I haven’t written about Martin Weiss and one of his picks in a little while, and Weiss Research is now promoting a special conference call and “inner circle” investment group that will identify his team’s best picks for 2010.

Including, as apparently one of his favorites, a gold stock. Here’s the intro to the ad:

“Never before in my 40-year investment career have I seen a broader range of global profit opportunities converging into one time and place.

“That’s why, right now, every analyst on my team is preparing to name his #1 investment pick for 2010 during an exclusive teleconference I’m hosting on New Year’s weekend.

“We’re doing this with one simple goal in mind: To help make sure that, when the markets open for the first time in the new year — on January 4th, 2010 — every member of The Weiss Elite will be ready to begin buying the investments we believe can make 2010 your most profitable year ever.

“Here’s just ONE example …

“Our China and resource specialists have uncovered a little-known stock that gives investors FOUR ways to profit as the Federal Reserve continues printing greenbacks like there’s no tomorrow — a recommendation that has “quadruple-play potential” written all over it:

“FIRST: It’s a gold mining company. So the company’s profits and share price should surge as governments, central banks and investors continue pushing gold prices higher.

“SECOND: It’s a CHINESE gold stock, in partnership with the Chinese government. A state-sponsored enterprise owns almost half this company’s shares, giving it the clout and the capital needed to exploit its gold reserves … and a likely built-in customer, as Beijing continues to add substantially to its gold reserves.

“THIRD: It boasts truly outstanding top management. In September, the company announced that revenues had surged by nearly two-thirds over last year. Reason: Not only did gold prices surge, but gold production also surged to a new quarterly record.

“AND FOURTH: This stock gives you substantial leverage. In 2010, the company’s biggest mine is expected to produce gold at a cash price of just ONE-THIRD today’s price of gold.

“Most important, the company’s gold reserves are worth more than ten times the total value of the company’s shares.

“On January 1, my team will name this stock and document why we conservatively believe it could double your money in 2010 even if gold does not surge.”

Well, you know me — your friendly neighborhood Stock Gumshoe is a bit impatient, I don’t want to have to wait until January 1 to hear about this stock. And frankly, I don’t want to pay up $595 to Martin Weiss for this “lifetime” membership in “The Weiss Elite” (this is one of those deals that many publishers do, a big one-time payment in exchange for “lifetime” access to a number of their newsletters — though most of the time these kinds of “elite” deals cost at least a couple thousand bucks, so The Weiss Elite comes off as seeming a bit needy here). The letters in this case are the Asia Stock Alert, Dividend Superstars, Safe Money Report, Real Wealth Report and World Currency Alert, most of which I’ve written about from time to time. (A few have been reviewed at Stock Gumshoe Reviews, you can see all the current Weiss-published newsletters that we have reviews on file for here.)

But we had a point, yes? Right! A gold stock to uncover — from those clues we must be talking about …

Jinshan Gold Mines (JIN in Toronto, JINFF on the pink sheets)

Jinshan, which is currently in the process of trying to change its name to China Gold International Resources, is a Canadian company that’s 41% owned by China National Gold, the state-owned gold mining company. Their major mine is Chang Shan Hao, up near the Mongolian border (not too far from former partner Ivanhoe Mines and their Oyu Tolgoi project in Mongolia, actually — China is the world’s largest gold producer now, and there are several big belts of gold resources that have been identified across Northern China, Mongolia, Russia and the ‘Stan countries). Ivanhoe, incidentally, has also often been a teaser target — they are focused almost entirely on their Mongolian projects now, which finally have a government agreement in place, and they were the ones who sold that then-42% holding in Jinshan to China National Gold.

Jinshan has gotten a significantly higher profile with all the talk about China’s interest in gold, and with the general increase in gold prices (which has obviously faltered a little bit recently) — the shares are up about 100% from when I last wrote about them in July for the Irregulars, when Matt Badiali was touting the shares (I republished that article here on the free site a couple months later, if you’re interested). So it may be a double in 2010, of course, but Weiss’ folks certainly didn’t uncover an unknown investment here.

I am, however, quite certain that this is the stock Weiss will promote on January 1 in that special Weiss Elite “Crucial teleconference” — they did increase revenues by “almost 2/3” in the last quarter (up about 61%, actually), they do have a government partner who owns “nearly half”, and, frankly, they’re one of the few significant China gold mining companies that Americans can easily buy — and Weiss gets little mileage from suggesting stocks that his subscribers would have a hard time buying. I’m actually personally a little more intrigued by Ivanhoe (IVN in both NY and Toronto) these days, and by Eldorado Gold (EGO, or ELD in Toronto — they recently bought the other oft-teased Chinese gold miner, Sino Gold), but have never owned any of these stocks. I did own the other China precious metals miner that gets teased often, Silvercorp Metals (SVM), which is one of the lowest-cost silver producers in the world, but no longer hold those shares, either.

And just to finish up with one more quickie, Weiss does also tease some of the other ideas that his specialists will tout as 2010 winners on January 1 — he doesn’t give specific-enough clues for most of them, but there’s one that’s worth a quick look:

“Like buying all the oil you want at an 85% DISCOUNT. Chances are you’ve never heard of this leading oil and gas producer. It’s in the last place you’d look for a top oil exploration, production, refining and retailing giant.

“But this little-known company boasts gas station operations all over Europe and is now aggressively expanding into more than 40 countries worldwide, including China. While the company controls reserves worth $490 billion at oil’s current price, the total value of its shares is only $73 billion. In that sense, the stock is trading at only 15% of the above-ground value of the company’s reserves.”

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I’ll hazard a guess here, since it’s hard to know what numbers they use to come up with these valuations, but I suspect that this is Lukoil (LKOD in London, LUKOY for the pink sheets ADR). This is probably the most underappreciated oil company in the world among investors, true, but it’s hard to fault investors for being wary of a Russian firm — if you’re not a friend of Putin, there’s no guarantee that you get much in the way of shareholder rights. This is true of many countries where we invest these days, where we probably take too much for granted, but Russia worries me more than most.

I could be wrong on this, Lukoil’s market cap right now is actually more like $50 billion — a closer bet for that market cap, just FYI, might be Statoil Hydro (STO), which doesn’t have nearly the reserves but does also have a significant European retail presence and is making a smaller foray into China. Statoil is a global operator, like Lukoil, but is primarily known for their deepwater expertise, developed over decades of exploring the North Sea. The international reach of the two firms is fairly similar, either could be described with a straight face as “aggressively expanding into more than 40 countries.” Lukoil has been teased before by Silk Road Investor (which is from KCI, not Weiss), and by Bob Czeschin, who last Spring called it the “most undervalued oil company in the world. Statoil was teased by the Motley Fool Income Investor folks last year.

So what do you think? Martin Weiss probably gets more flack than any other newsletter publisher over at the Stock Gumshoe Reviews site, thanks to the Depression fearmongering of his Million-Dollar Contrarian Portfolio promotions (which still might be right eventually, of course, but apparently caused his followers to miss much of this year’s rally, which made them very grumpy) — but will his Chinese gold pick be a winner? Feel like joining the “Weiss Elite?” Let us know with a comment below.