For many years, few metals drew bigger yawns from mining executives than lithium, a lightweight element long associated mostly with mood-stabilizing drugs. Suddenly, the yawns are being replaced by eurekas. As awareness spreads that lithium is a crucial ingredient for hybrid and electric cars, a global hunt is under way for new supplies of the metal.Toyota Tsusho, the material supplier for the big Japanese automaker, announced a joint venture in January with the Australian miner Orocobre to deve...

The beginning of this story probably does not seem uncommon to FiPod readers that have lived through the past 18-24 months. It begins with a normal guy, Jim Kennedy, with an above average job: executive in Southern California. Jim, like many others, went from a six figure job to homeless. Within two years from losing his job as a corporate-development manager, he had to file for bankruptcy and he subsequently lost his Newport Beach condo to foreclosure.What follows is a brief description of how ...

Finale: How to Value A StockThis marks the last Winterize Your Portfolio article for the year. It has been a fun series that hopefully has proven itself useful in recalibrating your investment portfolio, mindset, and knowledge as we emerged from the tumultuous 2009 equity rollercoaster. As a new season emerges, so must a new weekly column. Spring, as a season, is about new life; we at FiPod aim to bring new life to your portfolio by highlighting a new equity every week. Thus, our finale in the W...

Making the rounds on YouTube is “Fear the Boom and Bust,” a seven-minute rap video featuring actors playing two of the most prominent economists of the 20th century: John Maynard Keynes, an early proponent of deficit spending, and F.A. Hayek, the Austrian economist who suggested low interest rates can make a boom but left low too long, it can turn to bust.The plot goes that the pair are attending an economics conference on the current economic crisis. They go out the night before and rapping...

Whether March begins like a lion or a lamb for your finances, we at FiPod would like to provide you some resources to do Spring cleaning on your personal finances. There are many websites and free resources available to you that provide tools to help you better understand and manage your money and your financial lifestyle (we hope this site is one of them). Below you will find reviews of some of our favourite websites in several categories. Please leave comments if you have tried, or do try thes...

How to Find Value in a Pricey MarketA year ago, when all sorts of investments -- stocks, bonds, commodities -- were being tossed on the scrap heap, bargain hunters who had the courage to sift through the market's ruins were richly rewarded. U.S. blue-chip stocks, rebounded 59% from March to January. Bonds issued by companies with poor credit ratings rocketed nearly 60%. And shares of fast-growing firms based in emerging economies, like China and India, nearly doubled.Back then, you could have ha...

FIPOD FUND - MARCH 2010This Month's Featured Stock: Sirius XM (SIRI)Time to pop champagne corks if you're a Sirius XM (SIRI) Radio shareholder. The stock closed above a buck recently for the first time since September 2008. Then again, maybe not. Sure, shares of Sirius XM (SIRI) are up more than 57% this year and now trade at about $0.95.The stock is still well below the price it fetched when Sirius and XM announced plans to merge.But that is still a far cry from the nearly $4 level the stock tr...

In a recession exacerbated by turmoil in the housing market, some areas around the U.S. may finally be seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. Zillow.com's 2010 "Markets to Watch" reveals local markets that saw their real estate bubble burst but have since experienced month to month price appreciation and more than six months of favorable change: either decreasing year-over-year (YoY) price declines or YoY price gains. With this price data, it is reasonable to suggest that these 12 local market...

Shortly after Papandreou took office in October, his socialist government revealed that Greece's finances were in far worse shape than the previous government had let on. The 2009 deficit was nearly 13% of GDP, more than four times the euro zone's 3% limit. The European Commission blasted Greece for the faulty stats, and ratings agencies downgraded Greek debt, sending yields on government bonds skyrocketing. Over the past two months, as fears have grown that Greece's poisonous finances could inf...

5 New Tax Credits and DeductionsTax season is upon us. And while nobody likes shelling out their hard-earned dollars to the IRS, this year the government is offering up some new opportunities that could save you big money.As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or stimulus bill, Congress introduced several new tax goodies that could help millions of Americans save -- as long as they know to claim them. Even as the IRS seeks to collect every penny it can in tax revenue, you can sti...

Less than two years after the housing market collapsed, the U.S. economy is threatened by a new bubble in asset prices. This time, four billowing balloons are hovering: two commodities -- gold and oil -- stocks, and government bonds.Do not be fooled into thinking that the recent 5% drop in the S&P, and the recent sell-off in oil, remotely makes them fairly valued, let alone bargains. Equities and commodities, as well as Treasuries, which actually rallied as stocks dropped, still have a long ...

At today's bipartisan health-care summit, President Obama is pledging to champion the voluminous bills passed by the House and Senate as the foundation for reforming the $2.2 trillion medical marketplace. But each piece of legislation comes with a deadly expectation that could cost taxpayers dearly: the benevolence of corporate America.Many people say Americans will like the bills once they pass. But research conducted by the conservative thinktank Heritage Foundation shows that "what they're mo...

4 Smart Fixes For Your 401KWith stocks up more than 40% since hitting bottom last March, the red ink is finally fading on the typical 401(k) account. Yes, it is safe to look at your statement again: Balances for boomers who have worked 10 to 20 years at the same company are now down less than 3% on average, compared with pre-crash levels; younger employees and 45- to 64-year-olds with less tenure are solidly back in the black.That is a stunning turnaround from the 25% or more losses of just a ye...

The low interest rates promulgated by Bernanke and the Fed have theoretically or realistically kept the economy from falling further into recession. The combination of a recovering economy and low interest rates causes some to worry about the potential for inflation. Some economists are already warning of a return to the levels of the 1970's, when inflation in the developed countries of Europe and North America hovered at around 10%. Part of the underlying reason for President Obama's current fo...