In yet another suprising turn of events, Gold Futures finished a full $5 higher on Monday after initially surging to just below the $800 mark in electronic trade. This was a gain of nearly $50 per ounce over last weeks low position of $749. The record high for gold is $875, reached on Jan. 21, 1980. Gold has added more than $25 an ounce since last Tuesday’s open. December gold closed at up $16.50 on the session. Gold’s hedge value was also pushed higher by the continued rise of crude oil, which topped the $93 a barrel mark in electronic trading.

Reuters quotes John Reade, head of precious metals strategy of UBS in London, as informing clients that the large long positions made him wary of recommending purchases at the current levels. “But with positioning so long in all metals — and no sign of supportive jewellery or industrial demand, a correction, when it comes, will be likely brutal,” Reade said.

With Oil closing above the $93 a barrel mark and contining its march towards the staggering $100 mark based on weather concerns in the Gulf of Mexico which forced the shutdown of about 20% of the production in Mexico. Additionally political problems in the Middle East as Turkey threatened wider attacks have many concerned as to the future price of oil climbing even higher. Light sweet crude oil for December delivery closed at $93.53 a barrel, up $1.67 over the session. Crude reached as high as $93.80 in afternoon trading, hitting yet another record high. Overall, oil continued to move closer to the inflation-adjusted record levels of $101.70, reached in April 1980.

Consequently, the US Dollar fell to a fresh record low against the Euro and also saw weakness against the British Pound and Japanese Yen. The sagging dollar was seen to be spurred downward by the rampant speculation that the Federal Reserve will cut U.S. interest rates which will also be offset by further losses in the US Stock Market.

With all these poignant economic indicators signalling a recession for the United States, the outlook is rather bleak heading into the holiday season. The fed still keeps pumping out the spin doctoring that the economy is in good shape but anybody with a set of eyes and a set of ears can look and listen for themselves and relaize that beside the fact we’re engaged in an endless war where there will be no significant victory, we are also on the verge of a true economic recession and nearing a depression.

  With all the talk about Google Inc’s stock pushing upwards of the $600 mark, and no split in sight, there’s been scores of people asking the inevitable question, “Is Google the Highest Priced Stock in the US”? While Google is definitely up there in terms of price (it currently ranks #9 in the US markets) there are several stocks that far exceed Google in price per share. Of course, the eternal sage of investment philosophy, Warren Buffett (pictured at the left) tops the list with Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. but do Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, their CEO Eric Schmidt and CFO George Reyes intend to topple Warren from his post with their technological marvel ? Here’s a roll call of the 10 most costly investments available through the US markets, their exchange, basic details, website address and their current price as of 10/20/2007.

#1 Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK-A) $127,100 @ share - Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. and it’s subsidiaries primarily engage in the insurance and reinsurance of property and casualty risks business.
http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/

#2 Mechanics Bank (OTC BB:MCHB.OB) $19,300 @ share - The Mechanics Bank and its subsidiaries provide community banking products and services to individuals and businesses in California.
http://www.mechbank.com/

#3 BERKSHIRE HATH HLD B (NYSE:BRK-B) $4324 @ share - A holding company formed by Berkshire Hathaway, whereas Warren Buffett is the major holder of BRK-A, The Gates (Bill and Melinda) Foundation is the major shareholder in BRK-B.
http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/

#4 Sunwest Bank (OTC BB:SWBC.OB) $2455 @ share - Sunwest Bank provides various commercial banking products and services to small and medium sized businesses and professionals in southern California.
http://www.sunwestbank.com/

#5 First National Bank Alaska (OTC BB:FBAK.OB) $2050 @ share - First National Bank Alaska operates as a commercial bank in Alaska. It engages in generating deposits and originating loans.
http://www.fnbalaska.com/

#6 Seaboard Corp. (AMEX:SEB) $1743 @ share - Seaboard Corporation operates in the food processing and ocean transportation industries in the United States and internationally.
http://www.seaboardcorp.com/

#7 Washington Post Co. (NYSE:WPO) $790 @ share - The Washington Post Company, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a diversified media and education company in the United States and internationally.
http://www.washpostco.com/

#8 First Citizens Bancorp., Inc. (OTC BB:FCBN.OB) $666 @ share - First Citizens Bancorporation, Inc. operates as the holding company for First Citizens Bank and Trust Company, Inc. and The Exchange Bank of South Carolina, Inc., which provides commercial and retail banking services.
http://www.fcbsc.com/

#9 Google Inc. (NasdaqGS:GOOG) $644 @ share - Google, Inc. provides targeted advertising and Internet search solutions worldwide. It offers intranet solutions via an enterprise search appliance.
http://www.google.com/

#10 CME Group, Inc. (NYSE:CME) $613 @ share - CME Group, Inc. operates as a diverse financial exchange. The company brings together buyers and sellers on the CME Globex electronic trading platform and on its trading floors.
http://www.cme.com/

There you have it, the 10 Highest Priced Stocks in the US Markets. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be dissecting these entities and analyzing the reason why these companies have such a enormous valuation. Obviously the banking and financial sectors are market leaders with only Google Inc. representative of the technology sector in this list. While most or all of these stocks are out of the reach of ordinary investors, one can only learn from the biggest and take watchful eye of the emergence of new entities in these lofty arenas hoping to catch onto the next Berkshire Hathaway or Google.

If you would like to discuss this article, please feel free to visit the forum thread created for it here

* Data in this article compiled from Yahoo! Finance

It was 20 years ago today that the financial markets experienced Black Monday and by no means is this a call for celebration amongst the brokers and traders on the street. Black Monday is the name given to Monday, October 19th 1987, because on that day the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) dropped 508 points to 1739 which was an overall 22.6% loss. Similar enormous single day drops occurred across markets around the world. By the end of October 1987, the stock markets in Hong Kong had fallen by 45.8%, in Australia by 41.8%, in Spain by 31%, in the United Kingdom by 26.4%, in the United States by 22.68%, and in Canada by 22.5%. The 1987 crash has often been labeled as black swan event because there is an unprecedented degree of mystery associated with the mass panic leading to the sell-off. Whereas the markets expereiencd similar drops preceeding the outbreak of World War I and on the first day of trading following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, no specific global event was seen to have triggered the imbalances and disruption witnessed on October 19th 1987. Commonly attributed factors to the 1987 crash were the rise to prevelance of computer-aided program trading, market overvaluation, financial illiquidity, and overall market psychology that was cognizant of an impending collapse. Many economists theorized the speculative boom and overvaluation leading up to the crash was caused by program trading (which is a computerized form of arbitrage trading), while others argued that the crash was merely a return to true valuation.

At time of writing, the Dow is currently down over 360 points (2.64%), however the markets have been on a rush skyward again, partially due to market overvaluation. The economic indicators are not aligning with the current prices on the street and it’s only logical that the market will see this sort of volatility as a stabalizing factor. Oil futures fell Friday, retreating from an earlier new record above $90, and many investors sold out to lock in profits which would definitely have an impact on the markets downward movement seen today. Other factors attributed to today’s losses include credit concerns, lackluster corporate earnings and an unstable housing market.

So, what is the average investor to do in situations such as the present? To begin with, if you have followed an investment plan and allocated a majority percentage of your portfolio to long term, blue chips, a smaller percentage to emerging and potentially volatile stocks and the smallest to highly volatile, your best bet is to hold your positions at the moment. Unless a company you are holding stock in has really been impacted by earnings reports or other indicators, now is the time to play it safe and hold until the market rebounds in the near future. There’s no doubt the losses today will be gained back within the next few weeks or month, so as the old saying goes, “Buy low and sell high”. Now is a good time to add some of those blue chips to your portfolio.

The New Google Dance

Many developers, webmasters and SEO’s are quite familiar with the term “Google Dance” which generally refers to the search engine giant shuffling it’s results usually in combination with it’s pagerank algorithm being updated. While there hasn’t been a visible toolbar pagerank update in over four months and many experts are wondering if Google has planned to remove the popular rating system, a second “Google Dance” of a different nature has had another group of experts shuffling their feet to the backbeat of Google’s drums. The music that’s driving the new “Google Dance” is the throbbing sound of Google’s soaring stock prices. Some of those dancing in the streets put the stock north of the $800 mark. This implies an upturn of more than 20% for a stock that has already surged by 50% in the past 12 months. Realistic or not, Wall Street will take it’s profits any it can muster them and in terms of a bear or bull market following Google’s every move, there is no bear, there’s a lot of bull and an ocean full of sharks waiting to take a bite out of the already over inflated values.

The Song Remains the Same - Adsense

After seeing its stock rise above $600 per share less than two short two weeks ago, Google has exceeded forecasts by earning a profit of $1.07 billion in the third quarter of 2007, a 46% increase over the $733.3 million it earned during the same period in 2006. Google Inc. reported stronger than expected profits, with sales rising 57% to $4.23 billion. The news from Google was greeted with a number of analyst upgrades and has seen the single share price of Google stock rising to a record $650. Cheered by the earnings results, at least 16 analysts raised their price targets on Google. The changes moved Street median target price from $657.50 to $722.50 with the highest of brokers expectations coming in at $850 per share. While all this commotion and speculation by the analysts is great for those who can afford to purchase significant amounts of Google, the average long term “bear” investors are finding the stock a little to risky for their tastes. Among chief concerns is the fact 99% of Google’s earnings are derived from their Adsense advertising product. Those closely watching the webmaster community are less likely to jump on the bandwagon because word in those circles is that Google stands to lose ground in the contextual advertising business to new upstarts that offer greater compensation for webmasters. While Google has managed to hold onto their title as internet advertising kings, webmasters and publishers everywhere are looking for alternatives due to Google’s lack of support, agressive policies and general tactics used to capture the market that are definitely crossing the “do no evil” line.

Shake it Up - Where’s the Split?

While the recent earnings report from Google has encouraged many analysts to steadily bump targets higher, the meteoric stock surge has also spurred many investors to call for a split, and at least one notable analyst, Mark May of Needham & Co. has released a note to clients Tuesday advising that Google Inc. undertake a stock split in order to make its shares more accessible to small investors. May also wrote, roughly 84% of Google’s outstanding shares are owned by institutions, whereas comparable companies have an average institutional ownership of only 67%.

While the price of Google shares are keeping it out of the hands of small investors, the big money crowd is delighted to have Google stay right where it is as far as a split is concerned. It doesn’t take a math genius to figure out that any institutions and large investors who picked up Google shares at $500 each less than a month ago have earned a cool $150 per share over that period of time. Anybody with the power to have grabbed 1000 shares for a half a million dollars has walked away with $150k profit in under a month’s time, that’s if they’ve bothered to sell their shares as of yet. I’d suspect many who have jumped on the dancefloor are still dancing to the beat.

We’ve been tracking the progress of Agloco since the very beginnng and although we are not promoting Agloco nor recommendng it, we still are receiving the updates from them on a regular basis. Although Agloco was virally marketed and caught the attention of hundreds of thousands of people, it still seems like a snow job to us. Beside the fact that the toolbar is packed with spyware and left a virus on the computer we installed it on and beside the fact nobody has seen a single dime in earnings, suddenly we’re beginning to wonder how low can Agloco go. On Monday we received the following email from Agloco Member Coordinator Danny Jorgensen which appears to be a case of Aglogo encouraging “click+fraud“. Here’s the email.

While I’m not exactly sure how Ask.com handles their advertising program (honestly, I wasn’t aware they had one) but I know that Google Adsense and Yahoo Publisher Network strictly prohibit publishers from encouraging people to click on ads. Apparently Ask.com doesn’t have such rules in place or Agloco is blatantly ingnoring them by pushing this emailto members and enticing them to click on more ads to make the program more revenue. Either way, it once again shows the lack of fundamental principles of internet affiliate publishing and throws more egg on Agloco’s already sullied face.