On Tuesday, I wrote, “China, Russian, Brazil and other growing economies want to replace the dollar-as-the-world’s-reserve-currency with gold-backed oil trade.” And yesterday, in Cody Kiss & Tell: When to Sell, Ciena Price Target and More Cody Coming, I was asked to provide some links on that topic. Wars are rarely if ever fought for the reasons we’re told and that are discussed in the mainstream media, and here’s some more info to challenge your thinking on Syria. Let’s get some gestalt from stepping back and looking at the headlines that matter and some that don’t.

• Australia And China To Enable Direct Currency Convertibility
• China, Brazil Sign $30 Billion Swap Accord to Bolster BRICS
• China Maneuvers To Take Away U.S.’ Dominant Reserve Currency Status
• And this is from a TWC subscriber who shared this with me via Twitter: HACIA LA TERCERA GUERRA MUNDIAL.

Strategic Stock Trades – Of all the many traders I know and track, my old friend Rick Gobel’s got the hottest hand in the markets so far in 2013. His latest hit was ARO.

Economic Data Looks Pretty Good – Is bad news good news or is bad news bad news or is tapering good or is it bad and how do you like your eggs? Does the economic data matter to traders and investors at this stage of the cycle? Will the markets never correct (or nowadays is that “allowed to” correct?) in our lifetimes again? How much of this present economic data is already priced in with the markets near all-time highs and up huge from recent years? Good questions. Better to ask them now while it’s seemingly all good rather than later when the next downturn and/or crash comes.

Kids counterfeit millions of U.S. dollars in Peru – I guess Helicopter Ben Bernanke ain’t the only fool printing dollars like a madman. Ba-da-bing! 😉 Don’t forget to tip the waitress.

Treasury yields close to 3% as prices tumble after economic data – Subscribers to Marketwatch Revolution Investing have been positioned perfectly to profit on this Treasury collapse and yield spike. Do you know the best way to profit on higher rates?

Apple, Samsung may take the spring out of Fossil’s Michael Kors watches – Samsung’s latest smartwatch isn’t all that much of an advance over previous watch offerings and if Apple doesn’t roll out something a little more impressive than that whenever they finally release their own iWatch, I’m not sure the smartwatch is going to be much of a market. Meanwhile, I do think Fossil’s business is in secular decline as I outlined in my book last year, 12 Stocks with Broken Business Models.

HotelTonight Raises $45M – We are now in the thick of what I was calling the coming “App Revolution Bubble“. I’d rather be an app company seller than an app company buyer at this point.

Claims Per Deliverable Ounce of Gold Rise To Over 54 As the August Delivery Period Ends – Readers of The Cody Word here know how much flack I took for loading up on physical gold and silver back earlier this summer. I expect that this stuff at over the course and perhaps at a certain climactic point in my lifetime that I’ll see the dollar down 90% and these up 10x vs the dollar. I’ve also just released my book “Everything You Need to Know About Investing in Gold and Silver”

NFL odds 2013, Week 1: Ravens vs. Broncos – I wanted to give less than 6 points and bet on the Broncos, but with the line at 7.5, it’s not nearly as good of a bet. Would still rather bet with the Broncos though. Cody’s picks of the week are: Giants over Cowboys, Panthers over Seahawks, and Eagles over Washington.