The 9 Best Stocks to Own
for the Next Decade
.
.Billionaire investors like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates
have been loading up on these stocks for years.
Buffett recently invested $2.5 billion... Gates invested $4.0 billion... and the richest man in the world, Carlos Slim, invested $14.5 billion.
In fact, almost ALL of the world's richest people are piling money into these consistent winners.
Read below to find the names and ticker symbols of dozens of these unusual companies -- here...
Here at StreetAuthority we like to keep tabs on where the richest people in the world are putting their money...
After all, billionaires like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates are some of the smartest investors on the planet.
In fact, Buffett has been beating the market for so long that it defies belief.
Anyone with the good judgment to invest $10,000 in Buffett's partnership at its inception in 1956 (and to transfer into Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway at the partnership's termination) would today be sitting on an astonishing $432 million -- after all fees and expenses.
Buffett's long-term investing performance has been nothing short of phenomenal. Of course, billionaires like Buffett and Gates have advantages the rest of us don't: entire staffs of MBAs working for them... Wall Street CEOs who give them sweetheart deals in order to get their business... and friends at the highest levels of government and society who can steer them toward the next big thing.
An entire mini-industry has arisen following Warren Buffett. And Buffett-followers are usually happy they played copy cat. For example, back in 1988 Buffett began accumulating shares of Coca Cola (NYSE: KO). Since Buffett's initial purchase the stock has been one of the market's best performers, delivering total gains of more than 1,500%.
But there are plenty of other billionaire investors besides Warren Buffett. And with the economic boom in India, China, Latin America and Eastern Europe creating a whole new breed of mega-rich... many of them are unfamiliar to U.S. investors.
These modern-day Rockefellers run the gamut...
The richest man in the world is Mexican telecom magnate Carlos Slim, who still drives himself to work.
The sixth-richest is Lakshmi Mittal, an Indian who lives in the most expensive house in England and threw a $55 million wedding for his daughter. He chartered 10 Boeing jets and rented the Palace of Versailles for the party.
#8 is Eike Batista, a superstitious Brazilian worth $30 billion who puts the letter "X" in all his companies' names for good luck. He owns a $26 million business jet, a $19 million yacht and a $1.7 million speedboat whose engines have to be replaced after each race. He parks his $500,000 Mercedes-Benz in the living room of his Rio mansion.
The 11th richest is Li Ka-shing, who fled China for Hong Kong in 1940 to escape Japanese bombing raids. Forced to quit school and work as a clerk in a watch shop after his father died, he is now a major real estate developer and the world's largest operator of container shipping terminals. In spite of his $26 billion fortune, Li leads a no-frills lifestyle and wears a cheap Seiko wristwatch.
#14 is Vladimir Lisin, the richest man in Russia... an ex-steelworker who became a metals trader and eventually won control of Russia's steel and aluminum industry. He's now worth $24 billion and likes to shoot clay pigeons in his spare time.
Sharing the spot at #18 are brothers Charles and David Koch, who control the second-largest privately owned company in the United States, with revenues of $100 billion a year. The secretive siblings employ 70,000 people working in petroleum, asphalt, natural gas, minerals, fertilizers and timber. Each man is worth $22 billion.
#32 is Mikhail Prokhorov, a Russian with an $18 billion fortune. He recently purchased the New Jersey Nets basketball team.
Aliko Dangote is the richest man in Africa, with more money than Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, not to mention many other billionaires. Forbes puts his net worth at $13.8 billion, ranking him 51st in the world. His cement, flour, sugar and salt companies account for 35% of the market cap of the Nigerian Stock Exchange. Dangote just bought himself a $45 million Bombardier aircraft for his birthday, so he can shuttle back and forth to London in style.
As you can see, the rich are extremely varied in their habits.
But when we looked at all these rich people... we discovered one way in which they are very much alike. In recent years, most of them have been pouring their wealth into one particular type of investment.
It's not glamorous. It's been around forever. It rarely makes the cover of BusinessWeek.
It comes in many forms... but it always has one essential trait: it always involves a scarce natural resource.
I'm talking about oil, gold, natural gas, metals... the basic building blocks of economic growth that you dig, drill or pump out of the ground.
Take Warren Buffett. He owns 29.1 million shares of oil powerhouse ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP). Thanks to a solid dividend yield, steady demand for its products, and enormous share buybacks, COP is a stock you can buy and file away for a very long time. Maybe forever.
ConocoPhillips is the #3 oil producer in the U.S. What makes it stand out from the crowd is that it is also a play on the largest oil producer in the world: Russia.
Conoco owns 20% of Lukoil, Russia's #1 oil firm. The Kremlin gives Lukoil preferential access to Russia's vast oil fields. So Conoco has a leg-up on its American and European rivals doing business in Russia.
It's also a generous dividend payer... at times yielding above 5%. Right now it's paying Warren Buffett almost $77 million a year. The dividend has grown 12.7% annually over the past five years, which means it has almost doubled.
That's a big reason it has made so much money for its holders. Over the past 10 years COP has returned 228%, absolutely crushing the 29% return of the S&P 500.
Knowing this, it's easy to see why Warren Buffett chose to invest about $2 billion in ConocoPhillips.
And it's not just Buffett. Many of the world's richest investors are loading up on oil stocks. I'll bring you the names and ticker symbols of more of these later in this report... including an oil stock that Bill Gates likes so much that he has piled $570 million into it.
But oil isn't the only resource attracting the super-rich.
Carlos Slim (the richest man in the world) has invested $7.1 billion in a mining company called Minera Frisco. It's his second-biggest stock position after his own telecommunications empire.
Bill Gates also recently bought 5.8 million shares of the largest cement company in the world, CEMEX (NYSE: CX). Cement is made from limestone, clay and sand... plus small amounts of aluminum and iron. It's a true melting pot of natural resources.
John Paulson, the hedge fund operator who shot to fame after making $3.7 billion in 2007 betting against subprime mortgages, is also into natural resources in a big way.
Paulson runs a $29 billion hedge fund and four of his top five holdings are commodity stocks. #1 is $4.6 billion of gold bullion that he owns via SPDR Gold Shares (NYSE: GLD).
His next biggest bet is 40 million shares of AngloGold Ashanti (NYSE: AU), worth $1.7 billion.
Paulson's fourth-biggest position is Anadarko Petroleum (NYSE: APC), worth $1.3 billion, closely followed by oil and gas driller Transocean (NYSE: RIG), worth $1.2 billion.
The truly rich obviously feel that natural resources are a good place for their money -- no matter how they made it in the first place.
But our research turned up another interesting fact: a good number these billionairesactually made their fortunes in natural resources.
Just look at this list. It shows 29 of the richest people in the world. Even the poorest of this lot is still in the world's top 100. And they all made their money in natural resources.
Nearly a Third of the World's 100 Richest People
Made Their Fortunes in Natural Resources
| Name | Net Worth (billions) | Source |
| Lakshmi Mittal | $31.1 | Steel |
| Eike Batista | $30.0 | Mining & Oil |
| Mukesh Ambani | $27.0 | Oil & Gas |
| Vladimir Lisin | $24.0 | Steel |
| Charles Koch | $22.0 | Energy & Minerals |
| David Koch | $22.0 | Energy & Minerals |
| Iris Fontbona & family | $19.2 | Mining |
| Alexei Mordashov | $18.5 | Steel |
| Vladimir Potanin | $17.8 | Nonferrous Metals |
| Alisher Usmanov | $17.7 | Steel & Telecom |
| Oleg Deripaska | $16.8 | Aluminum |
| Rinat Akhmetov | $16.0 | Steel & Coal Mines |
| G. Larrea Mota Velasco | $16.0 | Mining |
| Mikhail Fridman | $15.1 | Oil, Banking, & Telecom |
| Vagit Alekperov | $13.9 | Oil |
| Aliko Dangote | $13.8 | Sugar, Flour, Cement |
| Roman Abramovich | $13.4 | Steel |
| Savitri Jindal & family | $13.2 | Steel |
| Viktor Vekselberg | $13.0 | Oil & Metals |
| Mohammed Al Amoudi | $12.3 | Oil |
| Albertoailleres Gonzalez | $11.9 | Mining |
| Viktor Rashnikov | $11.2 | Steel |
| Gautam Adani | $10.0 | Commodities |
| Iskander Makhmudov | $9.9 | Mining & Metals |
| George Kaiser | $9.8 | Oil, Gas, & Banking |
| Dmitry Rybolovlev | $9.5 | Commodities |
| Leonid Mikhelson | $9.1 | Natural Gas |
| German Khan | $9.0 | Oil, Banking, & Telecom |
This group of 29 billionaires is by far the largest group in the top 100, when you break them all down by the source of their wealth. More mega-fortunes were made in natural resources than in technology or real estate, or any other business -- no matter how much you hear about Google and Donald Trump.
And many more billionaires who made their money in other areas are storing their wealth in natural resources. In fact, they're loading up on some of our favorite natural resource stocks right now.
Here you can see exactly where a wide range of billionaires are voting with their money. This is current data, so it shows you what is happening right now.
From a native-born software genius like Bill Gates to a couple of WWII refugees (George Soros and Li Ka-shing), a remarkably wide range of affluent people are piling into natural resource stocks.
Some of these billionaires own so many natural resource stocks that we don't have room to list them all. I imagine there is something appealing about the reliability of investing in energy, metals, agriculture and similar companies... something reassuring about the fact that the worldneeds them to function.
In some cases, these billionaires are putting a huge amount of their net worth into these stocks. Hedge fund kingpin John Paulson is worth $16 billion... and most of his money is in the hedge fund he runs. At least 40% of that money is in natural resource stocks, so he's making a huge personal bet on this sector.
Where Some of the Richest People Are Putting Their Money
| Carlos Slim (Richest person in the world) | | | |
| Company | Industry | Shares Owned | Value |
| Minera Frisco | Mining | 1.82 billion | $7.1 billion |
| Impulsora de Desarrollo | Energy/Water | 1.95 billion | $3.0 billion |
| Groupo Carso | Construction | 1.83 billion | $4.6 billion |
| TOTAL | | | $14.7 billion |
| Bill Gates (#2nd in the world) | | | |
| Company | Industry | Shares Owned | Value |
| Cemex | Cement | 5.81 million | $50 million |
| Caterpillar | Farm Equip. | 9.59 million | $1.0 billion |
| Exxon Mobil | Oil & Gas | 7.64 million | $570 million |
| BP PLC | Oil & Gas | 7.13 million | $315 million |
| Monsanto | Agricultural | 0.50 million | $36 million |
| Deere & Co. | Farm Equip. | 0.50 million | $2.0 billion |
| TOTAL | | | $4.0 billion |
| Warren Buffett (#3 in the world) | | | |
| Company | Industry | Shares owned | Value |
| ConocoPhillips | Oil & Gas | 2.19 million | $2.2 billion |
| USG Corp. | Construction | 17.07 million | $245 million |
| Exxon Mobil | Oil & Gas | 0.42 million | $34 million |
| TOTAL | | | $2.5 billion |
| Lakshmi Mittal (#6 in the world) | | | |
| Company | Industry | Shares Owned | Value |
| Arcelor Mittal | Steel Maker | 638.00 million | $11.3 billion |
| Eike Batista (#8 in the world) | | | |
| Company | Industry | Shares Owned | Value |
| MPX Energia | Coal | 99.80 million | $2.3 billion |
| MMX Mineracao | Iron | 177.00 million | $819 million |
| OSX Brasil | Oil & Gas | 1.98 million | $439 million |
| LLX Logistica | Infrastructure | 11.8 million | $26 million |
| TOTAL | | | $3.6 billion |
| Li Ka-shing (#11 in the world) | | | |
| Company | Industry | Shares Owned | Value |
| Husky Energy | Oil & Gas | 322.00 million | $7.5 billion |
| Rusal | Aluminum | n/a | $100 million |
| TOTAL | | | $7.6 billion |
| John Paulson (#39 in the world) | | | |
| Company | Industry | Shares Owned | Value |
| AngloGold Ashanti | Gold Mining | 39.94 million | $1.7 billion |
| Weyerhaeuser | Forestry | 30.00 million | $656 million |
| Gold Fields | Gold Mining | 24.70 million | $360 million |
| NovaGold Resources | Gold Mining | 20.18 million | $186 million |
| Anadarko Petroleum | Oil Exploration | 16.71 million | $1.3 billion |
| Transocean | Oil Equipment | 18.81 million | $1.2 billion |
| SPDR Gold Trust | Gold bullion | 31.50 million | $4.6 billion |
| TOTAL (includes 12 stocks not shown) | | | $11.7 billion |
| George Soros (#46 in the world) | | | |
| Company | Industry | Shares Owned | Value |
| FreeportMc. Copper/Gold | Metals | 0.30 million | $16 million |
| Alpha Natural Resources | Coal | 0.35 million | $16 million |
| North American Palladium | General Mining | 2.50 million | $10 million |
| Stillwater Mining | Platinum | 0.35 million | $8 million |
| Great Basin Gold | Gold Mining | 6.68 million | $14 million |
| Golar LNG | Oil & Gas | 0.81 million | $28 million |
| InterOil | Oil & Gas | 3.97 million | $23 million |
| Petroleo Brasileiro | Oil & Gas | 1.61 million | $55 million |
| Harvest Nat. Resources | Oil & Gas | 2.76 million | $30 million |
| SandRidge Energy | Oil & Gas | 1.40 million | $15 million |
| Brigham Exploration | Oil & Gas | 0.40 million | $12 million |
| 23 more gold positions | | | $21 million |
| 29 more oil and gas companies | | | $294 million |
| TOTAL | | | $542 million |
Another popular pick not listed here is BHP Billiton (NYSE: BHP), the $230 billion Australian natural resources conglomerate that's involved in everything from oil and gas to copper, lead, coal, iron, titanium, uranium, silver, diamonds and gold.
Kenneth Fisher, the well-known San Francisco money manager with $38 billion under management, has 6.2 million shares of BHP in his various portfolios. That single position is worth $527 million.
BHP has been digging riches out of the earth since 1885... and now pulls in more revenue than any other mining company in the world. I imagine Fisher is happy he owns it -- especially if he's held onto it for a while. Over the past 10 years, this stock is up 1,121% while the S&P 500 is up just 31%.
BHP is one of the picks in our new research report... The 9 Best Stocks to Own for the Next Decade.
I'll explain how you can get a copy of this free report in a minute.
It won't cost you anything and it's full of companies that the world's most prominent billionaires are loading up on right now. We think these stocks will continue to create huge wealth over the next decade.
How Most of the World's Greatest Fortunes Were Built
There's nothing new about getting rich on natural resources.
When you look back in history, you find that natural resources have created most of the great family fortunes of lore.
Some of these historical fortunes make today's billionaires look like pikers.
Oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller was not only the richest man in history... he had more money than Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Sam Walton and Carlos Slim combined.
None of these poor guys can hold a candle to the $336 billion fortune (adjusted for inflation) amassed by Rockefeller.
| When he was young, Rockefeller said that his two greatest ambitions were to make $100,000 and live to be 100. He died just before his 98th birthday, but he sure made good on the first goal. Rockefeller started out as a wholesale grocer and went on to found Standard Oil, which grew to be a gargantuan monopoly. At its peak, Standard Oil had about 90% of the market for kerosene in the United States. (In the early days, gasoline was dumped in rivers because it was considered useless.) Rockefeller made his fortune on the quintessential commodity of modern times: oil. |
But guess what? The second-richest man of all time also made his fortune in a commodity business.
Andrew Carnegie emigrated as a child from Scotland to Pittsburgh and began working as a bobbin boy in a textile mill. He changed spools of thread for 12 hours a day, for $2 a week.
By the time he was 30, he owned iron works, railroads and oil wells. But his real money came from steel. By the late 1880s, Carnegie's steel empire was the world's largest maker of steel rails and iron.
His peak wealth, measured in today's dollars, was $318 billion.
In 1901, at the age of 66, Carnegie retired and sold his company to John Pierpont Morgan, who paid him in gold bonds. When the bonds were delivered, he had to build a special vault to store them.
But you shouldn't get the idea that natural resource billionaires are just historical footnotes. As we showed earlier, the largest group of today's billionaires all made their recent fortunes in commodities.
Why are natural resources so popular among the super-rich?
The answer is simple -- natural resource stocks have been the best performers in the stock market over the past decade. And for reasons we'll get to in a minute, we think the next decade will bring more of the same. That's why every single stock in our newest research report -- The 9 Best Stocks to Own for the Next Decade -- is involved in the natural resources sector.
We're not the only ones who believe natural resource stocks will deliver many of the biggest gains for investors in the years ahead. Just take a look at what some of the nation's top investment minds and media outlets are saying...
The Barron's piece goes on to say that the commodities boom is a long-term trend built into the very fabric of today's global economy... driven by demand from today's growth engines in China, India and Brazil. This is a market driven by forces that could be in place for many years.
Robert Toole, who runs the Crestreet Energy Opportunities Fund, says "the bull market in the commodity complex that's been underway over the last decade will continue during the next decade ahead." Toole's fund was up 52% last year and 81% the year before that.
And the super-rich aren't the only folks making good money in natural resource stocks.Small investors are also pocketing huge gains. For example...
Maylon H., a subscriber from Shreveport, Louisiana, bought and sold seven mining stocks in the past five years. He's made money on all seven... for a combined gain of $34,381.
Jerry S. of Bend, Oregon told us "I started my stock purchases by getting 25,000 shares of Silver Wheaton at $3 a share. Now it is at $33.50." By my calculations, Jerry had a whopping unrealized gain of about $750,000 at that point, less commissions and fees.
Please pay attention, because the research and investing ideas I'm going to bring you in today's presentation might affect how you invest for a long time to come. I've compiled the essential "take-away" of this research into a single report, called The 9 Best Stocks to Own for the Next Decade. It's free to any investor, and I'll explain how you can get a copy in a minute.
But first I want to clear up a common misconception... one that you might even hold yourself.
Too many investors think that natural resource stocks are the "slow and steady" type. Consistent, but not flashy... tortoises, not hares.
Well that's not exactly true...
What do you think the top gaining stock of the past 10 years was? Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL)… Google (Nasdaq: GOOG)... some other cutting-edge "glamour" stock?
Hardly.
The biggest gainer of all was a company that 99 of 100 investors have never heard of:Fortescue Metals (ASX: FMG). The gains this Australian mining outfit made its investors are hard to believe. $10,000 invested 10 years ago is now worth more than $5 million.
Fortescue wasn't mining gold, silver or some other high-priced precious metal. It made its fortune in iron... about as dull a business as you can get.
The firm's tremendous growth has been powered by insatiable demand for steel from China. Fortescue has at least 10 Chinese steel mill contracts lasting for around 10 years.
It's amazing that an old-school mining company would return better than Google or any other flashy "new economy" stock. We wondered if it was a fluke. So we went digging further.
It turns out that HALF of the 20 best-performing stocks of the past decade were involved in the same thing -- natural resources.
See for yourself. Here are the 20 top gainers in the world over the past 10 years. The top four are all involved in basic commodities.
And these aren't penny stocks that no one has ever heard of before. We only included companies with market caps above $3 billion in this list of top gainers. And as you can see, basic meat-and-potatoes natural resource stocks like miners, iron and steel, copper, and others dominated the returns.
Half of the World's Best-Performing Stocks Over
the Past Decade Are Natural Resource Companies
*Highlighted rows represent natural resource stocks
| Company (Symbol) | Business | 10-Yr Total Ret. |
| Fortescue Metals (AU: FMG) | Mines Iron Ore | 50,180% |
| Osisko Mining (CN: OSK) | Gold Exploration | 33,050% |
| NMDC Ltd (IN: NMDC) | Explores for Iron, Copper, Diamonds | 26,480% |
| Jindal Steel & Power (IN: JSP) | Makes Iron & Steel | 24,510% |
| NetEase.com (US: NTES) | | 24,430% |
| Sesa Goa Ltd (IN: SESA) | Mines Iron Ore | 22,280% |
| Sociedad Minera Cerro Verde (PE: CVERDEC1) | Extracts & Produces Copper | 19,890% |
| Hansen Natural (US: HANS) | | 16,530% |
| Shriram Transport Finance (IN: SHTF) | | 16,150% |
| Silver Wheaton (US: SLW) | Buys and Sells Silver | 14,710% |
| Philex Mining (PM: PX) | Explores for Gold, Copper, Silver | 13,730% |
| Titan Industries Ltd. (IN: TITAN) | | 13,230% |
| Kotak Mahindra Bank (IN: KMB) | | 11,330% |
| Calloway Real Estate (CN: CWT-U) | | 11,220% |
| United Tractors (IJ: UNTR) | | 9,420% |
| Sberbank (RM: SBER03) | | 9,120% |
| Kumho Petrochem (KS: 011780) | Makes Resins & Chemicals | 8,390% |
| Grupo Televisa (MM: TLEVICPO) | | 7,990% |
| Hindustan Zinc (IN: HZ) | Mines Zinc, Lead, Silver | 7,250% |
| Samsung Engineering (KS: 028050) | | 7,180% |
Why Have Natural Resource Stocks Done So Well?
One word: scarcity.
Once you burn a barrel of oil or a ton of coal, it's gone forever. Demand keeps going up, and supplies keep shrinking, leading to steady price increases for these expiring resources.
Many of the best-performing stocks in history have all benefited from scarcity.
When demand is infinite and supply isn't... you don't need a visionary leader or a breakthrough gizmo. And you don't need a one-in-a-million marketing genius like Steve Jobs at the helm.
No one else can come along and make more of these commodities. They can try to find more, but that usually takes billions of dollars. And this high cost of entry tends to keep out new competitors.
For example, BHP Billiton has already spent $1.2 billion developing a single potash mine in Canada... and it's not even operational yet. Before it is fully on line, it will cost the company about $12 billion.
The huge mining trucks you need in mines like that cost $3 million each... and new tires run $100,000 apiece. In effect, companies like BHP have a huge moat around their business, fending off competitors.
If you look again at our table of the biggest stock market gainers of past 10 years, a huge number have the scarcity angle working for them. It makes sense if you think about it. It's so much easier to profit when you're selling something the world needs... and there's not enough to go around.
Industries are desperate for these products... and supplies are running out. It's as simple as that.
We've all heard about dwindling oil supplies. That's old news. Oil production in the U.S. peaked in 1971. But it's not just "peak oil" anymore.
It's also peak nickel, peak silver, peak uranium and so on.
We are already consuming more than we are finding of all of these metals.
How long will these critical resources last? It depends...
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, we have already run out of cryolite, a mineral used in making aluminum. The last active cryolite mine, located in Greenland, closed in the 1980s.
Meanwhile, the European Commission says that at the current level of consumption, knownuranium resources will run out in 32 years.
Indium, a vital component of every laptop computer and LCD television set, might be the next resource to go. Extraction of indium has rocketed in recent years, but it's estimated the entire Earth's supply will be used up within 10 years.
Gallium is used to make super-efficient solar cells. But according to studies done by the University of Augsburg in Germany, we may only be able to generate 1% of future solar energy this way because gallium supplies are so limited.
Believe it or not, we might even run out of silver in our lifetimes. At the current rate of usage, all known silver reserves will be mined out in 27 years. And if new technologies now on the drawing board come to pass, we will run out in about 15 years. Scarier yet, if the rest of the world starts using silver at just half the rate we do in the U.S., it will be gone in seven years.
That puts silver's huge run up of the past few years into perspective.
There's a lot more to the silver story than old coins and jewelry. Because of its strength, conductivity and reflectivity, silver is absolutely critical in electronics. It is also important in batteries... bearings... catalysts... solar energy... and water purification.
Silver is just as vital to the world economy as copper or zinc... but relative to its rate of consumption, silver has the lowest in-ground reserves of any major metal.
Few people realize that we have about five times more gold than silver in above-ground inventories. That's because 80%-90% of all the silver ever mined has been used up for industrial purposes. But 80%-90% of the gold is still around.
And then there are the rare earth metals -- a collection of 17 freakishly useful chemical elements clustered at the bottom of the periodic table.
Without rare earth metals, you can say goodbye to the modern way of life.
No more flat screens... no more computer hard drives... no fiber-optic cables... no digital cameras... no MRI machines. No more satellites... no more GPS.
Considering how vital they are to our national security and way of life, you'd think the United States would have a deep strategic reserve of these metals.
You'd be wrong. We barely produce any at all.
China controls 97% of the world's production.
And Beijing is getting stingy about sharing with the rest of the world. It recently cut exports of rare-earth metals to Japan, Europe and the United States.
What's more, China's Ministry of Commerce claims that its rare earth metals will last just 15-20 years at the current rate of production. Others say that China's supply will run out even sooner.
Prices of these rare earth metals are doing just what you'd expect when supplies shrink.Neodymium makes the strongest magnets in the world. It's in every iPod Apple makes. Neodymium now fetches $105 per kilogram, twice what it did last year... and five times its price in 2009.
Cerium is used in catalytic converters to lower CO2 emissions. It is also vital for flat screen televisions, PCs and smart phones. Its price has tripled since last year.
The list goes on and on... the opportunities in rare earths are extraordinary. But you don't need to take my word for it.
Here's what SmartMoney magazine had to say about recent price trends in the rare earth market...
If the combination of tight supplies and booming demand intrigues you, you should take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with two of the world's most promising rare earth stocks. We've put them both into a report called The Most Promising Rare Earth Metals for Investors.
It's another report that I've prepared for natural resource investors, and it's also free. I'll tell you how to get your copy of this report in a moment.
But first, I want to be clear that exotic rare earth metals aren't the only ones that are jumping strongly. Take a look at how these "household name" metals have moved since the start of 2000…
These Metals Have Been On the Move
| Metals | Return Since 2000 |
| Gold | 422% |
| Silver | 644% |
| Uranium | 421% |
| Platinum | 322% |
| Tin | 347% |
| Copper | 384% |
| Nickel | 182% |
The list goes on and on…
Metal prices are so high that thieves are plundering copper from railways to sell in the black market.
British police called metal theft the "biggest threat to the railways after terrorism." Repeated thefts of copper wiring in signaling systems cause frequent train delays.
Metal theft is Britain's fastest-growing crime. 400,000 aluminum beer kegs were stolen last year. Cast iron manhole covers are going missing, along with catalytic converters from cars for their platinum.
In both Germany and Russia whole bridges have been stolen. And last year traffic ground to a halt in Melbourne after all railway crossings closed automatically due to theft of wiring.
But you don't need to break the law to make money in this field. You can just buy a few stocks. I've never seen a more investor-friendly playing field than the one you get in natural resource stocks.
That's exactly what we're seeing with our own subscribers...
One of our readers told us "I have purchased a number of gold, silver, palladium, uranium and lithium stocks. I bought Silvercorp Metals (NYSE: SVM) for $3.60 and sold at $11.55. I bought the iPath coffee ETF (NYSE: JO) at $45.19, sold at $69.90 and made $12,400. Thanks."
Another subscriber said he bought Petro One Energy at $0.62 and sold at $1.47 for a profit of $18,000.
Before I go on, let me introduce myself. My name is Nathan Slaughter.
I'm not famous. I'm not a Wall Street big shot. I'm just an independent investment analyst working out of Shreveport, Louisiana... but I'll put up my track record against anyone's in the business.
If you do know me it's probably as the editor of StreetAuthority's flagship Market Advisor service. This letter's "Top Growth Picks" Portfolio has more than tripled the S&P 500 since it started in 2003.
| I happen to live in Desoto Parish in northwest Louisiana. Back in March, my backyard became the nation’s top-producing natural gas field. So I've had a grounds-eye view of the transformation that has turned sleepy rural areas into bustling hives of drilling activity. Leasing bonuses and royalty payments are flooding in. There has been no housing crash and no recession here at all. It's booming. The only complaint I have is how often I get stuck behind trucks hauling drilling equipment around town. | Nathan Slaughter lives in the middle of the nation's top-producing natural gas field. |
So I'm not new to natural resource stocks. I've been putting my subscribers into them for years…
Last year we booked a 106.4% profit in Silver Wheaton (NYSE: SLW)... 86.6% in Kinder Morgan (NYSE: KMP)... 119.4% in Magellan Midstream (NYSE: MMP)... 107.4% in PetroChina (NYSE: PTR)... and 125.3% in MV Gold Miners (NYSE: GDX).
Before I joined StreetAuthority I spent several years at AXA/Equitable Advisors, one of the world's largest financial planning firms. I later honed my research skills at Morgan Keegan, where I managed millions in portfolio assets.
But my best credential is my track record here at StreetAuthority.
| StreetAuthority is one of the nation's largest financial research outfits. We've been in business for over a decade, and our analysis has appeared on Nasdaq, Forbes, Yahoo, AOL, and many other well-known financial media outlets. Over the years, our business has grown like a weed. We now have two offices -- one in Gaithersburg, Maryland and another in Austin, Texas. We employ dozens of people, and we have analysts and researchers all over the U.S. and Canada. Today, we publish our research to over 2 million readers in 175 countries. Working at StreetAuthority as part of a larger team, I'm fortunate enough to have some high-powered research tools at my disposal. One of the databases I use costs $23,000 per year. |
In fact, StreetAuthority spends over $1 million a year on research and analysis, and I have full access to all of it.
I've taken advantage of this intelligence pool to deliver plenty of gains in natural resource stocks. I'll let my subscribers tell you themselves...
Mark is talking about Petrohawk. I bought this natural gas play on January 27 of this year. The company operates right in my neighborhood and I drive by its wells every day. On July 14, BHP Billiton announced it would buy Petrohawk out for $38.75 a share in cash -- 103% higher than the price we paid less than six months earlier.
If Petrohawk hadn't been bought out by a major company that wanted in on the red-hot shale natural gas business, I might have put the stock in my new research report.
With positions in three of the most popular shale formations in the United States, Petrohawk is the sort of long-term locked-in winner that I'm focusing on in The 9 Best Stocks to Own for the Next Decade.
But I do have another pick in the report that's a lot like Petrohawk. This aggressive natural gas player is the most active driller of new wells in the United States. It focuses on unconventional fields and owns leading positions in the Barnett, Haynesville and Marcellus shale gas plays.
I'll give you the name and ticker symbol of this unusual opportunity in my new report.
In the meantime, considering their profits, it's no wonder that so many natural resource companies grow huge. Because of the constant demand for their products, natural resource stocks have become some of the biggest publicly-traded corporations on earth. In fact, three of the four most valuable stocks on the planet are natural resource stocks...
The Four Most Valuable Stocks on the Planet
*Highlighted rows represent natural resource stocks
| Company (Symbol) | Business (in billions) | Industry | 10-Yr Total Ret. |
| Exxon Mobil (XOM) | $359 | Oil & Gas | 139% |
| Apple (AAPL) | $351 | Computers | |
| PetroChina (PTR) | $232 | Oil & Gas | 1,024% |
| BHP Billiton (BHP) | $230 | Commodities | 1,121% |
With market caps reaching $359 billion, these companies are larger than the GDPs of Portugal, Egypt or Chile.
Exxon Mobil is not only the largest oil company in the world, but it's also the largest publicly-traded company, period. Exxon's biggest competitive advantage lies in its extraordinarily low cost of production -- the company is finding and developing oil for under $20 per barrel. That's about the lowest cost in the world.
Exxon Mobil is the stock I mentioned earlier that Bill Gates is into in a big way. He owns 7.6 million shares worth about $570 million.
Ken Fisher, the West Coast money manager I mentioned earlier, is right behind him with 7.1 million shares. His stake is worth $533 million.
And take a look at the third-largest company in the world, PetroChina. This oil and gas giant has ballooned in size as it has grown to meet China's insatiable energy needs. It has also been on a spending spree, snapping up energy fields on virtually every continent.
#4 in the world is BHP Billiton. This is the Australian conglomerate I mentioned earlier that mines just about every mineral you can name. The is the same one that took over Petrohawk and that money manager Ken Fisher owns $527 million of.
BHP's exposure to a wide range of commodities helped this stock jump 150% in 2010.
Because economies of scale are so important to their business models, natural resource companies have a way of growing into billion-dollar multinational empires.
In fact, I'm convinced that the first trillion-dollar stock will also be a natural resource play. But it won't be Exxon Mobil...
This Could Be the First $1 Trillion Stock
It's a big number to swallow, but it's going to happen someday.
A couple companies have come close to hitting the trillion-dollar mark before, but they've all fallen short.
Microsoft (MSFT) posted an eye-popping market cap of almost $600 billion as the tech bubble raged back in 1999.
Meanwhile, PetroChina's (PTR) market cap topped $700 billion in 2007.
But neither company managed to hit the $1 trillion mark, and I doubt that either will reach that level anytime soon.
Instead, I'm convinced that the first trillion-dollar stock will be Brazilian energy giant Petroleo Brasileiro (NYSE: PBR).
It's already the 13th-biggest firm in the world. Its current market capitalization is $178 billion, so it needs to grow six-fold to get to $1 trillion. But I think it can get there.
That's because "ambitious" is an understatement for Petrobras' growth plans. It plans to invest an astounding $224 billion in the next four years on exploration and production.
All told, Petrobras estimates that its oil production could ramp up from less than 2.5 million barrels a day in 2008 to close to 6 million barrels a day by 2020. That's one of the fastest growth rates of any energy firm in the world.
But Petrobras' ace in the hole is that it is 100% backed by the Brazilian government. A partner with basically unlimited capital is a huge bonus.
It means Petrobras basically operates a monopoly in Brazil. Last year it accounted for almost 99% of oil and natural gas production in the country.
Petrobras could become the Rockefeller story of this century. Most people know Rockefeller became rich via Standard Oil. But when you look closer at why Rockefeller got rich, you realize Standard Oil didn't turn Rockefeller into a billionaire simply because it was in the oil business.
No. Standard Oil made Rockefeller the richest man in history because the company held a monopoly in its market.
And that's exactly what we have here. The Brazilian government has granted Petrobras full access to drill and explore in Brazilian waters and coastal regions. Management calls this "privileged access," which it certainly is.
Very few government-controlled oil firms are also open to private investors like you and me.
Petrobras will soon begin extracting some of the largest oil finds in history. Sales and earnings have expanded at a 26% average annual clip in the past five years. They should keep pace in the coming five years as the company ramps up production from its massive new finds.
With all of this in mind, I think Petrobras' market cap will soar to $1 trillion within a decade.
Petrobras is a great example of a huge company that is nimble and aggressive enough to keep going for years. We're finding a lot of those in the natural resource sector.
But size isn't their only attraction. Many of them are paying huge dividends, too...
Some of the Highest Yields on Earth
For example, Cheniere Energy Partners (AMEX: CQP), which is a key player in liquid natural gas, yields 10.8%.
Legacy Reserves (NDQ: LGCY), an oil and gas limited partnership, yields 8.1%...
Enterprise Product Partners (NYSE: EPD), a gas transporter, yields 6.1%.
MV Oil Trust (NYSE: MVO), a royalty trust, yields a mouthwatering 10.6%... Transmontaigne Partners (NYSE: TLP), which transports liquid petroleum products, yields 7.4%.
Even ConocoPhillips -- the diversified energy giant that Warren Buffett owns $2 billion of -- yields around 4%.
But Buffett isn't the only investor who is cashing huge dividend checks from natural resource stocks. Millions of small investors across the country are also profiting from these high-yielders. Take a look...
Gerald C. of Oakland, California inherited 400 shares of Chevron (NYSE: CVX) in 1978. After splitting three times, it became 3,200 shares. He tells us he sold a few hundred shares along the way, but still owns about 3,000 shares. I looked up the history of this stock. His Chevron shares were worth about $15,000 when he inherited them and about $300,000 today. And Lord knows how many thousands of dollars in dividends he got along the way.
Robert R. of The Villages, Florida says he bought 1,000 shares of Exxon in 1973. Today he owns 16,000 shares. "Not bad!" he says. Considering his stock is now worth $1.2 million, we agree. The more than $30,000 a year he gets in dividends isn't bad either.
Exxon Mobil has paid dividends to shareholders every year since 1882. And it has increased its dividend for the past 29 years and counting. I have no doubt that they'll pay even more next year.
Exxon Mobil yields 2.6%, but that's nothing compared to a few of the stocks in my new report -- The 9 Best Stocks to Own for the Next Decade.
One of our picks brings you an unusual collection of some of the market's biggest dividend payers. They've also crushed the market as far as total returns go.
These unusual vehicles are heavily into energy... are almost 100% tax-free… and have gained 17% a year for the past decade. No other asset class has come close to this record.
Any investor disgusted by 2% CD yields will want to know more about this one. It's just one more feather in the cap for natural resource stocks. You'll have to read my full report to get the name and ticker symbol of this stock.
It's Time for You to Start Making Money
with Natural Resource Stocks
Over the years, I've bought and sold plenty of stocks. And I've made my biggest profits by riding long-term bullish trends -- exactly what we have today with natural resources.
It's these big picture investments that add the most to your long-term wealth. That's why I put together The 9 Best Stocks to Own for the Next Decade.
It's free for all interested investors. All I ask is that you sample my monthly natural resources newsletter -- Scarcity & Real Wealth.
I think you'll like the simplicity of my approach to making money in today's tricky market.
In a world of crooked politicians, paper money and ballooning government debt, Scarcity & Real Wealth brings you investments with real, tangible value. This monthly newsletter focuses exclusively on the rarest and most valuable assets on the planet -- commodities, energy, gold, and other natural resources. These critical inputs are in short supply, yet worldwide demand is exploding.
As you'll see when you get your first issue, investing in the path of growing scarcity is one of the surest bets in investing.
So far, the readers following my work seem to have enjoyed it...
Laurent R. of Webster, New York says that the stocks he bought based on my analysis "have been very productive and a boon to my increasing net worth."
Now, there's no guarantee Scarcity & Real Wealth will be the right publication for you. So here's what I'd like to do.
Try Scarcity & Real Wealth for the next 30 days risk-free... look over The 9 Best Stocks to Own for the Next Decade, which is included for free with your subscription, and then decide then if my research is what you're looking for.
Start your 30 days now and you'll have full access to the names and profiles of the best natural resource plays we've found worldwide. I actually buy my favorite ideas in a real portfolio funded with $100,000.
You can also get up to four additional reports detailing our top picks in more narrow niches of the natural resource bull market.
For the next 30 days, you can take the time you need to decide if my Scarcity & Real Wealthresearch is what you're looking for. If not, simply contact our customer service team for a 100% refund.
Like I said, it's risk-free to see if my research is right for you.
You'll also get the names of all of the stocks I've been talking about today -- along with ticker symbols -- in my latest special report -- The 9 Best Stocks to Own for the Next Decade.
A few of these scarcity plays are household names, but I don't think one investor in 100 has heard of half of them.
For example, one of our picks brings you a collection of mostly-ignored resource stocks that pay their profits directly to investors. They have to, by law. Only they pay much bigger dividends, because they pay no tax to the government.
As an added bonus, your personal taxes are so low that you'll think the IRS has made a mistake.
One StreetAuthority subscriber, Fred S. of Baltimore, has had a very happy experience in this market. He tells us he invested less than $25,000 in 1992... and his stash is now worth almost $300,000.
As far as we're concerned, these securities are the best natural resource investment that nobody talks about.
The only reason they don't get more publicity is because they're designed for the small investor, not the big boys. With their low level of institutional ownership, Wall Street's hordes of salesmen have little reason to pay attention.
Well, we're not part of the Wall Street machine. And we think they are too important to ignore -- especially for any resource investor who likes a nice yield. So we've included a simple way to participate in the best of them in The 9 Best Stocks to Own for the Next Decade.
I can't go into details on all these picks or I'd be here all day. Instead, why not just send for a free copy of this new report?
All I ask is that you try a risk-free trial of my monthly advisory -- Scarcity & Real Wealth.
Scarcity & Real Wealth gives you a way to hitch your wagon to a locked-in trend.
With so many forces converging to drive commodities higher, this is an almost effortless way to invest.
You don't need a PhD to grasp why this is working so well. Every year 80 million new people are born who need to be fed, clothed, and sheltered. Meanwhile, supplies of virtually every natural resource the world needs are shrinking.
The world is getting hungrier for all types of critical resources, from energy to metals to agricultural products. But there's not enough in the cupboard to feed everybody -- which is why prices continue to rise.
People are demanding more of ALL the planet's resources, not just the headline grabbers. So don't be lulled into thinking all you need is oil and gold. There are plenty of other less-followed hard assets riding the scarcity wave and posting huge gains.
| Take palladium, for example. This precious metal is used in everything from automobiles to fax machines. Rarely does palladium make front page news over silver and gold... but last year it outperformed both. Just look at my chart. Surging demand and limited supply are good news for palladium miners like North American Palladium(AMEX: PAL). As the world's largest supplier of palladium, no other company is better positioned to profit from higher prices. | Palladium Outperformed Both Gold and Silver in 2010  |
Right now, the world is demanding more of everything, making scarcity an odds-on bet to drive financial markets for years to come. This is great news for the investors in the companies that supply these goods.
Just take a look at some of the profits that everyday small investors across America have been making in natural resource stocks...
Retired Foreign Service Officer Tom M. tells us...
There are just so many ways you can profit in this hard asset boom.
Vince B. of Honolulu, Hawaii, says he's "up over 500% in silver rounds & ingots."
But my favorite story is from Edwin C. of San Diego. I'll let him tell you himself...
Keep in mind that not every natural resource stock will increase in value. And, of course, commodity prices will fluctuate -- nothing ever goes straight up. But by and large, I believe high -- and rising -- commodity prices are here to stay.
That's why I'm convinced that investing in the right natural resource stocks will make you more money in the coming decade that you'll make anywhere else.
That's the simple premise behind every recommendation in Scarcity & Real Wealth.
If you agree with anything I've said so far, then let me give you access to all the research we've done in this field -- including our newest research reports. These reports reveal the best ways we've found to profit from the ongoing pressure under natural resources. They're free, so you might as well take a look and see for yourself.
All I ask is that you accept a no-risk trial subscription to my monthly newsletter -- Scarcity & Real Wealth.
A full year of Scarcity & Real Wealth costs only $39.95. And it's 100% guaranteed. If it's not for you, just let us know within 30 days and we'll give you all your money back. No hard feelings.
I'll tell you how to get started with Scarcity & Real Wealth in a moment. But first I want to tell you about one final bit of research I've been working on...
The Best Commodity Play for 2012 and
Beyond... and It's NOT Gold or Oil
| Demand for lithium (shown above) is soaring due to its use in electric batteries.  | See this? You're looking at one of the most unusual minerals in the world. Some people call it "the oil of the 21st century." It may not look like much, but no other metal in the world can do what this one does. It's light enough to float on water and soft enough to be cut with a knife. |
Businesses are willing to pay hundreds of millions a year for these eccentricities... because it is a key ingredient in everything from pharmaceuticals to rocket fuel.
It's a lubricant, a propellant, and a nuclear reactor coolant. It's also crucial for fireworks, airplanes, glass cookware and even medicine cabinets.
But its real magic is that, pound for pound, this featherweight metal can store more electric energy than just about any other material. That has made lithium the battery maker's best friend.
Rechargeable lithium-ion batteries have twice the energy density of yesterday's outdated nickel-cadmium technology. So they are becoming mandatory in everyday products from digital cameras to portable video game consoles.
You've probably got some lithium within reach right now. If you own an iPad or iPhone, you definitely do.
But electronic gadgets aren't why I'm so excited by lithium.
The real action is in cars -- electric cars, to be specific.
President Obama wants to put one million electric cars on the road by 2015, and 10 times that amount by 2018. The government is bankrolling the transition with some heavy incentive dollars.
GM is going electric with the Volt. Ford is planning a battery-powered car based on the Focus. And of course Toyota has the Prius... Honda the Insight... and Nissan the Leaf.
But car makers won't be the biggest winners from the craze for electric vehicles. Instead, I think there's another way to make even more money from the transition to battery-power.
The epicenter of this profit play is nearly 5,000 miles from Detroit in a windswept desert in Chile. It holds the world's largest deposits of lithium... and six pounds of it are needed in every new electric car rolling off the assembly line. It's the Saudi Arabia of lithium.
There is no direct play on lithium itself. There are no lithium trading pits, no futures contracts, and no way to take physical possession. The metal is so volatile that it's stored under a protective coating of petroleum jelly.
So we suggest simply buying the world's #1 miner of the stuff. Its stock is up 429% in the past five years. But since the electric car revolution is still in its infancy, I think this stock's winning streak will continue.
There's a lot more I'd like to tell you about this great company. Rather than go on and on right now, I've put everything you need to know in a separate special report, The Best Commodity Play for 2012 and Beyond… And it's Not Gold or Oil.
This report gives you my overview of the lithium industry... why I think lithium prices will continue to soar... and the name and ticker symbol of my top pick in this arena.
You'll also see an easy way to invest in lithium with a single stock that owns 22 lithium plays... some of which you can't even buy here in the States. It's truly a remarkable collection of investments that you won't find anywhere else.
Even better, this report is free as a "get-started" gift to new readers of my Scarcity & Real Wealth advisory. It's a great sample of the sort of hard-asset investments you'll find every month in newsletter.
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