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

“In this day and age, there are still companies where the investor-relations person doesn’t speak English. It gets back to my original point of why Europe is so compelling, because it is disjointed and disorganized and there is no consistency from one country to another.” — David Marcus, interviewed by Sandra Ward

“In addition to Google, which doubled over the twelve months, the spring ‘05 [Big Money Poll] pans included notable winners such as Apple (up 82%) and Starbucks (up 56%) … the managers’ six-month favorites rose an average of 8.72% … their pans rose 9.13% … the S&P 500 index rose 8.3% in the same six-month period.” — Jack Willoughby [Who can’t help laughing when reviewing these results? And the number of bulls in their new poll terrifies me. ;-)]

“‘We will not buy rich bonds just for the sake of holding bonds,’ says Greg Habeeb, who also heads Calvert’s taxable fixed-income group, overseeing more than $5 billion. Today’s high prices and low yields on many bonds have ’surprised’ Habeeb, who also notes that in the fixed-income market, there’s ’simply not enough supply to meet excessive demand fueled by increasing world wealth.’ He explains that ‘emerging-market money,’ ‘oil money’ and wealth created by a global real-estate boom have helped build an appetite for dollar-denominated securities. ‘I’m not sure that this phenomenon changes soon, but the markets will always find fair-value levels in time,’ he says.” — Jennifer Ablan [Habeeb sounds like he knows what he’s doing.]

“Last week brought a sense of déjà vu from the ‘Seventies in the histrionics over oil and gasoline prices. The same nonsense about ‘price gouging’ and calls for a windfall- profits tax reappeared as if unearthed from a time capsule with a disco ball or an execrable Eagles album. The only thing missing was gas lines of that era, which should tell you something. Aside from spot shortages resulting from the change in government regulations that eliminated the MTBE additive, there was plenty of gasoline available. And though it’s back above $3 a gallon, it’s less than a latte. It’s just we got used to gas being less than bottled water.” — Randall Forsyth [Glad to see that Forsyth, like the Dude, “hates the f—ing Eagles, man.”]

“Gold at $2,000 is merely the January 1980 high of $850 in 2006 dollars. Indeed, you can get to $2,000 through two different back-of-the-envelope calculations: Money as measured by M2 is 4.6 times greater than in January ‘80. And over the same period, real gross domestic product has risen nearly 2.2 times. So the ‘net’ increase in the money supply is the difference between 4.6 and 2.2, or 2.4; and 2.4 times $850 is a little above $2,000. Or, more straightforwardly, the consumer price index is 2.4 times higher than it was in Jan 1980, and 2.4 times $850 produces the same result.” — Gene Epstein [Hmmm, Epstein tries to quantify animal spirits?]

Copyright © 2006 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.