Rare earth stocks have been hugely popular for the past few months. I remember one day when it seemed like CNBC suddenly started talking about Molycorp (MCP) and other rare earth stocks so frequently that it made me wonder if they had a motive.

It looks like the silver price just won’t be stopped. Yesterday it surged by more than a dollar and breached the $42 […]

With the fast-rising prices for silver and gold that have set new all-time highs this past week of April 2011, many investors must be wondering, what does one do to take advantage of this situation? It does seem to the author that there is a distinct lack of media attention covering the precious metal rise. As always, there seems to be an equal number of bears calling the rise in prices a bubble and signalling danger versus an equal number of bulls calling for a further rise to $50 USD and beyond, based upon currency debasement. For myself, I see further gains based upon supply and demand factors of the emerging markets growth, and I will watch with interest.

First and foremost, and as reported by Reuters last night, “Gaddafi ‘accepts peace roadmap’: South Africa's Zuma,” and I hope this is the real deal. But the writing has been plastered on the wall. Instability has a way to propel oil and precious metals higher, and the current geopolitical landscape is fertile ground for conspiracy theories, apocalyptic dreams, and allodoxaphobia when views are a bit off the beaten track.As a side note, the various spellings of the name Gaddafi is due to a lack of a "universally accepted authority for transliterating Arabic names," according to the The Christian Science Monitor.

Silver has had a phenomenal run over the last year more than doubling in price. However, I think that it is overextended and is likely to suffer a correction of at around 20%.

With the fast-rising prices for silver and gold that have set new all-time highs this past week of April 2011, many investors […]

Alcoa Inc. (AA) has kicked off another earnings season with its first quarter posting of 27 cents earnings per share (EPS) on […]

Purchasing commodity producing equities has been extremely profitable for most investors over the past year as a weak dollar and supply issues have driven up everything from soft commodities to industrial and precious metals. The sharp gains have also carried over to the dynamic rare earth metal market where fears over Chinese export limits as well as the metals’ critical nature to a variety of 21st century technologies dominate the price movements of this group of elements. In fact, according to Metal-Pages, from October 2009 through December 2010, prices for rare earths have risen by approximately 780% on average.

In this week's Barron's, Anna Raff writes the courageously bearish piece, "Why Silver Will Tarnish." What makes it courageous? Raff predicts that silver's historic rally is about to end. Among other things, Raff builds her case around the following points: Gold and silver are both "safe haven" assets, but silver has greatly outperformed gold recently. Silver prices have doubled since August, while gold is up 20% in the same span. Over just the past three months, silver has shot up 50% compared with 11% for gold. Raff doesn't trust the investment demand driving silver prices. Unlike institutional investors, the little guy is less likely to hold silver over the long run. Analysts say individuals may well trade out of precious metals and into higher-yielding assets once interest rates start to rise, as the tightening of monetary policy gains traction around the world.

Last week was a busy one in Santiago, Chile where CRU’s 10th Annual World Copper Conference was held as part of CESCO week. CRU is a worldwide consulting firm which specializes in mining and is known for its generous hosting of conferences. CESCO is the Center for Copper and Mining Studies, an independent, non-profit organization created in Santiago, Chile in 1984.

A lot of people are buying the stocks of rare earth companies today — most because they have read that this is a “hot” industry and because most trade as penny stocks and are therefore highly “toutable” by the kind of newsletters that use copy like: We expect a minimum return of 10,486% on this Secret Stock we are willing to divulge to you alone!!

Planet Earth is in the midst of a food bull market. Wellington West Capital Markets Managing Director Robert Winslow follows small-cap agricultural […]