Western powers:

It began with rare earth elements and lithium in the early 90s. Essential in small quantities to almost all electronics, but required in large quantities in the production of high-capacity batteries — namely those that go into every single hybrid car on the road today — rare earth elements were destined to become one of the "new oils" in a post-fossil fuel world.

And the mining companies that produced these metals were to China what shrimp are to whales. By the time their decade-and-a-half long buy-up was done sometime in late 2009, the Chinese had grabbed up 97% of the world's known rare earth deposits.

Inevitably, as their monopoly finally started to reach its current level in the first years of the decade, prices for rare earths and lithium rose.

In just the past five years, neodymium (another rare earth used heavily in rechargeable batteries) has shot up nearly 400%. A drastic change... and it all has to do with the Chinese appetite.

Unfortunately, consumption rose right along with those prices, and the ultimate aim of this whole plan was gradually achieved right under our noses — Western dependence on what was increasingly a Chinese product, and the price control that came with it.

It's happened before of course, with the cheap plastic products that flood into our shores every day.

But this time, the focus of the monopoly isn't Pez dispensers or tennis shoes.

The focus is the raw materials we need to keep our TVs and computers working, our cars running, and — more and more every day — our precious electricity safely stored.

So now you understand what I mean by "not nervous enough"...

But here's the part that made me want to grab a couple drinks myself.

"Nevermind lithium... nevermind neodymium... nevermind aluminum," he said, his voice down to a whisper.

"They're onto something new now, and it makes everything that came before it looks like practice by comparison. Hell, this plane wouldn't ever get off the ground without the crap they're grabbing up now."

And this is when his point finally hit me.

You see since 2004, China's been the world's dominant steel producer. With the annual production capacity of the next three biggest producers (the EU, Japan, and the U.S. combined), just over 1 out of every 3 pounds of steel used for construction or manufacture comes from China.

That may not be news to anybody, but what you may have not known is that a key component of a vast majority of steel alloys — namely stainless and construction steel — is on the verge of setting off the biggest steel shortage in history.

And just as they have in the past with rare earths and lithium, the Chinese have positioned themselves to keep as much of what's left as they possibly can.

It's called molybdenum (muh-lib-dih-num), and ever since its first use in the legendary curved blades of the Samurai warriors, it's been an integral component of steel alloys.

Chances are, if the part in question has to resist strain, pressure, high temperature, or torque, it contains between 2% and 20% molybdenum.

This includes everything from engine blocks... to oil pipelines... to nuclear reactor cooling tubes... to aircraft wings...

I guess you know where I'm going with this now. The Chinese, true to form, realized this early on and have become net importers of this crucial metal for the first time ever.

Net importers... That's a term that lately, when mentioned in the same sentence as China, has been a recipe for instant hives for anyone invested in steady, low prices of a given material.

What's coming next?

Well, as major global suppliers replenish only 88% of the molybdenum consumed in 2010, JPMorgan expects prices to jump as much as 120%.

As the Chinese continue what may be the largest building boom in history, producing molybdenum-laden steel at a rate of 500 million tons per year (U.S. produces about 93 million tons annually), that 12% deficiency is expected to grow to a 38% deficiency within five years, doubling the price again.

By the time this gradually sobering trader got done telling me all this, I was almost dizzy. Thoughts were spinning through my head about the implications — but mostly, the opportunities this industrial deficit presented.

Before I knew it, the wheels were on the ground and the rainy, gloomy DC area air had transformed itself into the balmy near-tropical climate of South Florida.

Now I had two reasons to see my old venture capitalist buddy — his big expensive boat being the less urgent of the two by far.

The fact is molybdenum exploration mining can (and likely will) become the growth industry of at least the first half of the 21^st century.

Because with highly specialized, high-stress applications flooding into production each year, the market for non-molybdenum steel alloys is actually shrinking in relation to alloys dependant on the additive.

And with Chinese hunger for the material expanding even faster than the nation's economy (domestic steel production may hit 596 million tons in 2011 — a 19% increase), prices have nowhere to go except up.

Again, I wish these were all just my theories. The fact is, however, the pattern has been established for over a decade and a half.

So well established, in fact, that North American mining companies, for the first time in years, are starting to do exactly what they've been forced to do to deal with shortages in other essential areas.

They've started to explore. They've started to execute drill tests. They've started to look for ways to become independent of the Chinese campaign for price control. Most importantly, they've started to look for venture capital that would keep them out of Chinese corporate control.

There simply is no other choice — not for the companies; not for the western economies that each year becomes more and more reliant on Chinese steel; and definitely not for the consumer.

When I told my old buddy all this, and after a quick few keystrokes on the satellite-connected computer terminal he kept on his yacht, he got up, lit a cigarette, and walked into the bar to make himself a stiff drink.

Then he said something that made me even more nervous.

But this time, it was the good kid of nervous — the kind of nervous I get when I know I'm on the verge of nailing down a major new investment strategy.

"You know what, man?" he said in his slight Mediterranean accent. "I wish you'd told me all this a couple of weeks ago."

"Why's that?" I asked.

"Because," he chuckled, running his hand over the polished mahogany bar top, "if I'd known... I would have gotten a bigger boat."

Profitably Yours,

Brian Hicks
Publisher, Energy and Capital

P.S. On my way home from Miami, there was one thought that wouldn't leave my mind and it had nothing to do with multi-million dollar boats: How are we going to make this once-in-a-lifetime shot work for us?

And now we've found our answer: One North American outfit can land you profits of up to 2682% and beyond... Learn more about the tiny mining company tapping into a $60 billion deposit of one of the most crucial metals ever discovered.

Cash in on $36,950 from the Nuclear Energy Renaissance in America — in Just 12 Months

I've been handed some highly classified information... and it revolves around the changing energy landscape in the United States.

As Obama hands out billions for nuclear reactor construction, there's one small energy company that's going to absolutely explode...

And I have the photograph to prove it.

Biotech Awaits FDA Approval Today

Publisher's Note: If you don't know Brian Hicks, you should. He's the President of Angel Publishing and the man responsible for bringing you Green Chip Stocks, as well as our sister publications Energy & Capital and Wealth Daily.

Today, as he often does, Brian has an investment story to share that's too important to pass up. It centers on the biotech sector, which is absolutely on fire as of late.

Specifically, he'll tell you about how to get ahead on companies with wonder drugs on the verge of FDA approval — the same way he helped investors get ahead of Dendreon (NASDAQ: DNDN), which ran up 187% on their way to approval for a prostate cancer vaccine.

Enjoy,

Nick

——————————

It's rare that a single day can make or break a company.

Sure, there are important days...

But on the day Apple released the iPad a few months back, they knew that even if it was a colossal failure, they weren't in danger of collapsing.

The day Toyota recalled thousands of their vehicles for faulty parts, they were able to withstand the hit they took both financially and publicity-wise, thanks to their huge market share.

And on the day Under Armor unveiled their first athletic shoe, it was a big risk — but one they knew they were in a position to absorb and still be a major sports apparel player.

The Next GE

Thanks to a push to revolutionize our power grid…

A small group of hi-tech startups is about to take a major chunk out of a $297 billion/year market.

In the coming years, these outfits will become the next GE, the next Google, and the next Microsoft.

Get their names and ticker symbols now, before they take off.

Things aren't so safe and secure however when you're a small drug company betting the farm on a new product. TheStreet commented recently:

News of a drug's approval or rejection by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration can rock or kill a biotech's stock price.

And that's why today is such a big day for one U.S. company. Because today is the day they receive word from the FDA on whether or not their new arthritis drug will be approved.

Companies like the one in question spend years developing drugs like these. We're talking tens of millions of dollars on research, development, and testing. And all of it leads up to one big decision day.

Other industries don't have to stand up to the kind of scrutiny drug and biotech companies do. When Sony releases a new PlayStation model, they don't have to go before a federal review panel before it's allowed on the market...

This is of course with good reason. People absolutely need to know whether something they're putting in their bodies is safe and effective. It's the gamble these companies are forced to take — but it's a gamble that can pay off huge if they receive good news from the FDA.

Massive pharma firms like Pfizer, Merck, and GlaxoSmithKline have had their share of setbacks in the way of FDA rejections, but their wins far outweigh their losses and their market caps sit in the hundreds of billions... meaning they can take a hit and not even get knocked down.

The small drug firm awaiting their FDA ruling today sits at a market cap of around $350 million — a relative blip on the big pharma radar. But their revolutionary arthritis treatment stands to push them up in the ranks of major biotech players if it's approved.

Arthritis is one of the most widespread and painful afflictions in the world today. In the U.S. alone there's estimated to be 46 million sufferers.
And the arthritis drug market stands by itself as bigger than the asthma, osteoporosis, erectile dysfunction, multiple sclerosis, and antidepressant industries.

What it all adds up to is a huge market of people absolutely clamoring for a treatment with fewer side effects and more effectiveness.

That's what this company aims to deliver. And within hours we'll know if they'll get a chance to succeed.

But what if they don't get that chance? What if the FDA rejects their submission and sends them back to the drawing board?

Well consider the case of Xenoport, a drug company whose restless leg syndrome treatment was rejected by the FDA a couple months ago.

Within a two-week time span, Xenoport's value plummeted 68% from $20 a share to under $6.75. Absolutely crippling — not only to Xenoport, who is now struggling to climb back even partially from this setback, but to its shareholders who lost nearly 70% of their money when the FDA's bad news hit.

But what if there was a way as an investor to make money off these FDA decisions no matter which way they go?

That's right; whether a company wins or loses their review, what if you could walk away a winner?

Well my colleague Ian Cooper has actually come up with way to do just that.

When Ian managed to gain access to a confidential government database that actually tells him the precise date that FDA rulings will be held down, he knew that ability to exploit this information for big profits was too great.

But he also knew that gambling one way or the other on an FDA ruling was too risky. A 50/50 shot is fine for a huge multi-billion dollar corporation, but not for an investor operating with a small amount of money...

But now, with Ian's new strategy, that risk is gone. And all you need is the name of the company and the FDA decision date (who cares if it's a yes or no?) to make money.

Ian's drafted up a report detailing all this... but I'd recommend reading it immediately.

That's because his first pick is this small drug company whose arthritis drug will be ruled on today. Once that ruling comes in (which could be any minute now), expect to see a big move, one way or the other in the company's share price.

If you get in on time, either way that move goes, could make you some big profits.

You can access Ian's report right here. But as I said, there's not a moment to spare. We're expecting word from the FDA any time now.

It's a big day for this small company... here's a chance to make it a big day for you, too.

To Your Wealth,

Brian Hicks

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The Hottest Domestic Oil Play in Decades

April 2010 will go down in energy history as the month Peak Oil reemerged on the periphery of the mainstream media.

Within a week of each other, two sobering reports were released about the tenuous state of the global oil market.

On April 11, the U.S. Joint Forces Command released a report stating "by 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 million barrels per day."

To give you an idea of how devastating that would be to oil prices and for the world economy, 10 million barrels is what Saudi Arabia produces each day.

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So if the military's report is correct, that would mean that daily oil production equivalent to that of Saudi Arabia would disappear off the market.

Now let me ask you this: What do you think would happen to oil prices if Saudi Arabia's crude stopped flowing tomorrow?

You got that right! Prices would skyrocket — $300 a barrel at minimum, maybe even $500 a barrel.

There would be riots in the streets. Citizens and governments alike would hoard the black gold like there was no tomorrow.

In the end, oil would go to the highest bidder: China and the U.S.

Based on this report, the U.S. military predicts that the price of oil would shoot to $100 a barrel. But we already saw oil at $147 a barrel in the summer of 2008, and there wasn't a supply shortfall during that spike.

So $100 a barrel on a 10-million-barrel-per-day shortfall is wildly optimistic. In fact, I would call it fantasy.

But there's more to this story...

You see, as soon as I read the report from the U.S. military, I immediately doubled all of my positions in junior oil stocks and in oil and gas trusts. It's my biggest sector position.

In fact the last time I put that much cash to work in oil stocks was in December 2008. But there's a huge difference between December 08 and now...

As you may recall, the world was enduring a gut-wrenching financial crisis in December 2008. The market was getting crushed. Investors were dumping everything, and oil got as low as $33 a barrel. So I stepped in and purchased oil stocks that were selling at fire sale prices.

I'll be the first to admit that I got lucky. My brain was telling me to be brave and buy... but my stomach was is knots. I was a nervous wreck.

Fortunately it worked out.

But my point is that I was following the aged-old market rule to buy when others are fearful. I almost didn't care about fundamentals. I was buying oil stocks that other investors were selling for any price they could get.

Today, however, I'm buying based on a potential supply-demand imbalance that could be of epic proportions.

You see, in addition to the U.S. military's warning of a coming supply shortfall, the International Energy Agency (IEA) released a report revising oil demand upwards for 2010.

In its April 13 report, the IEA said:

Global oil demand will hit a record high this year, revising up consumption estimates as the world economy recovers from recession.

We are raising our forecast for world oil demand growth this year to 1.67 million barrels per day (bpd), up 100,000 bpd.

World oil demand will reach an average of 86.60 million bpd this year, up from 84.93 million in 2009.

The previous record high for world oil demand was 86.5 million bpd in 2007 before the onset of the global financial crisis and economic slowdown.

This is huge.

It's the perfect storm if you're an oil investor. Supply is falling at a time demand is rising.

That's why North America continues to witness frenzy in drilling in unconventional oil formations like the Bakken. We simply need every drop of oil we can get.

But the Bakken is just one area in North America that's become a hotbed for wildcatters. There's another play in Western Alberta that's become perhaps the hottest — and least known — unconventional oil plays in the world. A recent geological assessment puts the resource in place at around 10 billion barrels.

How hot it is?

In March of this year, The Canadian Press said:

The region has become a hotbed of activity, as companies look to bulk up their presence in an area that holds enormous amounts of high-quality oil.

And on January 21, the Edmonton Journal was quoted as saying "Some analysts are even calling the formation ‘Alberta's Bakken,' comparing it to Saskatchewan's hottest oil play in decades."

In the coming days, we will tell you exactly how you can play this for profit.

We consider it a groundfloor opportunity like the Bakken was in 2008. And you know we crushed it in the Bakken, scoring hits of 356%... 204%... 76%... 37%... 103%... 114%... 104%... 55%... and 33% on specific stocks drilling there.

Stay tuned,

Brian Hicks

P.S. I can't emphasize this enough. The Bakken has become so hot that the ultra-liberal New York Times did a feature story on it last week... And believe it or not, it was positive!

You see, according to the NYT piece, North Dakota — which controls a large part of the Bakken — has the lowest unemployment rate in the entire nation at just 4%. In other words, anybody who wants a job in North Dakota can have one. The New York Times reports: Now, 109 oil rigs — with scores of workers for each — are drilling in North Dakota, and some officials say that figure could reach 150 this year.

Profits in the Bakken are still in the early stages. As America scours the world for oil, crude that's right here in North America will be highly prized because of its low cost of shipping. This is a play that will run for decades.

We've prepared this special report which gives you our favorite Bakken stock, currently operating in North Dakota. Simply click here to learn
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The clock is ticking. And this time around, you don't want to be on the sidelines when these Bakken stocks double in 2010.

Surest Way to Profit from the Natural Gas Surge

... Backed by two of the richest men in the world, Forbes just called this play a true "game changer."

Already, it's paid investors like you over 101% since last August.

But after you see what these two energy geniuses have up their sleeves, you'll understand why this little gem could wind up handing you more than ten times your money!

Click here to find out more.

Baby Boomers' Alzheimer's Attitudes

A recent poll conducted by a D.C.-based organization revealed a shocking fact about Americans over the age of 55.

Members of the baby boomer demographic were asked questions in regards to fears of growing older... and the majority response might surprise you.

When asked about their biggest fear as a consequence of growing old, it wasn't death; or running out of retirement money; or even cancer that scare them most.

It's Alzheimer's disease.

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An overwhelming amount of those aged 55 and older stated Alzheimer's disease as their #1 concern. For those of us under 55, that fear wasn't very far off. In fact, it ranked second — right behind cancer.

Make no mistake; Alzheimer's disease is a valid fear. The financial and emotional costs it can take on both the victim and their family members are staggering.

The Boomer View of Alzheimer's

To get a better idea of how baby boomers view the impact of Alzheimer's on their lives, Alzheimer's advocacy group ACT-AD (Accelerate Cure/Treatment for Alzheimer's Disease) conducted a survey asking the demographic how they would handle the disease.

Among their findings:

• 95% of respondents said they would be either unprepared or find life "not worth living" if they were to face the limitations of the disease by the time they were 70;

• 80% said that their current savings would not be sufficient to cover medical care if they were diagnosed, and 81% said the same thing about their families' savings;

• 83% were worried that the health care system is underprepared to cover the demands of the coming Alzheimer's crisis;

• Only 8% felt that current treatment options were adequate. A whopping 80% said they would be willing to try experimental treatments with potential to stop the disease even if it involved significant health risks.

When you sift through the responses of those polled... it becomes clear why so many boomers are scared of developing Alzheimer's.

Alzheimer's has a zero survival rate. Nobody is spared. It robs patients of more than their physical and emotional capacity and their dignity... It steals their most precious asset: their memory. It is perhaps the most devastating and humiliating disease known to man.

The financial impact on the patient is also severe. This year alone, the U.S. is expected to spend over $49.3billion alone in Medicare costs for beneficiaries with Alzheimer's, and another $33 billion in Medicaid costs for Alzheimer's care facilities.

As the boomers enter the age range in which Alzheimer's starts to become prevalent, we can start expecting those costs to skyrocket at the expense of both the individual and family paying for their care, as well as the tax payer's pocket for Medicare and Medicaid.

But all hope is not lost. Not yet...

Alzheimer's Research Breaking New Ground

Previous research has focused on several drugs which target two types of proteins: tau and amyloid-beta proteins.

These particular proteins have been found to build up in the brain to an extent that they end up strangling neurons and their pathways to one another.

While drugs which target these proteins have been able to make slight decreases in the progress of the disease, they still do nothing to stop the further memory loss and inevitable neural decline and death of the victim.

Researchers have started to realize that these proteins are a by-product rather than a cause of Alzheimer's — meaning that, once again, the door is wide open for new ideas and treatments to find their way onto the market and into the hands of the people who need them most.

One promising avenue is the discovery of molecules that are able to protect and even regenerate neurons from the damage caused by the Alzheimer's disease. If these are taken in conjunction with the drugs that reduce the amount of toxic proteins, we could consider Alzheimer's all but eliminated.

Any company that could boast such a compound would be able to turn one of the deadliest of mankind's afflictions into a stock play so profitable that many investors would kill to get their hands on the shares before the "grey plague" strikes.

Lucky for you, we've already discovered one such company who is doing just that...

They've already seen overwhelming success in animal trials. Now they are just awaiting confirmation to continue into Phase I trials within the next several weeks.

Expect to see a pretty boost in their share prices when that happens.

We're going to release the report on that Alzheimer's research company with the launch of our new service, The Hicks and Lowe Letter, coming out in the next couple weeks, at no charge to our paid-up readers.

Rest assured, the baby boomer market trend will carry on for the next couple decades... but you can expect the investment opportunities to begin right now — especially in the biotech sector.

Good investing,

Brian Hicks
Energy and Capital

P.S. If this company ends up with an FDA approval for their Alzheimer's drug, you could be witness to one of the biggest price explosions of the last decade...

That's how crucial a role the FDA plays in a biotech company's value these days. Their net is cast so wide that any pharmaceutical company in the country would be dead in the water right now without FDA backing.

And that means a massive amount of money filtering through Wall Street everyday is dependent on their rulings.

My colleague Ian Cooper has been monitoring this story for some time now, and he recently gained access to a government file which actually pinpoints the precise dates that the FDA will rule on companies' new products. And the icing on the cake is that Ian's devised a way for investors to collect gains no matter which way that ruling goes...

It's pretty amazing. He's actually developed a "can't lose" strategy to exploit the FDA's undeniable market influence. You can check out all the details in a free report he's releasing tomorrow. From what he's told me this could be big — very big — so stay tuned for Ian's latest report in your inbox.

Tiny Mining Outfits Unlock $550 Billion Treasure

Not long ago, the USGS reported that next to Lake Superior, the largest, most unique precious and base metals formation in the entire world lies under the ground.

After 50 years of failure, only two companies know how to successfully extract the rich bounty. It’s already turned one investor’s $20k into more than $2 million.

And over the next several months, it could happen for you all over again.

Click here for your free report, now.