Earlier this month I drove down to Brussels, Belgium, to buy some Krugerrands. I could have bought them in my home country, The Netherlands, but I found the premiums at local dealers outrageous. In Brussels, I found a dealer that only asked a couple of euros above the spot price, which came down to a 1.5% premium. At that time, it was already surprising that at every local dealer, premiums were over 5% for 1-oz Krugerrands. And taking a day off from work, spending a full day traveling to Brussels, a distance of 220kms (about 135 miles) and EUR 60, on fuel was certainly worth the difference.

Now, with the spot price in euros pretty much similar to the price at the time I bought the coins, the Krugerrands can only be bought at crazy premiums on top of the spot price. Now, at my favourite dealer in Brussels, the bid price is even higher than the spot price.

Earlier this month I drove down to Brussels, Belgium, to buy some Krugerrands. I could have bought them in my home country, The Netherlands, but I found the premiums at local dealers to be outrageous.

In Brussels, I found a dealer that only asked a couple of Euros above the spot price, which came down to a 1.5% premium. At that time, it was already surprising that at every local dealer, premiums were over 5% for 1oz Krugerrands. And taking a day off from work, spending a full day traveling to Brussels, a distance of 220kms (about 135 miles), and EUR 60 on fuel was certainly worth the difference.

The precious metals rally that ended in May 2006 was a very good time for almost any investment in mining, whether it was the AMEX Gold Bugs Index (HUI), the Philadelphia Gold and Silver Sector Index (XAU), or junior mining companies. But after that rally, something changed.

After the spot gold price reached $730 in May 2006, there was a correction period that was followed by a rally to $1,030. Another correction followed and price of gold seems to be near a bottom at the current levels around $900, still up roughly 24% from its May 2006 high.

Usually I try to come up with analyses of undervalued stocks every now and then. I haven't posted anything during the past few weeks and I must admit that my perception of the market has recently changed. Before much of the subprime woes were dominating the news, I was still of the opinion that the major US indices would go up much further than 14,000 based on the simple fact that the Fed would keep printing more and more money.

This would not specifically be good news for stocks, but it would certainly lead money to lose its value and that usually helps share prices to appreciate. I think there is no better example of this than the Zimbabwe stock exchange. But as I mentioned, my perception changed. I am not very bullish anymore, in fact, I am bearish.

I think I may include myself in that last category. With the lion share of my portfolio invested in American stocks and a long gold position, this week has certainly been one that I do not wish to experience a second time. My long position in gold has been liquidated and I was too early to close my short position on the Dutch AEX index, which generally follows the US indices.

NGA is a company that uses zinc for its galvanizing processes. As a result of the growing zinc prices, the company had booked impressive revenue growth as well as earnings growth. I added NGA to my list of stock picks at a price of $5.18 and closed that position at $12.06 in May. After that, the stock went up a bit further and then had a 3:2 reverse stock split before it fell down all the way to its current price of $5.75.

I can imagine this stock has been quite a pain for those that have held this stock all the way from its peak in May. But the fundamentals don't lie: NGA saw its sales double in two years and its EPS increase tenfold in two years. And the story continues as the first halfyear results showed net earnings that were 80% higher than last year at $0.36 per share. Fact is that NGA trades at a P/E of 10.7 with, I repeat 80% EPS growth over the first halfyear!

I am still quite convinced that DRD Gold will manage to get its act together, but I am also certain that it is not the best stock for short term profits.

Instead, I took a long position in gold at $662, knowing that there should be some resistance at $660 (61.8% being a retracement level), which was successfully tested and spot gold moved up to $665 today. Should gold move below $660, there is a high likelihood of a full retracing to $640 which for me would be a very bearish sign and possibly a reason to liquidate all my positions in precious metals and certainly a reason to reduce the mining share in my portfolio.

I sold Yamana Gold (AUY) earlier this month at $12.65 as the technical picture started to become a bit more cloudy. This was followed by the announcement of a proposed three-way deal with Northern Orion (NTOWF) and Meridian Gold (MDG), which made the stock drop to the lowest close of this year at $11.12.

According to Eldorado, the final decision by the court is still pending "on the appeal of a lower court order in favor of the company confirming the legality and validity of the Mine's Environmental Impact Assessment". The closure will be implemented in about 30 days. To clarify things, the company planned a conference call on Thursday evening and I was all ears.

During the conference call, CEO Paul Wright was talking of a group of people whose only interest was to discourage mining in the country. He did not know the name of that group and he did not go into details on the specifics of the court case. Last year, there was a problem with cyanide poisoning of villagers, which means that high levels of cyanide were found in villagers' blood. This was a result of the sodium cyanide heap leach method that was used by Eldorado during trial production and that presumably has been used until now.

True, there might not be much ice in Greek waters, but there certainly is a growing demand for ice-class tankers in Northern waters. Especially North and East of Russia at least for the coming ten years the demand for ships to transport oil & oil products will grow substantially. With an average vessel age of five years and a bit, Tsakos Energy Navigation [TEN] certainly is well-equipped for this period of growth.

With a fleet that's more than doubled in five years and with net income having increased fifty times, one might argue that TEN is already too far in its growth cycle. But the opposite is true. Let's have a look at the stock's valuation. At a current share price of USD 63.50, TEN trades at a little over six times last year's earnings. This is already very low compared to the industry average of 16, but especially when considering that its 5-year EPS growth rate is almost double that of the industry, one has to come to the conclusion that this is a chance of a lifetime.

All stocks in euro unless mentioned otherwise. Stocks in bold have been sold as target price has been reached.

And in fact, Ahold is still trying to gain confidence. In the past three years, Ahold has underformed the AEX by a whopping 20% and this is not purely due to poor earnings growth. It cannot be denied that sales in the United States are staying behind. But it becomes more and more likely for Ahold to dispose of its North-American operations and this might offer shareholders some extra pennies.

In spite of the poorly performing US operations, the figures don't lie. Ahold trades at a p/e half that of its industry peers. Earnings for 2008 are expected to grow significantly, despite of overseas operations staying behind. Worst case scenario, Ahold trades at a forward p/e of 10 (assuming EPS of 0.80 in 2008) and is thereby still undervalued. Add to that the earlier-mentioned increasing likelihood of Ahold disposing of its overseas operations rather quickly and there you have your 'buy-advice'.