Paul Kangas of Nightly Business Report interviews James Grant. Grant doesn't think the market is cheap yet. I loved the way Grant held firm on the question of oil by indicating he has no opinion on the subject. He recommends Fidelity National Finance, Wintergreen Fund, and Tocqueville Gold Fund.

How much of your money is in domestic stocks? What percentage of your portfolio is invested internationally? If you’re like many average investors in the US the majority of your investments are in US companies.

The 1930s have nothing on the depression we’re about to enter, says commodities expert Doug Casey. Interest rates are too low and currencies are being kept artificially high. It can only lead to one thing: the decline and fall of the American empire.

How can you have free trade at $140 a barrel of oil? Oil and energy expert Byron King says the cost of fueling a cargo ship to travel between Los Angeles and Shanghai is nearly $4 million! That’s an 87% increase since 2005. This increase is altering the patterns of free trade.

A view on India

The mid-year performance report for the Fat Pitch Financials Portfolio. The number remain ugly, but not much worse than the S&P 500.

A newspaper editorial that thinks Sardar Biglari can bring Steak n Shake shareholders "a shot at leadership with a common vision for unlocking the brand’s true value."

Are market fundamentals to blame for sky-high crude oil prices? Of course not, says Andrew Gordon. It’s the tens of billions of dollars pouring into the oil futures markets are. Sure, demand is high – but the high-end costs of producing oil are $70 max, so a barrel of the black goo should cost about $110.

The machinations of the US Federal Reserve are uppermost in the minds of investors — and the media. The Fed is in a jam. On the one side slowing growth and the specter of the credit crisis. Rising inflation on the other.

Bottom line: The current rout in financial sector shares might smell awful to the simple onlooker. But smart investors should know that it smells like the beginning of the end of their collapse, too.

The fourth part of the series on the Morningstar Investment conference includes notes on Jason Zweig's keynote on his book, Your Money and Your Brain, Jean-Marie Eveillard on value investing, and Brian Rogers on comparisons to the 1982 market.

A profile of Randolph McDuff, a successful value investor on Marketocracy.

Last week I laid out some of my reasons why I am hesitant about selling stocks which have cut their dividends.

Energy expert Kevin Kerr is now calling crude oil at $150, according to a report by MaketWatch. Stansberry Research’s Matt Badiali is not so sure. He says a reduction in demand will bring crude oil prices down…

Banning speculators will bring down crude oil prices says Congress. But they’re missing the point, says Dave Gonigam in The Daily Reckoning. This will not address the imbalance in the oil market… “In ’speculators,’ everyone from members of Congress to the king of Saudi Arabia has found an excuse to ignore the supply-demand imbalance that’s at the heart of $138 oil,” says Dave.