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

[ed. Jack Welch wrote a letter to the editor that included five! exclamation points.]

“India is attractive because it has a unique combination of many distressed bank loans but a healthy, growing economy and a well-defined legal system.” — Wilbur Ross

“High-profile bankruptcy filings in 2005: Anchor Glass Container, Calpine, Collins & Aikman, Delphi, Delta Air Lines, and Northwest Airlines.” — Tom Sullivan

“For the 13th time in 14 years, option trading volume grew in 2005 at a record pace… More than 1.5 billion options traded in the U.S., a 27% jump from 2004. These included nearly 1.37 billion stock options (up 26%), and about 135 million index options (up 38%).” — Kopin Tan

“2005 was a bang-up year for investors in private equity, natural resources, oil and gas and emerging-market stocks …. Online sales jumped 30% over 2004, accounting for more than 25% of all holiday-shopping dollars spent …. Two-year Treasury yields rose above 10-year yields, inverting the yield curve for the first time since 2000 (4.41% on the two-year Treasury, 4.39% on the 10-year).” — Robin Blumenthal and Vito Racanelli

“The spot price of uranium oxide was recently quoted at $36.25 a pound, up 300% in three years and up from about $7 in 2000 …. Annual demand for nuclear fuel is now equal to 180 million pounds of uranium, while only 108 million pounds of ore were produced in 2005 …. there are about 140 new reactors planned worldwide, many in Asia, versus the 440 existing today (including 104 U.S. reactors) .” — Spencer Jakab

“The Euro Dogs strategy calls for buying equal dollar amounts of the 15 stocks in the DJ Stoxx 50 with the highest dividend yields on January 1, and holding them for the year… Each year the portfolio is updated with the highest-yielding names. The updated 2006 Euro Dogs portfolio will be full of European telecom stocks, 2005’s worst performers.” — Vito Racanelli

“Asian markets rose nicely in 2005. The widely followed Morgan Stanley Capital International Asia ex-Japan index returned 20.5% through the third week of December, in U.S. dollars, and the MSCI Japan index was up 25% …. A 38% gain for the Nikkei was 21% for investors with dollar-denominated portfolios. Similarly, a 16% gain in Australian shares shriveled to under 9%, and a 42% advance in Indian stocks fell to 36%.” — Leslie Norton

“Barclays iShares and State Street’s streetTRACKS are the 800-pound gorillas of the ETF industry. And they’ve relished its big rise in assets, which jumped from just $2.3 billion in 1995 to roughly $400 billion worldwide at the end of November …. The two companies accounted for 69% of assets in such funds globally, as of Nov. 30. Barclays’ 146 funds had $187.49 billion in assets, while State Street’s 50 funds had $91.79 billion. Bank of New York is a distant third, but nonetheless has a respectable $30.24 billion in just six ETFs.” — Erin Arvedlund

“James McGregor’s book, One Billion Customers, argues that the Chinese system is almost incompatible with honesty.” — Kim-Ming Liu

“1,012 U.S.-based publicly traded companies declared $456 billion worth of stock-repurchase plans in 2005, a record.” — Shirley Lazo

“As that splendid poet Rupert Brooke observed, history repeats itself, historians repeat one another.” — Alan Abelson [Abelson also posted a number of classic “doctor note” jokes including my favorite: “Examination of genitalia reveals that he is circus sized.”]

“Prices for everything except fossil fuels are being held down by productivity increases, international competition and excess manufacturing capacity …. in 2005 the US set records in the number of homeowners, new homebuyers and the amount of principal owed on home mortgages.” — Thomas Donlan

“One out of every eight of the 1.1 million Koreans in America owns a business …. Koreans flock to Center Financial, Hanmi Financial, Nara Bancorp and Wilshire Bancorp. Ethnic Chinese favor Cathay General, East-West Bancorp and UCBH Holdings …. East-West and Wilshire draw more than 80% of their loan volume from mortgage and construction loans. For the rest of the seven, the share ratio is over 60%.” — Richard Phalon

“In the U.S., Pitney Bowes controls 80% of the mail-metering market; worldwide, its market share is near 65%, and it has only one major competitor, France’s Neopost.” — Neil Martin

“The U.S. currently spends $6 billion to $8 billion each month for troops in Iraq, with the actual figure depending on the size and frequency of military operations. Total spending for 2005 will be in the neighborhood of $80 billion.” — Jim McTague

“It is utterly obvious the North Sea oil peaked in 1999 …. Demand for oil is still accelerating. For the top 25 emerging markets, GDP change year-over-year is averaging up 5.5% for 25 countries. Argentina is 10.1%. Chile is 5.2%. China is 9.4%. Hong Kong, 8.2%. India, 8%. Indonesia, 5.3%. Malaysia is 5.3%. The Philippines is 4.1%. Singapore is 6%. Embedded in that is a continuation of an inexhaustible increase in the use of oil, particularly in the countries where they are barely using any oil. The wealthier they get, the faster they start using oil. The idea that $60 oil is really hurting the emerging economies is a myth. It doesn’t seem to be affecting them at all. The Energy Information Administration numbers that came out recently showed the U.S. crossed 22 million barrels a day of petroleum use, a brand new record. So it is not stopping the U.S., either. To everyone’s surprise, the economy grew by 4% in the third quarter, even with the hurricanes. That was when we had almost $65 oil …. When 85% of the things in Wal-Mart we buy come from China, the implications for trucks on the highway system is profound …. We are starting to bump into capacity limitations in the funniest places: tires on big trucks, rigs, people, refineries, pipelines, tankers, well-head capacity …. I’ve placed a $5,000 bet that oil prices will average $200 a barrel in 2010. I don’t have any idea where oil prices are headed but they could easily be above $200 a barrel. At $65 a barrel, or 10 cents a cup, we are still grossly underpricing oil, which is why it doesn’t have any impact on demand …. we have to take a page out of Whole Foods, one of the most successful food models ever, by having a stringer system of organic farms within 20 miles of their stores …. a handful of us pessimists were warning in 1999 through 2002 that we had a massive natural-gas crisis on our hands because we built almost 30% of our generation capacity for electricity and all growth from here on out on gas-powered power plants thinking we had an abundant amount of natural gas. Natural gas has peaked and we are in decline …. I don’t have the vaguest idea why the major oil companies could ever think we are going back to $25 oil other than their business model desperately needs that to happen to have their long-term strategy work. High oil prices are very bad news for big oil. The higher the price, the more proven reserves they’ve already booked they lose in these foreign concessions, because once their projects hit their payout targets, then the host government’s share rises. I think the major oil companies are lost in the wilderness right now.” — Matthew Simmons, interviewed by Sandra Ward

Copyright © 2006 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.