Kathy Yakal sang the praises of Yahoo’s new charts, which I think are OK but not great. Google should acquire stockcharts.com and integrate it into Google Finance to compete with Yahoo!

Here are the (lightly edited) bits I found interesting in this week’s issue:

“Investment trusts only own about 4% of the Japanese market, while foreigners own 27%. Individuals and trust banks together are bigger than foreigners … Government spending as a percentage of GDP is lower in Japan than in the U.K. and the U.S. … In terms of consumption, Japan, at about 53% of GDP, is in line with France, Germany and Canada. The U.S. is 70%, which is further from the norm. And no, they don’t actually export a lot. Japanese exports are remarkably low as a percentage of GDP; only the Americans export less. If you want a really large exporting economy, look at Germany, where over 35% of GDP is export. What Japan has is a large trade surplus because it imports not very much … In Japan the retirement age is 60. In Italy, France and Germany, by the age of 55 more than half the people have already left the work force.” — Jonathan Allum, interviewed by Leslie Norton

“Gas futures prices jumped more than $1 to close at $8.21 per million British thermal unit — well up from the 22-month low reached July 5 of $5.765 per million BTUs … nearly 60% of U.S. homes use natural gas for their heating and cooling needs … in the week ended July 21, the U.S. used the most power ever, topping 96,314 gigawatt-hours. The majority of it was provided by gas-fired power plants … MotherRock L.P., one of the biggest New York hedge funds trading gas futures, said it was shutting down after its $230 million loss over June and July. There had been rumors that July 31’s rally was propelled in part by an investor, presumably MotherRock, forced to buy as prices rose.” — Cassandra Sweet

“Federal-funds futures are now pricing in just a 16% chance for a quarter-percentage-point move on Tuesday, down from 42% before the jobs data arrived last Friday … The European Central Bank, the Bank of England and the Reserve Bank of Australia all raised interest rates last week. That follows the Bank of Japan’s rate hike last month, its first in six years … The Fed slashed the funds rate all the way to 1%, from which it began hiking in mid-2004. The ECB stopped cutting rates when its repo rate hit 2% in early 2003 but didn’t start tightening until a year ago.” — Tom Sullivan

“In Japan, online advertising eclipsed radio last year and is set to soon pass magazines. That would make the Internet Japan’s No. 3 ad medium, behind newspapers and TV.” — Jay Alabaster

“It’s tempting to look at Charles Schwab’s announcement last week that its customers are stashing record sums in CD’s as a contrary Buy signal for stocks.” — Michael Santoli

“The iShares Silver Trust holds $1.2 billion of silver, equal to 15% of annual global mine production … Photographic uses consumed about 25% of the silver produced last year … The ETF is the simplest and perhaps the best play for investors looking for silver exposure, because it eliminates the risks — political, environmental and cost inflation — that come with mining companies. Each ETF share is equal to 10 ounces of silver … An estimated 70% of annual silver production is a byproduct of other mining operations, mainly gold, zinc and copper. The estimated amount of silver in the world — 20 billion ounces — is tiny relative to the size of the gold market … As a financial entity, Silver Wheaton employs just seven people and pays no income taxes because of its corporate domicile in the Cayman Islands. Its profits can be calculated easily by multiplying its annual silver sales by the difference between spot silver prices and its cost of $3.90 an ounce.”– Andrew Bary

Copyright © 2006 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.