I don’t end up writing about Jon Markman very often — he does a lot of marketing for his newsletter, but he rarely teases specific companies in his ads, he does a lot of short term (for me, at least) trading and uses ETFs for his core trading ideas, it seems … but he does pick special situations and strategic picks for his Strategic Advantage newsletter as well.

And while he wasn’t the one teasing Cytori Therapeutics a few months back, he did publicly recommend the stock a few times after that and it did spectacularly well for a while (it’s coming back to earth at the moment) … so perhaps he’s got something with his strategic ideas? One never knows, but he included a teaser in his latest ad so I thought I’d give it a quick look for you.

He actually teased seven trades in this spiel about “The Syndicate” and their “conspiracy” to manipulate the markets (and for “Syndicate” you can pretty much read “Goldman Sachs”, though he’s clearly referring to all the big trading houses, too). Here’s how his pitch opens:

“You are not supposed to know what I am about to tell you.

“In fact, I could be stopped – shut down – at any time, so I’ll say this once and once only. Read every word of what follows, I beg you.

“My name is Jon Markman and I am about to offer you an edge, an advantage that Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, Senator Charles Schumer and SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro all agree is ‘unfair.’

“You may choose to ignore the market’s ceaseless game of cat and mouse. You may disdain the market’s elaborate head fakes, stalking horses, feints and parries.

“You will be happier for it, but not a lot richer, I assure you.

“If however, you are tired of being played for a fool, then this report will change your life. It will change everything you do, every day you are in the market. And it could make you 62% richer in the next several weeks.

“And that’s just for starters, as you are about to see.

“If you believe you are qualified to accept this invitation then please continue.

“The Secret Wall Street

“Very few understand this, but the next 1,000-point down day has practically already been scripted and assigned a date.

“And so has the subsequent 750-point up day.

“The price of copper, oil and gold over the next 90 days, too, have been pre-determined by a group of very experienced traders known to me, who operate through the New York Mercantile Exchange and certain Caribbean locations.

“Welcome to The Syndicate

“Play alongside The Syndicate and you are playing with the House. My conservative estimate is that this will increase your money by 62% before the first crack of the bat on Opening Day.

“But if you continue to play against The Syndicate, then your odds drop alarmingly. This is because, right now, The Syndicate has a plan. A story.

“And this story – a massive short squeeze – will leave you poorer. Very quickly.”

“Opening Day” means baseball’s opening day, for the non-seamheads out there … which is April 5 this year. And he lists seven “top trades” that you should be making alongside “The Syndicate”. Six of them are either broad and non solveable or they’re bereft of clues, so I can’t tell you exactly what they are, but the top trade is one I can probably solve for you. Here are the clues:

“Top Trade #1: Oil Floats

“Oil speculators store oil afloat, as you may know.

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“The number of oil tankers floating in the Mediterranean and English Channel is up by 71% in the last 2 months. Each ship can hold nearly 1 million barrels, so a jump in price of just $1 means an instant profit of a million dollars per ship.

“Goldman Sachs predicts a bull run in oil prices for the next 4 years – and, specifically, $85 a barrel in the next 90 days. And what Goldman ‘predicts,’ it can surely make happen!

“Between today and April 5, baseball’s “Opening Day” is the perfect time to construct a doubler trade in oil.

“A small company that refuels all those tankers at sea is making a killing in this oil speculation. It is almost a monopoly, too, and is beautifully positioned to double from today’s price.”

This company is far from being a monopoly, but it is pretty much the only publicly traded “pure play” in the bunker tanker business (that’s what the floating gas stations for ships are called, “bunker tankers”), and it is consolidating the business, particularly the increasingly important double hull bunker supply. This is, in all likelihood, Aegean Marine Petroleum Network (ANW).

There was a good and thorough article about them in Investors Business Daily recently, so that’s probably a good place to start — I like the fact that they’re getting ahead of the curve in double hulled bunker tankers, since recent accidents make regulation in that area seem more likely (most single-hulled oil tankers are out of service or in limited service now in “regulation lite” areas of the world since they’re not welcome at the big developed country ports and they carry bigger spill risks, but there isn’t as much regulation of bunker tankers yet).

They’re not cheap and it’s a little tough to make a valuation case unless you incorporate some nice growth numbers into your equation (they trade at a much higher multiple of book than do big tanker companies, and at a premium PE ratio, but they are profitable and, for a shipping company, fairly reasonably leveraged) — but this is an interesting company and if it takes off as an investment thesis there isn’t really another good way for traders to play the idea (yet), so there could certainly be a run in the shares at some point. They also made a public offering of shares at $32.75 just about two weeks ago and seemed to have no trouble selling them, so at this price you’re at least buying shares cheaper than some folks. And they’re pretty small, market cap not much over a billion dollars.

That’s my quick take on Aegean, feel free to let us know if you have any ideas in this business, or any experience with ANW. The other ideas that Markman teased, by the way, were:

• China’s secret stockpiling of copper — not clear to me if this means we should bet for or against copper.
• A huge opportunity for “A Gold Double” — there are dozens of ways to play gold if you think it’s going up significantly, he doesn’t give any idea of which ones he likes but if he’s focusing on ETFs one would guess that it’s either GLD or one of the miners, GDX or the junior index GDXJ (that latter one would, presumably, offer more leverage in a rising gold market).
• Getting 5% on your cash like “The Syndicate” instead of the paltry sub-1% money market rates. He gives no indication of what this means, but it could easily be some play, leveraged or not, on mortgage bonds. That’s just a wild guess.
• He also teases a $4 bank that could go to $10 — if he gave a clue or two I might be able to tell you, but going just from the share price you’d have to guess Citigroup as a contrarian play for this “juiciest double” … not sure I’ve got the stomach for that one, and it is just a guess.
• And he teases a “triple in healthcare” without giving any indication of the stock he likes, other than the fact that it’s a “$3 stock that has been made a shuttlecock by The Syndicate” … sorry, that’s not enough of a clue for the Thinkolator, but feel free to guess away on your own.
• Finally, he says he’s got the “next ‘small cap clean tech'” pick but doesn’t even bother to throw out a single clue, not even a measly little stock price or hint of their focus in “clean tech.” So heck, if you’ve got a “clean tech” idea that you like, feel free to throw it on the pile with a comment below!

So that’s what we’ve got today — a handful of broad investing themes, and one teased stock for your enjoyment. If you’ve ever subscribed to Jon Markman’s Strategic Advantage and want to share your opinion, please click here to review it for us at Stock Gumshoe Reviews — his more expensive swing-trading Trader’s Advantage newsletter is fairly well rated by just a couple reviewers, but we’ve yet to hear from Strategic Advantage subscribers. Thanks!