It is with great honor I stand before you today as the Chairman and Chief Bottle Washer of the Sidewalker Fund. It gives me great pleasure to welcome each and every one of you to this, the first meeting of the Sidewalker Fund Investment Committee.

For those of you that have been following my quest for some time, you will know that I have often mentioned this day. The point at which we now stand is where the Sidewalker monies have swollen to a total that they must now flee the relative safety (assuming my bank doesn’t go belly up) of the Sidewalker checking account. These coins we brought in off the street, were first nurtured back to usefulness by an extended stay in the Sidewalker Change Jar before Jr. and I deposited them in the bank.

It is time these coins repaid my faith in them (and their free board & lodging at Castle Sidewalker), and to that end we must put them to work. It is at this juncture I realized that the burden and responsibility of controlling such funds was a task that could not fall on one man’s (mine) shoulders. So I have drawn up a short list of possibilities to allocate the $21 and change. I urge you to look over my list with due care and attention, then leave your suggestion in the comments section please.

So, in no particular order here are the suggestions.

Option 1: An ING Certificate of Deposit
Pro - These CD’s are FDIC insured up to $250,000
Con - The yield sucks and who is insuring the FDIC?

Option 2: Buy 5 shares of Citibank (C.N) at $4.50
Pro - With a 52 week high of $23.50 there could be lots of upside potential.
Con - Major perpetrator of today’s financial mess. Next Lehman perhaps? Lots of downside potential.

Option 3: Buy 1 American Eagle Silver Coin .999 fine silver
Pro - I get rid of my dollars before the Federal Reserve Bank devalues them to zero.
Con - It is a shiny piece of metal with a nominal value of $1.

Option 4: I go to the Borgata in Atlantic City and put it all on Black
Pro - I get to feel like a rock star for the time it takes the ball to settle.
Con - Tough to explain to Mrs Sidewalker why two years of sidewalking has yielded nothing when it lands on Red.

Option 5: Buy a Mario’s Pizza Value Card for $20 that is redeemable for $30 worth of pizza, and sell it for $25 to the Hoboken Paddler
Pro - An easy $5, my very own printing press.
Con - Slightly unethical, borderline illegal for dealing in unofficial currency.

So what option should I go for? Have I missed an option out? What say you?

-Luke Sidewalker
-Current balance $21.27

Yesterday was my best day in a while. Just three coins were found but the total came to 51 cents. The first time I have found two quarters in one day since the hospital find of March ’08. The first quarter was at a bank of parking meters, obviously someone had missed the slot and just thought “nah can’t be bothered picking that up”. The second was in a mall,I imagine the person was too busy shopping to be worried about their errant quarter, to my gain.

In other news, Citigroup Inc. (C.N) topped their earnings estimates. But to be fair it is not hard to do that when the U.S. Treasury gave them money for nothing, then they deposit that money with the Federal Reserve who then pays them interest. I’m no Warren Buffet, but I could make money using the above funding strategy!

-Luke Sidewalker
-Current balance $7.42