The Applied Finance Group (AFG) is an independent equity research provider that has partnered with CEO Magazine in recent years to give investors insight into which CEOs do the best job of creating value for its shareholders; after all, that is what they are hired for.

The AFG/CEO Wealth Creation Index, which relies upon AFG’s corporate performance metric Economic Margin (EM), provides a better understanding of wealth creation than traditional accounting measures such as EPS and ROC. The link below will take you to the complete list of rankings of CEOs from S&P 500 companies that have held their current position for at least 3 years, based on their wealth creation abilities. Topping the rankings in 2009 is MasterCard’s (MA) Robert W. Selander, up from third place last year. Both Selander and runner-up Federated Investors’ (FII) J. Christopher Donahue run very high EM companies (24.5 percent and 20.6 percent three-year averages, respectively). Interestingly, both have been able to improve in a bad economy.

Sentiment

Stocks opened lower after four days of gains, but with no real news to guide the market action, are trading mixed late Tuesday. With no economic data and no earnings of broad market significance, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped on profit-taking after a four-day 4.7 percent advance.

However, the selling never gathered any momentum and the industrial average has traded in a narrow 63-point range. With an hour left to trade, the Dow has overcome the early weakness and is up 17 points.

"Monsanto Company along with its subsidiaries, is a worldwide provider of agricultural products for farmers. The Company’s seeds, biotechnology trait products, and herbicides provide farmers with solutions to produce foods for consumers and feed for animals. The Company operates in two segments: Seeds and Genomics, and Agricultural Productivity."

Although Monsanto (MON) isn't a Dividend Achiever or a member of the Nasdaq 100, the company has a solid history and provides investors with an exceptional opportunity.

Jefferies is taking advantage of the uncertainty surrounding CFTC activity in the ETF marketplace by launching two more commodity-oriented funds that bypass CFTC intervention. The Jefferies | TR/J CRB Global Agriculture Equity Index Fund (CRBA) and the Jefferies | TR/J CRB Global Industrial Metals Equity Index Fund (CRBI) began trading today. Both ETFs invest in equities of commodity producers – not the actual commodities.

Monsanto Company (MON) has signed a long-term supply contract with Air Products (APD), the leading global hydrogen provider. According to the contract, Air Products will build a new world-scale hydrogen production plant to be located at Monsanto's Luling, Louisiana, Roundup facility. The new hydrogen plant is scheduled to be on-stream in Jan 2012.

Air Products will build a steam methane reformer (SMR) producing over 100 million standard cubic feet per day ((MMSCFD)) of hydrogen. The SMR will be connected to Air Products' East Gulf Coast pipeline network, which supplies refineries with hydrogen needed to make cleaner burning transportation fuels, in addition to meeting the hydrogen needs of the local petrochemical industry. In addition, the facility will produce additional hydrogen via a clean-up of a hydrogen-rich off-gas feed coming from Monsanto. Monsanto will use steam from Air Products' SMR process to benefit its Roundup production plant.

IndexUniverse posted a lengthy article by John Serrapere recapping the latest quarter for his 75/50 portfolio. The 75/50 means that the portfolio tries to capture 75% of the market's upside with only 50% of the downside over the course of a stock market cycle.

The portfolio, and articles about the portfolio, are long running at IndexUniverse and can be a very constructive read. He quantifies (75 and 50) specific targets, in contrast to my simply looking to go down less (this will mean different things at different times) during bear phases and go along for the ride to the upside. The way this has played out for me has been down less. I have had a couple of years being very close to the market during up years and one year that the SPX was up very little and I was up a lot. Generally, I expect to lag a little when the market is up a lot and hope to do well the rest of the time including hoping to go down less when the market goes down a lot.

Round numbers can be a tricky thing for markets. On its previous run up, gold hit $1,000/oz. on 2/20 of this year and then retreated, making another near attempt in early June before shying away again. If you include the one day close at 999.50 the day after its latest break though, the yellow metal has now spent 16 days above the 4 figure mark. Like gold the Dow’s initial attempts to get through 10,000 back in 1999 were an advance then retreat sort of movement as investors got used to a DJIA with 5 figures. This latest move through that level has seen the index move back and forth across the line as if it didn’t exist.

So with the S&P nearing the 1100 mark, the Euro touching $1.50/ yesterday in Europe and oil doing the same with the $80/bbl number, three became the charm and the markets took a breather; leaving until today or later to decide if the Fed is going to risk stepping on the paint which it has used to liquify itself into a corner.

We asked a simple question: If you had to own only 1 stock for the next 5 years, what would it be? Since many of the hedge funds we track on the blog are centered around stockpicking, we thought it would be fun to see what readers had in mind for long-term picks of their own.

As you can imagine, we received the full gamut in terms of answers but definitely noticed a few themes in the responses. Firstly, when it comes to 'buy and hold,' blue chip stocks are the name of the game. By far and away, the largest amount of entries centered around well established blue chip companies that have a proven brand and often pay a dividend. Secondly, two sectors received the most votes and those were: technology and energy. Readers definitely see those two arenas as areas of long-term growth and sustainability it seems.

By Daniel Harrison

In the past year, currencies everywhere have taken on an inverse relationship to equity prices, relative to what they were doing earlier in the decade. For example, as the dollar has weakened, equity prices have rallied off the floor. In Asia, the yen—traditionally a bearish indicator—is soaring, while markets in Hong Kong, China and other Asian frontier countries have zoomed ahead to record gains.

By Daniel Harrison

In the past year, currencies everywhere have taken on an inverse relationship to equity prices, relative to what they were doing earlier in the decade. For example, as the dollar has weakened, equity prices have rallied off the floor. In Asia, the yen—traditionally a bearish indicator—is soaring, while markets in Hong Kong, China and other Asian frontier countries have zoomed ahead to record gains.

• · Plenty of time for an earnings rebound.
• · High absolute option premiums due to the length of the contracts.
• · Low break-even points (due to the high option premiums received).
• · Nice margins of safety from the current $74.90 price.
• · Potential for tax deferment of gains until April 2013 (when you’ll file your 2010 Schedule D).

Sentiment

Stocks are flat in a day of quiet trading Wednesday. The early earnings news was mixed. While Costco (COST) helped the retail sector with better-than-expected numbers, Yum Brands (YUM) and Monsanto (MON) suffered some post-earnings weakness. Investors now wait for Alcoa (AA) to unofficially kick off the earnings reporting season after the closing bell.

Meanwhile, the economic calendar remains light until weekly jobless claims and wholesale inventories Thursday morning. The next batch of meaningful data doesn't hit until retail sales next Wednesday. (However, same store sales from a number of retailers should grab some attention tomorrow morning.)

Agriculture is one of my favorite long-term themes as a crowded planet modernizes - but the recession has certainly hit the names in the sector more than I expected; I thought these would be a bit more recession-proof. In the first few days of the week, two underachievers of late - Mosaic (MOS) in fertilizer and Monsanto (MON) in seeds/herbicide have reported, and despite disappointing numbers have not been hammered. In fact Mosaic rallied after its report Monday evening but then again as we noted - by midday yesterday almost every stock was up.

At some point all the bad news will be in these stocks, but it is unclear if that point is now. The fact this sector has not participated in the "kill the dollar, buy any commodity-related stock on earth" is also troubling - the only commodity sector somewhat similar is natural gas, and even there it's more about the raw commodity that has stunk, not the individual corporations whose stocks have still been run up even as the commodity languishes.

Q4 2009 Earnings Call

October 7, 2009 9:30 am ET

Symantec Corp. (SYMC) – Less than twenty minutes of the trading session had elapsed this morning when one investor exchanged approximately 30,500 option contracts on Symantec Corp. A portion of the trade looks like a closing transaction while the remainder of the activity represents fresh bullish positioning. Shares of the software company are currently trading 0.5% higher to stand at $16.49. It appears the trader originally purchased some 12,000 calls at the October 16 strike for an average premium of 1.42 apiece, back on May 8, 2009, when shares of SYMC were at $15.00. Today, the investor sold the lots to close out the now in-the-money call position for just 65 cents each. The apparent 77 cent loss on the closing sale is likely due, in part, to the eroding extrinsic (or time) value of the option premium on the calls. The loss, however, did not deter the investor from taking a new options approach on the stock. It appears he initiated a bullish risk reversal in the November contract by selling 9,300 puts short at the November 15 strike for 40 cents each, spread against the purchase of 9,300 calls at the higher November 17 strike for 75 cents apiece. The net cost of the reversal amounts to 35 cents per contract. The investor will amass profits on the trade if shares of Symantec rally at least 5% to surpass the breakeven point at $17.35 by expiration in November.

Speculating on Gambling: WMS Industries (WMS)