data points and DICTATORS who the MAKE RICH LIST

May 9th 2006

Hello,


It is interesting to note that if all else fails and you cant make it as a professional athlete, hot shot investment banker or a technology entrepreneur you can always be come a dictator of a third world country like Commandante-for-life Fidel Castro and despite his vow of poverty he has amassed a fortune close to one billion dollars off the toils of the proletariat, well done comrade. Speaking of the toiling proletariat, the proletariat is bidding up the Dow Jones to new highs everyday in the hopes that the FED maybe done raising rates and that inflation remains under control. As a member of the downtrodden class of stock brokers I wholeheartedly embrace the raise of the Dow and hope the investor class can overcome and rise up to bid the index even higher.

Does anyone find it as odd as I do that you can have a lower consumer confidence number, but increased spending or a higher productivity number coupled with higher employment cost? Doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense does it. I have pointed this out before that I think in a world with almost instantaneous access to information Consumer Sentiment surveys seem a bit outmoded and only seem to prove that what people say and what people do are often very different. Most polls are set up to create a certain response, and people will often tell the pollsters what they want to hear. The pollsters like most of the media are focused on doom and gloom where as up to date sales data simply is what it is.


Since you keep asking, yes there is a New Way to Invest in Gold (the barbarous relic) for Equity Investors. Street TRACKS® Gold Shares (“Gold Shares”) offer investors a new, innovative, relatively cost-efficient and secure way to access the gold market. Gold Shares are intended to offer investors a means of participating in the gold bullion market without the necessity of taking physical delivery of gold, and to buy and sell that participation through the trading of a security on a regulated stock exchange. Gold Shares represent fractional, undivided beneficial ownership interests in the Trust, the primary asset of which is allocated (or secured) gold. Gold Shares are intended to lower a large number of the barriers preventing investors from using gold as an asset allocation and trading tool. These barriers have included the logistics of buying, storing and insuring gold. Gold Shares are set up like an ETF or a closed end fund that is easily tradable like any other equity.

If this is something you maybe interested in or are just looking to get more information I would be glad to help.

James
www.jamesfoytlin.com