Financial Darwinism

As Germany voted to approve bailout money for Greece, German Left Party lawmaker Gesine Loetzsch was quoted as saying "Speculators are Taliban in pinstripes, and people in our country must be protected from these Taliban…”  

It’s scary to me that any political leader could voice such an inflammatory and downright naïve opinion.   

If a hitter in baseball can’t hit the high fastball, then that’s exactly what he will see until he makes an adjustment. When Yahoo! failed to take advantage of its early-mover status on the Internet to implement a viable paid advertising model, it opened the door to Google.   

When Lehman Brothers refused to believe that it was overleveraged, it was crushed to the point of going out of business.  

Germany and the rest of Europe have no one to blame but themselves for the situation they are in. Swift, decisive action to answer Greece’s need and defend the euro might have averted the present situation.   

Instead, Europe dragged its feet, dickered over aid to the member-nation. Europe’s leaders showed weakness and they invited investors to profit from their indecision.   

It’s true in the financial markets just as it’s true in every aspect of life: only the strong survive.   

So far, the European Union has not shown that is strong. But over the weekend, leaders met to set up a “stabilization fund” to defend the euro.   

European Commission President Jose Barroso said “We will defend the euro, whatever it takes…” after the leaders met in Brussels.  

I’d say $1 trillion dollars for aid to European countries that need it qualifies as whatever it takes. It’s nice to the EU finally step up and do what it must.   

It seems likely that we’ll see stock and commodity prices bounce this week. Supporting the euro will mean a weaker U.S. dollar, and I would expect the EU (and probably the U.S.) to pull out all the stops to make it so.   

But the events of last week have not done much to ease the fears of individual investors who were just warming up to the idea that improving economic fundamentals were taking hold and removing some of the risks of the stock market.   

Perhaps this action by the EU will ease some fears.   

I suspect we won’t be hearing much from those who advocate replacing the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency any time soon.   

It should be pretty obvious that in times of crisis, the U.S. dollar will hold up better that any other currency. The same is true for U.S.  Treasuries.   

And that’s important because it means the U.S. will be able to fund its deficits. It will also keep interest rates low while the housing market recovers.   

As I said on Friday, I favor oil and energy stocks because they should put in a strong move as the euro strengthens. I also think land-based oil & gas exploration stocks will outperform offshore exploration companies because there is less perceived risk after the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.   

I just recommended a stock to Energy World Profits that’s moving from a $0.03 loss in 2009 to a $0.14 a share profit in 2010 and $0.38 a share in 2011 – all because of its Bakken operations.  

Yesterday, it fell from a $4.03 close on Wednesday to close at $3.86 a share. That’s not a very big drop at all, when compared to the rest of the stock market.  

That tells me that there are strong hands buying this stock. I look for a strong move above $4 in the near future.   

You can learn more about Energy World Profits HERE. You won’t be disappointed.