Morning All,

Another strong night on the Dow and Zombie markets as European recession is over..apparently..most countries seem now to out of the recession including Italy which rallied strongly on their new PM as well. Over in the US it has now become very fashionable to ignore bad numbers ,blame them on the weather and move on..so it was Friday. One of the big winners from the US economic miracle has been Gold. At the beginning of the year every one was long the US Dollar and Short Gold..well as Oliver hardy used to say That’s another nice mess you’ve got me into Stanley! I always get worried when everyone is backing the same horse and they have all backed the gold never going up in our lifetime horse to the max. So far in 2014 Gold is one of the big winners….anyway another big move overnight as it was make or break for the shiny stuff on a hold above $1300…and not only hold but push ahead in fine fashion…there are a few chartists(Rune readers) now calling it up to $1400…that would be nice…Anyway with the Chinese buying more gold than the Russian Sochi organisers and the dollar sinking…its game on…round and round she goes ..where it ends nobody knows! Currently $1320!!

As with gold , Iron Ore seems to be like a blind man at a Bunga Bunga party, groping for a bottom. The slow down for Lunar New Year seems to be over and the price moving ahead…BHP number tomorrow but suspect we may see some good gains from these puppies in the next week..anyway we shall see.

So today with Gold up ,Iron Ore up and the Dow up…what can hold us back..probably nothing ..SPI was up 44 points too so expect a strong opening…Looks like with this tailwind we are going to have a go at the 5450 level again…big recovery from the January lows of 5062…

Washington’s Birthday holiday tonight in the US

Idea of the Day

Good to see a record full year result from GEM the childcare people…NPAT up 62% ..no reason not to stay with this one..$4.00 my target in next few months.They still have only 4% of the Aussie market so a long way to go and announced today a Unsecured Note issue of $50m..

Still happy to stock with my UNS call too…stock has recovered..just need the Aussie Dollar to go back down a bit…they are traded in the US in ADR form of 6 Aussie shares to every One US share…then convert…

The numbers coming out of the gaming industry in Macau are just staggering..Las Vegas …nah…small by comparison these days…as a result a great way to play this growth is through Crown..the wealthy segment fuelling high roller gambling will grow from 4.5M to 20M…reckon this should be in portfolios for moves above $20 this year.And if you like casinos DNA is a new operator in Vietnam…will be opening their super duper hotel with gaming later this year…has been on my list before..more risk so one for the punters but still looks interesting..

Results due today include Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, UGL, Ansell, Ardent Leisure, Australand, Aurizon, Specialty Fashion, Lynas Corp, and Western Areas.

Things to make me go mmmmmm!

Americans spent more than 280 billion dollars on prescription drugs during 2013.No wonder then that The 11 largest pharmaceutical companies combined to rake in approximately $85,000,000,000 in profits in 2012.

George Soros now has a big bet running in Israeli Drug company Teva…its his biggest holding…seems to tie in nicely with the stats from above…maybe Geogre will take a shine to Mesoblast..Teva has, so not out of the question…remember Teva has a stake in MSB..

Good to see renowned US economist Harry Dent running around town selling his book as he predicts the crash of the Aussie Property market..he has some form in this..he predicted the GFC…in 1993..got that wrong then…the Dow at 40,000 …another great call…and the Dubai property crash..well at least he got the right…why do we listen to these people..why does the media even print their rubbish theories!!

We all know that overseas punters just love selling Aussie banks on the back of theses sorts of theories..they get burnt simple…S&P named our banks as one of the World’s safest..take that then!!

Over the weekend China credit data came in very strong in January, much more than forecast,maybe we are not seeing the slowdown in China after all…of course they could be fudging the figures….From those fine chaps at Bloomberg ..Data on Feb. 19 will probably show the UK jobless rate held at 7.1 percent in the fourth quarter…this is a faster fall than even Mark ‘Circus’ Carney had hoped for.

Japan’s economy probably accelerated to a 2.8 percent annualized rate in the fourth quarter from a 1.1 percent pace the prior three months, a Bloomberg survey of economists showed ahead of data due Feb. 17.

Good to see that quietly Italy has imposed a 20% inbound wire transfer tax…nice…trying to stop money laundering apparently.All money coming in from overseas is now deemed to be income unless you can prove otherwise…

Loving the winter Olympics so far. Great performances in the Snowboarding last night..the two Aussies did really well in a cut throat environment..love the format…very exciting to watch.And won’t mention Chelsea today!

Over in London it seems that 50% of every house over $1m is sold to a foreigner!

And finally…..

Aussie stockman and his wife had just got married and found a quiet

hotel for their wedding night.

The man approached the front desk and asked for a room.

He said, ‘We’re on our honeymoon and we need a nice room, with a good

strong bed.”

‘We have many suites’, then the clerk winked, ‘You want the ‘Bridal’?’

The drover reflected on this for a moment and then replied,

‘Nah, I reckon not. I’ll just hold onto her ears until she gets used

to it.’

Have a great Monday

Clarence

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