Frank Holmes's Contributions

When it comes to investing, wise managers are like good drivers, constantly evaluating the environment, looking for signs to step on the gas or slow down.

Following negative data last week, investors were clearly concerned about global growth and anxiously anticipated government actions.

For the eighth consecutive year, CEOs named Texas the best place to do business, according to the latest Chief Executive magazine.

To add alpha, we believe investors need to continually seek pockets of strength amidst today’s mire of pessimism. One bright spot we’ve seen lies just east of Greece: Turkey.

Facebook’s highly anticipated initial public offering helped the company raise $16 billion, a record for tech IPOs.

Given the seasonal pattern for gold prices, investors shouldn't be surprised by the recent drop in the market. What's important is that the longer-term trends driving the Love Trade and the Fear Trade remain.

With an overreaction in gold and global markets in recent weeks, here are reasons why we believe gold and China have room to run.

China has been busy constructing railways, but a comparison of rail length per capita shows that the infrastructure buildout still lags developed nations.

Wine expert and social media guru Gary Vaynerchuk attributes his ability to detect subtleties in wine that others might not recognize because of his unique taste-testing as a teen. Because drinking wine was illegal, he says he tasted the flavors associated with wine instead.

With so much talk about Apple recently, it's important to remember the resources which have built the Cupertino Empire. After Apple reached $500 billion in market capitalization, it was inducted into a very elite club of businesses that have reached this size.

Does it feel like it costs an arm and a leg to fill your car these days? While consumers may continue to feel the bite from higher gasoline prices, investors can use these rising prices to their advantage.

The World Gold Council (WGC) reaffirmed the power of the Love Trade in its 2011 Gold Demand Trends report released this week. Gold demand grew 0.4 percent in 2011 despite a 28 percent year-over-year increase in bullion’s average price.

As Americans ponder the merits of Obama vs. Gingrich, Paul, Romney or Santorum, Russia will be electing its own president on March 4. Perhaps we should say “re-electing” since it’s almost certain former president and current prime minster Vladimir Putin will be elected.

After prices fell 10 percent in December, many investors wondered if the bull market in gold was running out of steam. That was before Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke swooped in with a “red cape” and fired the bulls back up. Since the Fed reassured the world that interest rates will remain at “exceptionally low levels” for another two years, gold has jumped more than three percent.

My debate last week with Gordon Chang on China’s future at the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference was a stimulating, intellectual exercise. A healthy market needs a compromise between the bid and ask, and a discussion between people who strongly disagree is a great way to promote critical thinking.

The global population is expected to reach a staggering 9 billion over the same period, but it isn’t population growth that will drive the increase in energy demand. Instead, rising affluence and higher living standards in regions such as Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and India will be the biggest factors. ExxonMobil says this is due to “the human desire to sustain and improve the well-being of ourselves, our families and our communities.”

As a global investor, there were few places to hide from market turmoil in 2011. Most major indices experienced declined and global economic growth was mostly stagnant. Though China's economy continued to grow at a rate more than twice that of the U.S., many pundits were talking like this was the end. It's not.

Commodities have experienced a roller-coaster of events over the past 10 years. From the boom years of 2005 and 2006, to the bust of 2008. Here's a look at what has driven commodities over the past decade and what may drive them over the next.

Despite persistent pessimism on global markets, the general trend for the U.S. market is approaching a historically bullish event.

In 2011, oil was one of the top performing commodities among those we track, with Brent rising more than 13 percent. Geopolitical risk and unexpected non-OPEC supply losses caused oil to rise significantly in early 2011. By October, we saw the black gold sink to a low of $96 per barrel before rising to its current level of nearly $108 a barrel.