The WisdomTree Chinese Yuan Fund (CYB) has been waiting for a day like November 11, 2009. Rather than continue pegging its currency to the U.S. dollar ad infinitum, China’s Central Bank announced “Following the principles of initiative, controllability and gradualism, with reference to international capital flows and changes in major currencies, we will improve the yuan exchange-rate formation mechanism.”

Translation? The Chinese aren’t willing to let their currency go down with the dollar ship.

Most people believe that gold only goes up in bad economic times… as a hedge against an inflationary recession, a deflationary depression or protection against dollar devaluation. In the current uncertainty, gold seems to fit the bill perfectly.

However, Blackrock’s Doll explains that gold actually performs best in times when the global economy is recovering and when central bank policies are stimulative. Both the recent Fed meeting and the G-20 Summit confirmed that stimulus is going to continue, a further tailwind for gold investing.

The SPDR Gold Trust (GLD) hit a brand new high yesterday. Indeed, the commodity is outperforming the S&P 500 in 2009.

Yet some investors confuse Commodity ETFs — investments that offer exposure to the spot price of a physical substance — and Hard Asset ETFs. The latter look to gain exposure to “stuff” by investing in a basket of commodity companies rather than investing in the physical commodity itself.

Once again, the Dow is hitting new highs. I guess that means Jim Cramer’s prognostication that we had seen the highs for the year missed the mark.

You may recall, the CNBC eccentric declared his view that an official 7% decline had just started on 10/28/09. The disingenuous part was… major benchmark ETFs like the the PowerShares Nasdaq 100 (QQQQ), the S&P 500 SPDR Trust (SPY) and Vanguard Total Stock Market (VTI) were already down more than 5% from a 10/19/09 peak.

Who doesn’t appreciate the hard work and research that comes from the Bespoke Group? The data that Bespoke compiles always stimulates my brain cells… even when I disagree with the interpretation of the info presented.

For instance, last month I called out Bespoke for a simplistic observation that China had gone from first place to last place of the 4 BRIC nations on year-to-date performance through 9/30/2009. I wrote:

It’s easy to think about South Korea. Warren Buffett essentially called Korea’s POSCO the best steelmaker in the world. What’s more, South Koreans have turned a corner on everything from electronics (Samsung) to phones (LG Group) to automobiles (Hyundai).

Few investors have failed to express interest in the “China miracle.” Not only is its economy growing at a torrid 9%, but the China 25 Fund’s (FXI) 155% 5-year total return is nearly unmatched by any diversifed equity investment.

I track portfolios using software on my computer network and I use web-based applications. I even use simple tools like Yahoo Finance for instantaneous access to data.

Yet Yahoo Finance has an inexplicable quirk when it comes to the SPDR Barclays Capital Convertible Bond Fund (CWB). If you set up a portfolio with CWB in it, you’ll often get a message, “No Such Ticker Symbol.” It’s been that way for 6 solid months, ever since the fund’s inception.

Corporate resilience has been rather amazing. Bottom-line, top-line… who really thinks that companies aren’t hanging tough?

Apparently, with so many corporations doing markedly better, some market-watchers fear that the Fed may show too much faith in the overall economy’s standing. That is, would the Fed prepare a statement that hinted at a foreseeable end to near-zero short-term rates?

Is there ever really a perfect middle ground on risk? Former “Junk Bond King,” Michale Milken, always wanted you to think so.

(Of course, Mr. Milken wound up with a 10-year sentence for securities fraud. And the SEC permanently barred him from the securities industry.)

When the credit collapse gripped the entire world, it was the Emerging Market ETFs that recovered before their developed world counterparts. In fact, as often as everyone (myself included) discusses the “March lows,” emerging markets actually hit rock bottom in November 2008 and hit “higher lows” in March 2009.

The rest, as they say, is history. Emerging Market ETFs have jumped straight into the stratosphere and have significantly out-hustled U.S., Europe and Japan ETF investments.

The week before last, the market was poised to go 8 for 8; that is, stocks hadn’t lost ground since February of ‘09.

Then came the late October spook-fest. The S&P 500 SPDR Trust (SPY) lost -4.2% last week alone, while the the PowerShares Nasdaq 100 (QQQQ) shed -5.0%.

For 5 trading days, the U.S. dollar was in strong demand. And for 5 days, stocks and commodities were punished mercilessly.

Consider just how quickly the sentiment shifted towards buying the U.S. dollar. The PowerShares DB Dollar Bullish Fund (UUP) had quietly gone about losing ground on a fairly regular basis for months; the exchange-traded fund typically traded around 2 million shares a day.

The most battered sector ETFs over the last 5 days all relate to natural resources. Is it time to give up on the stuff that we excavate or drill for?

In essence, there are 2 reasons for the tremendous hit to lumber providers, oil explorers, gold miners and steel producers. First, the U.S. dollar’s ascent for 4 consecutive days has effectively lowered the spot prices of commodities. The lower the price of the commodity (e.g., crude, iron ore, silver, etc.), the less profitable these types of companies are likely to be.

Back in the day when bonds acted as a safer haven, investors often rotated out of stocks and into bonds. Since the March lows, however, all assets have gone up together.

In fact, during the credit collapse, virtually everything went down together. Stocks, non-U.S. Treasury bonds, currencies, commodities, REITS, MLPs, preferred shares, precious metals – it really didn’t matter. Liquidity was king.

So you’re worried that the stock market’s about to cave in. You don’t know if you should sell now or wait to see what happens. You don’t know if it’s worth changing anything, since the market may merely pull back 5%-8% like it did in June/July.

The answer on when and what to sell should come from your sell discipline. If you have stop-losses on an ETF or individual security… you let the unemotional sell decision take care of itself.

It’s hard to imagine that stocks have been hit with 3 whole days of stock losses. Or is it 2 whole days and a mixed close for the major benchmarks? (Eight months ago, one might have been shocked by consecutive gains!)

But yesterday? In the midst of Dow 10,000 celebration and dollar devaluation?

We think we’ve got it bad? The growth forecast for the U.S. economy in 2010 is 2.5%. Forecasts for Japan and Europe? 1.4% and 1.2% respectively.

Unemployment in the U.S. is expected to surpass 10%. Meanwhile, the Eurozone also plays the 10% unemployment card. Yet the weak U.S. dollar is helping U.S. manufacturers, U.S. exporters and U.S. multinationals. The strong euro is mauling European exporters and European manufacturers.

When Nouriel Roubini talks, people listen. And now Mr. Roubini has identified the U.S. dollar carry trade as the primary reason for “skyrocketing” stocks.

Gloom-god Roubini says that flooding the world with U.S. dollars at non-existent interest rates has let speculators push assets far higher than their “fundamental value” justifies. That may be true.

Culturally, the Japanese place such a strong emphasis on scholastic achievement…failure is simply not an option. So it’s not a big surprise to learn that Japan has the highest suicide rate of any industrialized nation.

On the other hand, how does one explain the next country in line… France. Doesn’t France shower its citizens with generous public health care? Don’t employees enjoy extraordinary job protection rules? And doesn’t the world at large envy the French for their easy-going enjoyment of life?