U.S. stocks ended at all time highs pre-Christmas after a strong durable-goods orders report with the Dow at 16,358 and the S&P 500 at 1,833. Yet the market bull run shows no obvious signs of slowing down right now. All the worries about Euro Zone debt, Federal Bank money printing, low growth have all disappeared.

2013 will be the first year since 2000 that that the price of gold will be down, and down pretty significantly with a 30% drop year to date, the biggest fall since 1984. Take Avocet Mining, a company I’ve been following for a few years – a hero to zero stock if ever I saw one!

I noticed the drop in the Iofina share price this week as this was highlighted in Investors Chronicle a few weeks ago as a potential big growth story for 2014.

Couple of interesting announcements from Falklands oil explorer Rockhopper Exploration over the last 2 days. Unfortunately it’s going to be pretty long wait for major news from the Falklands given the sticky rig situation and the need to transport a suitable rig down to the area.

The early finish to the Fed’s quantitative easing programme was interpreted by the markets as showing greater confidence in the potential strength of the U.S. economy next year.

News today that Xcite Energy (XEL) have refinanced their outstanding debt via a private placement with Canadian based West Face Capital Inc. for a year to two year period. The shares are up a couple of pence versus a declining oil sector.

There were quite a few broker notes last week on Gulf Keystone Petroleum (GKP). One of these is Edison who reckon the company is worth just 176p on a risked NAV basis.

Last week Chevron has revealed the cost of its massive Gorgon LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) project in the north west of Western Australia has increased for a second time, to the staggering figure of $54 billion.

Its been one hell of a year for equity markets this year, with the Dow Jones Industrials breaking the key 16,000 level in November and currently sitting at 15,755. That’s a 20% gain for the year to date, with the index opening at 13,104 at the beginning of January.

What makes Tullow Oil interesting for me is their willingness to drill wells in frontier territories such as the Baring Sea or in Ethiopia, a high risk, high reward strategy but with around a 60% drilling success rate in 2013 not to be sniffed at.