The Rude Awakening
Budapest, Hungary
Monday, July 23, 2007 ------------------------- - Double digit news from all over Asia,
- Tidbits from the Agora Financial Investment Symposium
in Vancouver - coming your way soon, - Cracking up - America's infrastructure gives up in
the Big Apple and plenty more…
------------------------- Joel Bowman, a long way from Vancouver, reports… As we type today's issue from our "office" here in Budapest, our colleagues are en route to Vancouver, Canada, for the Agora Financial Investment Symposium. This year the conference will focus on crisis and opportunity in Asia - one of the most exciting places to park some money for forward looking investors. It seems not a day goes by without some unbelievable news from the world's fastest growing region. Double-digit growth for China and double-digit percentage swings in the region's stock markets are commonplace these days…and don't forget execution for double dipping government officials. Yes, there is certainly many a crisis and opportunity to capitalize on in the east. This year's conference will take an in-depth look at: Stocks: What will the Dow and the S&P 500 do next? Are any foreign markets set to eclipse the American exchanges? And are there any easy ways into these emerging foreign markets? Precious Metals: Was $700 the top for gold… or will Asian demand finally push it to $1,000? Will 2007 be another great year for silver? Are the Chinese secretly securing other key metals that the mainstream is overlooking? Energy: The world has seen skyrocketing energy prices as India, China and other booming populations demand an ever-greater share of the world's remaining oil. What companies will provide the raw materials for this technological revolution? Geopolitics: Who's getting rich as more and more jobs go to India and China? Can the dollar stand up to Asia's strength? Is China's dominance directly tied to its unbalanced American trade… or does it have other countries ready to buy its goods? You will read a good deal about it in the pages of the Rude Awakening and the 5-Minute Forecast over the coming week, so keep your eyes peeled…unless you are lucky enough to be IN Vancouver, in which case, keep your ears open. Back to the Rude mail and you will recall last week we posed a question about public vs. privately funded infrastructure. The Rude debate could not have been timelier as only a couple of days later the following, irksome headline crossed the wires: "Explosion in New York City" Apparently pipes are masquerading as terrorists in New York City, scaring citizens out of their wits. Unfortunately, as Chris Mayer, editor of Capital & Crisis wrote to his readers last Friday, this is not likely to be the last attack from the ailing infrastructure…unless, that is, some serious investment is made this badly needed sector. --- Bulletin Board Elite: Approaching Capacity --- The first time, I called it beginner's luck… When it happened again, I called it a coincidence… But after 9 stocks in a "secret" market one ace analyst was screening JUMPED to major exchanges - and major profits - in just a 12-month span, I knew he was hunting in the right place for huge gains. Only a few seats remain in this strictly capped service.
Read on now for more information: Bulletin Board Elite --------------------------------------------------- Dear Capital & Crisis Investor, It was a blast that made the mighty skyscrapers of New York shudder. Immediately, people thought the worst. It was the height of rush hour. The explosion took place just a block from Grand Central Station. It killed one person and injured dozens. But it turned out not be a terrorist attack. It was an 83-year-old steam pipe - installed when Calvin Coolidge was president - that finally gave way. The event, reports the Associated Press, "sent a powerful message that the miles of tubes, wires and iron beneath New York and other U.S. cities are getting older and could become dangerously unstable." I wrote about this most recently in the May issue. The aging U.S. infrastructure is crumbling. We see it in the record number of sinkholes and sewage spills - all due to old and leaking pipes. In May, I reported on the Gabelli Water Infrastructure Conference. Tom Rooney - the CEO of Insituform, a company involved in pipe replacement - practically shouted at attendees that this was a major crisis in the making. His company's stock was hit the previous day because it reported an earnings miss. It missed because cities have been reluctant to spend on pipe repair. Rooney chastised these cities for political small-mindedness. He warned that, as bad as last year was, this year would be far worse. "From Hawaii to New York, Alaska to North Carolina and everywhere in between," he wrote in one of his columns, "an epidemic of breaking pipes is causing unprecedented havoc." We're seeing some tangible evidence of this in New York. Scary thing is, you can't know in advance which pipes will go. There is just too much of it. And it is hidden from view. As the Associated Press reported yesterday: "Thousands of miles of underground water and sewage pipes
are nearing the end of their expected life, sometimes with a bang and a flash flood." It's water pipes. It's electrical systems. It's a complex maze of underground cables, pipes and more - sometimes hundreds of feet below ground. Replacement costs are staggering. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates it will cost more than $1.6 trillion over the next five years to fix America's infrastructure. Cities can either find the money to fix this or we'll see more days like what happened in New York. I think the sentiment of people is probably summed up pretty well by the comments of this lawyer, quoted in an AP release: "They need to do something about the infrastructure. It's really getting out of hand. It could take 20 years, it could take 30 years, but they've got to take 10 blocks at a time and replace things before they break." It's not hard to see how companies with the solutions to fix all of this stuff should have a nice run. [Chris will be appearing at this week's investment symposium in Vancouver, sharing some of the strategy he uses to identify opportunities for his Capital & Crisis readers. If you're up there make sure to check out his presentation. If you are unable to attend but would still like to learn more about Chris' investment strategies and, more immediately, where he's looking to make some money in the infrastructure sector, I'd suggest reading the following special report he co-penned with Rude captain, Eric Fry, last year. Mayer's Special Situations - Blue Gold: Investing in Water -------------------------------------- The markets open in a short while so we're off to grab a seat at a little café we know around the corner that shows the news on the television…in English. It also just happens to serve the best Hungarian pastries in town. Remember to keep an eye out for your 5-Minute Forecast and stay tuned this week for a few snippets from the Agora Investment Symposium up in Vancouver. Cheers, Joel Bowman
Rude Awakening aussiejoel@the-rude-awakening.com | 
