Those business executives, economists, and investors/traders who had hoped G-7 economic leaders meeting in Washington over the weekend would take efforts to stem the U.S. dollar's decline may be left feeling slightly disappointed.

Finance chiefs from the G-7 notched-up their rhetoric on the dollar, but provided little substantial evidence they'll take actions -- monetary or fiscal -- to stem the dollar's slide, Bloomberg News reported Sunday night.

"We continue to monitor exchange markets closely, and cooperate as appropriate,'' the G-7 said, Bloomberg News reported, with U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson adding that the G-7 statement on currencies "reflects market developments and changes in the markets." The G-7 then pledged to implement further monetary and fiscal policies "as appropriate,'' without providing specific details.

No substantive action on dollar

Economist Peter Dawson told BloggingStocks Monday the G-7 statement by the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, France, Italy, and Canada amounted to a statement against currency rate volatility, not a substantive effort to bolster the dollar. He added that G-7 representatives, in his interpretation, appeared more concerned about maintaining financial market liquidity due to the ongoing credit slump, than about the dollar's value.

Novartis AG (NYSE: NVS) shares are trading higher today after the company's blood pressure medicine Diovan was approved for the treatment of chronic heart failure by Health Canada, the Canadian federal department of medicine. If you think that the company won't fall by too much in the coming months, then now could be a good time to look at a bullish hedged trade on NVS.

After hitting a one-year high of $59.17 in January, the stock hit a one-year low of $46.64 last week. NVS opened this morning at $50.21. So far today the stock has hit a low of $49.70 and a high of $50.44. As of 11:55, NVS is trading at $50.19, up $1.19 (2.4%). The chart for NVS looks bearish and steady, while S&P gives the stock a neutral 3 STARS (out of 5) hold rating.

For a bullish hedged play on this stock, I would consider a May bull-put credit spread below the $45 range. A bull-put credit spread is an options position that combines the purchase and sale of put options to hedge risk in case the stock doesn't do what you think but still leverage nice returns. For this particular trade, we will make a 6.4% return in just 2 months as long as NVS is above $45 at May expiration. Novartis would have to fall by more than 10% before we would start to lose money.

You know that an economic issue has jumped the shark when the New York Times's op-editoraliste Maureen Dowd (MoDo) devotes her Sunday column to it. What's unleashed MoDo's moxie is how Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) -- those government investment funds estimated to control between $2 trillion and $15 trillion -- are buying up chunks of the U.S. banking system.

The problem against which MoDo rails is that thanks to the policies of George W. Bush, the price of oil has quadrupled and the dollar has plummeted -- thus putting the U.S. at the mercy of those Arabian SWFs whose owners he groveled to this week to lower the price of oil. And while W. was grovelling, so were the CEOs of Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) and Merrill Lynch & Co. (NYSE: MER) -- seeking capital to shore up their Collateralized Debt Obligation (CDO)-tarnished balance sheets. MoDo is right that with Bush's $2.4 trillion worth of wars and $1.3 trillion worth of tax cuts, the U.S. has gone from being the world's creditor to its debtor.

But another New York Times article sheds more light on the phenomenon of foreign investment in the U.S. -- suggesting that with their $414 billion worth of 2007 purchases in the U.S., foreign investors, including SWFs, spent a record amount of money buying up the U.S. last year -- up 90% from 2006. The Times suggests that this foreign investment comes in different forms -- some of which are beneficial. How so?

The dollar fell broadly Wednesday against major traded currencies, plunging about 2 yen versus the Japanese currency to 109.84 yen. The reason for the dollar's weakness today was that rise in oil prices and soft U.S. manufacturing data led currency traders to conclude that the U.S. Federal Reserve will have to continue to lower short-term interest rates to jump-start a sluggish U.S economy.

The dollar also deteriorated 1.50 cents vs. the euro to $1.4734 in mid-day Wednesday trading.

Rough start to 2008

Currency trader Andrew Resnick, formerly of Next Capital, told BloggingStocks Wednesday the dollar's fall took some traders by surprise.

"It doesn't take much to upset the apple cart regarding the dollar, these days," Resnick said. "A lot of traders, myself included, were stopped-out this morning with dollar-long positions, which is not the way you want to begin the trading new year." Resnick added that he was stopped-out, or went flat after a losing trade Wednesday on dollar-long day trades of euro / U.S. dollar and U.S. dollar / Japanese yen.

This was me yesterday, shoveling away the front of our house. Yes, I know this was not unique to Toronto and that the cold weather didn't just hit Canada but the U.S. as well. Still, if any of you -- Canadian or American -- had the choice, would you keep on living in this kind of weather? If people had the choice, wouldn't there be a natural migration during this time to a warmer climate? Doesn't the word snowbird ring a bell?

Well, the dire housing situation in the U.S. seems to have given many Canadians an opportunity they may have never thought possible before. As this Associated Press article tells it, Canadians are now looking at cheap homes in the U.S.

With the Canadian dollar rising vis-a-vis the U.S. dollar and the housing market in the U.S. hitting new lows daily, Canadians are looking for deals. Specifically, they are looking to buy condos in the sunbelt states for investment and convenience. Enjoying better economic conditions than currently in the U.S., Canadians (especially those in the chilly province of Alberta where the oil business has been booming) are looking for opportunities from Las Vegas and Arizona all the way to Florida.

However, if you were hoping this would help alleviate some of the excess supply in the U.S. housing market, the demand from Canadians is still far too small compared to the sheer size of the U.S. housing glut.

While hubby and I have in the past entertained the thought of renting a winter condo in Florida, but could never afford it, the possibilities presenting themselves now may prove to favor other options. Seriously, given the choice, who wouldn't choose this? If I could, I would!

The Bush administration opposes a United Nations draft proposal calling on developed nations to make binding emissions cuts of 25%-40% by 2020, Bloomberg News reported Monday.

A U.N. draft document will call for industrialized nations to implement those cuts as part of a proposal to replace the Kyoto Protocol, Reuters reported Monday. Representatives from 187 nations are meeting in Bali for global climate talks.

Environmental and international group leaders hope to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, with the new U.N. agreement, preferably by 2009. The United States is the only developed nation to reject the Kyoto Protocol. U.S. senior climate negotiator Harlan Watson said Monday that the U.S.'s "principal difficulty with having any numbers in the text to begin with is that it might prejudge outcomes,'' Bloomberg News reported.

Sudden large, negative financial events can disrupt, or at least critique, even the most bedrock economic tenets, let alone recently-percolated conventional wisdom.

On the heels of the housing and credit market crunches, one conventional wisdom item that's currently coming under criticism is the notion of "decoupling" [Subscription required] - the theory that despite a slowing U.S. economy, the European and Asian engines of growth would be sufficient to maintain adequate global GDP growth, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The International Monetary Fund published a chapter in April 2007 entitled "Decoupling the Train," which argued that the U.S.'s mild GDP growth was caused by a housing sector correction. Housing was less global than other commodities, it argued, and hence would not impact the world economy as much.

For example, about two months ago, the IMF projected that global economic growth would slow just slightly in 2008 to 4.8% from 5.2% this year.

There's an old Wall Street adage that goes, "Sometimes the Street's chorus is a chorus of two."

And there's perhaps no better example of that than the current debate over the strength of the U.S. economy. Professionals in the Concrete Canyon have been amassing on either side of two camps for months: "The U.S. economy is headed toward recession" or "The U.S. economy will continue to grow."

Still, as history demonstrates, and contrary to the current 'chorus' on Wall Street, sometimes there are more than two options. For example, what if the U.S. economy is headed toward a growth recession? I.E. a protracted period of sub-trend GDP growth.

Just call Apache a buying opportunity extraordinaire. Oil/gas exploration and development company Apache (NYSE: APA) has dipped about $10 from 52-week highs around $107.50 to about $97, due to oil's recent pull-back.

As a result, APA's p/e is down to about 15. A p/e of 15 may not seem that cheap, but given Apache's upside potential -- it is. Look for Apache to continue to achieve solid growth through internal investment and acquisitions. Apache has several key exploration discoveries set to enter development stage and will drill nine wells in Canada this winter as part of its oil shale operations.

Overall, analysts see Apache's oil and gas volumes increasing about 10%-12% in 2007 and 2008. Even better: the company believes it can generate double-digit production growth for the next decade. The Reuters F2007/F2008 EPS consensus estimates for APA are $7.54/$8.84.

Rising global demand for oil, combined with geological studies that predict that global oil production derived from conventional oil supplies will begin to decline late in this century, or as early as 2040, has led to a search for unconventional oil supplies.

Further, a large amount of that unconventional oil exists in the form of tar sands in Alberta, Canada, the bitumen of which is capable of producing 1.7 billion barrels of synthetic crude. Moreover, if just 10% of this field is actually recoverable, it would still represent the second largest oil reserve in the world.

But, as writer Elizabeth Kolbert outlined in an article on unconventional oil in this week's issue of The New Yorker magazine ("Unconventional Crude"), extracting that resource comes at a price: it's more expensive to extract -- about $1 of energy is needed to generate $3 of unconventional oil -- more CO2 is also released into the atmosphere than from conventional oil, and mines dug to secure the material scar the landscape, if not fully restored.

What are the best speculations and investments among metals, miners, and other resource plays? To find out, I turned to 20 of the nation's leading newsletter editors, as well as speakers from the recent New Orleans Conference, a leading forum for resource advisors.

Their current top ideas cover a wide diversity of ideas, from gold and silver, from alumina and copper, to platinum and palladium. These picks cover markets from Chile to China and from Canada to Russia. These ideas also range from large cap, well-established, and diversified companies to small cap, development-stage junior speculations.

Readers should only consider these ideas as a starting place for their own research and should keep in mind the caveat that any stock you buy should only be considered within the framework of your own time horizon and risk parameters. Meanwhile, here are 20 different advisors assessing various aspects of the metals, mining, and resources sectors:

In the coming weeks, bloggingstocks.com will review those stocks most likely to benefit under each scenario: a weak dollar or a strong dollar.

Commodities expert Jim Rogers is on-record with where he thinks the U.S. dollar is headed in 2008: down. That, in and of itself, is not news.

"It doesn't take a genius to figure out that it's a currency that's going to be going down for some time to come," Rogers said in an interview with the Financial Times. Rogers added that in his interpretation the U.S. Federal Reserve's and the U.S. Treasury's willingness to print money and drive down the greenback is clear.

Among other consequences of the dollar's continued fall, Roger sees higher commodity prices, a rise in U.S. inflation, and a rise in China's currency, the yuan (if the Chinese government lets it rise more). Rogers, chairman of Beeland Interests Inc., said he is also shorting shares of Citigroup (NYSE: C). [Citigroup's shares closed down $1.92 to $35.81Monday after the company said it will have to write-off $8 billion-$11 billion to account for the reduced value of subprime mortgage-related securities.]

All of which begs a good question by the investor / reader: How did the U.S. dollar drop so much in value?

My recent Investing in Ontario post took a look at the Royal Bank of Canada (NYSE: RY), Manulife Financial Corp. (NYSE: MFC), and Toronto-Dominion Bank (NYSE: TD); three public companies examined by the Motley Fool this past summer.

However, Ontario is more than just Canada's financial center. Its abundance of resources and location on Great Lakes have made Ontario a manufacturing powerhouse, including steel production and automobile manufacturing in southern Ontario, and mining and forestry in the north. Toronto is Canada's film and media center, as well as an important tourism destination. Niagara Falls is one of world's most popular tourist destinations. Other Ontario companies the Motley Fool liked include Research in Motion Ltd. (NASDAQ: RIMM), Nortel Networks Corp. (NYSE: NT), and IMAX Corp. (NASDAQ: IMAX).

Research in Motion (RIM), Canada's largest public company, is well know for its BlackBerry smart phones, but it also provides software development tools and produces radio-based modems used in portable devices. The consensus recommendation of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial is to buy RIM, and has been since April. RIM met analysts' earnings per share estimate when it reported second quarter FY2008 earnings in early October, and Wall Street expects EPS of 62 cents in the third quarter, double the 31 cents actual from a year ago. RIM has a five-year EPS growth rate of 73.5%, easily beating the S&P 500 and the technology sector average. RIM's share price has been climbing since a share split in August, to reach a 52-week high of $128.36 on Tuesday; it opened today at $124.75. Also this week, RIM announced plans to sell the BlackBerry in China, and introduced Facebook for the BlackBerry as well. For more on Microsoft Corp.'s (NASDAQ: MSFT) challenge to RIM and other RIM-related news, see Bloggingstocks' RIM coverage.

Its abundance of resources and location on the Great Lakes have made Ontario an economic powerhouse. Canada's capital, Ottawa can be found there, as well as its largest city, Toronto, which is also Canada's financial hub. Seven of Ontario's eight largest companies are financial institutions, and Toronto is also the home of one of the largest stock exchanges in the world. When the Motley Fool took a look at stock investment opportunities in Ontario this past June, three of the companies they focused on were financial institutions: Royal Bank of Canada (NYSE: RY), Manulife Financial Corp. (NYSE: MFC) and Toronto-Dominion Bank (NYSE: TD). Considering the credit crunch and the weakness of the U.S. dollar, I thought it might be interesting to see how those companies are faring now.

The Royal Bank of Canada, also known as RBC Financial Group, is Canada's largest financial institution. It has 1,300 domestic locations and offices in 30 countries. In September, RBC's Gord Nixon won Canada's Outstanding CEO of the Year award for 2007. More recently, RBC announced the acquisition of a Caribbean bank, and it was one of four Canadian banks affected by restructuring at VISA. With RBC's five-year earnings per share growth rate of 26.5% (better than the S&P 500), the consensus recommendation of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial is to buy RBC, despite missing earnings expectations for the past two quarters. RBC's share price is near an all-time high on the NYSE, closing Thursday at $57.09 on the NYSE. RBC will release its next quarterly report on November 30.

Research in Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) is recently up $1.82 to $98.10 in pre-open trading.

• RIMM is expected to report EPS after the close tonight.
  
• Thomas Weisel says: "The stock is very near our target price and will be looking at guidance to review the target."
  
• RIMM October option implied volatility is at 82, November is at 61 and December is at 57; above its 26-week average of 44 according to Track Data, suggesting larger risk.

Overstock (NASDAQ: OSTK), an online community of auction buyers and sellers, closed at $32.73 (near a 22-month high).

• OSTK has a market cap of $776 million. OSTK had June 2007 quarterly total revenue of $148.9 million.
  
• OSTK overall option implied volatility of 53 is above its 26-week average of 46 according to Track Data, suggesting larger price risk.

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