| Wednesday Nov 23, 2005 Fear and Greed Issue #698 By Andrew Snyder
***Magazines and newspapers are just starting to cover "The Great Retirement RIP-OFF" but it's something Taipan members have been warned about for years... Finally! The mainstream media -- and even Congress -- is now paying attention to America's retirement nightmare. Time Magazine says that "millions of Americans who think they will retire with benefits are in for a NASTY SURPRISE." Readers of Taipan have been alerted of this danger... and know a unique and effective way to protect - and grow - their retirement funds. It's called Taipan's "Retirement Rescue Fund." To learn more - and get your FREE copy of this wealth-saving investment research - please read on... http://www.agora-inc.com/reports/TAI/WTAIFA12/ Hot off the wire… With Thanksgiving less than a day away, it is not a good time to be a nice, plump turkey. Over the next 24 hours, kitchens all across the country are going to be filled with the mouthwatering aroma of a well-cooked turkey. It’s a great day to put an extra notch in your belt, but not a great day to be a tasty centerpiece. If the technology I witnessed this morning takes off, it will never be a good time of year to be a turkey. Changing World Technologies is a small, New York-based company that specializes in turning the country’s waste into alternative fuels and specialty chemicals. One of the many resources it uses to create its products is organic waste, like carcasses from slaughtered holiday turkeys. Through the companies Thermal Conversion Process, it can take a wide variety of organic and inorganic waste and recycle it into something usable. The process closely mimics the earth’s natural geothermal process, except its process is much shorter than the millions of years Mother Nature requires to produce a fresh barrel of oil. In just a few hours, Changing World Technologies can turn 100 pounds of turkey waste into 39 pounds of oil, 6 pounds of natural gas, 5 pounds of carbon, and 50 pounds of fresh water. Imagine the products that could be generated if all of the turkey carcasses that will hit the trash tomorrow were sent for processing. But turkeys are not the only waste this company can recycle into a valuable product. Inorganic items such as tires and plastics can also benefit from the process. Just 100 pounds of used tires can be refined into 44 pounds of oil, 10 pounds of gas, 42 pounds of carbon, and 4 pounds of water. Not too bad. While I am not expecting this company to be building a plethora of new plants anytime in the near future – its refining process is still rather expensive —I do see a positive future for the company. Unfortunately, it is a privately-owned company, but if I ever hear rumors of it going public, you will be the first to know. This industry is going to make a lot of smart investors very rich in the not-so-distant future. Crunching the numbers… There is some influential Econo-Data hitting the Street today. The biggest surprise was a larger-than-expected rise in unemployment applications. Initial claims for unemployment benefits rose by 30,000 applications last week to weigh in at 335,000 claims. Most economists were expecting a rise of just 10,000 new claims. According to Labor Department officials, 10,000 of those claims were hurricane related. That takes the total number of claims filed due to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita to 555,000. That’s a lot of jobs. This week’s jump in applications, moves the less-volatile four-week moving average of unemployment claims to 323,250, a rise of 1,250. Another piece of interesting data came from the Mortgage Bankers Association. Thanks to refinancing activity dwindling to a 16-month low, the group’s index of mortgage applications dropped by 3.4%. With mortgage rates remaining near their highest levels of the year, the index doesn’t look like it will make any steady climbs soon. Last week, the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage came with borrowing costs of 6.26%. While that’s still relatively cheap, it’s much higher than the figures we’ve seen in recent months. Making Money… Even with relatively low volume on the major exchanges today, the Fear and Greed portfolio is seeing lots of positive action today. Gentex (GNTX:NASDAQ) is doing very nicely today. It started the day with an almost vertical climb on the charts and has been doing strong ever since. As I write, shares of GNTX are trading for US$18.85, an intra-day gain of nearly 2.5%. Don’t let the fallout at General Motors scare you away from this stock. Plenty of GNTX’s customers are doing quite well and are quickly gobbling up the company’s hi-tech products. Have a wonderful Wednesday and a terrific Thanksgiving.
Andrew Snyder
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