It’s carnival time! No, not that carnaval but the much more exciting 9th edition of the Carnival of Investing. For the uninitiated, this carnival consists of recent articles about investing from the blogosphere. Without further ado, here are this week’s submissions:

• Ed from Daily Dose of Optimism wrote an excellent critique of a recent MarketWatch article about ‘Wall Street Blogs‘. As Ed put it — “the author, David Weidner, spends most of his energy re-affirming the fact that pretty much the only reason to read Marketwatch is for Herb Greenberg.” Ouch!
• In case you haven’t noticed, Japan is in a red hot bull market after a long, excruciating bear market. Here are some ways to play the Japan trend if you believe there is still upside for the Japan market.
• Royalty trusts offer investors high yields and good returns. However, there are some important issues to analyze when considering an investment in a royalty trust.
• Loi writes about the importance of dividends.
• David of Pacesetter Mortgage takes a look at the slowing pace of mortgage pre-payments. He concludes that “if you plan to stay in your home for more than three years, and have an adjustable mortgage, you better get off the fence!”
• Jeffrey wrote about a very interesting concept which has just made it to the U.S. — person-to-person lending. While it could lead to a high return on investment it also (of course) carries a variety of risks. (Note, the New York Times has an article about Prosper.com in today’s edition.)
• Steven reveals that Sharp Corporation is actually an alternative energy play. Sharp is “the world’s largest producer of solar cells and systems and is in position to grab even more market share with recent favorable California state legislation to the solar industry.”
• Here’s a post that no homeowner should be able to pass over — “Do Neighbors Affect Property Value?”
• ‘Frank the Financially Savvy Atheist’ warns about the effects of the newly inverted yield curve.
• Has natural gas already peaked? “The Real Returns” wants to know if the price action is reminiscent of some historical market tops.
• The Consumer Electronics Stock Blog tries to figure out if Cisco is a growth or a value stock.
• “Retire at 30″ submits: “Since ROTH money is post-tax, each dollar in a ROTH account is actually more valueable than a dollar in a traditional retirement account, and you end up being able to contribute more value each year with roth than traditional accounts.”
• Jose provides a lesson on how to calculate the effective interest of an investment after taking into account taxes and inflation.
• Dan takes his local paper to task on their recent erroneous variable annuities article.
• ‘Five Cent Nickel’ thinks that PayPal may soon be meeting its match from Google’s Gbuy.
• Early Riser reveals how he’s reshuffling his portfolio in order to get more index fund exposure.
• On a related note, ‘Mighty Bargain Hunter’ says that rebalancing your portfolio should not replace thinking about your portfolio.
• Bill, playing off of a recent Sprint commercial, has an article about ’sticking it to the man’ by maxing out retirement plan contributions.
• ‘Big Cajun Man’ looks back on a specific Financial Planners advice to his Radio Audience in 2000 and then his about face in 2002.
• ‘Blueprint for Financial Prosperity’ has a glowing review of Phil Town’s blog.
• Free Money Finance made (another?) bet on Steve Jobs by buying Disney stock after it was announce that Steve Jobs is to become its largest shareholder and a director.

Next week’s Carnival of investing will be hosted by MyMoneyBlog