We don’t have a 360Buy.com IPO date yet, but when we do, the offering will probably generate a lot of media. Here are five reasons to consider investing in the 360Buy.com IPO:

1) Mr. Liu Qiandong.

Liu Qiandong is currently No. 93 in the list of the Top 400 Richest Chinese with a net worth of over a billion dollars at just 37. He started his own business in 1998 with just $12,000 CNY and six years later he started jd.com. After only 6 years, the company grew to 10 billion yuan in sales. He’s No. 25 on the list of Asia’s Hottest People in Business compiled by Fortune. If somebody from ICBC and the China Construction Bank is reading this, then please LEND THIS MAN TEN BILLION DOLLARS. It is unlikely that you will lose your money with him.

2) Alibaba sells over $170 billion.

I don’t need to explain this one.

3) They want to compete with DHL.

Most people see Jingdong as the next Amazon, but I prefer to see them as the next DHL.

Only 4 companies in the whole world remain in the Air Courier industry: Deutsche Post (Frankfurt: DPW), Federal Express (FDX), United Parcel Service (UPS) and Expeditors International (EXPD).

Together they turn a massive profit of at least $5.1 billion each year. The United States of America dominates this industry with 75% of the companies. At the end of the day, China must pay these companies to move their products from the factories to the stores.

They are very busy building half a dozen distribution centers in China. It is only a matter of time before they expand to the 14 countries that share borders with China.

4) Digital Sky Technologies believes in them.

This Russian company invests only in the Internet, and they had the vision to invest $100 million in Facebook (FB) when the company was valued at just $10 billion in 2009. That same year they also invested in Zynga (ZNGA).

In 2010 they invested $135 million in Groupon (GRPN), when the company was valued at just $1.35 billion. In 2011, they invested in Airbnb, which is now valued at $2 billion.

As you can see, they have a very strong track record of picking the right companies at the right time. If they are investing $1.5 billion in this company, then that means they believe this company will have a market value of $15 billion in 2016.

5) Rakuten is the fourth leading Internet & Catalog Retail Company in the world.

Rakuten of Japan is only behind eBay (EBAY), Liberty Interactive (LINTA, LINTB) and Amazon (AMZN) according to Forbes. This company currently has a market value of over $13 billion and annual sales of $5.6 billion. This company was founded in 1997 and it is now one of the largest companies in the world. They have grown to 10,000 employees. I think they already proven to the world their business model works and 360Buy is doing the same thing in China.

Conclusion

I don’t think this company will file for an IPO anytime soon. If they run out of cash, they can always give a call to Al Waleed Bin Talal and very nicely ask him for another couple of billions.

Introduction

This article tries to explain in a simple way to readers without a college degree in economics or finance some macroeconomic factors that are currently changing the global supply and demand of gold. They’re not often talked about, but they are very important to understanding the precious metals market!

Ground rules

Gold coins ARE NOT INVESTMENTS. Gold coins are still minted by countries to satisfy the unlimited demand for numismatists around the world. When you acquire a gold coin you are not only paying for the precious metal itself but also for the graphic design and for the minting.

Countries make billions of dollars each year buying gold by the ton and reselling it as coins.

There is nothing wrong with collecting coins if you ARE ALREADY A MILLIONAIRE. If you are not, then you need to sell your coin collection right now to the highest bidders.

The problem with gold coins is that you need to pay for insurance each year, and that cost eats some of your profits.

If you want to invest in gold then you need to buy either a gold mine or the ETFs IAU or GLD.

There are other financial instruments for more sophisticated investors that I am not going to cover in this article. If you want me to write about them then drop me a line.

Mexico is now a bullion superpower with a little help from Carlos Slim Helú

Only ten countries in the world produce more gold than Mexico. However, the annual gold production has grown at double-digit rates in 2005, 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2011.

Unlike other countries, in Mexico you don’t own the gold in your own land. If you find gold in your backyard then the government takes it. There is no such thing as a Mexican prospector.

There is no point in using modern technology to search for gold mines in Mexico and buy the land to make literally a ton of cash. As you can imagine, there is little demand for a geologist in Mexico because you cannot monetize the natural resources.

After over 300 years of gold mining, the United States of America, Peru and Canada remain the third, sixth and seventh largest gold producers in the world. Mexico is very similar to those countries from a geological point of view but nobody has mined that gold yet. In other words, there are mountains of gold in Mexico.

The supply of gold in the continent of America is too vast and unlimited if you consider the current global demand. We have enough gold to pay the entire debt of every country in the continent of America to the rest of the world.

Each year we find faster and cheaper ways to extract gold. Innovation also applies to the extraction of gold. One very important factor that you need to consider is that gold is usually found in very remote locations very far from civilization. Gold mines invest a lot of money in diesel to transport the precious metal to the nearest DHL, UPS or Federal Express location.

Electric cars will only increase the profits of gold mines in the coming years.

After the 1994 economic crisis in Mexico, experts were hired to avoid another economic crisis in the future, and one of the suggestions was to allow billionaires and foreign, publicly-traded mining companies to extract the gold and save it for a rainy day.

Fresnillo (London: FRES) is now a FTSE 100 company and the 30th-largest diversified metals and mining company in the world, according to Forbes. Annual profits are over $700 million. It is not a bad idea to set up a limit order to buy this company at $1,000 in case the price drops from current levels due to a panic sell-off.

Mexico currently holds over 125 tonnes of gold, and they will keep buying gold from Fresnillo and other mining companies currently operating in Mexico until the gold reserves are over 365 tonnes, which is what Venezuela currently holds.

Mexico is one of the richest countries in the world, and with over $170 billion in foreign exchange reserves, they certainly can afford to buy more gold. This “I will buy any amount of gold that you can extract” will attract a lot more gold mining companies. They don’t even have to invest any capital. Mexico will lend them any cash they may need to install the mine, and they can pay for the loan in gold.

You cannot even pay for your MasterCard at Bank of America with a gold coin, let alone a billion-dollar syndicated loan if you are a mining company. Unless Russia, South Africa, Peru, Canada, Indonesia, Uzbekistan and Ghana start a Golden Arches Bank where foreign publicly-traded mining companies like BHP Billiton (BHP) and Freeport-McMoRan (FCX) can apply for a billion-dollar loan to build new gold mines, everybody will just move to Mexico.

What is a Gold Mart?

India likes gold jewelry a lot. In fact, they buy more gold jewelry that anybody else with the exception of China.

One smart way for China, Australia, the United States of America, Russia, South Africa, Peru, Canada, Indonesia, Uzbekistan, Ghana and Mexico to increase exports of gold jewelry is to simply lend money to young entrepreneurs in Pakistan, Nepal, Buthan, Burma, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Maldives to open a Gold Mart franchise.

The fictional Gold Mart franchises will be strategically located in cities near the border with India to encourage small business owners to buy gold jewelry and sell it to consumers in India.

Each Gold Mart will include a large selection of jewelry from small companies that just don’t have the infrastructure to export small quantities of gold jewelry to India. Each country will handle the logistics to ship their products near the largest market for gold jewelry. This will create a lot of jobs in the gold jewelry industry and a lot of tax revenue.

Obviously, I am not a consultant for any of the countries previously mentioned, but I am sure they hired people way smarter than me to help them keep the demand for gold high and they will come up with a lot more clever solutions to export more gold jewelry to India.

I am just a regular guy. Countries have entire armies of consultants just thinking how to solve their problems all day long.

Conclusion

India cannot force their people to stop wearing gold jewelry, but they can systematically sell their gold reserves every time the price of gold goes up more than usual until their reserves are depleted.

Gold stored in vaults does not produce any cash (unless of course, you lend the gold)

You can also lend shares in gold mines. Perhaps it is time for India to invest in the Ghana Stock Exchange, the Uzbekistan Stock Exchange and the Indonesia Stock Exchange. Just a thought.

As always, be prepared for volatility in the gold market, no matter what you do, and never allocate more than 30% of your portfolio to precious metals. Remember, gold is a hedge against a currency collapse, and no one can guarantee there will actually be a currency collapse. Preserving your capital should always trump the desire to make large profits!

Many people around the world want to know the answer to the question, “Where is silver going?”

I invested several hours browsing the Internet searching for answers to save you time and money (because time is money, after all). Have another financial question? Drop me a line. Please don’t ask me where your lost kitten is or why she left you. Ask me about topics that can make you money, like silver!

Here are my findings on the latest silver price predictions for 2013, 2014 and beyond. The prices are sorted from low to high:

1) $26 Barclays according to CommodityOnline

Barclays believes strong production growth in mining will knock silver prices down and keep them low in 2013. “We expect it to grow to 25.2kt in 2013, with the slowdown in output from Australia and Europe being offset by strong growth across South America and Asia. We expect modest growth from the major producers, with Mexico retaining its pole position.”

2) $30-$32 Neil Meader (Head of Precious Metals Research and Forecast) according to Forbes

“For the moment, we would expect to see a continuation of the price volatility that we’ve seen of late.

“The unknown for the longer term is inflation.”

“It would be wrong to assume that a year-on-year price fall automatically presages an end to the multi-year rally; that occurred in 2009 and yet prices (based on the annual average) then more than doubled in just two years.”

3) $31 Deutsche Bank

The bank lowered its forecast last month 16.5% to $31 according to Fox because the demand for stocks over commodities is rising and the growth in the United States of America is improving. The 2014 forecast was also significantly reduced.

Excluding major banks currently in the red. Deutsche Bank is the fifth least profitable major bank in the world with barely $400 million in profits. It appears they are no longer qualified to give financial advice to anybody. Perhaps they should hire me. I can easily turn a profit of $40 million. I am just a regular guy. They have 100,000 employees.

4) $33 HSBC

The bank increased its target for silver from $32 based on four factors driving prices higher: industrial demand, investor appetite, strong coin and bar purchases and a bottoming out of jewelry demand according to the Wall Street Journal.

“Greater industrial silver consumption is one of the most compelling arguments in favor of higher prices.”

5) $34.10 BNP Paribas

The bank reduced its silver 2013 forecast a few months ago to $34.10 from $39.05 according to Reuters.

6) $35 Morgan Stanley

Morgan Stanley is very bullish on silver and selected the precious metal as one of the Top Picks for 2013 according to BusinessWeek.

“Gold, silver and corn will outperform other raw materials next year as a weaker dollar and rising investor demand bolster precious metals while supply curbs aid grains.”

7) $38 Commerzbank according to the Wall Street Journal

Silver is “establishing itself as a precious metal with an industrial character, setting itself significantly apart from gold.”

8) $40.25 Michel O’Brien

Silver To Gain 29% in 2013 – Analysts, Traders and Investors.

“The silver market remains a very small market and this continuing global investment and store of value demand should lead to silver reaching a real record high, inflation adjusted, of over $140/oz in the coming years.”

9) $50-$60 Ge Christenson according to SilverSeek

“This is not a prediction based on wishful thinking and hope, but a best estimate based on rational analysis of data stretching back to 1975.”

“Silver (and gold) will continue to rise, doubling every 3 – 4 years, until our government manages to tame the deficits, the borrowing, and the inevitable inflation.”

10) $91 Equity Management Academy

Silver Doctors started recently in 2011 and they are visited by over 750,000 each month. The video analysis by Steve Roy is only 9 minutes long.

This was the highest forecast I could find at the time of this writing – a time when, admittedly, silver prices are extremely low. It’ll be interesting to see which of the predictions above come the closest to the truth by the end of the year.

“All of this talk about a shortage of silver is irrational and not supported by readily available market data,” CPM Group says in its latest report.

Specifically, the company cites worries over the Fiscal Cliff in November and December as driving up demand for American Eagles. Since the Mint sold-out of coins in both November and December, that demand rolled forward into January driving sales up to record levels.

CPM Group’s been painting a pretty bleak picture of silver prices going forward. The commodities research firm believes prices will head lower over the next decade (through 2022) rather than higher as most silver price prognosticators would have you believe.

I’m not ready to make that assumption, but there are lessons to be learned from CPM Group. Mainly that the U.S. Mint isn’t the best gauge of market demand for silver. It’s too easily overwhelmed by demand, and that pushes sales forward into months when demand could have otherwise been low.

Silver is destined to enter a “sustained bull market” in the coming weeks. Mr Williams believes the price of silver will increase fivefold between now and 2016, with a peak expected in the third quarter of 2015.

Good news for silver bulls if Mr. Williams can be trusted. More at livecharts.co.uk.

1. An expected normalization in the gold-silver ratio
2. President Obama’s prediliction for money-printing
3. Hard asset investor demand as paper currencies continue to slide
4. Growing industrial demand

More at ETFDailyNews.

1. Platinum has outperformed gold and silver in the short-term and over the past year.
2. Strong car sales mean higher platinum prices, particularly since 40 percent of mined platinum goes into catalytic converters.
3. Mine strikes in South Africa have seriously dampened platinum supplies.
4. Mining costs have out-stripped platinum prices for a lot of companies – a fact that will likely lead even more producers to cut their platinum output.
5. Growth in China means more platinum jewelry sales.

Source: Investors.com.

Other pot stocks have also enjoyed spectacular gains. But the big question is which of these companies will thrive long-term if pot manages to stay on the right side of the law? Here’s our table of the Top 14 best marijuana stocks based on market cap. Beneath that, check out the top 3 marijuana stocks we currently view as the best of the best.

1) Medical Marijuana Inc. (PINK:MJNA) Medical Marijuana Inc. operates five pot-related businesses: Photosphere (a medical-grade cannabis producer), Red Dice Holdings (produces hemp-oil based products, namely Dixie Elixirs drops, which present an alternative delivery method for pot), Hemp Med Rx (a marijuana-related medical technology company), Wellness Managed Services (a marijuana dispensary operator), and CanChew Biotechnologies (a chewing gum-based marijuana product). As of Sept. 30, 2012, the company claimed total assets of $8.1 million and net income during the quarter of $1.19 million.

2) GW Pharmaceuticals (PINK:GWPRF) Founded in 1998, GW markets Sativex, “an oromucosal spray for the treatment of MS symptoms, cancer pain and neuropathic pain.” The UK-based company is continuing research into new applications for medical marijuana. The company sold £5.4M worth of Sativex through the six months ended March 31, 2012.

3) SearchCore Inc. (PINK:SRER). SearchCore’s already making some decent cash. The Newport Beach-based technology company grew profits by 38 percent to $1.2 million during Q3 (per OCBJ). Their MO? Making weed-related websites. Among them are WeedMaps.com, which provides information on medicinal marijuana dispensaries; MMJMenu.com, a site for medicinal marijuana dispensaries, and SafeAccessMD, which offers software for doctors who prescribe medicinal marijuana.

Runner Up: Cannabis Science Inc. (PINK:CBIS). CBIS focuses on “phytocannabinoid” science – that’s the pursuit of marijuana blends that target specific illnesses including HIV/AIDS and cancer. Through Sept. 30, 2012, the company claimed total assets of $1,778,489, but lost more than $2 million in the quarter. Research into medical marijuana doesn’t come cheap.

Side notes: Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) developed a synthetic version of marijuana that could start gaining stream. And watch out if a major tobacco producer (say Marlboro-maker Altria) decides to move into the marijuana space. Their deep pockets could crush competition and they just might have a new product to hang their hats on. Don’t expect any announcements until we get more direction from the Federal government, though.

Related

1) New York’s Skyline blackout (credit Hsyee):

2) Flooding on Avenue C and 14 Street in New York City (credit Megetz):

3) Flooding on the piers in Long Island City (credit JimmyVanBramer):

4) Flooding in Hoboken hours before the storm (credit Tarafied87):

5) Flood waters start rolling into the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel (formerly the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel) in New York (credit MTAPhotos):

6) Water pouring into Ground Zero in New York City (credit Passantino):

7) Water pouring into the Subway in Hoboken (credit Mr_Alens):

8) Water slams the Statue of Liberty (credit h0es-and-v0dka). FAKE: Per a reader, we’ve learned the image below was yanked from ‘The Day After Tomorrow’.

9) A wind-blown trampoline; not sure where (credit ibejeanette):

10) Flooding at Avenue C and 14th Street in New York (credit ZeroHedge):

Bonus Pics of Hurricane Sandy

11) Water pouring into the a Times Square subway station (credit alelulule). Per a reader, we’ve learned this image is also a fake that cropped up during Hurricane Irene.

12) Girls on the verge of floating away in Brooklyn (credit Ma_Rockaine):

13) Water pours into an underground parking garage in the Financial District (credit KGW.com):

14) Firemen respond to a call in this @Time photo (credit AmericaBlog):

15) NYPD vans underwater (credit ABC User Photo):

16) A wind-damaged building in New York (credit InFlexWeTrust):

17) Water sweeps over roads in Manhattan in this AP shot (credit TheAtlantic):

18) Flooding in the East Village (credit BuzzFeed):

19) Flooding in the Dumbo area in Brooklyn (credit ABC):

To answer that, we’ve got to do some data mining. First: what’s the current inflation rate? According to the U.S. government, it’s a paltry 1.7 percent. Ask anyone who goes grocery shopping or pays household energy bills and they’ll probably shake their heads at that number.

In fact, if we calculate inflation the way the government did in 1989, we’d see inflation’s actually hovering at an annualized rate of 5 percent (per ShadowStats). If we calculated inflation the way our own government did in 1980, we’d see it’s even worse at somewhere north of 8 percent (again per ShadowStats).

Those are scary numbers. And they’re indicative of just how fragile our so-called recovery has been. And yet, most investors – and particularly the media – are happy to get spoon-fed the more palatable modified inflation numbers that get announced every month. It’s just a matter of time before that changes.

When will inflation get worse?

Inflation’s already bad, but it’s probably just a glimmer of how bad it will ultimately get in the U.S. Unfortunately, we don’t have a roadmap that spells out exactly when the bottom will drop out, but we can take educated guesses.

Right now, the U.S. dollar is artificially propped up thanks to the fact that it’s in better shape than some of its neighbors. The EU is worse off than the US, China’s yuan is pegged to the dollar, India’s got official inflation numbers north of 7 percent and inflation’s ravaging South America. Since the U.S. is printing money at will, that gives central banks around the world little incentive not to do the same. In fact, other economies get penalized if their currency stays strong relative to the dollar and Euro because their exports effectively cost more.

That’s created a race among central banks, with each of them trying to devalue their currencies faster than their neighbors.

The U.S. is doing particularly well at devaluing the dollar. Yes, the government can say that unemployment is under 8 percent, and that our budget will be balanced in a decade, but the facts just don’t support those claims. We think we’re insulated from riots, draconian budget cuts and hyperinflation, but I would argue we’re just a black swan away from a bout of hyperinflation in the U.S.

And that black swan would be a sudden rise in interest rates that the government is forced to pay on bonds. At the moment, interest rates on bonds are unnaturally low. That’s thanks to investor uncertainty and the Federal Reserve’s bond buying spree (known as quantitative easing). Yields on bonds are so low they’ve crumpled 50 percent over the past decade and more than 70 percent over the past 20 years.

We truly are at a pivot point. The U.S. debt load threatens to collapse the economy, and if investors lose faith in the U.S. government’s ability to pay back it’s bonds, the U.S. national debt could transform itself from a heavy burden into a crippling death blow. That’s no exaggeration, either. The same thing, in fact, happened in Ireland, Greece and Spain. How? Investors stopped buying bonds and the rates those governments had to pay to borrow cash skyrocketed.

It can’t happen here

Surely Greece is in worse shape than the U.S., right? In fact, the U.S. has surpassed Greece’s debt-to-GDP ratio (per GlobalFinance), and Italy’s debt-to-GDP is only about 16 percent higher than the U.S. government’s. Should investors stop buying bonds, the U.S. would have to sell them at ever higher interest rates with each tick up in rates further burdening the ability for our economy to “grow it’s way out” of debt.

Since most of Europe shares a currency in the Euro, countries in the EU don’t have the luxury of cranking up the printing presses at will. The U.S. on the other hand, does, and when investors stop dumping money into U.S. treasuries (which they eventually will), the U.S. will be forced to print money even faster than they are right now.

When that comes, we’ll finally see the rampant inflation that everyone’s afraid.

Will it happen in 2013?

The short answer is, I’m not sure. The long answer is, it’ll probably happen when conditions start improving in Europe. The Euro is in bad shape right now, but the fact that it’s tied together a diverse group of countries means the EU can exert pressure on troubled countries, forcing them to cut their budgets and get on a more sustainable fiscal path.

We can’t say the same thing about the dollar, and that means our government’s going to be reluctant to make the hard cuts it has to make. Without those cuts, the only choice the Fed will have is to print even more than the $85 billion a month that it’s already printing. Once that happens, we’ll really understand what it’s like to live in an economy rampant with inflation – no matter what numbers the government throws at us.

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