Table of Contents

1.  Market Update
2.  New Zealand
3.  Clean Energy Fuels (CLNE)
4.  Additional Investing Ideas
5.  Investor Trivia -- Frontier Gains of More than +200%
6.  Featured Topic -- The Boom in Global Infrastructure Spending
7.  Free Investing Resources

Today's Top Stock Picks

Inside the Highest-Yielding Country in the World
Can you guess which Pacific nation's stocks pay an average dividend of 7.4%? Read More. . .

Profit from Natural Gas as a Transportation Fuel
This cutting-edge company co-founded by T. Boone Pickens is at the forefront of the push for natural gas as an alternative to gasoline. Read More. . .

Market Update

Traders returned from the Labor Day weekend the same way they entered it -- in a decidedly bearish mood.

With the markets closed on Monday for the holiday, many investors were glued to round-the-clock coverage of Hurricane Gustav. After seeing oil infrastructure on the Gulf Coast dodge a bullet and sustain less damage than many initially feared, stocks bounced strongly amid falling oil prices to start the week. The Dow rose more than 250 points early Tuesday morning, but those gains wilted by lunchtime, and the major averages eventually sank into negative territory.

It's never a promising sign when a strong rally unravels for little reason, and the market's inability to hold its gains set an ominous tone. Things only grew worse from there.

With most of the oil and gas infrastructure in the Gulf (which accounts for one-fourth of the nation's oil production and 40% of its refining capacity) emerging from the storm relatively unscathed, crude prices fell near $105 per barrel. In recent weeks, sliding prices for oil and many other commodities have boosted the broader market. But now, traders are taking a closer examination of why prices are falling -- and they don't like what they see.

Specifically, there is increasing concern of a slowdown in emerging markets like China, the world's economic growth engine. Meanwhile, the U.S. economy continues to sputter as well. First, we saw a disappointing report on back-to-school shopping in August with many mall-based retailers announcing flat or negative same-store sales. And on Friday the Department of Labor revealed 84,000 jobs were lost last month, pushing the year-to-date total over a half-million.

With all this weighing heavily on the market, the major averages continued to lose ground this past week.

The latest consumer spending data remains downbeat. However, while shoppers may be more reluctant to take home a trendy pair of shoes or a new phone these days, they probably won't be cutting back on their gasoline bill. But if energy industrialist T. Boone Pickens has his way, we could all be on track toward a much cheaper fuel -- natural gas. Below, StreetAuthority Market Advisor editor Paul Tracy explains why investors looking to cash in might want to pump some Clean Energy Fuels (Nasdaq: CLNE, $19.04) into their portfolio.

Also on tap for today, High-Yield International editor Nick Lanyi embarks on a tour of New Zealand -- home to the world's highest yields. If your interests include stocks with average payouts of 7.4% and potential triple-digit returns, then you might want to tag along.

Good Investing!

-- Nathan Slaughter
Co-Editor
TopStockAnalysts Digest

New Zealand offers the highest average yield -- 7.4% -- of all the world's stock markets. The nation is able to offer such stellar yields for a few reasons:

It's partly because the country's tax laws create incentives for higher dividend payouts; partly because New Zealand's publicly traded companies want to attract foreign investors; and partly because of a quirk in New Zealand law.

New Zealand withholds 15% of dividend income paid to most non-resident shareholders
-- including those from the U.S. But many companies boost their payouts to foreign investors to make up for the withholding -- and the New Zealand government actually subsidizes them for doing so.

Again, attracting foreign investors is a priority for this small, geographically remote country. Meanwhile, U.S. investors can still retrieve the 15% withheld by requesting a foreign tax credit. The end result is a truly superior dividend yield for Americans investing in New Zealand's highest-yielding stocks.

Until recently, those robust distributions came on top of impressive capital appreciation. The stock market increased more than +200% in U.S. dollar terms for the five years ending December 2007, as the island's economy benefited from rising prices for its agricultural commodities and the general prosperity of the Pacific Rim.

One of the leading suppliers of dairy products and lamb to the world, New Zealand stands to benefit in the coming years from the growing prosperity of China and other Asian countries. Experts expect meat sales to Asia to rise significantly in the coming years as the growing middle class in this region increases demand for protein -- a consistent trend that accompanies growing wealth in societies of all types.

In recent months, New Zealand's stock market has fallen on tough times. As I predicted, rising interest rates were likely to constrain economic growth in 2008, and that's exactly what has happened. In fact, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand raised rates too fast, forcing a cut of -0.25% on July 24th in order to head off a recession. In addition to the rising rates, the worldwide credit crisis also has spread to banks in New Zealand and especially Australia, whose economy has a huge impact on its smaller neighbor.

Because lower interest rates make international investors less likely to buy a country's bonds, the rate cut hurt the New Zealand dollar -- affectionately dubbed the "kiwi" -- versus the U.S. dollar. After hitting a 23-year high in February, the kiwi has fallen about -20%, from above US$0.82 = NZ$1.00 to around US$0.67 = NZ$1.00.

The good news is that the currency change means New Zealand stocks are now -20% less expensive than they were in March for U.S. investors, even without a change in the underlying share price. Meanwhile, the economy retains long-term strengths, even if it has slowed this year. And while the kiwi potentially has more downside, I think it will resume its long-term rise against the U.S. dollar within a few months. So while I'd avoid the most economically sensitive New Zealand stocks, this is a buying opportunity for high-quality companies with high dividend yields -- like the one I profile below...

Important Note: In the remainder of this article, High-Yield International editor Nick Lanyi profiles one of his favorite New Zealand plays. As a farm-services company in New Zealand, this business sees stable demand no matter the broader economy -- and with a recent expansion into South America, growth is no problem either. Best of all, these factors allow the company to pay a mouth-watering dividend, and the shares can be bought on an American exchange. In order to view the remainder of this article, you'll need to subscribe to StreetAuthority's premium international income investing newsletter -- High-Yield International. Visit this link to learn more.

Natural gas is a common fuel for power plants and residential heating appliances, but historically very little has been used as a fuel for vehicles and public transportation.

But that's changing. Natural gas costs far less than oil for the same amount of energy, and it's far better for the environment -- several major population centers, including Washington, D.C. and parts of California, are now using buses, airport shuttles, garbage trucks and even taxis fueled using natural gas. Some, including oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens, would like to make natural gas an even more widely used transportation fuel -- Pickens has suggested that natural gas could one day transplant gasoline as the primary fuel for cars in the U.S.

Clean Energy Fuels (Nasdaq: CLNE, $19.04) attempts to address this need. The company builds the infrastructure needed to fuel natural gas vehicles, such as service stations. The company has already built stations for some of the largest airports in the country, such as Los Angeles (LAX) and Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW). In total, the company owns and operates over 170 natural gas fueling stations.

Currently, the bulk of CLNE's stations are targeted at fleet customers like taxis and bus firms. But some automobile manufacturers are making passenger cars designed to run on natural gas. While the market for personal natural gas vehicles is still in the early stages, this could be an even larger potential growth driver for CLNE in the coming years.

Clean Energy Fuels is still a young company that's just turning the corner to profitability. In its 2009 fiscal year, CLNE is expected to earn its first annual profit; longer-term, growth is expected to approach +28% annualized. These expectations are based on CLNE's continued ability to convince more fleet customers to covert to natural gas.

T. Boone Pickens is a major shareholder and one of the founders of Clean Energy Fuels. He recently spent nearly $60 million on national TV advertising promoting natural gas as a transportation fuel. This is sure to raise the profile of CLNE.

Clean Energy Fuels is a relatively new company with a limited trading history. To date, the firm has operated in the red thanks to the heavy up-front spending required to build out infrastructure. But high oil prices coupled with more stringent environmental regulations are prompting many fleets to consider switching to natural gas. CLNE looks like a "Buy" candidate for aggressive investors on a pullback to under $15 per share.