For many millenniums, gold has been a barometer of financial health and the ultimate store of value. It’s long been considered the ultimate safe haven investment when all else fails, or when economic conditions seem too good to be true.

So now that gold has made a second major run – shooting from $600 an ounce to $900 an ounce after punching through the $1,000 plateau last year – is the “yellow metal” still a prudent profit play, or is it an investment that’s already played out?

On Feb. 5, we knocked the ball out of the park with our recommendation on Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN). After getting pummeled by the worst recession since 1930, it’s heartening to see that at these valuations, and with the massive disequilibrium that’s affecting so many market sectors, we can rewarded much more than during normal times.

Amazon was trading at $61.15 a share when we recommended it, and rose about 30% in the nine weeks since. And I’m pretty certain that our investment in Amazon will continue to reward us with a steadily advancing profit.

On October 27 of last year, as the market was beaten down in a stampede of panic selling, I realized that it had gone too far in its pessimism with respect to the future of the global financial markets and I recommended the iShares MSCI Brazil Index Fund (NYSE: EWZ).

At the time, the global financial system and the global economy were in a royal mess of proportions not seen since the Great Depression. Many of the major banks in the United States and Europe were in even greater disarray than they are now. With the credit markets totally frozen, consumers, companies and countries that had been caught overextended in their financing and with little or no cash reserves struggled to refinance their debts.

Unemployment is on the march, the plummeting housing market has yet to find a bottom and top U.S. companies in the banking and automaking sectors remain downright shaky. And yet the U.S. stock market – as a discounting mechanism – experienced a robust rally last week, posting a four-day rally that saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average gain 9.0% and the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index a resounding 10.7%.

Unfortunately, in an economy that has been deeply hurt by huge imbalances that took years to build, we are left with key sectors that are operating in distress mode. They are now at the mercy of the aggressive government actions being taken in an attempt to whip them back into shape.

In the face of the global financial meltdown, the price of oil has plummeted from a record high of almost $150 a barrel in July to less than $40 recently. And now it seems to be bottoming.

Clearly, this isn’t the precise moment to call a market bottom, but it is reasonable to think about a bottom around this range for a few reasons.

McDonald’s Corp. (NYSE: MCD) is thriving despite a difficult environment.

This very difficult environment is sending a lot of consumers scrambling for cheaper alternatives in dining. That is where McDonald’s distinguishes itself. With January same-store-sales up more than 7% worldwide – even in the face of the global financial meltdown – McDonald’s is proving that it can not only execute, but thrive. Indeed, sales in Asia were up 10%, while those in Europe were up 7%. Even U.S. sales were up 5%.

Continuing with the trend of companies that have blasted through Wall Street’s earnings estimates of late, The Coca-Cola Co. (NYSE: KO) last week announced its ninth-straight quarter of double-digit earnings per share (EPS) growth and a third straight year of meeting or exceeding its long-term-growth targets. Excluding one-time items, the Atlanta-based company’s earnings per share of 64 cents represented a 10% gain from last year’s fourth quarter, beating analysts’ expectations by three cents. In addition, Coke’s unit-case volume was up 4% in the fourth quarter and 5% for the full year.

And they achieved this profit growth despite a very adverse situation. In addition, the company had to take losses from the appreciation of the U.S. dollar, which was a product of the flight-to-safety experienced in the last few months of 2008. As the U.S. dollar has stabilized from last year’s lows - and even rebounded in some of the key currencies - we do not expect to see the phenomenon repeat itself in 2009. Quite the contrary, we should see China pulling out economically and the yuan strengthen, and similar movements across key emerging economies.

International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) has “surprised” the market with flawless execution and strong profits.

A few months ago, I congratulated my nephew for getting an internship with IBM, while he studies business in Argentina.

Although ABB Ltd. (ADR: ABB) has been around for 120 years, it’s one of those rare companies that’s kept current with the times. It continues to do so and those efforts are generating tangible results.

Indeed, as Money Morning noted in its July 7 overview of ABB, the Zurich-based industrial giant is a virtual lock to benefit from the many billions in stimulus money governments around the globe will be directing into such infrastructure-related areas as highway, construction and power-generation.

Research in Motion Ltd. (RIMM) - maker of the ubiquitous BlackBerry - is likely to consolidate and increase its market share.

Almost all of our "Buy, Sell or Hold" recommended stocks started out on the right foot here in the New Year. And our strategy of building up a position gradually up to year-end - to avoid the downward pressure of tax-loss selling, and other volatility - seems to have worked. This has left some cash on the sidelines to take advantage of any sell-offs that are sure to come in the first quarter.

With BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP), it’s a case of the strong getting stronger and possibly even running away from the pack.

Back in 2001, BHP Ltd. and Billiton PLC merged to form BHP Billiton Ltd., the world’s leading diversified resources group. And it never looked back.

In an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) Chief Executive Officer H. Lee Scott Jr. said the recession is changing consumer-buying habits.

What Scott didn’t say is that Wal-Mart is perfectly positioned to capitalize on those changes. “The No.1 issue today is [consumers'] concern about their job," Scott said during the nationally televised interview. And because of that concern, Scott said consumers are making some of the following changes:

The “right” Latin America will thrive in the New Year, fueled by its own growth – with an assist from the continued hot growth from China – while the “wrong” Latin America will get left behind.

The second phase of emerging markets expansion is well on its way – a period of self-sustaining growth, driven by consumer growth and infrastructure spending. And Latin America, following China and other Asian economies, is one of the key global pillars of growth that will save the global economy and the U.S. financial system from total collapse. But not all the countries in Latin America will go on to prosper. There is a wide gulf in the policies that will continue to separate the winners from the losers.

There is no doubt that the global economic environment presents a very bleak outlook. The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) last week announced that the U.S. economy has been in a recession since last December – a situation that appears to be getting worse, given that the economy lost half a million jobs in November. Interestingly, the market traded up both those announcements.

On Nov. 24, Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) reported a quarterly profit of $1.03 a share, exceeding analysts’ estimates of $1.01 a share. Hewlett-Packard almost doubled its revenue from technology services from last year because of its acquisition of Electronic Data Systems Corp. earlier this year, and a 21% increase in quarterly sales of notebook computers and a 10% rise in personal computer sales.

With America’s “Big Three” automakers all due to submit turnaround plans to Congress Tuesday – a requirement if General Motor Corp. (GM), Ford Motor Co. (F), and Chrysler Corp., are to receive $25 billion in government loans – I couldn’t help but recall the moment eight years ago when I realized the U.S. auto industry was skidding toward a financial collapse.

I’ve been thinking about that market call of mine a lot of late, particularly after recently reading that JP Morgan Chase & Co. credit analysts had rated GM’s distressed debt as a “Buy,” noting that the company was likely going to survive.

When – on August 22, 1851 – schooner-yacht America defeated 15 other yachts representing the Royal Yacht Squadron, racing around the Isle of Wight in England to win the renamed “America’s Cup,” Queen Victoria asked who was second. The famous answer was: "Ah, Your Majesty, there is no second."

Similarly, in the search-engine category, Google Inc. (GOOG), has run away with the trophy, leaving its competitors so far behind that they’re actually still over the horizon. Today, Google controls at least 60% of the search activity on the Internet, eclipsing all its rivals, most notably, Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO), whose market share hovers around 20%.

Apple Inc. (AAPL) used to rule its niche world and will continue to do so, with lots of room to grow.

As Coldplay’s “I used to rule the world…” played softly on the outside stereo speakers of my sailboat “Southern Cross”, as my family and I pleasantly glided by Execution Rock on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon in the Long Island Sound, I could not stop myself from thinking how the song got there. It was coming out of my daughters’ Apple iPod, interfacing with the boat’s new iPod-ready stereo system. And I was wondering whether it was time to get into Apple’s stock. Yes … even on a weekend sail.

Brazil’s economy has been given a second chance. And so have prospective investors.

Brazil will use that second chance well – shouldn’t we?

PepsiCo Inc. (PEP) shares plunged 12% in a single day last Tuesday – their worst one-day showing in 26 years – after the world’s largest snack maker and No. 2 soft-drink producer announced it would slash 3,300 jobs after its profits fell more than expected for the quarter and it lowered its forecast for the rest of the year.

The shares, which have traded as high as $79.79 during the past 12 months, closed Friday at $53.88. Pepsi’s 52-week low is $50.65.

The U.S. financial-services sector is undergoing the broadest restructuring of a single industry in the history of Corporate America, and Bank of America Corp. (BAC) has positioned itself to emerge as one of three clear front-runners. Indeed, along with Citigroup Inc. (C) and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), Bank of America could well emerge from this financial maelstrom as one of the premier players on the global stage: All three will benefit from increasing market share and increased financial intermediation margins as their weaker rivals have failed and/or been taken over in part or in total by a stronger industry player.

During the many financial crises that I have analyzed around the world, the result has always been the same: The prudently managed, under-levered institutions that did not overstretch their capital bases and that were able to maintain strong funding not only survived – they ran away with the market.