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For the last decade, Endeavour (AMEX:EDV) has been the architect of numerous equity financing’s and acquisitions in the junior gold sector. Over the years, the company has proven to be a savvy deal maker, participating in M&A transactions valued at over US$28 billion.

In October 2009, EDV paid US$58.3 million for 55% ownership (average cost of C$0.33/share) of Etruscan Resources (EET-TSX) – a West African gold miner.

A few months later, EDV had acquired 43% of Crew Gold (CRU-TSX) for approximately $135 million at an average cost of 15 cents, whose primary asset is the LEFA Gold mine in Guinea, West Africa.

On August 24^th, 2010 the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia approved EDV’s purchase of the remaining 45% of Etruscan common shares.

Suddenly the wily merchant bank is looking like a gold producer but the market seems unsure how to assimilate this news.  All summer the stock has oscillated around $2.20 as the institutional investors ask themselves: what does a merchant bank know about running a gold mine and can a leopard change its spots?

From the early evidence,…

In banking news, it’s being reported that Citigroup, Inc (NYSE:C) has reached a deal with TheStreet.com for content sharing and potential cross-promotional campaigns to customers.  The specific details of this deal remain unclear.  The banking stocks common share price is up today 1.16%, a 0.04 point gain at the time of writing.

In overall news, the Labor Department released reports today that indicate the private sector added more jobs during the three month period than initially expected.  The department revised previous private sector employment data from June and July upward.  The data for August beat expectations as well; according to the Labor Department, there was a net gain of 67,000 jobs during last month.  At the same time, unemployment numbers are also increasing.  While this may be counter-intuitive to the layman, investors are aware that unemployment numbers often increase during recovery periods, as discouraged workers who had previously given up on finding a job return to the hunt.

According to the Washington Post, the Obama White House is considering massive tax cuts for businesses across the country.  This news, compounded with positive job data, has continued the upward flight of the markets for this week.  At the time of…

August was ugly for most market sectors – the dollar may have been the only safe place.  One group of stocks bludgeoned in a particularly nasty way was U.S. for-profit education stocks.

Companies like Apollo Group, Corinthian Colleges (NYSE:COCO) and Strayer Education were first hammered on news that their graduates are significantly more likely to default on federal student loans than alumni of traditional four-year colleges.  Then Barron’s quoted an analyst saying the Department of Education’s estimates are probably accurate, bringing more pain for these stocks.

Worse yet, for-profit education stocks are a subsector of the consumer discretionary space.  In this market environment, consumer discretionary names are tough bets from the long side.  Even so, there is opportunity among for-profit education names.  You just need to look outside the U.S. to China.

Consider New Oriental Education (NYSE:EDU).  EDU is a Chinese provider of foreign language training, test preparation services and software products.  Shares of New Oriental were up slightly last month while the U.S.-based education stocks were deep in the red.

On a fundamental basis, there is a lot to like with New Oriental.  China takes education seriously.  As the country continues to boost its presence on…