It's Monday morning and it's the same old, same old: gold surges to a new high; commodities rally; stocks rally; and the dollar is weaker. Traders see this as a no brainer.

Spot gold is strong today, reaching a new high of $1165.45 per ounce, up from Friday's close of $1148.20. On the COMEX, gold traded at $1,165.90, up $19.10 per ounce (each $1.00 equals $100.00). Gold has been spurred higher by central bank and fund buying.

Options traders are betting on gold rising to $1,200 per ounce. That's only $35 away. We could see that in another day of two if current trend continues.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says it looks like the patent worries aren't so dire after all.

Now that we see that health care reform is not going to bring price caps or socialization of medicine, we are beginning to see some real expansion in the drug stocks, including Merck (MRK) (Cramer's Take), Bristol-Myers (BMY) (Cramer's Take) and Lilly (LLY) (Cramer's Take). But there is one drug stock that is continually met with skepticism -- Sanofi Aventis (SNY) (Cramer's Take), the French vaccine and pharmaceutical maker run by Christian Viehbacher. The resistance is obvious, as his biggest two drugs are coming off patent very soon, and his hope is that by 2013 the company might again reach 2008 levels.

Sounds like there's no reason to buy this one. Sounds like its 4% dividend isn't safe.

Talk about stocks that have fallen far and fast. LDK Solar (LDK) was looking to add a bit of momentum with its earnings report, as the stock is battling overhead resistance from its 20-week moving average. This trendline has pushed the stock lower for a majority of 2009 and 2008, during which LDK has dropped from its late-2008 high of $52.40 to its current perch near the $8 level.

The good news is that a news event like an earnings report could lend momentum to any squandering stock, so let's see what LDK reported. The solar panel producer earned 27 cents per share in the third quarter, far worse than last year's same-quarter earnings of 77 cents per share. Quarterly revenue was nearly halved, as LDK brought in $281.9 million compared to $542 million.

Often, we confuse winning with being the best. This isn't always the case. There are plenty of ways to get ahead when you don't have the top product on the market. The smoke-filled backroom meetings may be a thing of the past, but the net effect lingers. This is exactly what went down, according to a Reuters report, when Microsoft (MSFT) had a chat with News Corp (NWS).

Microsoft suggested a relationship with News Corp which would involve the latter's yanking its news sites from Google (GOOG) ... for a fee, of course. This would cost the search engine giant -- which is also a news aggregation giant -- access to some hefty publications, including the Wall Street Journal, the Sun and the New York Post.

There was never any question that Summit Entertainment's Twilight Saga: New Moon would be the number one movie this weekend, there was just a question about how much the movie would gross. We now have the answer: a real, real lot.

According to early estimates at Box Office Mojo, New Moon made $140 million at domestic theaters. To put this in perspective, this means that the vampire flick now occupies the third spot on the chart of best opening weekends (behind Dark Knight and Spiderman 3). Truly impressive, especially when you consider that we're not in the summertime.

JP Morgan (NYSE: JPM) closed at $42.46. December option implied volatility is at 39; December is at 37; below its 26-week average of 44, according to Track Data, suggesting decreasing price movement.

UltraShort Financials ProShares (NYSE: SKF) is an exchange-traded fund seeking daily investment results that correspond to twice (200%) the inverse (opposite) of the daily performance of the Dow Jones U.S. Financials Index. SKF is recently down 59 cents to $24.12 in pre-open trading. Overall option implied volatility of 62 is below its 26-week average of 73, according to Track Data, suggesting decreasing price movement.

Option Update is provided by Stock Specialist Paul Foster of theflyonthewall.com.

U.S. stock futures rose Monday morning as investors reacted to rising commodity prices, including a new record for gold, and the dollar's retreat. Further, economists expect job losses to peak in the first quarter. It seems Wall Street is about to join the world markets rally.

The U.S. dollar fell against the euro and the yen Monday, following some escalating tensions with Iran and after Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard said the central bank should continue its asset-buying program beyond its current cut-off date. The Dollar Index fell for the first time in three days. What's more, forecasters predict that it will continue sliding, even when the Fed begins to raise interest rates based on supply and demand forces.

With the credit crunch and the implosion of CIT, the environment for small business financing has been downright hostile. Basically, many owners have given up on things and instead have focused on creative ways to boost cash flows.

So in light of all this, the announcement of the $500 million small-business plan from Goldman Sachs (GS) and Warren Buffett certainly was an eye-opener. Perhaps your business can get a piece of the action?

Well, the details are fairly sketchy. But here's at when we know so far:

Playboy (PLA) tends to be associated with the magazine and sex. Not the hardcore, nasty kind, of course -- Playboy has always been more than a tad distinguished, staying above board while the adult entertainment industry has chosen to compete in ways that my editor would delete if I even attempted.

With Iconix said to be interested in acquiring Playboy, it needs to think about where it can win with the ailing brand. The smart move may be to ditch the magazine and move away from sex -- it can't compete in either of these markets. Then, it needs to figure out how to make the brand relevant to everyone not in the Boomer generation ... or treat Playboy as an investment with a clock on it.

Campbell Soup Co. (CPB), which recently raised its quarterly dividend by 10%, is scheduled to discuss its fiscal first-quarter 2010 financial results in a conference call Monday, November 23, at 10:00 AM ET. You can catch the live webcast of the call on the company's website.

During the three months that ended in October, Campbell revamped its Chunky line of soups, was named to the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes, and debuted its first Times Square billboard. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expect the world's biggest soup maker to report that earnings for that period rose 4.9% from a year ago to $0.81 per share. And revenue for the quarter is expected to be 1.5% higher to $2.3 billion.

Rare is the day you should sell an electric power generation play, which is why I'm reiterating my buy rating for Dominion Resources (D), first recommended on May 8, 2009, at a price of $31.87. If you bought Dominion in May, you're up about 16%.

Dominion, a fully integrated natural gas and electric holding company, is on-track to register 2% to 4% revenue growth on higher utility revenue in F2009, but also aided by the completion of the Cove Point liquid natural gas facility. Debt reduction, as well as planned expansion of wind generation and other power projects, adds to the positive story. Dominion's annual dividend is $1.75.

Though the earnings season is winding down, and the coming week includes the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S., plenty of reports are still due out. And analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters don't seem to be expecting too many turkeys among this week's bunch.

Leading U.S. meat processor Tyson Foods Inc. (TSN), which has just named a new chief executive officer and a new chief operating officer, is expected to report fiscal fourth-quarter earnings of $0.26 per share, up from $0.14 in the same period of last year. But revenue is expected to total $6.9 billion, or 4.3% less than a year ago. The full-year forecast is for a profit of $0.25 per share (-16.7) on $26.4 billion (-3.9%) in sales. This dividend payer has offered upside surprises in the past two quarters, topping estimates by 11 cents per share in the third quarter.

October seems to have been a good month for consumer spending. Unemployment is holding consumers back, but it isn't keeping wallets clamped shut.

A Bloomberg survey reveals that purchases grew 0.5% last month, based on the thoughts of 61 economists. The U.S. Department of Commerce is releasing its report on Wednesday. In advance of this news, Bloomberg's survey suggests that there are signs of slight improvement.

Intel Corp. (INTC) raised its dividend. Again. The 14th time since 1992 when it began paying quarterly sums to investors. The annual payout is now 63 cents or 15.75 cents every three months. That's 12.5% higher than the previous dividend.

The stock is trading around $20 a share. With a 63 cent dividend, that's a yield of 3%. Not a bad return when coupled with the 50% rise the stock's seen in the past year.

The U.S. Senate voted along party lines, 60 to 39, to proceed with debate on health care reform.

The last two holdouts, Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana decided to finally vote with the majority.

Details of the bill are sketchy at this point. The Senate version would require most everyone to purchase health care. Coverage would be extended to an additional 30 million persons. Coverage could not be denied for preexisting conditions.