5 Important Documents To Keep When You Buy A New Home

If you’re like most people, the last thing you’re thinking about when you take possession of a new home, is selling the home. However, when you take possession of a new home, you’re going to get a lot of documentation from different sources, and you will need most of it when you do eventually sell. When it does come time to sell, it can be quite costly and time consuming to get the necessary documentation together if you’ve lost it. If you’re buying a home from a builder, you may get a binder of information, but some of this stuff will come from your lawyer, and some you may even have to r[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Rollercoaster

Tuesday left a green market across the broader markets on higher volume for the NYSE and Nasdaq. It was nice to see the participation and accumulation day for the broader markets today. However we are still in range on the Nas 100, while the Nas Composite dropped the 200dma for a short while but managed to climb back over. S&P 500 is still over 70.7% fib support and left a big spinning top candle. The Dow dropped just under the 70.7% support, but did close green and with a huge spinning top as well. Spinning tops just mean undecided market but closes pretty mid range for a neut[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Imitation Is The Sincerest Form Of Flattery: Warren Buffett And Berkshire Hathaway

We analyze the performance of Berkshire Hathaway’s equity portfolio and explore potential explanations for its superior performance. Contrary to popular belief we show Berkshire’s investment style is best characterized as a large-cap growth. We examine whether Berkshire’s investment performance is due to luck and find that beating the market in 28 out of 31 years places it in the 99.99 percentile; however, incorporating the magnitude by which Berkshire beats the market makes the ?luck? explanation unlikely even after taking into account ex-post selection bias. After adjusting for [...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

A Match Made In Heaven

In a brilliant move, HGTV has parlayed their well-known brand of home-and-garden based television and moved into online homes sales. In beta stage and not yet cross-linked from their site or promoted on the channel, Front Door has the potential to attract a huge amount of traffic from homebuyers and sellers already familiar with the brand. HGTV benefits from a 24-hour a day "infomercial" from not only HGTV, but the Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Ultra-luxury Real Estate Market En Fuego In Boston

Banker & Tradesman says the ultra-luxury real estate market is red-hot, these days.A total of 81 condos with price tags of $2 million or more were sold through October, 37 percent higher than the same period in 2006. Sales are even more brisk than the same months in 2005, when the Bay State housing market hit its peak, according to statistics from The Warren Group, parent company of Banker & Tradesman.One of the interesting parts of this what it means about the suburban real estate market, as well.Presumably, those who are buying in Boston had to sel[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Want To Write Better - Read Better

Writing is an essential marketing skill - pretty hard to be very effective without it - whether that’s actually writing the words yourself or being able to recognize a well written sales letter from a freelancer. Most every high school English teacher in the world will give you the same advice: if you want to be a good writer, you have to read a lot. Two of my favorite books on writing, Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott and On Writing by Stephan King offer this as a key.Just about any reading will improve[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

8 Things You Have To Ask Yourself About Money Today

Take out a pen and paper and write this down:I want to be wealthy so that I can ______________________.To reach my goal, I am willing to sacrifice the following: _____________________.Your thoughts establish the role of money in your life, and I’ve been thinking about this topic for a while. If you feel good about yourself and the efforts you are making, your positive ideas can cultivate more change and more satisfaction. Having money just to have money doesn’t provide much purpose, so it’s important to define why the heck we’re working so hard toward these goals.
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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Today’s Open: Up

Rally Attempt Fails As Major Averages Undercut Recent LowsPICTURED BELOW: The Dow Jones Industrial Average was the last of the major averages to under cut its Tuesday November 13, 2007 low, which officially ended the latest rally attempt."Stocks Point Toward Higher Open, Rebounding From Steep Loss Ahead of Fed Minutes, Housing Data."Losses were widespread on Monday, with the Gold & Silver Index ($XAU -4.86%) one of the standout laggards. The influential financial group weighed heavily on the major averages (see below[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Advertising

This fits very much with my last post. Borrell Associates expect newspaper advertising revenue to drop more than 6%. This they say will decline by 16% in 2009 and 13% in 2010 as consumers go online for their CONTENT. The...[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Xerox Dividend Is It Really True?

Xerox (XRX) announced the restart of a quarterly dividend after a five year hiatus. Xerox also announced the return of its debt to an investment grade rating. Clearly there is cause for optimism. Lets look at a few things.The stock dropped substantially in the summer and has not really recovered. The dividend is payable at the end of Jan 08 to holders of record as at Dec 31 07. This should block year end tax selling which must look awfully attractive in this kind of market.Since launching its stock buyback program in October 2005, Xerox to date has repurchased about 129[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Fraud: How I was fleeced on my bank card

Somebody is clearing out the account of the Daily Mail's Deputy Personal Editor. She explains how it happened

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[Source: This is Money | Money blog]

Skating On Thin Ice

Monday, wasnt a good start on the week for the bulls. A very weak and red close across the broader markets left the Nasdaq Composite just over the 200dma, the S&P 500 and Dow both just under the prior swing low. The volume was very split with the NYSE was slightly higher, but the Nasdaq was slightly lower Crude rallied up 93 cents to $94.77 a barrel. After the bell Hewlett-Packard announced good earnings and rallied in the afterhours session. The news after the bell was very upbeat and has left futures moving higher in the globex session. Co[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Edmonton Real Estate, As Seen By The Media

Some quotes from newspapers across the country over the past few days: Alberta is still a promised land and the positives greatly outweigh any short-term downside. Interest rates aren’t going up. The mega-project backlog is still enormous. The provincial government currently lists 52 planned energy projects on their website, with an average completion price of over $3 billion each. There are nine upgrader projects in Strathcona and Sturgeon counties alone that will require 5,000 to 6,000 people each just to build. Our city’s population has grown by 9.6% between 2001 and 2006[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Now That’s Volatility

Today looked like it was going to be a real bummer, as the market gave up all of its early gains and went on to new correction lows. But low and behold, the market then staged a late rally to come all the way back to positive territory.The Dow, if you look at how much it was up, then down, then up again, logged over 400 points of travel today. That’s volatility. Volume spiked also. But with the markets finishing in positive territory, we could be seeing the making of a short-term bottom.Here are some interesting stats:There were 614 new lows [...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Tom Brokaw And Your Future

’There will never not be a need for professional people to take complicated information, put it into a form that viewers and readers will need to know and want to understand,’ he said.[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Protectionist Rhetoric Will Accelerate The Dollar’s Slide

Pat Buchanan’s recent attempt to diagnose the sinking dollar demonstrates that ignorance of basic economics is not limited to the Left.Buchanan points out the plummeting value of the dollar relative to other currencies and major commodities such as gold (up 24% this year) and oil (up over 50% in 12 months). He then declares that "the prime suspect in the death of the dollar is the massive trade deficits America has run up" to "maintain her standard of living and to sustain the Ameri[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Positvity In The Oc

This from Lansner who writes on Orange County property. He quotes Steve Thomas at Re/Max Real Estate Services in Aliso Viejo that: homes placed into escrow within the past month has increased by 182 homes in six weeks to 1,295...[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Chase Will No Longer Increase Rates Based On Credit-bureau Information

Chase today made a major announcement regarding the credit card interest rates of its customers. Chase, as of March 1, 2008, will no longer increase the rates of cardmembers based on their credit-bureau information. Consumer advocates have long decried the controversial industry practice commonly known as universal default, under which a customers rate could be automatically raised based on a single late payment to another [...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Will The 200-day Ma Save The Nasdaq Again?

NOTE: Please click on the charts below to enlarge them if they do not appear clearly.The main stock market indexes kicked off the holiday-shortened week on a negative note, as stocks fell sharply across the board. After gapping lower on the open, the broad market sank steadily through mid-day. With two hours remaining, buyers attempted to reverse the downward slide, but the bears resumed control in the final hour of trading. The S&P 500 fell 1.8%, while both the Nasdaq Composite and Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled 1.7%. Small caps felt the most pain, as the Russell 2[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

No Follow-thru From Yesterday’s Rally

My colleague Doug Kass is fond of saying "this market has no memory from day-to-day". That is certainly the case today. I would have thought there would be some follow-thru from yesterday’s late rally, but such is not the case.Asian markets plunged overnight on concerns about growth in the U.S., their largest export market. Also, there seems to be a big "risk aversion" trade on, as investors embark on a flight-to-safety of U.S. Treasurys, pushing the 10-year yield down to a new low of 4.00%. Silly Fed.The risk aversion trade is also[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Commercial Loans Tip: Prove That The Business Is Profitable

Todays Commercial Loans Tip: Prove That The Business Is Profitable To Get The Loan - When you buy an existing business, you need to prove that the business is profitable. Provide the bank with research on revenues and expenses of comparable businesses in your industry. Some industries will require extra research, especially home-based businesses. You will have to prove your profitability if you want the loan.Todays Opportunities Prequalified For Business Acquisition Loans:
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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Paul Krugman Explains The Dollar To Us

"WARNING," he warns us self-aggrandizingly, "FAIRLY WONKISH." Actually, it’s just fairly foolish. So the dollar has been declining against most foreign currencies. Krugman wonders whether it is "recessionary" -- and then gives the game away when he proceeds to ask, "OK, so how do we make this story more pessimistic?" Turns out he really can’t do it, which is surely a first for him.He’s discards the idea that the falling dollar is inflationary, saying "The big dollar fall from 1985 to 1988 wasn?t notably inf[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

We Are Below The 200 Day M.A. On The SPX&OEX

Use this "tool" to decide whether to be long, short/hedged or out of the market.* SPX (S&P 500) trading at 1433.27, below the 200DMA of 1484.06* OEX (S&P 100) trading at 669.17, below the 200 DMA of 685.99* NDX (Nasdaq 100) trading at 2021.14, above the 200 DMA of 1941.66.....note: SPY trading at $143.76, below it’s 200 DMA of 147.93.A loud warn[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Post Office sails towards titanic disaster

Save our post offices:A recent visit to an unspoilt rural retreat in Cheshire laid bare the depth of the catastrophe facing the post office network

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[Source: This is Money | Money blog]

Asking Permission Vs. Begging Forgiveness

[This was a recently published guest column on GigaOm] Despite all of the issues plaguing the music industry these days,there is plenty of innovation in digital music to be found from a rangeof startups out there. Many of these startups require content from thelabels, yet choose to plow ahead with their product marketing withoutgetting licenses. This irks the labels, of course, but its of theirown doing it is generally much easier to beg forgiveness than askpermission.<[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Small-Cap Russell 2000 Tests Its August Low

NOTE: Please click on the charts below to enlarge them if they do not appear clearly.A plethora of market-moving news and rumors fueled whipsaw action that saw the major indices break out above their previous day’s highs, sell-off below their prior day’s lows, then recover to close near the middle of their intraday ranges. When the dust finally settled, most of the main stock market indexes had closed modestly higher. The Nasdaq Composite, up 1.5% at its intraday peak, and down by the same percentage at its intraday trough, finished nearly in parity. The tech-heavy index[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

The property crash-ometer that has lenders worried

I was more than a little surprised this week to receive an email from the body that represents nearly every British mortgage lender telling us we should take down our house price crash calculator

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[Source: This is Money | Money blog]

Another Look

at the Nasdaq market leaders; Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), Baidu.com Inc. (Nasdaq:BIDU), Google Inc. (Public, NASDAQ:GOOG) and Research in Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM). These stocks have slowed their descents but the evidence of a turn higher still isn’t there yet. This video takes a look at the potential risks and rewards in the stocks at current levels.Maybe the Hewlett-Packard Company (Public, NYSE:HPQ) earnings will help turn these stocks around? HPQ is trading up a dollar in after hours right now and the futures are up about .50% as well.