“If a legendary musical group tours minus its lead singer, then it is a tribute band.”

It goes on and on and on and on…

Allow us to introduce you to The Great and Magnificent Oz, a high school pal who has amassed a fortune via investing for more than two decades. How wealthy is Oz? He owns a fire table. Do you know anyone who owns a fire table? (Why??) Each week, or hopefully more often, Oz will drop some wisdom on us from his lair somewhere deep in the Wasatch Mountains. 

Yes, gold is hot but you know what is not hot? Gold Miners.

That’s why you should act now to dabble into the miners. One recommendation, a stock that is already decimated with I believe a firm floor built into the price, is Nova Gold Resources (NG).

Why NG? For starters, it is a known fact that the highly respected international investor George Soros has started to buy gold again. He exited out of NG and it is my feeling he is getting back in. I know fellow investor extraordinaire John Paulson has stated he is buying NG as well.

The author’s sweet ride.

Plus the overall gold market is strong. The Chinese have significantly reduced their Treasury purchases and are now buying gold more than anyone in the entire world – COMBINED. Then you have the backdrop of firmer appreciation with more QE stimulus.

Sure it may not happen, but if it doesn’t the fallout will be felt with the physical gold price and not as dramatically with the Gold Miners who have seen their prices already reduced.

So, for the long-term buyer: buy NG. For short-term gains or traders, go with the ETF – GDXJ, which focuses on small miners or a more conservative bet would be GDX, its bigger brother.

Happy Hunting!

Oz

NG current price: $4.72 (we’ll check back each week to see how it’s doing)

St. Paul had an epiphany on the road to Damascus. Air France had a credit emergency on the tarmac in Damascus.* When Syrian officials refused to let re-routed airliner pay for refueling with a credit card, the crew passed a hat — or beret — amongst passengers to solicit donations. Ultimately, as the story says, an alternative method of payment was found (we’re guessing they phoned Damone, who showed up with their wallet and then hit on their date). Either way, what’s the big deal? It’s not as if Damascus, which is located in Syria, is a politically unstable place to find yourself stranded.

*Props to the prescience of “Airplane”, whose pilot, Captain Clarence Oveur, paid for fuel with a credit card in the 1980 classic.

Remember the name Elijah Earnheart. Mack Brown sure will. The Mesquite, Tex., 7th-grader is six-foot-one, 297 pounds and loves to play football. The problem? He exceeds the Mesquite Pee Wee Football League limit by 162 pounds.

His name is Walter White, he’s in his mid-50s and he allegedly cooks meth. Unlike the anti-hero of “Breaking Bad”, this Walter White lives in Alabama, not Albuquerque, and he actually exists.

Yes, Chipper Jones hit two home runs during Chipper Jones Bobblehead night in Atlanta (former teammate and surname-sake Andruw Jones hit one for the New York Yankees, by the way). The homers, Chipper’s only two hits, give him exactly 2,700 career hits. Jones, 40, will be less than 300 hits or, if her were to stay healthy, two full seasons from 3,000 and baseball immortality when he retires at season’s end. Sabbatical? Maybe. Retirement? No.

“Somebody told me/That she had a husband/Who looked liked a president/That we had in February of last year…”

Wideout Penn State Devon Smith announced that he is transferring from Penn State to Marshall. Twelve of the Nittany Lions’ 29 touchdowns and 14 of their 16 field goals from 2011 have now transferred. Another 12 of those 29 touchdowns have graduated. Only four of the 29 TDs, all scored by backups, will return.

A.J. Burnett became the Pittsburgh Pirates’ first 15-game winner since 1999 in a 10-6 win against the Dodgers. Burnett never had a 15-win season in three years with the New York Yankees. The Yanks have had 23 15-game winners since 1999.

What do vending machines and trampolines have in common? They’re far deadlier than sharks. Sorry, Discovery Channel.

It’s only a matter of time before Notre Dame football gets breast augmentation surgery and a red Ferrari. The Irish, by the way, are 32-32 dating back to the 2007 Sugar Bowl loss to LSU.

Hope So LoLo: Olympian Hope Solo appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” while fellow Olympian Lolo Jones appeared on PTI. No one on the “Morning Joe” set asked Solo if she smuggled a celebrity into the Olympic Village this time and, a little surprisingly, both J.A. Adande and Michael Wilbon refrained from asking Lolo if she is still jonesing for companionship. Would it have been tasteless? Sure. Did you want to know?

Former Connecticut teammates Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi led the gold-medal winning Team USA women’s basketball team in minutes played in London. When their respective WNBA teams, Seattle and Phoenix, met last night, Taurasi was absent due to a late return from Old Blighty. Bird played only ten minutes due to “stomach flu.” Let’s just call it what it probably was: a severe case of Genoauriemmaitis.

Launched on this date: Davy Crockett (1786), Thomas Hodgkin (good and bad, 1790), Sean Penn (1960), Jon Gruden (1963).