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0920 EST Friday March 10 2006

Good Morning: Sometimes there are not enough hours in the day, when it comes to communicating with our loyal and coveted and most appreciative audience that is you, given the exceptionally positive feedback we periodically receive for our endeavors and we wanted to add a few thoughts in addition to yesterday's story on the NYSE Group Inc's new listing, because it really was an unprecedented event in the annals of Stockmarket history, that has such deep roots from the very earliest and burgeoning days of American Capitalism to the financial Capital of the World. And, with such a legacy and tradition that has been passed on from generation to generation of Member Firms. With such an ingrained heritage, that is akin to American hierarchy of near Royal proportions, it should have been easy to foresee that as the old members were suddenly appreciating the fact that the value of their seats, which had at times languished either side of $1 Million over decades of time, were suddenly catching up to their true value in the 21st Century in the multi-millions, that were now being near instantly monetized, to potentially being worth millions more as was demonstrated as the NYSE Group's value soared to new highs yesterday, so in hindsight, we should have known that on a floor where the members themselves were setting the price, it was destined to be a higher high.

Wednesday marked the beginning of a financial earthquake, the consequences of which have yet to be felt, but to us at least it seems that the venerable New York Stock Exchange may be about to re-invent itself as 'Marketplace to the World' or the World's newest 'Stockmarket Concept' in what could be a kind of Wal-Mart to the World of franchises or joint ventures, with not only all of the recognized US and regional exchanges, but all the World's stockmarkets as well. So that, instead of having to execute complicated trades on say, a newly bankrupt airline just listed on the Pink Sheets, or a hot OTC Bulletin Board Stock with record breaking trading activity, or some exotic from the Far East or Eastern Europe on a bourse no-one even knows of, it seems for the less sophisticated, such unusual trades could be handled by or executed through the NYSE - NYX, just as easily as buying some hot Australian Gold play, a Hong Kong Telecommunications issue, a Chinese Internet stock, an Italian or French fashion house or a Russian Oil and Gas Concern. Or as we have suggested for some time, the stockmarket jewel of all jewels: The London Stock Exchange itself, would consolidate an alliance so historic and binding, it is blindingly obvious. This truly could become the 'other' Crown Jewel of stockmarkets with relationships and reach unparalleled on a Global scale. The benefits of all this that the NYX can bring to all that it touches of course, is liquidity, centrality, efficiency, arbitrage and edge in execution.

It's going to be interesting to see how this all plays out, but if the smartest minds in the World have figured this is the way that the NYSE should go and that was no easy manner of persuasion to reach consensus, then they must have some far-reaching plans in the works to not only ensure their survival in this new 'Electronic Century', but that they can prosper and remain dominant in today's Financial World.


The Race to be the Richest

The NYSE Group Inc NYX future is all about remaining the biggest and strongest, but as for the Race to be the Richest, that is another big story we actually contemplated writing about in recent day's, completely oblivious to the fact that the Forbes List of the World's Richest was about to be published and to be honest, if there had been more hours in the day, you probably would have read this story a few days ago and we would have pipped Forbes to the post and picked at least one surprise winner of the World's Top Ten in advance of Forbes Inc.

We did outline this idea to a few close confidants and explained to them, what had piqued our interest in fomenting this story was there appeared to be a distinct heating up in the race to claim the 3 spot as the World's third richest man, formerly occupied by Indian Steel Magnate Lackshmi Mittal, was how he's presumably attempting to leverage his net worth trying to buy Acelor and expand his steel empire even further. Then recently came the news that Prince Al Whalid Bin Talal Al Saud, was planning to take his Kingdom Investments public, also presumably in an effort to gain a premium set by mega-rich Saudi investors, who would dearly love to buy into his fortune and then the most interesting and intriguing of the formerly top three contenders was in fact our pick for number 3, not because he had to demonstrate some kind of trickery to gain financially sufficient to surpass all others save Bill Gates himself and the Oracle of Omaha there was no need for he was already way ahead of the rest as we had surmised by doing a rough assessment of his net worth and concluding that his shrewd dealings in MCI and now owning Verizon by default, that had also recently soared should put him well ahead of the others so even we were shocked to see that Forbes has anointed him the clear winner at 3 with a tidy fortune of $30 Billion. The unassuming quiet achiever has become the deftest achiever, like a chess player on the World stage, he is already plotting his next moves...

Trade Well
From the Desk of Savant

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