The World is in a PANIC.
We’re running out of Oil!
Oil Prices are SCREAMING higher.
We need a Substitute.
We need something that’s not controlled by some Crazy Dictator.

What’s all this talk about Biodiesel Stocks?

Biodiesal is a renewable fuel that can be manufactured from vegetable oils (soybeans, sunflower seeds, rape seeds, palm oil), animal fats, or recycled restaurant greases.

Biodiesel is domestically produced.

Biodiesel is safe, biodegradable, and reduces serious air pollutants.

Blends of 20% biodiesel with 80% petroleum diesel can generally be used in unmodified diesel engines.

Great!
But why should I be investing in Biodiesel Stocks?

Here’s some compelling reasons why Biodiesel may be the next MAJOR energy source:

The rise in oil prices and drop in soybean prices mean that biodiesel costs less than petroleum-based fuels.

There also happens to be a tax credit to encourage biodiesel use.

President Bush visited a biodiesel plant earlier this year.

Lots of school districts are switching to biodiesel. See: Hazelwood Schools Switch To Biodiesel, FWCS acts to switch its vehicles to biodiesel, Greenville school buses are now more environmentally friendly, Officials look at ways to save on energy costs, and Cleaner School Bus Fuel: ‘Breath of Fresh Air’ for Thousands of Chicago Area Children Thanks to Cook-Illinois Corporation.

The U.S. military uses it.

President Clinton has publicly backed biodiesel.

The world will run out of oil. Eventually.
Source: Wealth Junkie

Here’s another good reason, follow the money!

[…]

ADM, a major processor of agricultural commodities, announced on Tuesday that it will build its first fully owned biodiesel production facility in the U.S. The site, which will primarily use canola oil as an input, will have the capacity to produce 50 million gallons of biodiesel annually. To put the significance of that new capacity in perspective, it’s estimated that just 30 million gallons of biodiesel were sold in the U.S. last year.

http://biz.yahoo.com/fool/051005/112852627606.html?.v=1

[…]

A great source for Biodiesel Stocks is the BiodieselNow Forum. A recent discussion thread identified some interesting Stock Opportunities:

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D1PLC www.d1plc.com - UK based, London Stock Exchange.
BIFUF - BioFuels Corporation - UK based, London Stock Exchange. http://www.biofuelscorp.com/index.htm
CAG - ConAgra - big AG company with some bio-fuel projects.
AOOR - Apollo Resource Intl (Dallas)
POWR.OB - Environment Power Corp
NYIL.PK - Green Energy Resources
GSPI - Green Star Products Inc.
HPTWF.OB - Hemptown Clothing, alternative clothing (hemp fibers).
NALFX - New Alternatives Fund Inc. http://www.newalternativesfund.com/

Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) based on alternative energy
http://www.axcessnews.com/environmental_091304a.shtml

A list of potential stocks (shown above)
http://www.odysen.com/stocks/Bio.php

MON - Monsanto - big AG company with some bio-fuel projects(?)
CBIO - Consolidated Biofuel Inc. - not much on this company.
IBBO - International Biofuel & Biochemical Company.
EPG - Environmental Power Corporation.
IESV - Intrepid Tech & Res
INSQ - Inseq Corp. -
SFD - Smithfield Foods - Turkey oil rendering / biodiesel
BIOG - Bio Gas Colo Inc.
ADUEF - Amadeus Energy - Australia based.

======================================

I have not researched any of these stocks myself. I urge you to do your own due diligence before investing- Ed.

The opportunity is clear.
Buying Biodiesel Stocks now may be the best investment you’ll ever make!

How many times have you heard this?

Follow our Stock Picks and make over 1,800% in 3 months!

Or maybe,

Subscribers who followed our Stock Picks doubled their money every 6 months!

Do you wonder if these claims are true?

So do I.

Bear in mind that anyone who picks stocks with that kind of track record would rival Warren Buffett. Clearly such headlines are marketing hype!

So what’s the TRUTH about stock picking?

How do you decide which stocks to pick?

Firstly, you should know that a TON of statistics prove that stock picking is a waste of time. They say at least 80% of the movement in an individual stock can be explained by a movement in the entire market or sector or industry.

If that’s the case then it probably makes no sense to pick individual stocks. Rather focus entirely on a group (sector or industry) which you think will outperform in the future. Then buy an exchange traded fund or mutual fund that specializes in that sector.

If individual stock picking is such a waste of time, how do we explain the existence of such a venerable stock picker as Warren Buffett and the millions of Buffett Clones out there? Clearly there is something to stock picking!

I’ll let you in on a secret.

The way to make BIG money in the stock market is to buy a group of stocks that is totally out of favor with the investing public! Sit on them until the public decides to start buying and raise the price.

For example, Commodity stocks were the unloved and detested group of stocks for many years. 20 years in fact. This drove the valuations down to pennies on the Dollar. That’s the time the smart money began to buy.

As for individual stock picking, provided you have a set criteria to look for, you can do just as good or even better than a market index. Due to research budgets being slashed at big investment banks, a small investor can really discover stocks with lots of opportunity selling for a pittance.

The best place to find stocks using a pre-selection criteria are stock screeners. A stock screener allows you to input parameters e.g. all stocks with price earnings multiples below 15 and industry equals Gold. These tools save a HUGE amount of time when looking for individual stocks. The best stock screener out there for US stocks is the Yahoo Stock Screener and for Canadian Stocks is the GlobeInvestor stock filters.

To find diamonds in the rough may I suggest an excellent book which details an exact criteria to find out of favor stocks. The book is called Contrarian Investing: Buy and Sell When Others Won’t and Make Money Doing It by Anthony Gallea, William Patalon.

Whilst it is unlikely that an investor could consistently achieve the above advertised gains, I believe a disciplined investor with a solid investment approach can outperform the market more often than not with their own stock picks!

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There are lots of people out there writing daily, weekly and monthly stock market newsletters. Have you ever wondered if you can make BIG Money following their recommendations?

The truth is you can and people do but as always it requires work on your behalf.

The fact is no person can consistently call the market!

Everyone, professionals and amateurs alike go through hot spells and cold spells. The same is true for investment newsletter writers.

There is a service which tracks the performance of thousands upon thousands of newsletter writers. It’s called Hulbert Financial Digest. The fact is it’s just as hard to pick the next winning investment newsletter as it is to pick the next winning stock.

So what do you do?

The first thing you want to do is to find an Investment Newsletter that you actually ENJOY reading. If you are going to follow someone you should make it a long term decision and if you’re going to be with them for a while you MUST enjoy their style of writing.

Next and probably just as important is their investment style. Does it match with yours? When it comes to investing, every person is built differently. Some like to buy stocks that are Popular. Others like to buy out of favour stocks. And still others don’t even want stocks and prefer Bonds. No newsletter will tell you what your style is. You’ve got to figure that out yourself. It’s not that difficult. But does require you to take a hard look at yourself and come to terms with how much risk you are willing to bear.

Once you’ve got those 2 sorted you are ready to tick off from the following list:

* Does the writer have a Consistent approach? You want your newsletter writer to stick with their stated investment style through thick and thin.
* Does the investment newsletter have a history? There are some very well known investment newsletters that have been around since the 1950s. These are the Guru’s of today e.g. Richard Russell’s Dowtheoryletters or James Dines The Dines Report.
* Does the newsletter make some gutsy calls? You want someone who is willing to look at investments others are neglecting – Stock Market veterans all agree that buying what others don’t want is the only way to make big money in the market.
* Strength of Character! Someone who can be wrong but will stick by their convictions is hard to find but that’s what it takes in the stock market.
* When it comes to investment newsletters, sometimes smaller is better. Large newsletter writers have a tendency to move the market before all their subscribers are able to follow their recommendations.
* Experience and qualifications are important factors but bear in mind nobody can consistently FORECAST the future.

In summary, an investment newsletter should be fun to read, thought provoking and logical. If it has those ingredients than you are more likely to profit from it. The beauty is most investment newsletters offer FREE 2 week trials so you can really shop around before you decide to spend some cash.

Consider that a Barrel of Oil cost roughly $10 in the late ‘90s and is now hovering around $70.

That’s a 600% increase in 5 years! That’s a MAJOR worry because the US economy is so dependant on Oil.

America is built on the Automobile. Cars burn Gas and Gas is refined Oil. So right away, rising Oil Prices increase your driving costs. In other words the extra $20 or $50 it takes to fill up your car can no longer be used to pay down your credit cards or your mortgage. Increased Oil Prices are a direct tax on your earnings.

But the effects are even more profound than that.

Oil is a part of an energy source called fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are mined from the ground and include Natural Gas and Coal. The fact is that the price of ALL fossil fuels have been rising - which is quite profound if you think about it!

* Your home uses Natural Gas for heating or air conditioning.
* A lot of power plants use Natural Gas and Coal to generate Power.
* Even fertilizer used to grow food contains fossil fuels in the form of nitrates.

In other words, a rising Oil price means almost every single thing you do or consume will go up in Price. A scary thought indeed.

So why are Oil Prices rising?

The Media will have you believe that Oil Prices are high because of the War in the Middle East. No doubt that has something to do with it. The Middle East is incredibly unstable and we rely on Saudi Arabia and friends for nearly 20% of our Oil!

Venezuela, providing us with 10% of our Oil imports, is another important source of Oil. And Chavez, the president of Venezuela is not overly friendly to the United States. Source Oil Industry statistics.

But there is another MAJOR factor.

Many leading geologists are starting to claim that the World has reached what the call Peak Oil. Peak Oil is the term used to describe the fact that Oil demand will outstrip supply and continue to do so year after year after year. In other words, we don’t have enough Oil to meet the insatiable demand (remember China and India are rapidly becoming major users of Oil) in the future. And that can only mean one thing, MUCH higher oil prices.

The great hope is a MAJOR discovery very SOON. There are potentials for a major find in northern Iraq (under difficult circumstances no doubt) or for Prudhoe Bay (Alaska) to come online in a big way or the Canadian Oil Sands to exceed expectations. However the fact is that there will probably not be enough Oil to meet demand and prices will continue moving higher.

This will have a dramatic effect on our lifestyle and the way society organizes itself. Big suburban centers (where all food and produce is trucked in) will no longer be viable!

If you thought $3 gas was bad, what do you think about $10 per Gallon? That’s where we’re heading if Oil Prices continue their relentless march upwards!

You can make a Ton of Money buying Penny Stocks!A Penny Stock is a stock that trades for under $1. Penny stocks are extremely volatile. It’s not unusual for a Penny Stock to go up over 50% in 1 day. Not unusual at all!

There are all sorts of reasons why a stock will trade for under $1. The most common is because a company experiences ongoing financial hardship and the stock price drops continuously until it’s under a Buck.

The best place to find Penny Stocks are the NASDAQ Over The Counter Bulletin Board (OTC BB) exchange, Pink Sheets and the Toronto Venture Stock Exchange. Most Online Stock Brokers e.g. Schwab, Fidelity, Scottrade will allow you to buy these stocks through them. Finding penny stocks can be an arduous task (there are so many) and I suggest using the Yahoo stock screener for NASDAQ OTC BB and Pink Sheet Penny Stocks and the Globeinvestor stock screener for Toronto Penny stocks. When using a stock screener, set the price to be less than $1.

HERE’S WHY YOU SHOULD BE INTERESTED IN PENNY STOCKS:

Penny stocks lack the liquidity for the institutional players (Banks, Mutual Funds, Hedge Funds). Big Institutions have lots of money and they need Liquidity to put their money to work. Liquidity means the capacity to buy a lot of stock in a company without moving the price. Someone who places an order for $1 million in a Penny stock will probably DOUBLE the price before the order is completely filled. As a result, institutions leave Penny Stocks far alone.

That’s good news for us individual investors because it means there are a lot of GOOD Penny Stocks with excellent prospects that are completely NEGLECTED by the institutions.

RIGHT NOW!

One excellent industry to look for Penny Stocks at the moment is the Natural Resource or Commodities area e.g. Gold, Silver and Oil. Resource stocks have gone through over 20 years of declining prices. Resources have been so out of favour amongst investors that, until recently, major mining stocks drifted from $50 or $100 in the early 1980’s to under a Dollar. That’s what a serious 20 year BEAR market can do. Now with the price of Gold, Silver, Oil and other commodities rising again it may be an excellent time to pick up these bargains.

For a SMART investor willing to do his or her homework, investing in Penny Stocks can be EXTREMLEY rewarding. Remember, companies like Microsoft and IBM were also once Penny Stocks!

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Beneath the frozen tundra of Alberta lies the Canadian oil sands the biggest known reserve of oil in the world. An estimated 1.7 to 2.5 trillion barrels of oil are trapped in a complex mixture of sand, water and clay. To put this in perspective, Saudi Arabia has “only” 261.9 billion barrels of proven reserves.
Since the Oil is frozen in the ground, extracting it is harder and more expensive than conventional methods. Production costs currently run at just over $15 per barrel. Operations are profitable if oil prices remain above $30 a barrel which seems likely in the current geopolitical climate.
The “oil sands” are heavy hydrocarbon deposits that mix bitumen, sand, water, and clay. Bitumen is a heavy, carbon-rich, hydrogen-poor hydrocarbon. The bitumen is upgraded to a cleaner, more fluid product called Syncrude Sweet Blend (SSB) by removing carbon and adding hydrogen. It is then transferred by pipeline to refineries throughout Canada and the United States.

Bitumen is upgraded into a high quality, light sweet crude oil
http://www.syncrude.ca

How to invest in Canadian Oil Sand stocks.
One way to get exposure is to invest in the major producers:

* Suncor Energy (NYSE: SU)

* Syncrude Canada Ltd. - a joint venture primarily owned by Canadian Oil Sands Limited, Imperial Oil (AMEX: IMO), and Petro-Canada (NYSE: PCZ).
* Canadian Oil Sands Trust (Toronto Stock Exchange COS.UN).

Another way is to invest in companies that operate or support strip-mining operations.

Strip-mining is the digging up of oil sands and trucking them to upgrading plants. Strip-mining employs drilling technology with steam injection to pump liquid bitumen directly out of the ground. More than half of all oil sands are currently recovered using strip-mining. A company with exposure to strip-mining is Joy Global (Nasdaq: JOYG).

Mining the Canadian Oil Sands is very energy intensive (more so than conventional oil extraction methods) and environmentally unfriendly because it results in a large increase in Carbon Dioxide emissions. One suggestion is to employ nuclear power (no emissions) to generate the energy to extract the Oil.

Regardless of hazards and complexities, the fact is, in contrast to some Middle Eastern countries Canada is politically friendly to the USA. This of itself makes investing in Canadian Oil Sands stocks a positive long-term investment.