I often write about China’s furious spending spree on buying foreign natural resource assets but Japan is hot and heavy on the acquisition trail too.  The Japanese are particularly interested in natural gas. Most likely as a clean substitute for its nuclear plants.

Japanese companies are buying natural gas assets and fields around the world, setting the nation on course to be the first of the 10 largest energy users to bet its future on a less-polluting fuel than oil or coal.

Americans are feeling some inflation, mainly from rising gas prices. Singaporeans are feeling it too, but mainly from the super strong Singapore real estate market.

Singapore inflation hit a slightly higher-than-expected 5.4 per cent in April, increasing the chance that it may exceed a government forecast for the year and putting pressure on the central bank to keep a tighter monetary policy.

The MAS and the trade ministry said housing costs, which rose 11.1 per cent year-on-year, were the biggest contributor for April inflation. In March, housing costs rose 9.1 per cent from the previous year.

Interesting article from the Washington Post. It asks and answers the question of whether China will face the same boom/bust cycle that Japan and Taiwan did.

China’s growth looks remarkable. But it isn’t unprecedented. Japan, South Korea and Taiwan all grew close to 9 percent annually for about two decades and then started to slow. Many think that China’s fate will be like that of Japan, which crashed and slowed down in the 1990s and has yet to boom again. But the more realistic scenario is Japan in the 1970s, when the original Asian tiger’s growth slowed from 9 percent to about 6 percent. Korea and Taiwan followed similar trajectories.

One industry doesn’t seem to be slowing down at all in China. I’m talking about the luxury market. BMW is tripling its production capacity in China to meet booming demand.

Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (BMW) plans to triple the number of vehicles it can make in China.

BMW sold 43,800 more cars globally through the first four months of 2012, compared with a year earlier, with 60 percent of those additional sales in China. For Audi, China accounted for 74 percent of its delivery growth of 49,300 vehicles this year, according to company figures.

Chinese aluminum plants are reducing capacity and idling plants because of slack demand.

China’s top aluminium-producing province has idled about 700,000 tonnes of capacity in recent months, a senior industry official said, further evidence that slower growth in the world’s No. 2 economy is denting the country’s appetite for commodities.

The Chinese manufacturing slowdown continues. This is just another way to saying that the export industry is getting worse and worse.

The HSBC manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) dropped to 48.7 in May on a 100-point scale, down from a final reading of 49.3 in April.

Here’s a table that I sent to Red-Hot Global Resources subscribers yesterday as part of a much larger issue, showing US Crude Oil Production …

American oil production hit an 8-year high last year.  The thing is, production KEEPS growing. February’s U.S. oil production, the latest number available, was 178,170 barrels. That’s the highest level for that month since 1998!

Invest accordingly.

According to Baker Hughes, the natural gas rotary drilling rig-count has fallen by 63% in North America since its peak in August 2008 and, during the same period, the oil rig-count has risen 230%

However, there are still massive amounts of natural gas in storage, because the shift in rigs hasn’t caused a big enough of a change in the production cycle (yet) to make much of a dent, as this chart from the Energy Information Administration shows …

As you can see, the amount of nat-gas in storage is way above the 5-year range.

Now, here’s my question for you: will we have a hot summer that drives nat-gas usage higher? Or will a mild summer follow the mild winter, which means less draw on gas stockpiles?

Wow, this sounds very big to me. The Financial Times reported that some Chinese coal buyers are either coal and iron ore suppliers to defer delivery or completely canceling/defaulting on the contract altogether.

The media gave a lot of attention to Facebook founder, Eduarado Saverin, decision to renounce his U.S. citizenship and switch his citizenship to Singapore.

The decision for most Americans that do so is financial. Top individual income-tax rates are 20% in Singapore and 17% in Hong Kong,

Very interesting article from Forbes about Apple, Google, and Facebook.

It is not an exaggeration to say that all roads of growth lead to or through China. The obvious question for some of today’s most popular growth stocks is, “Out of Apple Google,, and Facebook, which company will do better in China?”

The bread and butter of Google and Facebook are selling advertising.  Apple on the other hand makes money by selling devices.

Chinese mentality regarding digital marketing is also not well understood by western analysts.  A typical American or European company is either spending 8% to 10% of its advertising budget on digital marketing or is heading in that direction.

In contrast, a typical large Chinese company spends only 2% to 3% of its advertising budget on digital marketing.

The point is that even if Facebook and Google could expand in China there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow in China.

On this count Apple gets the pot of gold.

A Nielsen survey of Chinese consumers found that are cooling towards discretionary spending, preferring to salt money into savings or education for their children.

Savings and education were the only areas in which survey respondents were more willing to allocate additional cash.

China demand for gold hit an all-time high in the first quarter.

China remained the world’s top gold consumer for the second quarter in a row, with its gold consumer demand up 10 percent to 255.2 tonnes, beating India’s 207.6 tonnes.

On today’s podcast, Phil and I talk about what’s happening in gold, where it might go next, and what I’m doing to protect Red-Hot Global Resources subscribers. Listen here: http://talkdigitalnetwork.com/2012/05/bear-market-for-gold/

General Motors has decided to stop advertising on Facebook. Why? According to GM, Facebook advertising “just doesn’t work.”

General Motors, the third-largest advertiser in the United States, decided toer  discontinue its Facebook advertising, worth about $10 million annually.

That is pretty damning news but to put some perspective on it, Facebook had $3.7 billion worth of revenues in 2011 so this $10 million isn’t a big loss. If other advertisers follow suit, Facebook is going to get killed.