Big oil companies will be huge winners. American oil imports from the Middle East will accelerate, where the industry earns 80% of its profits. That will bring peak oil sooner, easily taking crude over $100/barrel quickly, and eventually to $150 or $200. Restrictions on both onshore and offshore drilling will get rolled back to their Bush era laissez faire levels, cutting costs and boosting profitability. You want to own Chevron (CVX), ExxonMobil (XOM), Conoco Phillips (COP), and

Equities: UP

The collapse of the volatility index (VIX) is telling us that the horrific, gut churning, 10% daily moves are over. But equities are no longer a US play. Extracting the insane leverage of the last decade means chopping the US growth rate down from a booming 5% to an anemic 2%. This is not a strong argument to buy American companies, which is why most analysts only see the indexes recovering 10%-20% this year. You might just get tedious range trading after the late 2008 dead cat bounce. The real action will be in the BRIC countries, which will see upside returns

However, this is not a riskless trade. There have already been several rounds of stop loss buying by traders who jumped into this strategy too early, as unimaginable buying kicked in at 120, 125, 131, 136 and finally 141. In Japan the ten year bond eventually hit a low of 0.46%, making our ten year at 2.85% look incredibly expensive. That works out

2) Q2 GDP came in at a blistering 3.2%, almost double some forecasts. While the stimulus checks provided a minor assist, it was really all about the enormous boost being given the economy by international trade. Unfortunately, if you don’t sell routers in India, ship food or commodities to China, or sell crude products anywhere you were toast. When this market does recover there is no doubt it will be lead by companies with half or more of their income from overseas. Think big tech: Microsoft (MSFT), Intel (INTC), Oracle (ORCL), Hewlett Packard (HP), and Cisco (CSCO), or just buy a technology ETF (XLK).

3) If you want to minimize the impact your vehicle has on the environment buy a used

2) It is amazing that natural gas [NG] let you in at $7.75 when the hurricane season was only half over. It is up $1.10, or 14% in two days. [Editor's note: ETFs are iPath DJ-AIG Natural Gas Total Return Sub-Index (GAZ), United States Natural Gas Fund, LP ETF (UNG).]

3) July durable goods jumped a surprising +1.3% vs. a forecast -0.4%. Expect the data to be very volatile and contradictory at this stage of the economic cycle. That’s why you see so many bald economists. They have torn all of their hair out.

4) Your neighbor’s toxic lawn fertilizer, pesticide, and weed killer could become the new second hand smoke, especially if they make your kids sick.

2) The S&P case-Shiller home price index for June fell 15.4% in June YOY. San Francisco came in at -23.7% YOY. Even though homebuilders have cut back construction dramatically, foreclosures keep dumping more properties on the market, driving prices down.

3) The ten year return on the S&P 500 has been a meager 3%. Add in dividends and it rises to 23%.

4) The top 1% of taxpayers in the US earn 20% of the income but pay 40% of the taxes. Obama plans to raise the capital gains tax from 15% back to the Reagan level of 28%.

5) Since gas prices spiked people are driving less

2) Beijing’s Olympic gold medals actually have only 1/5 ounce of gold plate over five ounces of silver on a white jade backing. The last time winning medals were made of solid gold was at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm. The last gold medal that sold on the open market was by a Polish swimmer in 2004 for $82,000. The organizers of the 2012 London Olympics can’t help but thinking they are screwed. Their budget is one fifth of what the Chinese spent on their games, which will never again be matched in terms of spending, manpower, and organization.

3) 500 million Chinese going back to work today could trigger a rally

2) Your long awaited opportunity to buy Napoleon’s penis is finally here. The relic was part of a massive collection of quirky and macabre historical items assembled by famed Columbia University urologist John Lattimer. It will be offered for sale along with Hermann Göring’s monogrammed boxer shorts, the shirt Abraham Lincoln wore when

2) The tiny island nation of Singapore, which has never won a medal in the Olympics, has offered to pay $735,000 to anyone who brings home the gold. Malaysia is offering $300,000, Greece $220,000, and the Philippines $200,000. The US pays a relatively chintzy $25,000 to its medal winners. NBC thought it died and went to heaven when it rained during the women’s volleyball gold medal final. Suddenly it became an Olympic wet T-shirt contest.

3) Weekly jobless claims moderated to 432,000, down 13,000. Just noise.

4)

2) Maudie Hopkins, one of the last surviving confederate army widows, died at 93. In 1934, at age 19, she married an 86 year old veteran of the Civil War who died shortly thereafter. She has been collecting a government pension ever since. The Veterans Administration is still paying pensions to a half dozen similar widows from both sides of the civil war, which ended 143 years ago. One is collecting a pension from a late Civil War veteran and a WWII veteran.

3) The US share of world GDP

2) Nine million jobs are expected to leave the US for China and India over the next ten years, manufacturing to China and back office and support to India. China’s GDP is expected to exceed that of the US by 2035. Hopefully I will be dead by then.

3) If China had not implemented its “one family, one child” policy in 1979, the population would have shot up to 1.7 billion today instead of the current 1.3 billion. The 400 million difference equals the entire population of North America now.

4) If Michael Phelps were a country he would rank 5th the Olympic gold medal

2) The National Association of Realtors says that Q2 prices were down 16.3% YOY and that sales volume was down 16.7%. The biggest drop in sales was in California, down -25% where foreclosures are still a major part of the

2) July CPI came in at a red hot +0.8%, or 5.6% YOY. With wage growth at zero this means that the US standard of living is declining at a 5.8% annual rate this year. Thank you president Bush! Well done! This is what John McCain has to sell this year. Tough.

3) With the Obama boom now fading, McCain is rising in the polls. So Alliant Technology (ATK), one the largest suppliers of ammunition

2) Gasoline inventories fell as surprising 6.4 million barrels as the summer driving season draws to a close. Wholesalers are trying to keep stocks to a minimum to avoid the hit from falling prices. Crude jumped $5 to $117.50.

3) Demand destruction for gasoline is accelerating. According the Federal Highway Administration, Americans drove 12.2 billion fewer miles in June than a year earlier, saving 635 million gallons of gasoline which equates to 1 million barrels/day of crude oil consumption. This is 5% of our 20 million barrels/day total. High gas prices have spurred advocates to pack the November ballot with transit bills, including the long awaited funding of a BART extension from Fremont to San

2) The Olympic coverage has given a huge boost to McDonald’s (MCD), a major sponsor. The stock has jumped to an all time high of $67.

3) With the Beijing games underway, efforts are accelerating to complete construction of the 2012 London Olympic Park. The one square mile site in the east London slums of Lower Lea Valley have seen cost overruns push the budget from $6.8 billion to $18.6 billion. The neighborhood is so bad that “when you take the tube out there, life expectancy declines with every stop,” said one staffer. A profusion of undiscovered

2) China has spent a total of $70 billion preparing for the Olympics. They have priced tickets at a very reasonable $12 to enable the masses to attend. A record 6.5 million have been sold so far. The opening ceremony tickets only cost $29, but were scalped for $2,000. 500,000 visitors have descended on the city to

2) Whole Foods (WFMI) is suspending its dividend, canceling new store openings, and offering more low cost food in the wake of a 31% decline in earnings. The Texas based food retailer, also known as “whole paycheck” by its long suffering clientele, has seen its stock plunge 74% from $70 to $18 in the past two years.

3) If the predictions of Chinese Olympic prowess prove correct, China will have invested $7 million per medal in training costs.

4) Last year PG&E (PCG) obtained 47% of its energy from natural gas, 11.7% from renewable sources like hydro, solar, and biomass and 4% from coal. The company is gearing up for a big increase in

2) US paper money was found to have the highest cocaine contamination of any currency in the world. In some neighborhoods up to 50% of all bills tested positive for the South American drug, and therefore the people who handle them. This is the best strong dollar argument I have heard this year.

3) There are over 400,000 millionaires in China, the most of any country.

4) There is a new home mortgage wrinkle on the market. Hovnanian Enterprises (HOV) is having success moving is backlog

2) Pawn shops are also a booming business, which see 60% of their income from scrap gold. EZCorp (EZPW) is up 95% this year, Cash America International (CSH) is up 78%, and First Cash Financial Services (FCFH) is up an amazing 165%. However, some states are gunning for the sector, enforcing new 36% interest rate caps.

3) July was the worst month in the history of the commodities market and rumors are abounding that some hedge funds have gone under. As a result yesterday’s stars have become today’s dogs and have fallen all the way back to February levels. Cabot Oil and Gas (COG) is down -44%, Chesapeake Energy (CHK) is down 39% and Noble Energy (NE) is down 30%. The same kind of moves are also being seen in the lead agricultural names with Mosaic (MOS) down

2) Florida based luxury homebuilder WCI Communities (WCI) filed for chapter 11 because of its inability to roll over $1.8 billion in debt. Carl Icahn tried to take over this company a year ago at $22/share after it had fallen from $40, but failed. Sometimes your best trades are the ones you don’t do. Expect more homebuilders to fail. Read the “ghost towns” article in the Saturday WSJ.

3) The Fed meets tomorrow so it can do nothing on interest rates.

4) June factory orders up 1.7%, much better than expected.

5) The storage business is booming as