The big news this week is that the Dow Jones Indistrial Average has broken the 13,000 barrier, establishing a new all-time high.  What does this all mean?  Has the Dow been a good place to invest money?  Listen to the first Priced in Gold Podcast to hear my comments on investing, the DJIA, and pricing in gold.

A few months ago, my mother in law sent my wife an old copy of Woman's Day magazine.  My wife loves dolls, and the January 1965 issue of Woman's Day featured articles on dolls and doll collecting (along with many other articles that would fit right in with today's magazines, such as "How to Have a New Figure for the New Year".)

What grabbed my attention, though, was the cover price of the magazine: just 15 cents.

I wondered how the price of magazines has changed over the last 42 years, measured in dollars and in gold.  And it didn't take long to find out!

Woman's Day is still being published, and a quick trip to it's web site showed that the current cover price is $2.79.  Using the London PM gold fix for 4/27/2007 of $21.78/gram, we see that today's cover price is about 0.128 gg.  And in 1965?  Gold was $1.14/gram, so the 1965 cover price was 0.132 gg.

Let's see… looks like the price is virtually unchanged over the last 42 years when measured in gold, but up a whopping 1,860% measured in dollars!

I don't think the magazine is 19 times bigger, or 19 times better… I think the dollar has shrunk to 1/19th of it's former self.

It's a great example of why I like to track prices in gold!

This site will help you see through the fog of depreciating currency so you can really see how your investments are doing. The point is not that you should keep your wealth in gold, but that unless your investments are growing when measured in gold, you are not doing as well as you could by simply holding gold.

Take a look through the charts on the right to get an idea of how asset classes like stocks, commodities and the US Dollar are performing.

If you have any comments or questions, please write to me: editor @ pricedingold.com

And to keep in touch with the rapid changes in the investment world, sign up for the Priced In Gold newsletter, in the upper right hand corner.

Thanks!