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Daniel Frishberg -- a former Wall Street insider and the current host of BizRadio -- offers an intriguing glimpse behind the scenes of the gold market.

In his The Moneyman.com Gold & Oil Report, he questions the role of not just overall market fundamentals, but short positions held by institutions. He also looks to a new long positions in silver.

Frishberg explains, "There are plenty of reasons to be bullish on the future of gold prices, including a weak US dollar. Further, India's Central Bank recently announced their purchase of gold from the IMF. Russian and Chinese Central Bankers have also expressed an interest in purchasing the remaining IMF gold.

The rest of the world is going to help U.S. consumer product manufacturers next year. Look for international growth to push the likes of Colgate-Palmolive (CL), Avon (AVP) and Clorox (CLX) higher in 2010, according to Fitch Ratings. In an interview with Reuters, a director gave the Fitch's outlook for consumer goods.

The household and personal care segments increased revenue every year from 2003 to 2008. So, 2009 was but a bump in the road. Even in a recession, you need toilet paper and shampoo, so expect the spending to come back.

Now that it's reached 10.2%, the unemployment rate is higher than it's been in 26 years. That puts plenty of people on the hunt for work, especially since the unemployment rate doesn't reflect everyone who's been affected by the recession, such as those who have been unemployed too long or who are underemployed. Lacking alternatives at home, more Americans are heading overseas to find their fortunes weather the storm.

The number of people looking for international work through Manpower Inc. (MAN), the largest staffing firm in the country, has increased over the past six months. Half a year ago, Jeff Joerres, the company CEO, said that only a few dozen were looking for work outside the U.S. Now, it's up to 500. He tells USA Today, "It is a phenomenon we haven't had before."

The stock market is rallying. Commodities are on a tear. Yet the dollar is falling. Why?

There are several reasons for the drop in the dollar, but the most obvious and simple answer is that investors around the world are selling dollars and using the money to buy stocks and commodities, particularly oil and gold.

Last week India announced that it had bought 200 tons of gold from the International Monetary Fund (IMF.) At an average of say $1000.00 per ounce, the transaction amounted to about $7 trillion dollars. Chances are that India sold dollars from their sovereign fund to buy the gold.

"Peabody Energy (BTU) remains a buy in our 'gushers portfolio'." says energy sector expert Elliott Gue.

In his The Energy Strategist, he explains, "Strong demand for coal from India and China is a growth story that will play out in 2010."

Gue explains, "Peabody reported its third quarter results and share prices have reacted positively. The weakness in US coal markets remains a challenge, but Peabody has taken steps to shore up profitability in the US, cutting back planned production and locking in contracts for 2010 at fixed prices.

The US dollar is down 20% since 2002 on a trade weighted basis. Other world economies like China are dynamic, with growth rates of 8 and 9%. With that kind of clout, countries like China, India and Brazil, can choose where to place their reserves.

Slowly, developing countries are shifting their reserves away from the dollar into the euro and yen. Neil Mellor, strategist at Bank of New York Mellon Corp (NYSE: BK), which has some $20 trillion dollars in assets under custody said: "I don't think there will be an imminent move, but it is quite clear there's a plan to shift reserves to a more balanced portfolio."

Barclays Capital Research reported that central banks placed 63% of new cash in non US currencies between April and July.

Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve have kept interest rates low for some time. Interest rates lie somewhere below a quarter point and a zero, giving people very little reason to save. Why should you save money when inflation could work against you and the money will not grow?

Low interest rates also work to reduce the cost of borrowing. This could help businesses that want to expand, or the federal government that has trillions of dollars of debt that it needs to finance.

Bloomberg News took a recent poll of its subscribers. Here are some highlights of the survey:

• Only 31% of investors saw investment opportunities in the stock market, down from 35% in the July survey.
• Worldwide, investors see the U.S. as the weakest link in the world economy. Twenty five percent of respondents see an unemployment rate of 11% in the U.S. next year.
• Respondents see China and India as the most promising markets and commodities are the asset of choice.
• Real Estate and bonds are out of favor, with 40% saying that bonds will have the worst returns over the next year.

Consumer confidence ticked upward for the first time since 2007. Around the world, consumers are becoming more comfortable with the prospect of shelling out some cash, even if they're still approaching the notion with caution.

According to a survey conducted by The Nielsen Company between September 28 and October 16, 2009, consumer confidence was highest in India, with Indonesia and Norway following. Japan, Latvia, Portugal, and South Korea were at the other end of the spectrum, though South Korea did show a significant quarterly improvement.

Last year's bull run in commodities was led mainly by oil, grains and gold. This year we've had spectacular bull runs in the "soft" commodities, which include mainly, coffee, tea, cocoa, sugar and orange juice.

Tea is at an all-time high; cocoa is at a 30-year high; and sugar is at a 28.5-year high. Orange juice reached its highest price in 15 months. Tea prices for the best quality broken pekoe, or BP1, surged to a record $5.02 a kilogram, up 70% since January.

Soft drink giant Coca-Cola Co. (NYSE: KO) reported its third quarter numbers this morning, and managed to beat out analyst estimates, but shares are still selling off in early morning trading.

The reason why the market is punishing the stock is because its revenues were softer than analysts had been expecting to see. For the quarter, revenues came in at $8.04 billion, which was shy of the $8.11 billion that Wall Street was expecting to see from the company.

"The 'offshoring' of IT development, customer service and back office operations has always been controversial in the U.S. (because of the jobs lost)," observes Paul Goodwin.

In The Cabot China & Emerging Markets Report, he explains, "However, these outsourcing services have also been cost-effective. And outsourcing pioneer Wipro (NYSE: WIT) is very good at it.

"Wipro, the Indian megacap company, has been holding earnings steady as a rock despite the global recession that has ripped the heart out of so many companies.

The clean technology wave just got a little bigger. This tends to be a side-effect of interest from billionaire investor George Soros. And, as usual, it's more than just money; it's more than just a return. Soros, yet again, is trying to save the world. Interestingly, the bold move was announced at a meeting on climate change sponsored by Project Syndicate – an international association consisting of 430 newspapers from 150 countries (and thus with clear ties to the past, rather than future).

The investor and founder of Soros Fund Management LLC is planning to put $1 billion into clean-tech opportunities using what he calls "rather stringent criteria," which involves being "profitable but should also actually make a contribution to solving the problem [i.e., of clean technology adoption and proliferation]." Soros didn't provide any other details on the nature or scope of his investments.

The United States is not alone. We just saw the unemployment rate creep higher to 9.8% for September, and the rest of the world is coming with us.

The worldwide recession is still circling the globe, it seems, leaving slashed jobs in its wake. While the rise in unemployment is essentially a fact of life, how countries are responding to it differs widely. Some are spending aggressively to protect jobs; for example, by chipping in some extra cash to pay for shorter work weeks.

In the 30 countries comprising the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), unemployment is as low as 3.2% in the Netherlands and as high as 17.6% in Spain, as of July 2009.

Venture capital investment in clean technology grew 10% from the second quarter to the third this year. According to a report by the Cleantech Group and Deloitte, 134 companies received investments of $1.59 billion – up from $1.2 billion in the second quarter. The sector's upward trajectory continues, with last quarter marking the second in a row of double-digit growth. In the first quarter of 2009, venture capital investment in cleantech companies hit a low of $1 billion.

The strong third quarter has made the cleantech sector the largest in the venture capital business, according to the Cleantech Group, pulling ahead of biotech. Twenty-seven percent of venture capital funds invested in the second quarter of 2009 went to cleantech companies – up from 3% at the beginning of 2004.