I have just arrived in Geneva after an exhausting but hugely successful few days in Ljubljana, quaint capital of Slovenia. It is rather difficult to write proper posts while on the road, but I will do my best to feed interesting snippets through - that is, when not investigating how the gnomes see the future of Swiss banking.

Gold hit a new peak after a drop in the U.S. dollar to a 15-month trough, resulting in the precious metal recording an eight-day winning streak. According to Bespoke, the current run represents the seventh time since 1980 that gold has had a streak of eight or more consecutive days with a gain. The report said:

In this post, Charlie Rose interviews Kenneth Rogoff, professor of economics at Harvard University, on the economy.

Charlie Rose sits down with Kenneth Rogoff.

One of the most incisive thinkers in the investment field is David Fuller who runs the Fullermoney service from London and provides daily written and podcast commentary. I have been subscribing to the service for more than 20 years and consider it part of my staple investment diet, particularly also for its truly global approach. I am not an agent for David, but please visit by his site to get a feel for his excellent commentary.

The paragraphs below from Monday’s Fullermoney report are particularly topical at this juncture in stock markets.

This week on WealthTrack Consuelo Mack sits down with global investor Dennis Stattman, founding manager of the BlackRock Global Allocation Fund. Now in its 20^th year, this Morningstar favorite has consistently delivered market and peer beating returns with less risk. In a wide ranging discussion, Stattman discusses the investment perils and opportunities he is tracking around the world.

Nigel Rendell, emerging market strategist of RBC Capital Markets, talks to Izabella Kaminska of FT Alphaville about a broad spectrum of emerging-market related issues.

Part 1:
Rendell talks about the differing fortunes of economies from Russia to Argentina. He says Brazil remains a great pick outside Asia.

Watch the video below to see what the patterns in the stock market charts suggest to technical analyst Louise Yamada.

The transcript of Consuelo Mack’s recent interview with erudite, articulate, funny and opinionated Jim Grant has just been published.

Click here for the text. This is must-read material.

Richard Koo, the world-renowned chief economist of Nomura Research Institute, discussed the lessons learned from Japan’s “lost decade” during a presentation at Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). During his discussion, Koo suggested that government stimulus can play a key role in alleviating the problems of a balance sheet recession. Koo’s recent book, “The Holy Grail of Macroeconomics: Lessons from Japan’s Great Recession”, discusses these issues in greater detail.

“Words from the Wise” this week comes to you in a shortened format as I am about to leave Cape Town for a visit to the colder environs of Switzerland and Slovenia. Although reduced commentary is provided, a full dose of excerpts from interesting news items and quotes from market commentators is included. Blog posting will be slow (and totally absent on some days) while I am on the road. The normal blogging service will be resumed on my return to Cape Town on November 16.

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) maintained its extraordinarily accommodative monetary policy following its meeting on Wednesday. The communiqué had no surprises and said that the committee expected to keep the fed funds rate target in the 0-0.25% range “for an extended period”. As expected, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Bank of England (BoE) also kept interest rates unchanged at 1% and 0.5% respectively.

The U.S. Labor Department announced Friday that the unemployment rate had risen to a 26-year high of 10.2% in October - an increase of 0.4 of a percentage point, even though the labor force contracted as well.

The graph below, courtesy of Chart of the Day, illustrates the unemployment rate since 1948 and provides some perspective on the current state of the labor market. As shown, Friday’s increase above the 10% level marks only the second time such a move has occurred during the post-World War II era.

“I think stocks are topping out, commodities are topping out and the dollar is making a bottom,” says Robert Prechter, president of Elliott Wave International and author of “Conquer the Crash“.

According to Yahoo Finance - Tech Ticker, Prechter also makes the seemingly counterintuitive argument that the dollar will rally because there’s so much debt, rather than being doomed because of it.

The video clips below provide a handy summary of the reports expected on the economic, financial and corporate front around the globe during the week ahead.

US: Retailers, health care

The yield of ten-year US Treasury Notes has surged by 34 basis points since the middle of October as market participants started adopting a more upbeat outlook on the economy and shied away from safe-haven assets.

Unsurprisingly, the following comes from the minutes of the meeting of November 4 of the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association:

I argued the bull case for gold in my posts over the past few months (see “Gold bullion - regaining its shine?“, “Gold bullion glitters bright” and “Gold bullion - challenging $1,000“. With the gold price scaling fresh peaks and closing in on $1,100, it would certainly seem as if renewed interest in the yellow metal is being stirred up, especially subsequent to the purchase by India’s central bank of 200 metric tons of gold from the International Monetary Fund.

As printing presses are running at full speed to produce ever-increasing quantities of fiat money as governments engineer the greatest asset price reflation in human history - and the U.S. greenback is heading South - the longer-term fundamental case for the yellow metal is arguably positive.

In this video clip, Peter Orszag, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, is in the spotlight on the U.S. budget and other pertinent issues.

Click here or on the image below to view the video. (As there is no direct link to the clip, you need to click on “Archive” on the Charlie Rose site, and then scroll down to the Peter Orszag video of November 3.)

Dan Holland has just interviewed Wall Street chronicler Charlie Gasparino. The first few paragraphs of the interview that appeared on RealClearMarkets are published below.

There’s good reason to believe that Gasparino’s latest book, The Sellout, will become the definitive book on the current financial crisis and the events that led up to “The Great Recession.” Spanning three decades, The Sellout pulls no punches in chronicling the rise and fall of excessive Wall Street leverage and risk taking, as well as the cast of colorful characters that ultimately brought the U.S. financial system to its knees. It will hit bookshelves Tuesday.

Joshua Brown, writer of The Reformed Broker blog, has just updated his list of top finance blogs. He has also put together a very handy, and humorous, graphic of his rather unique categorization. Brown said the blogs included have “either inspired, educated or entertained me in some way, so I figured I’d return the favor”.

It is a great honor for Investment Postcards to be included in the company of some industry heavy weights. Merci beaucoup for the compliment Josh!

A recent Bloomberg article was titled ”Pandit “near death” hoard signals lower bank profits“, and stated that Citigroup Inc. (C) and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) were hoarding cash as if another crisis were on the way. Also, a Wall Street Journal article entitled “Jittery Companies Stash Cash“ showed cash on the balance sheets of S&P 500 companies was the highest in 40 years.

The chart below, courtesy of economist David Rosenberg of Gluskin Sheff & Associates, shows that credit is still contracting as banks go through the painful process of repairing their balance sheets. As indicated, bank lending has now declined for 21 weeks in a row and over this entire period a total of $216 billion (15% at an annual rate) of loans and leases has vanished.

Marc Faber, author of the Gloom Boom & Doom Report, said at the Barron’s Art of Successful Investing Conference that the dollar should have “some kind of a rebound”, but longer term is in a “structural bear market”. He advises investors to increase holdings in emerging markets and says cash is less attractive than stocks.

The Dow’s up, but why are Main Street Americans still reeling from last year’s economic collapse? With Americans still facing rising unemployment, foreclosures, and declining property values, Bill Moyers discusses with renowned economist James Galbraith, professor of economics at the University of Texas, whether we have averted the crisis and how to get help for the middle class.