Andrew Horowitz submits: Well, they did it! Thursday, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was ousted and replaced by Julia Gillard in Australia. She began her job as Australia’s first female prime minister by promising to smooth relations with mining, its biggest industry. That should have pushed up some of the mining stocks that have a good amount of business in the country. If you recall, the Rudd administration had proposed a heavy tax on the morning companies that would help to pay for further “stimulus” by sharing the natural resource

Tom Lydon submits: Precious metals have gone through large price gains as many investors use the commodities to hedge their portfolio risk and protect against eventual inflation. What other uses do precious metals ETFs serve a portfolio?

Precious metals, especially gold, have drawn investors’ attention over the past few years for several reasons. Mark Salinger for iStock Analyst reports that three major reasons investors use precious metals are:

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Wall Street Strategies submits:By David Urani

The World Cup has officially kicked off, and what a spectacle it’s going to be. The world could use this next month of competition to relax and take its mind off from some of the malarkey in the economic world over the past couple of months. In particular, Europe’s debt problems have taken center stage. Not only have the prospects of big government budget cuts around the world hurt outlooks for growth, but dwindling faith in the euro (and currencies in general for that matter) currently have investors running away from debt