COMMODITIES

Ron Paul has surged in two recent polls of Iowa Republicans, challenging the front-runners and making it clear that he will be a contender in January's caucuses.

The shares of Apple (AAPL), maker of the iPhone 4s, have pulled back to about $370. Does the pull-back represent a buying opportunity?

U.S. overspending on the military has diverted resources from civilian / social investments, weakening the economy, and, by extension weakening the nation. If it doesn’t substantially cut defense spending, the U.S.’s empire will likely share the fate of two other empires that overspent on the military -- the British Empire and the Soviet Union.

A top tech analyst is predicting that Amazon is likely to release its own smartphone for under $200 next year. Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney said in a research note that Amazon may sell the smartphone for as little as $170. Citing supply-chain channel checks in Asia, he said Amazon may release its first-ever smartphone by the fourth quarter of 2012.

Unrest and anger run deep against the ruling leftist Socialist Workers Party, which is almost guaranteed to lose the election.

Because the Amazon Kindle Fire's low price of $199 makes it more accessible than its competitors, ZDNet's Jason Perlow called it the People's Tablet. But early experiences indicate the tablet, available for sale in stores such as Best Buy this week, is not all that great as a reader.

How would a no-fly zone affect the Syrian uprising?

Hewlett-Packard, the No. 1 computer services company, has elected Ralph Whitworth, a well-known activist investor to its board, its first election since new CEO Meg Whitworth was elected Sept. 25.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation that allows firearms owners with concealed weapons permits to carry concealed guns across state lines.

For over two decades, India has maintained hundreds of thousands of armed forces in this border state where a violent insurgency, partially fueled by training and funds from Pakistan, raged for several years.

Forget changing interest rates. China’s main weapon of choice to influence liquidity is changing its reserve requirement ratios. This tool dictates the percentage of commercial bank deposits that must be kept in the central bank.

Apple and Google released two cloud-based music services within two days. See how iTunes Match and Google Music compare.

The eviction of the protesters from Zuccotti Park Monday night resembled a host body convulsively rejecting an unwanted implant. Occupy Wall Street lambasts, rightly, many social and economic ills. But is it native to its home base?

The Arab League and Turkey have called for urgent measures to protect civilians from Assad’s brutal crackdown.

As equity investors play the ups and down of the stock market, fixed income money managers that provide day-to-day financing to the banks, investors in medium-term bonds and the peer banks themselves are scrambling for cover. The result: a dollar financing crunch that could deeply affect the banks and how they do business.

Newt Gingrich is the latest of the anti-Romneys: the constantly churning field of candidates who, for a few days or weeks, are trumpeted as the definitive conservative challenger to Mitt Romney before falling back into the abyss. But can he maintain his lead where others didn't?

From the front lines of the Occupy Wall Street protest on the day New York evicted participants from their encampment in Lower Manhattan's Zuccotti Park, it became clear that the effort which may or may not be a movement is at a defining moment.

Hedge fund manager and long-time gold bull John Paulson's move to slash ETF bullion holdings by a third in the third quarter does not appear to be a sign that he is abandoning his upbeat view of the metal, industry sources and analysts said.

How the market works has changed from a few decades ago. In today’s hyper-financialized and interconnected world, investors cannot afford to solely focus on fundamentals.

Is now a good time to consider the shares of American International Group (AIG)? And what, if anything, does AIG's stock price say about the U.S. economy?

So now we know one reason why shares of IBM, the No. 2 computer services company rose nearly 13 percent over the past three months: Warren Buffett has been buying.

Romney has no real ideology or political philosophy behind him (hence, the endless flip-flops on various topics). Many of the Republican Party's right-wing do not like nor trust him.

After a series of tightening measures by China's central bank choked off bank loans to small- and medium-sized companies (SMEs), many resorted to importing copper and other commodities as a way to get cheap loans.

Oil -- the lifeblood of the global economy and a critical factor in the growth of U.S. gross domestic product -- is set Friday to close its longest stretch of weekly gains in more than two years, a counterintuitive trend that belies certain economic fundamentals.

The UK economic outlook for 2012 does not look bright.

The astronomically-high levels of interest short-sellers are giving shares of Groupon puts the company among the top 10 publicly-traded firms 'shorts' are betting against. That, most definitely, can't be good for Groupon.

Sitting in China's copper and steel warehouses is a hidden risk to the world's second-largest economy -- banks' indirect exposure to a property market that is showing signs of stress.

Pacific Crest analyst James Faucette offers in a research note some valuable perspective on Research in Motion, which trades on the NASDAQ under the symbol RIMM. Acknowledging that his firm has been quite negative of RIMM for a long time, Faucette writes that the firm believes that it may be time to lift our foot. A little. For a while.

Gold has confounded market watchers by refusing to behave like a safe-haven and instead has tracked equities over the past few weeks, but the escalating European debt crisis could see bullion ditch its risk-asset mantle and return to record highs.