UPDATE ON CURRENT INNER CIRCLE IDEAS:

We have 11 outstanding ideas currently running including the following:

ALTAIRNANO (NSDQ: ALTI) BUY

GLOW ENERGY (THAILAND: GLOW/F, OTC: GWEFF) BUY

THORESEN THAI (THAILAND: TTA/F) BUY

PSIVIDA (NSDQ: PSDV) BUY

AGF MASTER LIMITED PARTNERSHIP (TORONTO: AFP-U, OTC: AGFRF) BUY

MULTI-MANAGER LIMITED PARTNERSHIP I (TORONTO: MMN-U, OTC: MMPUF) BUY

MACKENZIE MASTER LIMITED PARTNERSHIP (TORONTO: MKZ-U, OTC: MCKZF) BUY

AMALGAMATED INCOME LIMITED PARTNERSHIP (TORONTO: AI-U, OTC: AILXF) BUY

PALM (NSDQ: PALM) HOLD

AMERICAN HOME MORTGAGE (NYSE: AHM) BUY

NEWCASTLE INVESTMENT (NYSE: NCT) BUY

BUY ALTAIRNANO:

In the past week Altair announced a joint venture with paint and coatings behemoth Sherwin Williams. The new company, AlSher Titania, will combine the Altairnano Hydrochloride Pigment (AHP) process and the Sherwin-Williams Hychlor Pigment (SWHP) process and other technologies to develop and produce high-quality titanium dioxide pigment for use in paint and coatings, and nano titanium dioxide materials for use in a variety of applications, including those related to removing contaminants from air and water. This is confirmation of Altair’s unique and proprietary pigment process.

Also, AES Executive Vice President Robert Hemphill joined the board of directors. While this is standard fare when a company buys $3 million worth of your stock, this particular move will help establish the bond between the two companies and will spur development in the stationary power storage market.

The news is good, but none of it has brought a new dime in the door. We’re here for dollars, not dimes, but it’s going to take some time. ALTAIRNANO IS A BUY.

BUY GLOW ENERGY:

We’re getting our dividend at a rate of THB0.975, giving us the equivalent of around USD0.03 per share, for a high single-digit dividend yield.

We’re up on this one, even without the nice dividend. The company continues to perform as expected and is faring well with the current government. Any positive political developments will only enhance our already profitable trade.

There are two classes of Glow shares traded on the US over-the-counter market. One, under the symbol GWEFF, represents the foreign class shares with voting rights; the other, under the symbol GWEPF, is for the foreign class shares without voting rights. They move in tandem.

From our point of view, it matters little which type your broker gets you. CONTINUE TO BUY GLOW ENERGY.

BUY THORESEN THAI:

It seems everyone is now figuring out that shipping companies are good investments.

That’s great for us. We were in on Thoresen Thai first and early, on the “blood in the streets of Bangkok” rumor that proved a far cry from reality.

We’re up another 5 percent-plus this week, bringing our total return further into fat, double-digit territory. And there may well be more gains flowing our way.

The Thoresen story can be boiled down to two points. First, shipping rates, as tracked by the Baltic Dry Index, have been soared by about 41 percent this year. Second, with demand in the Asian region running strong while supplies of ships are running weak, Thoresen is the right investment at the right time.

You can buy various classes of shares, but the most heavily traded are the straight foreign class shares under the symbol THAFF.

CONTINUE TO BUY THORESEN THAI IN THE LOCAL MARKET OR IN THE US OTC MARKET.

BUY PSIVIDA:

We sent out a special report last Friday regarding a meeting we attended with pSivida principals. In that piece one line regarding Medidur was a bit unclear. While the only current treatment for diabetic macular edema is a monthly shot in the eye, Medidur can be inserted once and will release medication for up to three years. That’s why Pfizer is so excited about this technology.

There’s little to report since that meeting. We’re waiting for the company to get out from under the toxic convertible to see how it spends its growing revenues. PSIVIDA IS A BUY.

BUY AGF MASTER LIMITED PARTNERSHIP, MULTI-MANAGER LIMITED PARTNERSHIP I, MACKENZIE MASTER LIMITED PARTNERSHIP AND AMALGAMATED INCOME LIMITED PARTNERSHIP:

We continue to buy and hold our collection of limited partnerships. Each continues to trade positively overall, and two have paid us our first dividends.

Multi-Manager paid 7 cents April 30 (for an annualized yield of 24 percent), and Amalgamated Income paid 13 cents on April 13 (for an annualized yield of more than 21 percent).

We know not all of you have been “allowed” to buy these, as some brokerages have been bullied into believing that everybody in the world can buy these except Americans. This is bunk.

The partnerships are publicly listed. As such, they’re subject to the rules of the Canadian exchanges, and when operating and listed in the US they fall under US securities laws.

In the mean time, those of you able to do so should continue to buy and hold.

CONTINUE TO LEGALLY BUY AGF MASTER LIMITED PARTNERSHIP, MULTI-MANAGER LIMITED PARTNERSHIP I, MACKENZIE LIMITED PARTNERSHIP AND AMALGAMATED INCOME LIMITED PARTNERSHIP IN MODERATION TO GOOSE UP YOUR PORTFOLIO’S CASH FLOWS.

HOLD PALM:

Dow Jones might be grabbing the “takeover” headlines for now, but we’re not abandoning hope that Palm will be similarly highlighted.

Palm makes interesting products and has a good operating system, but it’s run by a management team that seems to have missed Business 101: creating shareholder value.

Palm’s release of dismal financials last month only confirmed that a buyout would be the best outcome. And we also know that, given the company’s market cap, any of the biggies could pick this thing up for a fraction of what they have in cash alone.

Meanwhile, management isn’t helping by selling a few more shares. This story isn’t over; we continue to monitor other deals Palm’s involved in, including talks with Dell. Motorola is another name that’s come up, as that company could use a similar stimulus.

We’re still watching for an alternative way to work this stock if it takes longer for a buyout. HOLD PALM.

BUY AMERICAN HOME MORTGAGE AND NEWCASTLE INVESTMENT:

We’ve given back about 3 percent from Monday’s peak for American Home Mortgage after a near 24 percent gain; we’re still up 21 percent on our first play on the overreaction to the subprime loan story.

As for the higher-credit play, Newcastle, we’re up comfortably in the high single-digit range so far.

A little more negative media coverage on the subprime segment along with news of a new share issue dragged American Home Mortgage off its recent high. We’re fine with adding more equity capital to the company– as long as the business is being run the right way and the proceeds aren’t used to line management’s pockets–as it can then expand its base and bolster its assets.

American Home Mortgage has a chunk of its portfolio in so-called ALT-A mortgages. ALT-A loans are for borrowers with solid credit scores but include some non-traditional income and non-traditional properties in their mortgage applications.

There’s some risk here, but let’s put it into perspective. The nationwide rate of delinquencies in ALT-A is running at 0.5 percent on a 90-day basis. Most big commercial banks would be thrilled with corporate borrowers posting such a record. And the ALT-A delinquency rate is less than 20 percent of that for subprime. This isn’t the same problem.

Foreclosures represent a tiny fraction of the overall market–approaching only a sixth of the rate for subprime. American Home Mortgage is a well-managed company holding a good portfolio, not quite on the level of Thornburg Mortgage but solid nevertheless. With some quick money sitting on the table, we’re still buying more.

Newcastle has even less exposure on the issue of lower-graded debt. But like others in the market, it’s been slashed by the same claws and blood is spurting.

Buy both American Home Mortgage and Newcastle for the return of reality in their share prices in the shorter term. We’ll be thrilled to pick up some monster dividends along the way.

BUY AMERICAN HOME MORTGAGE AND NEWCASTLE INVESTMENT CORP AT THE CURRENT MARKET.

Remember, weekly updates for Inner Circle are sent out every Wednesday afternoon, and you can always visit Inner Circle to make sure you don’t miss a trade or an update.

I’LL TAKE THAT WOODEN NICKEL

NOTE: The following is free market commentary that Neil George has written for his By George  subscribers. The advice and recommendations below are simply for your benefit as investors. And recommendations listed below are are not current Inner Circle recommendations, nor will they be followed and updated on a continuous basis. See above for the current Inner Circle recommendations and advice.

Wood is one resource that’s gotten a bit of a bad name in the past several months. As folks are now in a near panic over US homebuilders, traders in some of the lumber contracts have been more than eager to dump on prices for active contracts in the US.

But they forget lumber isn’t just a US thing. Housing, paper production, fencing materials or even shipping pallets aren’t solely the domain of the US market or economy either.

But although everybody else is ditching wood and looking to other resources, it’s not exactly time to pick up some additional two-by-fours down at your local Home Depot (NYSE: HD). What we all should be kicking around are some of the world’s owners of timberlands and wood companies for two very different reasons.

First is that demand for wood isn’t slowing down worldwide. In fact, if you were to ask some of the biggies in the wood biz, say in Europe or in Asia, you’ll find that they’ll take every wooden nickel they can get their hands on, only to turn it around into a pile of shiny euros or renminbis.

The key to lumber is to understand global markets and not just what’s going on down in the swamplands of central Florida, where townhouse farms are sitting vacant or, worse, half built. You’ll see that demand is still strong for wood in key growth markets of Europe and even more so in Asia.

Yes, I know–I’m just as tired of hearing the overly trite phrase that China’s growth is going to do something else for yet another market. But it’s true.

With demand still rising and supplies still constrained to certain geographic regions around the planet, prices are running up, not down. So forget the guys in Chicago and instead look to the guys in Sydney, Stockholm, Shanghai and even Toronto.

These markets are seeing prices soar by anywhere from 10 percent to 20 percent and even 30 percent and still climbing over last year. Even if US futures aren’t catching up, the world is buying as much as it can from those that are willing and able to ship to where need and the demand are still growing.

The second reason to looking at wood is all thanks to those folks heated up over global warming.

It’s not about the ifs, hows or whys of global warming but where to cash in. This is where wood comes in.

Trees are seen as another means of cashing in on the whole scheme of carbon credit cap-and-trade. And we all know that trees–like all other plants–take carbon dioxide in and release oxygen in the process.

So, if you produce carbon, you can then cash in on buying trees or planting trees to get the offset or, rather, the real profit.

But like most of the cap-and-trade system, trees aren’t the scientific version of a golden gun or silver bullet when it comes to warming. Real scientists are now saying trees can actually add to the planet’s warming threats if they’re not planted in the right areas. And worse, like all other carbon-based crops, they release tones of carbon dioxide when they’re cut down and processed.

But these bits are really irrelevant to the biggie business of pro-warming. So, grow a tree, get cash now, and get even more when that tree is turned into two-by-fours.

There are a collection of interesting companies around the world that are emerging as good bets, both for the lumber as well as for the warming cash bonanza. They range from a couple companies I’ve written about before in By George, as well as some Australia-based holdings detailed in Personal Finance.

One is Australia’s largest agribusiness land investment manager. The company doesn’t directly buy and operate land; it packages land into projects that are sold piecemeal to investors.

Shares in the company’s projects are sold directly to larger investors and through a nationwide network of financial advisors. The company continues to hold a stake in many of the projects and performs much of the active management of the land.

It was originally founded to invest in timber-producing land. But in recent years, Great Southern (Australia: GTP, OTC: GSPLF) has expanded extensively into vineyards, organic olive groves and livestock plantations, all well placed not just for wood but for other stuff that’s steadily in demand. And like most other companies I like, it pays us a nice dividend yield running currently above 5 percent.

Another Aussie owns and operates timber and other ag plantations directly, as well as runs a land investment operation similar to its local peer. It’s also been cashing in on demand for its ag products. It shares that with us via its 5 percent-plus dividend yield, paying us to be patient.

We also have a collection of European wood producers right in the thick of both the demand side and the warming front, as the EU has been one of the leaders in the cap-and-trade schemes.

Look for more on these and my favorites in Australia, as well as one up in Canada, that collectively pay a nice fat series of dividends now, with more to come in the years ahead. I’ll be covering more of this inside Personal Finance, as well as an interesting play in an upcoming Inner Circle.

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