Contrarian Finance

Well, it's not a recession (yet) and if you ask me, there may not be one at all. That doesn't mean we won't trudge along for a year or more while the housing market gets back on track, but slow is quite different from negative GDP. Suck on that, would-be-fearmongers aka Presidential Hopefuls.

Here's the latest on Bloomberg: U.S. Economy: Leading Economic Indicators Index Rose (Update3).

This book, Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country by William Greider has been out for quite some time, but given the current state of the economy and the Fed, if you haven't read this book, now is the time. At almost 800 pages there is a lot a material to digest, but the time you'll invest will pay significant dividends.

It's lacking some data I want to provide, but here is a basic view of what's in my portfolio.

I'd like to eventually provide the relative weights for these positions as well, but at least you've got the list of what I own as a starting point. I am long all these positions, as a rule I don't short stocks, or mess with futures.

This week's featured stock is another major Brazilian company. Vale (formerly Companhia Vale do Rio Doce or CVRD) is a diversified metals and mining company. They are well positioned to capitalize on the international growth of emerging markets like China and rising commodity prices.

The first release of GDP data for Q1 2008 shows the economy growing at an annual pace of 0.6%. Since we need two quarters of negative growth, we're not in a recession... yet.

I’ll give you a few more reasons why oil isn’t coming down any time soon. Notice the textbook 'double bottom' at $88/bbl and then again at just over $100/bbl? Unless something fundamentally changes, and I can’t think what that would be, I can’t see oil below that $100 mark anytime in the next six months.

If you haven't already read this book, you should consider doing so. If you've been following my commentary on Petrobras, and the economy in general, you'll know that I think having a basic understanding of the fundamentals of how oil is discovered, produced, refined and distributed is key to understanding the global and local economy. This book will educate you well on the first two points, and give tremendous insight into Saudi Arabia as well.