Reinforcement for the Plunge Protection Team, and again from Goldman Sachs:

------->
New York Fed Taps
Economist Dudley
As Markets Chief
By GREG IP, Wall Street Journal
November 29, 2006; Page A6

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York is appointing one of Wall Street's best known economists to a key job overseeing financial markets.

The bank is expected to announce today that William Dudley, currently an advisory director of Goldman Sachs & Co., will become executive vice president for markets on Jan. 1, succeeding Dino Kos. Yesterday, the bank confirmed the appointment.

Mr. Dudley, 53 years old, had spent a decade, up until last year, as chief U.S. economist for Goldman.

The New York Fed's markets chief is manager of the central bank's "open market account," responsible for implementing the central bank's interest-rate decisions through operations in the bond and money markets. He also oversees foreign-exchange intervention on behalf of both the Fed and the Treasury.

The markets chief also briefs meetings of the interest-rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee on market developments and the likely response to particular monetary policy strategies. Between meetings he also advises the Fed chairman and other Fed staff and policy makers on strategy and markets. Mr. Kos, for example, played a pivotal role in 2003 researching ways the Fed could implement monetary policy when its key tool, short-term interest rates, had already fallen to zero. At the time, that rate was just 1.25%.

The markets chief is also a point person when the Fed needs to intervene during periods of market turmoil. Mr. Kos's predecessor, Peter Fisher, helped to broker the private-sector bailout of the huge hedge fund Long Term Capital Management in 1998.

Mr. Dudley is better known for economic forecasting than experience with markets. His forecast was ranked most accurate in a Wall Street Journal semiannual survey in 2002 and second most accurate in 2004. His department was ranked No. 1 in a survey of fixed-income economic research by Institutional Investor magazine in 2000 and 2003.

He doesn't have direct experience in markets although he frequently advised Goldman's traders on how to react to economic news. He is currently a member of the New York Fed's economic advisory committee. Early in his career, he spent several years as an economist at the Federal Reserve Board in Washington.

Crude futures gain on cold weather

http://tinyurl.com/ygm7ga

Of course that can change today, but I can testify that it's right chilly in the SF Bay area.

Long NGAS and USO.

An "Anti-Gold" man, no doubt...

GDP growth revised higher

http://tinyurl.com/yzvq6m

Hmmm... inflation under control, they say?

What I don't quite follow, if the economy is going so swell, and despite a weak dollar, the rate on the 10-year rate continues to go down?

Trucking Index Down:

"The news prompted David Rosenberg, chief North American economist at Merrill Lynch, to note that it “is extremely rare to have truck tonnage go down in October ahead of the holiday shopping season — declines of the likes we saw last month took place in 1981, 1982, 2001 and 2002, and these proved to be disappointing sales periods.�

“Truck tonnage for October just came out and looked borderline recessionary, for lack of a more polite term. It was down 4% y/y in the largest decline since February 2001 (-1.8% m/m, and down now in two of the past three months) - and now down for 10 months in a row y/y (!). You have to - again - go back to the March/00 to Feb/01 period to find the last time year-on-year comparables were in the red for such a long stretch of time (and guess what happened in March/01?).�

IMF to sell gold???? A proposal now, not a certainty, but worth keeping an eye on.

From the Daily Pfennig at Everbank:

"IMF staff have proposed a way to cover the IMF's losses... Sell their Gold reserves... Now... With the IMF sitting on a huge pile of Gold... As they are the third largest holder of Gold, behind the Fed Reserve and the Bundesbank (Germany's Central Bank) they could easily afford to sell some of their holdings to use as deficit funding... However, they will receive stiff opposition from Gold producing members and reformists, including the U.S.

And... The IMF is required to hold substantial gold reserves at hand... So... I doubt the IMF staff's proposal will go too far... But it's something you should be aware of..."

We note gold's strength despite gold sales from the legacy central banks of Europe.
According to the ECB's weekly balance sheet, it appears that three member banks sold 6.94 tonnes of gold last week. This would, at first blush, seem somewhat bearish of gold. It is not, however. Indeed, we see this as somewhat supportive of gold instead, for this is very like the sum of
gold sold the week previous, which was 6.35 tonnes. However, if these banks are to meet their "requirement" under the Washington Agreement on gold sales, they need to sell approximately 9.6 tonnes on a weekly basis. Clearly they are not doing so, and we are left to wonder why? Are
the Banks no longer interested in meeting the Washington Agreement's mandate, or are the perhaps incapable of doing so?

Uranium enrichment company USU up > 6% continuing nice move. Nice chart too! Will probably have a little pullback prior to close.

Not a day trade, but Long over the past 6 weeks.

Taking the Long View on Vista
Businesses to Upgrade Slowly After Thursday's Release

By Alan Sipress
Washington Post Staff Writer

http://tinyurl.com/ymye9p

Seamus,

USU question:does this company mine uranium or does it deal in depleted uranium from arms?

Thanks

No mining. It does process some LEU from old Russian nuclear arms under the HEU (If I recall correctly) Agreement. There was a rumor earlier this week about the Russians revisiting the agreement. Has me working on a trailing stop; fundamentals look good though and you can't beat the trend IMHO.

Edited from Yahoo:

Besides supplying low enriched uranium (LEU) for commercial nuclear power plants worldwide,
USU provides nuclear energy solutions and services, including design, fabrication, and implementation of spent nuclear fuel technologies; nuclear materials transportation; and nuclear fuel cycle consulting services, such as planning, market research and analysis, price forecasts, procurement strategies, and other services.

Russia to stop selling depleated nuclear arms uranium in 2008 or 9 to all outside companies according to CCJ.

The Greening of America
By Michael Grunwald,
a Washington Post national reporter and the author of "The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise"

"THE MONEY MEN
Capitalism, Democracy, and the Hundred Years' War Over the American Dollar
By H.W. Brands
Atlas. 239 pp. $23.95"

http://tinyurl.com/y5o7md

Seamus and C-note

Thanks and nice trade.

Good Reading
http://www.mises.org/story/2400

"Contrary to the accepted way of thinking, recessions are not negative growth in GDP for at least two consecutive quarters.
Recessions, which are set in motion by a tight monetary stance of the central bank..."