Money Today That Matters Tomorrow
A very cool graphic from the Economist looking at the GDP, Unemployment and Inflation forecasts for the US, Japan, Euro Zone and OECD. As leaders of the G20 countries gather in Washington, these factors and their forecasts will be key when decisions are made. 2009 looks like a global write-off …
In an attempt to help struggling American homeowners, the U.S. Department of Treasury, HUD, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and the Hope Now Alliance recently outlined a plan to avoid “preventable” foreclosures. Households that have missed three or more mortgage payments may receive assistance through refinanced …
News that American Express (AmEx), is seeking roughly $3.5 billion in taxpayer-funded capital from the federal government was quite ironical to me. Millions of consumers are struggling to make ends meet, in part due to mounting credit card debt, and now we have the most prestigious credit company in the …
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced that he has shelved the original plan to buy troubled mortgage assets via the recently approved $700 Billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Instead he will use the remaining funds to assist non-bank financial institutions and promote consumer finance initiatives. In a striking admission, Paulson …
This the second part of a series looking at understanding and trading options. The first post in this series looked defined key option terminology and ideas, while here I go into some basic trading strategies and patterns to improve your odds when trading options. You can see some of the …
The Chinese government announced it would spend an estimated $586 billion by 2010 on a wide array of national infrastructure and social welfare projects, including constructing new railways, subways, power stations and airports to combat a domestic and global slowdown. With China’s gross domestic product (GDP) around $3.5 trillion this …
I received this email (edited for this post) from a reader about a debit card scam that is apparently real and spreading across the country. Just another sign of tough economic times as criminals go to extreme measures to make a buck by taking advantage of the unsuspecting and innocent. …
A recent encounter during a routine car service reinforced my cynicism when it comes to mechanics and the auto repair industry in general. I had forgotten about the challenges of dealing with mechanics and the auto center sales staff, thanks to driving a company car which was covered under a …
I just booked my airline tickets (via United) for the upcoming Christmas holidays and despite the massive fall in oil prices over the last two months, the price of the tickets had remained relatively unchanged during this period. What’s worse is that all those extra “fees” the airlines charged (like …
This is the second in a series of posts about Tony Parker’s option trades based on his prediction that the market has bottomed. His previous trade on QQQQ (Nasdaq Index) calls was quite profitable in a short period of time, but with volatility falling the return to risk ratio from …
It’s that time of the year again when your choice of health care insurance plans comes to the fore – Open Enrollment (OE). During OE you can change your health care coverage and flexible spending allowances for the year ahead without penalty or a qualifying “life-event”. With health insurance premiums …
I wrote a while back on how the US was leading home price declines earlier this year. Looks like the world has caught up to this unfortunate trend and pushed the relative US declines to the middle of the pack. As the most recent IMF economic report shows, the US …
The difficulty in closing funding for some recently concluded corporate takeovers has presented an arbitrage profit opportunity for investors willing to take some risk. In particular I refer to the $52 billion mega takeover of U.S. brewer Anheuser-Busch (Ticker : BUD), the company that is famous for Budweiser Beer, by …
Despite global economic woes and falling stock markets, a positive aspect for main street America has been the relatively rapid rise of the US dollar of late. While this lowers the cost of imported goods and services, it does hurt business that compete globally as the cost our exports rises. …