Wright Medical Group, Inc. (WMGI)

Q1 2008 Earnings Call

Imperial Sugar (IPSU) is the one of the largest sugar refiners in the US. Its brands, which are etched into American culture include Holly, Dixie Crystals and Imperial. It processed and sold 2.6 billion pounds of refined sugar in Fiscal 2007 resulting in sales of $875 million and earnings of $44 million.

On 2/7/08 tragedy struck its Louisiana's Port Wentworth Refinery when an explosion occurred that claimed 13 lives and destroyed 12% of the facility. This plant alone had supplied 9% of annual US sugar production. The cause of the explosion and subsequent fire was apparently combustible sugar dust. OSHA fined IPSU a total of $36,000 due to safety violations. IPSU has vowed to rebuild the plant and expects sugar production to resume before year's end.

You need junior miners exposure in your portfolio. Period.

Check out this link to an interesting interview with the head honcho of Kinross (KGC) published last week. He says that there are a lot of bargains in the junior/exploration miner sector, and he reasons this is because of the credit crunch that has dried up funding for these companies.

By Matthew Hougan

Jim Wiandt's mostly right about ETNs. What matters is how they perform for investors.

As of the close Thursday, the Nasdaq 100 index was up 15.19% since the March 10th bottom. A look at the impact of the stocks that make up the index shows that the gains have largely been concentrated in just three stocks -- Apple (AAPL), Google (GOOG) and Research in Motion (RIMM).

As shown below, AAPL has been responsible for 35% of the gains in the index, GOOG 9.87% and RIMM 8.50%. Collectively, these three names have accounted for more than half of the gains in the index during the post-correction rally.