It's no secret investor confidence has been plagued by worries galore in recent years. In years gone by, an upward-trending stock market alone might have been enough to convince the retail investor to flood money into the market. But in the post-"Flash Crash" world of investing, things have changed. Since the May 6, 2010 crash, a day in which the S&P 500 (SPY) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (DIA) were down 8.59% and 9.19% respectively at their lows, there is one thing the investing community has been able to rely on: whether the market is up or whether the market is down, the retail investor is selling stocks.

How bad has it been? Since May 2010, there have only been three months in which domestic equity mutual funds have had inflows (January, February, and April of 2011). At the moment, it appears May 2012 will become the 22nd of the

What a disappointment Friday's Facebook (FB) IPO was. How anticlimactic after all the build up and hype. What a debacle for Morgan Stanley (MS) and Nasdaq in what should have been their moment of triumph. Where to begin in this comedy of errors?

It starts with Morgan Stanley's decision to increase the size and price of the offering. An IPO that was originally targeted at $10 billion ballooned to $16 billion. Gauging the seemingly limitless demand for shares, Morgan Stanley must have thought the market could bear the increased size. In retrospect, they dumped too many shares at too high a price into the market resulting in the IPO being dead on arrival.

As if that wasn't enough, Nasdaq's computerized system botched the transaction process. The 30 minute delay in opening shares was the result of their trying to resolve a bug that prevented traders from modifying and cancelling orders.

In my short stint as a Seeking Alpha contributor, I have found that writing is a continual improvement process, and believe that the work done to produce my articles has helped me develop as a writer and an investor. Over the last couple of weeks, I have produced what I believed were thought-provoking articles on a host of varied topics including the outperformance of low-volatility strategies, the appearance of an increase in structural volatility in equity markets, and the demographic influences on future economic performance of the BRIC economies. All of the interest in these articles paled in comparison to the leading question I have received from friends, family, and colleagues over this period: "Should I buy Facebook (FB)?" I have also learned over my brief time producing Seeking Alpha content that you have to give your readers what they want, so here is a look at Facebook's valuation through

In my original September 30, 2010 Just One Stock interview regarding Reading, and several other Seeking Alpha articles I

We've all been hearing about all kinds of ominous developments, and certainly the last few weeks have not been fertile ground for optimism. I was, therefore, surprised on going through energy statistics when I discovered the powerful trend that has recently emerged in the United States economy: Oil imports are going down at a steady pace.

In order to get a picture of this, I compared the first two months of 2012 with the same two months of 2006; a year well before the recession. I wanted to be sure that the decline was not due to the recession, so I compared real GDP in the two time periods: Real GDP in the first quarter of 2012 was more than 5% higher than real GDP in the first quarter of 2006. All things being equal, one would assume that oil consumption and oil imports would be higher in 2012 in

In "Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy," Joseph Schumpeter coined the term "Creative Destruction" to explain the capitalist process of innovation. Innovation is continually disrupting and transforming companies, industries and entire global economies built on the demands, risks and rewards of international free market capitalism. Innovation and creative destruction are an integral part of economic and financial market cycles, large and small, and therefore in the rise and fall of company fortunes and their shareholders.

Apple (AAPL) has out innovated its peers over the past few years. The creative genius and marketing prowess of Steve Jobs caught many technology companies flat footed. The iPhone and the iPad have sent competitors reeling, and sent many hurtling toward bankruptcy. Nokia (NOK) is one of the companies shaken to its foundations by Apple innovation and competition that has unleashed creative destruction. Nokia management and the company got too comfortable with their success. Apple has executed

The current financial crisis may progress to a phase where people demand and hoard dollar bills but take electronic deposit credits only at a discount which increases until electronic deposit credits are repudiated entirely. The Federal Reserve would be powerless to solve the problem, because while they can create unlimited electronic deposit credits they can’t create unlimited paper dollar bills, “money you can fold” as Professor Antal Fekete calls it. There would be a glut of electronic deposits, but a shortage of dollar bills.

Before the financial crisis metastasized in 2008, Fekete wrote a paper that I think is underappreciated and under-discussed. “Can We Have Inflation and Deflation at the Same Time?” In his paper, he discussed the “tectonic rift” between paper Federal Reserve Notes (i.e. dollar bills) and electronic deposits. By statute, the Federal Reserve cannot print dollar bills without collateral (e.g. Treasury bonds). Also, they have limited printing

For those who follow us, you know that we were among the very first to write about the vast potential of the Utica Shale (starting with our August 1, 2011 article.) We have subsequently updated our Utica outlook and profiled four different leading Utica Shale players.

This is our third compilation conference call article. As we have previously stated we think quarterly conference calls are invaluable sources of information and often give "color" that can not be obtained elsewhere. Therefore, we are once again sharing our notes relating to the Utica Shale from the recently concluded first quarter conference calls of Chesapeake Energy (CHK), Gulfport Energy (GPOR), EV Energy Partners (EVEP), Petroleum Development Corporation (PETD) and Rex Energy (REXX). To that end…

Chesapeake Energy Corporation - May 2, 2012 conference call

Chesapeake and the various analysts on the call were distracted by all the ongoing nonoperational Aubrey McClendon/Chesapeake soap opera

Just last month GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) was in the news for a move to acquire Human Genome Sciences (HGSI), its partner of up to twenty years for $2.6 billion. If you follow the news, you will remember that Human Genome Sciences rejected the offer saying that the $13 dollar per share offer was too low and undervalued the firm.

However, we have not heard the last as to the news of GlaxoSmithKline reiterating its $13 per share offer, which, according to GlaxoSmithKline, stands for a "full and fair value". GlaxoSmithKline believes that its offer stands at a premium 81% for the closing share price of Human Genome at the time of making the offer. It also believes that the offer is necessary in order to consolidate the relationship between the two firms for the mutual benefit of shareholders on both sides.

Surprisingly, Human Genome has taken the bull by the horns

By Edmund Moy and Michael Stojsavljevich

Gold prices have grown in value from the $400 level to over $1900 in the span of 10 years. But since last September, gold has been sliding downward and has been in a holding pattern around $1600 since about October of 2011. What is causing the holding pattern, how long will it last, and once it ends, will gold go up or down?

Click to enlarge images

Gold Prices Correlate with Fiscal Burden

When trying to forecast the price of gold, the most common methods are to correlate gold to either commodities or fiscal and monetary indicators.

Most commodities like gold and oil correlate well for short periods of time so many assume that oil prices are a good indicator for where gold prices will go. But gold has additional attributes that most commodities do not have: it is a luxury good as jewelry,

At its height in 1999-2000, it had over 30 million subscribers -- almost one-quarter of all Internet users in the U.S. at the time -- and was growing 25-30% annually. By 2000, its nearly $7 billion in sales had been growing 35-50% annually in the culminating years.

At its peak market capitalization in 1999, it was worth $250 billion. Time Warner liked it so much that, in 2000, they decided to merge with it. At that peak, I get it was valued at 35x revenues, 138x EBITDA, 216x cash flow.*

I'm talking about one of the hottest items of the then-nascent Internet age in the late 1990s. I'm talking about America Online (AOL). For about $22 a month, you too could sign up to wait about 20 minutes (if you were lucky) for your dial-up modem to connect you to their online community. It was an unstoppable business model. Until

Since my last Ecopetrol (EC) update there have been news stories publicizing an extraordinary event; Colombia's Ecopetrol surpassed Brazil's Petrobras (PBR) by market cap on Tuesday 15th May 2012, to become the largest company in South America. At the time of writing this article, Petrobras had resumed its dominant position with a market cap of $128 billion compared to Ecopetrol's $120 billion. In addition, since that update Ecopetrol's share price has fallen by 10%, with the company now trading at around $58. However, the company has still risen by 31% from the start of 2012, compared to Petrobras which has plunged by 23% during the same period to be trading at around $20. I have been bullish on Ecopetrol for some time and I still believe that it is a solid investment opportunity for investors seeking exposure to Latin America's oil boom. The question for investors is whether Ecopetrol still

Teva Pharmaceuticals (TEVA) has seen its stock make two significant moves away from the S&P 500 over the past six months. In January, the stock took a big jump ahead of the general market move, stayed steady in the higher register (the jump came from the low end of a 40-43 range to the high end of a 43-46 range, about 11%). Then in mid-May the stock plunged back below 40, a two-week dive that sees Teva's share price at 38.9 entering the Monday, May 21 trading week.

(Source: TDAmeritrade: bold green line represents TEVA, black line represents S&P 500 Index)

(Click to enlarge)

Each of those moves was in part supported or fueled by the general market rise and fall; January saw the continuance of a 6-month bull-run, while last week was the worst of the year. The negative move also included an ex-dividend date, which tacked on $.2614

By Patricia Oey

While we usually recommend using single-country funds as satellite holdings given their niche exposure, we think iShares MSCI United Kingdom Index (EWU) is suitable as a core foreign-equity holding.

First of all, this fund is dominated by high-quality global firms such as Vodafone (VOD), British American Tobacco (BTI), HSBC (HBC), and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). In fact, large-cap U.K. equities (in pound sterling) are actually less volatile than large-cap U.S. equities. Second, over the past 15 years, EWU has provided slightly better diversification benefits relative to the broader MSCI EAFE Index (which includes developed Europe and Asia), perhaps because the U.K. equity market tends to be more defensive, with heavier weightings in energy, consumer staples, and telecoms, relative to the S&P 500. We also note that this fund has been less volatile than the MSCI EAFE Index.

Before adding this fund, we suggest investors check their existing exposure to

We're not going to beat around the bush -- we absolutely love Ellie Mae (ELLI). We're hardly alone though.

As you can see from the chart below, the stock price has shown extremely impressive growth. We first came to this company when we were looking for short candidates, but even casual analysis showed that ELLI, despite its significantly overbought condition, isn't a good short candidate.

Click to enlarge all images.

In fact, we don't think it's a short candidate at all. It's definitely a company that looks set to grow in the near future, with an entrenched position and numerous levers to propel it higher. Tom Peters, the well-known business guru, has even written a case study on the company.

What does the company do?

Here is the business description in its own words:

Ellie Mae is a provider of enterprise solutions, including an online network, software and services for

By David Whiston, CFA, CPA, CFE

We believe current U.S. light-vehicle sales are far below where they should be, and assuming no further supply constraints, we are very optimistic about the U.S. auto industry for the next several years. We believe General Motors (GM) and Ford Motor Company (F) are still incredibly cheap and auto-dimming mirror maker Gentex (GNTX) is a way to play the recovery without the worry of large legacy obligations.

We think it's critical to first understand just how bad sales were a few years ago. Exhibit 1 shows U.S. light-vehicle sales since 1951 (shaded bars denote recession years). Sales bottomed out in 2009 at only 10.43 million vehicles, quite a decline from the decade's high of 17.35 million in 2000. The last time sales were close to 10.43 million was 1982's 10.36 million.

Exhibit 1: Total U.S. New Light-Vehicle Sales (1951-2011)

(click to enlarge)

Source: Automotive

"If I were one of these crazy hedge fund guys, with the slick haircuts and fancy shoes and racing stripe shirts, the trade I'd put on is 10-times-leveraged natural gas long versus 10-times short Apple (AAPL)." - Jeff Gundlach, Doubleline, quoted in "The Reformed Broker" blog.

It seems like everyone is talking about the low price and rosy long-term prospects of North American natural gas. Indeed, natural gas spot prices at the Henry Hub in Louisiana have risen by 43% over the past three weeks and are still near major historical support levels last touched in the late 1990s (see chart below).

However, holding longer-term bullish positions in the futures market may be increasingly challenging as we move into the summer inventory-building months and contango gets set to worsen.

The Bull Case Holds Water: Natural gas bulls point to the fact that, while the shale drilling boom has led to

The hype surrounding the Facebook (FB) IPO resembled something seen in the heyday of the dot-com era, with the fervor reaching a fever pitch on Thursday, May 17, the day before Facebook started trading on the NASDAQ. The IPO was priced almost perfectly, as the stock did not see a huge pop, meaning that the underwriters did not underprice it, thus leaving money on the table for the company. However, the stock almost fell through the $38 IPO price, and the underwriters were forced to step in and defend the stock.

With the IPO now complete, investors can begin to look at Facebook and value it just like any other company. That is what we aim to do in this article. We will be comparing Facebook to several of its peers to see if a case can be made for investing in the stock. We chose 3 peers in the

Baytex Energy Corporation (BTE) is one of my favorite monthly dividend paying securities. The stock is falling in sympathy with the overall market. I believe the equity offers a compelling valuation when based upon its current dividend and growth potential. Baytex currently offers a 5.8% annual dividend yield.

Areas of Operation

Baytex Energy Corp. focuses on oil and gas extraction, primarily in Canada (primarily in Alberta, with some operations along Alberta's border with British Columbia on the west and Saskatchewan on the east), with a growing presence in the U.S. (north west corner of North Dakota).

Company Profile

Baytex focuses on acquisitions and organic production increases for steady growth in profits, steady distribution of monthly dividends, a sustainable payout ratio, efficiency in operations and maintaining a strong balance sheet.

Baytex has reserves of 252.2 Million Barrels of Oil Equivalents (MMboe) with a production life of about 13 years. In the

Earlier, I wrote that Facebook's (FB) IPO is becoming a sucker's bet. On its IPO debut, Facebook started at $42, hit a high of $45 for a brief moment, and then turned south quickly. It hovered around the round number psychological price of $40, and went directly to $38 at approximately 11:50 EDT. $38, Facebook's official IPO price, provides the second psychological barrier that sustained through the day. Its price bounced back from there and stay above $38 for most of the rest of the day. The fact that $38 has been hit multiple times during the day makes it a very ugly IPO.

Once $38 is penetrated, the bottom for Facebook's stock price can be pretty deep.

By midday, many Facebook related plays went down in sympathy: Zynga (ZNGA) was down 13.3% and its trade was halted. Renren (RENN), the Chinese equivalent of Facebook, was down 9.4%. GSV Capital