As we all know, gold commodities have been extremely hot lately. On Wednesday, gold, silver, and oil prices surged, much to the delight of commodities traders and investors.

Commodity: GOLD
Price: 636.00
Today’s change: +12.70

GOLD Gold, a precious metal, is hot. Gold prices have been steadily increasing for months now. The reasons are many: rising oil prices, weakened US dollar in currency markets (forex trading), the strength of China’s and India’s economies, and many other reasons.

In a previous post, Buying Gold, I had said the price of gold in my opinion was inflated. Now I’m eating my words. Gold has surged 91 points since my previous post on February 17, 2006. Incredible. With the strength of gold, and current economic situations, I see positive upside for gold investments.

Since February, I have done a lot of research on gold investments, particularly on gold coins. I currently do not own any gold coins or investments, but I am hoping to start buying very soon. My favorite coins are the American Gold Eagle by the US Mint and the Canadian Gold Maple minted by the Royal Canadian Mint. Both coins come in varying weights, but I’m primarily interested in the 1 ounce coins. Both coins look fantastic, in addition to their value. The American Gold Eagle is 91.67% fine gold. The Canadian Gold Maple is the most pure coin on the market, at 99.99% fine gold. Generally speaking, the price of gold coins will be slightly higher than gold bars, due to the artistry and minting involved.

Related links:

• Buying Gold - Trading Winner blog post on Gold
• US Mint
• Royal Canadian Mint
• Kitco - buy gold, sell gold and get gold prices
• Bullion Desk - buy and sell gold and get gold prices

Here’s a favorite quote of mine regarding Luck from Seneca the Younger.. or perhaps Oprah Winfrey - take your pick.

First, the Seneca quote:

“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” - Seneca

Here is the Oprah quote:

“I feel that luck is preparation meeting opportunity.” - Oprah Winfrey

I personally am not a strong believer in what most people consider “luck”, perhaps due to a significant background in mathematics, programming, and stock trading. I feel people use “luck” too loosely. Some people consider a person who wins the lottery “lucky”. My mathematics tells me winning the lottery is all probabilities. I don’t believe luck is involved in the lottery at all. Someone has to win. It could be John Smith or Jane White. The lottery is just numbers and probabilities - pure mathematics, in my opinion.

However, even I may consider a person who won the lottery jackpot 10 times in a row “lucky”.

To me, the heart of this quotation is preparedness meeting opportunity.

Being a successful trader or investor is not about having profitable, “lucky” stock picks. A successful trader does their homework - their Due Diligence. They prepare themselves by doing all the necessary stock market research. The hard work. Opportunity can present itself with a good price to buy the stock, or perhaps some company news or earnings were released, and the stock jumps up. They’ve prepared by doing Due Diligence and thorough research, and then they are presented with solid opportunities for making successful trades and ultimately profits.

Anyone who is “lucky” trading stocks is simply guessing. Out of 10 random stocks, at least one stock will probably - the mathematics of probabilities - go up and produce great profits for investors and traders. I am oversimplifying here, but it needs to be made clear that the successful investors and traders aren’t getting lucky. They are doing Due Diligence, and buy when the best opportunity arises. I see no “luck” involved.

Overall, I believe preparedness meeting opportunity is not “luck” - at least luck in the sense most people I have talked to believe in. Preparedness meeting opportunity means you’ve done your homework, you’ve done your research, you’ve performed Due Diligence. Luck is what you make yourself, what you build yourself. Luck comes from within, not from external forces.

I have been watching Chinese internet stocks recently. The China stocks I am most interested in are: SOHU, SINA, and BIDU.

The growth of internet users in China is tremendous. Some estimates place the number of people online in China at just under the number of internet users in the US. Other estimates say China has now surpassed the US in online users, making China the country with the most online internet users.

So where are Chinese people browsing to? The answers are baidu.com, sina.com.cn, and sohu.com.

According to Alexa, all 3 of these websites are in the global Top 10 of all websites. This means each of these websites gets enormous amounts of traffic. For online businesses, this means they can show lots of ads and promote their own pay services and products.

Each of these websites gets more web visitors (or “hits”) than Amazon.com or Microsoft.com. Wow.

Here’s a breakdown of the web rankings, web traffic graphs, and stock charts for SOHU, SINA, and BIDU:

Symbol: SOHU, global web rank: #9

SOHU web traffic graph:

SOHU 1 month stock chart:

Symbol: SINA, global web rank: #6

SINA web traffic graph:

SINA 1 month stock chart:

Symbol: BIDU, global web rank: #4

BIDU web traffic graph:

BIDU 1 month stock chart:

Anyone else watching these stocks? I personally would like to get a good entry on SOHU and SINA. My opinion is that BIDU is bloated right now and should dip some more, then BIDU will also be in a price range I would buy at.

My trade for SOHU, SINA, and BIDU stocks would be a swing trade or longer term investment, not a quick daytrade.

Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have turned down a raise and instead decided to rely on the success of GOOG (Google) stock. Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin each have a $1 salary. In addition, Google CEO Eric Schmidt turned down a raise, also sticking to his $1 salary and stock options. Read the entire CNN article: Google leaders stick with $1 salary

I wish more CEOs and overpaid executives would take this approach. By keeping a $1 salary, the Google leaders are completely relying on the performance of GOOG stock prices to make them money. Shareholders love this because the Google execs have to think about their own fortunes - about $5 billion for Schmidt and over $12 billion each for Page and Brin - when running Google. If Google fails, they lose everything. Also, Google’s revenues and profits are not foolishly spent on over-abundant salaries, like some other publicly traded companies.

By keeping a $1 salary, the Google co-founders are letting shareholders know they are looking out for best interest of the shareholders. The $1 salary with options is also a way of telling shareholders Google has a profitable and successful future with steady leadership.

I’m a huge fan of Google as stock and as a company with innovative, useful, and efficient products and tools. Unfortunatley, I don’t currently own any GOOG shares. I am kicking myself for not buying in at the GOOG $340 price dip!

What are your thoughts on the $1 salary? Any Google shareholders out there?