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• Energy: Malaysia’s Political Football

  By Peter Pham - October 1, 2012 | Tickers: JJA, HES, EWM, BNO

  Time is running out for Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak to call a general election, which is constitutionally mandated to take place by April 2013.  Many observers expect Najib may announce a November polling date, timing it to fall just after the Hajj, an important date on the religious calendar for this majority Moslem nation. 

  Malaysian consumers benefit from generous energy subsidies by the government, consuming some of the more »

• Have No Fear the Bernanke Put is Here!

  By Peter Pham - July 31, 2012 | Tickers: JJA, GLD, BNO

  We spend a lot of time talking about the fear trade, the current phenomenon of money being so fearful of the gyre of Europe spinning out of control that investors pile, pile and pile again money into U.S. Treasuries to protect what they can from being destroyed in a puff of defaulted asset smoke.  The fear trade is the only trade that matters right now and that trade has more »

• Strong Dollar Weighs on McDonald's

  By Peter Pham - July 28, 2012 | Tickers: FXY, JJA, MCD, YUM

  Back out the extremely strong U.S. dollar and not just versus the Euro in the past 5 months and the results from Q2 2012 from fast-food giant McDonald’s (NYSE: MCD) were very good.  According to the financials the strength of the greenback accounted for $0.07 loss in earnings turning a $0.03 miss into a $0.04 gain.  Now, of course, a multinational like McDonald’s has more »