Edmonton’s Unbelievably Bad Real Estate Photo Hall Of Fame

We’re not the first to do it and we certainly won’t be the last, but we’ve put together a little montage of truly terrible photos found on MLS. Enjoy! If you really can’t get enough bad MLS photos check out [...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Onmedia: Raising Money From Strategic Corporate Investors

Moderator: Mark Stevens, Partner, Fenwick & WestDavid Horowitz, Principal, Comcast Interactive CapitalSeth Haberman, CEO, Visible WorldDan Beldy, Managing Director, Steamboat Ventures (a $400 m Disney fund with 16 investments)John Edwards, CEO, Move NetworksAndrew Cleland, Executive Director, Investments, Time WarnerJohn Edwards says Move Networks paid dues by spending a lot of t[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

When Is The Right Time To Buy?

There is a lot of debate in Edmonton right now, about whether it is the right time to buy or not. The timing of a home purchase depends on many factors including your personal finances, goals and desires, as well as external factors such as affordability, the economy, financing availability and more. I can’t answer when the best time to buy for every individual is, but I’d like to put something in perspective.
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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Market Rallies Briefly, But Fades Into The Close

The market rallied after the Fed cut, but sellers emerged and the market faded into the close.I think this is a reasonable reaction given how many days the market had been rising prior to the announcement, and that fact that often traders take profits after a big anticipated news announcement comes out.I think that the combined 125 basis points of rate cuts over the last 10 days should provide pretty good stimulus at some point. It certainly lessens the risk that some big financial institution continues to experience liquidity problems.The [...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Onmedia: Venture Capital And Angel Investing Workshop

Here are some highlights from the workshop that featured two lawyers (Sam Angus and Mark Stevens of Fenwick & West), two VCs (Will Price of Hummer Winblad and Dan Beldy, Steamboat Ventures), and one entrepreneur, Jed Simmons, COO of Next New Networks whose company raised $8 million from non-Silicon Valley investors for their content business:Will said he thought the Charles River Venture Quick Start program (which provides seed capital of up to $250,000 for entrepreneurs) is a terrible thing for entrepreneurs, and he explained why. With their convertible note, they have an[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Chief Marketing Officer Of The Future

Roger Wood, Senior VP, GM of the Americas at Amobee Media Systems, made the most interesting comment so far at OnMedia when he suggested that sometime in the next 36 months there will be a watershed event, when the first Chief Marketing Officer of the Future is hired by a Fortune 1000 company. I captured a few of his ideas about what kind of CMO this will be. It will be a person who started their career at Facebook or CBS Mobile, who grew up immersed in interactive (not just learning about it after they were an adult) and it will also be a person who grew up connected to fr[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Ethical Link Bribes

Perhaps, I could call this Garage Sale Linking!My wife tells me I gotta clear out the garage. I have what seems to be a lifetime of killer sales, and marketing books, tapes, cd’s etc. Yah, I am a pack rat.[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

November Case-shiller Hpi Gets Spanked

The Case-Shiller HPI for November (which includes home sales from September, October, and November) took a veritable beating. Prices for the high tier held up best, as usual, falling by 1.8% from the prior month. But the middle tier dropped by 3.9% and the low tier by 4.8% in a single month -- yikes!read more[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Stranger Than Fiction: Our Favorite Burlesque Realtor

Seattle real estate agent Sarina McDonald aka "Ravenna Black" stars in this week’s episode of the ABC reality show "Wife Swap". The show takes two women whose families have vastly different values and asks them to switch places for two weeks. Each episode documents the drama that results when the husband and the kids are forced to adjus[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Are All Consumers In The Same Boat?

Last weekend I attended some festivities for a friend’s birthday that included dinner at the Landmark Buffet at the Ameristar Casino and Hotel (ASCA) in St. Charles, Missouri. Along with spending some time with good friends, I was also especially interested to see how busy the casino was on a Friday night. If you simply looked at the stock prices of the major casino companies in the United States, you would have predicted the place would be empty. Gaming stocks have been crushed lately on consumer spending worries. ASCA stock, for example, is down about 45%, from a high of $38 to the current q[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

More Signs Of A Gold Bubble In Its Early Stages

Gold futures began trading in Shanghai just a few weeks ago and now comes a report from Reuters about gold trading in Vietnam. Mix in the prospects of four-digit gold prices sometime in the not-too-distant future and it doesn’t sound so crazy to hear that gold prospectors are now set to pour into the Alaskan wilderness.There’s got to be lots of the yellow metal still in the ground around here - we now live in the heart of California Gold Country - maybe we should go pick up a couple of miner’s axes and go kick some rocks around.With the gold price rising faster than the[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Feeling Good Billy Ray?

Over the last couple of weeks I have made several references to feel-good rallies. If this is a bear market there will likely be several feel-good rallies along the way and we could be in the middle, or maybe the start, of a healthy feel-good rally.Some examples;On April 14, 2000 the S&P 500 hit 1339 intra-day[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Ideal Pullback Entry In The Homebuilders SPDR (XHB)

NOTE: Please click on the charts below to enlarge them if they do not appear clearly.Resuming the bounce off the lows that began on January 23, most of the major indices recouped all of last Friday’s losses yesterday. Meandering higher throughout the session, the S&P 500 gained 1.8%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average 1.5%, and the Nasdaq Composite 1.0%. The small-cap Russell 2000 advanced 2.0%, as the S&P Midcap 400 rallied 2.3%. All the main stock market indexes finished at their intraday highs.Lower overall turnover [...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Google "gorgeous Condo." Seriously.... Do It!

Recently we listed a condo in South Terwillegar. I wont say our clients were skeptical, but they were certainly looking for a different experience this time around from their last experience. Now, I’ve mentioned on the blog before that we do some different things that the majority of our competition just don’t, won’t or can’t do and this listing is a perfect example. Even with years of satisfied clients behind us we continue to strive for the highest le[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Blue Chips Power Rally

Blue Chips Power RallyBy Harry Boxer, The Technical Trader (www.thetechtrader.com) The markets had an up-session, but after the initial thrust they prettymuch meandered sideways in a consolidation pattern but what I wouldconsider a bullish one. However, Nasdaq lagged today and thePhiladelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) was actually down on thesession.The day started out, as indicated, with a strong thrust to theupside which tagged the morning highs right off the bat. They had asharp sell-off that h[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Consumer Confidence Low, As Expected

Yesterday, the market rallied nicely into the close. Today, the market got a small bounce at the open, but the Consumer Confidence report took some wind out of the market’s sail. It was reported at 87.9, down from 90.6 in December.There were some solid earnings reports last night and this morning from American Express, 3M, EMC , etc. The big disappointment was VMWare (VMW), which lowered guidance just a bit but its highflying stock got crushed.The Fed is starting their 2-day meeting today, with the a[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Kinetic Knowledge Interview

DownloadI interview Chris Frerecks from http://kineticknowledge.com/. [...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Today’s Open: Up

Major Averages Post Solid Gains, But With Lighter VolumePICTURED BELOW: The benchmark S&P 500 Index (SPX +1.76%) traded meaningfully higher today, but the volume total was clearly lighter, thus failing to confirm the bullish action as a proper follow-through day. The major averages experienced another see-saw session, however, this time stocks erased the day’s early losses and closed in the black. Volume was lighter than Friday’s totals on both major exchanges, which was to be expected considering the amount of data that is slated to be released this[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Are We There Yet?

Tuesday left the market with a small up day across the broader markets after the ranges and volatility we’ve seen lately this was just a dull day. Volume was slightly higher on the NYSE and Nasdaq today than yesterday , leaving a little accumulation day. Futures were the lightest volume we’ve seen in weeks and one of the narrowest days we’ve seen in weeks. Very typical leading into FOMC to see this type of action. Gold closed the day down $2.00 at $925 an ounce. Crude closed up 65 cents at $91.64 a barrel. After hours was fairly mixed but YHOO took a nose dive off guida[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Newswatch 1.28.08: Qtrax Turns Out To Be A Hoax

Labels expose Qtrax claim as hoax[Reuters] The world’s biggest music companies, including Warner Music Group Corp and Sony BMG, denied that they have agreed to license songs for a free download service that was launched by Qtrax on Monday. Qtrax claimed that it had deals with the major labels representing about 75 percent of all music sales, to let users download songs for free in a new service to be supported by advertising revenue.Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Is Deckers Ready To Run?

My trade idea of the day is Deckers Outdoor (DECK).DECK is the maker of the popular Ugg boots, and also Teva sandals. The stock gapped higher back in October (see chart) after reporting a stron[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

They’re Baaaaaack!

So I am skimming over the Ben Jones housing bubble blog and I notice the name "Marty Ummel" mentioned in one of the posts and I say to myself, "Hey, I know that name". I remember that name from a Marin IJ article that I almost chose to blog. I was unable to find the original IJ article in their archives (it was back in late 2005 or early 2006 if I remembe[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Will We Pause For The Fed

Monday brought a green day for the broader markets on lighter volume. This is the third day for declining volume, which has fallen down to the 50dma after seeing a 52 week high on Wednesday (last week). Big day for Gold hitting an all time new high at $929.80 and closing at $926.70 up 16.00 on the day. Crude closed up 31 cents at $91.02 a barrel. Overall it was a nice days for the S&P 500, Russell and the Dow regaining Fridays losses. Oscillators supported the move on the three indexes and showed a nice move up. However our serious pro[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

1/2 Day’s Work

Greetings, The morning session was a bit roiled around the 10am news release, and afterwards. We worked the long side and short side several times by 11am est, and called it a day. Price action continues to roll sideways into midday, and anything is possible by session’s end. With such a heavy slate of econ reports ahead of us all week, let’s keep what we caught and call it a day. Best Trading WishesAustin PRead More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Misleading Home Buyers: Conflict Of Interest? What Conflict Of Interest?

Thankfully, a recent NYTimes article, Feeling Misled on Home Price, Buyers Sue Agent and an
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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Romney Can Win

The Republican debate last night on MSNBC was quite friendly between the five Republican candidates. Chris Matthews and many others felt that Mitt Romney absoluted dominated the debate, which should help him shore up his recently acquired lead in at least three Florida polls. It feels great to see momentum shifting to the candidate that I believe can help the US deal with hard economic times and global competition better than anyone else in US history.But debates, like most TV these days, are much more about entertainment than about substance. With 90 second responses it’s pretty di[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Stocks Give Up The Ghost, Close Near Lows

A disappointing end to a truly volatile week. The market closed near its lows for the day, as sellers emerged and investors worried about more writedowns coming out of Europe and the possibility that a large hedge fund is liquidating.The ARMS Index was high all day, as was the put/call ratio, but they didn’t help much. Sentiment is still extremely bearish, in some cases the most since 1990, which is why I think the market should still work higher before any retest of the lows.The big wildcard next week is the [...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Social Networking Strategy For Utah Companies

I recently organized a Facebook group called Utah CEOs with a Facebook Strategy. Now I wish I had named it better. It should be something like Utah Executives who Have or Want to Have a Social Networking Strategy. The first event had more than 30 attendees. One of them blogged a summary of the Facebook Strategy lunch that we held this week, and said it was very worthwhile.If you want to join this group which already has 125 members so you can be notified when we schedule our next event, Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

On Raising The Gses’ Limits

’This would be absolutely, phenomenally excellent news for home buyers and sellers because it will help so many more people to qualify for loans that they can afford[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Blog Commenting For Clients

I know that personally that I can get full of myself on some neat trick I figured out online. And it is when you get the most arrogant online is when the roof falls in (Try losing 100,000 engine based visitors a month. Thia happened to me on a site I ran a few years back. That will humble anyone). Arrogance can blind one to your own success and the reasons for it.[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Sustainable Housing In Alberta

Living with an environmentalist is not the easiest thing for me. Some days I feel like I’m graded on my ability to distinguish what is recyclable and what’s not. So it’s a huge surprise to both of us that I’m writing this post. What’s always been missing besides common sense for me was a simple instruction manual. Well I finally got what I was looking for: the first ever guide to "housing sustainabil[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

High Risk Enviornment Offers Cautious Opportunity

Despite gapping higher on the open, allthree major indexes broke down and closed near their daily lows. TheDow Industrials Closed down 171.44 points to 12,207.17. The NasdaqComposite, which had gained 2% on the open, suffered a 3 1/2% swingand reversal of fortune, Closing at 2326.20 which was pretty much thelow for the day. All of the other major indexes pretty much playedout the same way. Volume was lower across the board, both on theNasdaq and the NYSE, though very erratic volume patterns can be aclassic bear market trait.

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Bailoutwatch: Lower Rates For Everyone!

Yesterday it was announced that Congress and the White House had come to an agreement on an economic stimulus package that would raise the limit for conforming home loans, those backed by government-sponsored loan securitizers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, from the current $417,000 to about $730,000 in the most expensive states (of which we are obviously one).Why does this matter? Because the rates on conforming mortgages tend to be quite a bit lower than those on loans above $417,0[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Microsoft Puts A Bid Under Tech Stocks

The market got a strong boost at the open after a handful of strong earnings reports last night.Microsoft beat expectations, and also raised its guidance for the full year. This helped the stock pop to $35 before pulling back. Broadcom (BRCM) and MEMC Electronic (WFR) also reported solid results, and their stocks are higher.These earnings reports helped push the Nasdaq nicely higher at the open, but the sellers predictably emerged, and the market has given back all of its gains. Hopefully we can moun[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

More December, 2007 Quick Dataquick Data For Marin

More December, 2007 data from DataQuick: [...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Bottom Found?

Great Morning! Wednesday’s stock market action finished a three-day wild ride, one for the record books. A mini-crash of world markets over the holiday weekend churned the collective tapes harder than anything witnessed since 2002. Session ranges from top to bottom have been greater than most entire calendar months’ span from 2004 thru 2006. To say things have been off the volatility bell curve would be stating the obvious. Two charts of the ES futures here give us an idea of what to expect ahead[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Market Adds To Yesterday’s Rally In Early Trading

The market opened on a higher note this morning, following nice gains in Europe and Asia and several positive developments here in the U.S.Jobless claims came in lower than expected at 301,000. This is well below the levels normally associated with a recession, which often run in excess of 450,000. Also, the White House confirmed its agreement on an economic stimulus plan that will provide between $300-$1200 to U.S. taxpayers. The NYS Insurance Dept. said it is working on a plan to help out the ailing mortgage bond in[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Canslim.net Morning Comment And Links (for Traders)

MORNING MARKET COMMENTARY- Thursday, January 24, 2008Day 1 Of A New Rally Attempt - Kenneth J. Gruneisen, CANSLIM Certified, Registered Principal, Source Capital Group, Inc. (Members NASD, SIPC)The major averages ended higher, snapping their longest losing streak since April 2002 and producing Day 1 of a new rally attempt. Volume was heavier than Tuesday’s already large levels on both major exchanges. Remember that volume has surged in recent days and weeks as the market averages have tanked. Advancers trumped de[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Kicking And Screaming Toward A Recession

It’s a good thing that the stock market made a miraculous recovery today from another near-death experience - it sure looked as though life as we knew it was about to be over.The above photo comes from The Rites of Recession in the current issue of Time Magazine where Justin Fox di[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

"just A Horrible, Normal Cycle"

Well, by now you are probably all aware that DataQuick has their foreclosure data out for the Golden State. Needless to say, foreclosures for 2007Q4 are way up over 2006Q4. Here’s DataQuick’s chart of NODs:Marin NODs are up 122% which is not the lowest for the Bay Area. That must be a mist[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Near-Term Bottom Seems To Be In Place

NOTE: Please click on the charts below to enlarge them if they do not appear clearly.A wild trading session kept both the bulls and bears on their toes yesterday, but stocks finally closed with a solid round of gains. The major indices gapped several percent lower on the open, attempted to recover in the first hour, then dipped to new intraday lows by mid-day. Buyers subsequently arrived in full force several hours later, reversing staggering losses in many sectors. Whipping around in a breathtaking 600-point intraday range, the Dow Jones Indus[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Google Search Share Drops Slightly, Yahoo Gains In December

Latest results from Comscore show a slight drop of 0.2 percentage points in Google’s share of search in December 2007 compared with November 2007 to 58.4 percent.Second place Yahoo gained 0.5 percentage points to 22.9 per cent over the same period.Third place Microsoft remained at 9.8 per cent.Fourth place Times Warner gained 0.1 per cent to 4.6 per cent.Ask lost 0.3 percentage points to 4.3 per cent.ComScore said: Americans conducted 9.6 billion searches at the core search engines, representing a 3.9-percent decline versus Nov[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Early Morning Futures

from The Big Picture: I assume that readers of this blog do not need to be told not to panic or do anything reckless. (Gee, where did those frothing uber-bull trolls in comments go?). If you want to gamble, use a tiny amount of cash to dabble in some long dated calls -- but days like today are no reason to attempt any foolish heroics.But for now, here’s a snapshot of the futures:Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

And On The 6th Day-- They Rallied

Nice finish to the market today. This morning, when the market was down -300 points, I pinged a trading buddy of mine and asked him if anyone thought that the market could actually finish higher today. He laughed. But the market soon began to trade higher, as it looked like the sellers had finally exhausted themselves. The financials had been higher all day, and more stocks began to participate. When the news came out that some NY regulators were looking to provide aid to the ailing mortgage insurers, the market took off. By the time the closing bell rang, [...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Are We Getting Closer To A Bottom?

The market opened sharply lower today, but quickly rebounded after the initial woosh down. Many talking heads were looking for signs of panic to signify a market bottom, and I think we saw some of that today.Even in terrible markets like 2001-02, the market would get strong bounces after getting oversold. This year, trying to pick a bottom has been like trying to find a needle in a haystack. So while I do not want to sit here and say today was the bottom, I am seeing more and more signs that we should bottom soon. To wit:The volatility index (VIX) hit its [...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

How Do You Compete With Homegain And Trulia?

I just announced this to my list. I welcome you to join us too: Find out in Two Hours. At 12 Noon Pacific today I share with you insider information that will shift your thinking forever on online marketing. You...[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Gap Down To Long-term Support?

NOTE: Please click on the charts below to enlarge them if they do not appear clearly.A modest rally attempt promptly fizzled out last Friday morning, sending stocks lower for another session. However, the major indices stabilized at mid-day, helping minimize the losses. The S&P 500 lost 0.6%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average 0.5%, and the Nasdaq Composite 0.3%. The small-cap Russell 2000 fell 1.1%, continuing its slide to another 52-week low. The S&P Midcap 400 closed 0.4% lower. All the main stock market indexes closed in the bottom third of their intraday ranges.[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Marketwatch Alerts, You’re Making Things Worse

Just in case anyone needs to be reminded that there is a global stock market meltdown in progress, MarketWatch Alerts are coming fast and furious to inboxes all around the world.Though I’m sure I signed up for news like this, I don’t remember checking the box that resulted in football scores arriving yesterday afternoon, spoiling all the fun for those of us who watch these games on a Tivo delay.
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[Source: The Money Blogs]

How To Make Your New Home Walk Through A Success!

Ah the joy of a new property. After months of frustration or elation (depending on your experience) you receive a letter (depending on your builder 30 - 45 days prior to possession) announcing your possession walk through dates. More and more I am getting contacted by people with new properties (imagine that), and I am noticing a disturbing trend among the builders: they are preventin[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Questioning The Employment Data

San Diego had another pretty good month for job growth, according to data released last week by the California Employment Development Department. Unfortunately, you may not want to believe the numbers.Let&039;s see what they have to say, first.read more at voiceofsandiego.orgRead More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Earnings Season Starts With Disappointing Guidance

The market is under pressure again this morning, although it has come well off its early lows. The main culprits were the earnings reports from Apple (AAPL) and Motorola (MOT). Both companies beat expectations, but offered guidance well below consensus, and that hit both stocks.Also, the ECB President made it clear that he is still concerned with inflation, which basically takes an ECB rate cut off the table. That hit the European stock markets in a big way. I’m not sure what this guy is smoking?Oil[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Fed Slashes Rates

CNN: "The U.S. Federal Reserve dramatic 75-basis point cut in interest rates Tuesday intensified speculation that other central banks could soon follow in slashing the cost of credit...The Bank of Canada, which had already been easing interest rates, on Tuesday again cut its interest key rate by 25 basis points to 4.0%. It was unclear if the steps were concerted, nor werer there signs of similar moves among other central banks Tuesday. But markets speculated that the big Fed cut could usher in a new era of falling interest rates globally."Globe and Mail: "The U.S. Fed[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Odds And Ends

Ubertor gets some love on TechCrunch.comAvi Wilensky interviews Craig Newmark on Online Real EstateThis guy’s back, after a months-long hiatus, with his predictions for 2008Eric Bramlett got some [...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Fed Rate Cut: Too Little, Too Late?

Asian markets had been getting pummeled for 2 days coming into this morning. Our futures were pointing to a very weak open for stocks here in the U.S. The the Fed announced that they were cutting the fed funds rate by 75 basis points to 3.50%.The Fed said that the cut was needed due to a "weakening economic outlook and increasing downside risks to growth"? Well, duh. But we knew all this last week, so why wait until now.The answer of course, is that the Fed wanted to head off a true panic in the markets. But they still show that th[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

A new property craze - knock 'em down, build 'em up

The credit crunch is top dog in the news, but out there in the suburbs no ones listening, because theres a new craze sweeping wealthy commuterland - buying houses and knocking them down

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[Source: This is Money | Money blog]

Suicide By Seo

With some likening the MLS to a public utility and other clamouring to set the listings free, a lesson may be learned from the Yellow Pages new deal with Google.Yellow Pages contemplating suicide by SEO[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Sears To Split Up Businesses, Adopt Holding Company Structure

Sears Holdings (SHLD) Chairman Eddie Lampert has decided to move the company one step closer to a Berkshire Hathaway model, according to a story by the Wall Street Journal yesterday. The new holding company structure will split up Sears into as many as three dozen separate businesses, each with its own operating executive. The move is seen as an admittance that the current structure was not working to boost the company’s retailing operations, and therefore focusing on each aspect of the company’s assets individually will allow for greater control and change. This is similar to the Buffett mode[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Not Such A Crazy Idea, Three Years On

Co-workers must have raised their eyebrows at us too after we cashed in and became renters back when the housing bubble was still inflating. Naturally, you expect home prices to plummet as soon as the check is deposited but it almost never works that way.Still, it’s probably better to sell while prices are going up rather than to bear the agony of chasing prices down - maybe for years - as you reluctantly give back gains for which you already had plans.A nice article by Peter Y. Ho[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Riddle Me This

Why is the real estate industry compensated for the value of the properties it sells and not the value of the service its agents provide? Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Crisis Of Leadership

For all of ’07 retail and wholesale revenues of U.S businesses were up vs 2006. Black Friday shoppers turned out in bigger numbers and spend more than any prior year. American households have more discretionary income than-ever! November was the 51st consecutive month of job growth. Net wages grew by more than inflation. Unemployment remains at historic levels.[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Sort your life out in your lunchbreak

If you don't seem to have time to sort out even the most vital paperwork, fear not. I've created This is Not Work, an oasis of simple tasks and tips that you can tackle over lunch.

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[Source: This is Money | Money blog]

Buying A Home South Of The Border

Today we have a guest author - a Realtor from Phoenix, Arizona. He’s been helping a lot of Albertans buy property in Phoenix lately, and has found a lot of us have the same questions. He contacted us and asked if he could answer some of these frequently asked questions here on the blog and we thought it was a great idea. I don’t the first thing about buying real estate in Phoenix so do your homework before yo[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

The Big Picture For The Week Of Jan 20, 2008

My recollection of Norway was incorrect.[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Interesting ETFs

The stock market offers,as you know, a lot of opportunities day after day. I did some money in the last week from a group of ETFs that I never traded before. So came that my best profits in the last time came from an unexpected profitable trade in this group.The stock was PROSHARES TR(SKF) and it performs 2X (Ultra Short) the financial sector. The ETF offered a low-risk entry-point on Wednesday an[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Taking A Blender To Todays Online Marketing

Social NetworksWhy web 2.0 is nothing new and has been around since 1988. How thinking in terms of the web as an extension of your brand, and your comments on Social media are mini billboards. Elevating these conversations are crucial to increasing your relevancy across the whole web.[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Newswatch 1.17.08: Your Internet Meter Is Running

MSFT names Disney exec to CIO position[NYT] Tony Scott, who most recently was CIO at Walt Disney, will take over that same role at Microsoft in February, reporting to Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner. Scott, who also will be a corporate vice president at Microsoft, replaces Stuart Scott, who departed the company in November.The online meter is running[Reuter[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Memo To Bernanke: Stop Talking

It seems that all of these Fed-heads, including Bernanke, keep making endless comments, and it just helps to drive stocks lower. They should all just stop talking. Silly Fed.The market closed near its lows again today, although there were a handful of tech and biotech stocks that bucked the weakness.Also, many fear guages really spiked today. And I mean really.The ISEE hit a new record (intraday) low of 23The CBOE put/call closed at 1.48, near panic levelsThe volatility index ([...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Unlisted Properties Represent Opportunity For Proactive Home Buyers

This graph of active listings versus unlisted properties during the 4th quarter of 2007 reveals two significant trends behind today’s lead[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

What Long-term Uptrend Line?

The S&P 500 sliced through key support of its five-year uptrend line that we illustrated in yesterday’sWagner Daily, triggering major downward momentum throughout the rest of the day. The benchmark S&P 500 suffered a 2.9% decline, the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 2.5%, and the Nasdaq Composite fell 2.0%. The small-cap Russell 2000 and S&P Midcap 400 indices lost 2.8% and 2.9% respectively. As with many days this month, stocks closed at their worst levels of the session.<[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Credit Default Swap Problems

Back in November 2006, I wrote a long-ish piece about credit default swaps. These financial instruments, known for short as CDSs, basically function as insurance policies against borrowers defaulting on loans. In (very) brief, the premise of the article was that some CDS issuers, which we can think of as insurers, probably didn&039;t have enough money to cover the losses once homeowners started defaulting en masse. Once this came to light, I wrote at the time, it could cause a tightening of c[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Down Down Down

Thursday another day where the bears grabbed hold and didnt let go all day long. Even though all the broader markets moved down we did see split volume today. The NYSE and the S&P 500 along with the Dow all had heavier volume, but the Nasdaq had lighter volume than yesterdays. This just shows that the broader based technology index held up slightly better and didnt get the heavier participation on the sell off. The Nas Com[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Do Weak January&#8217;s Lead To A Weak Yearly Performance

So far in 2008 the S&P 500 is down just over 9%. Since 1960 the S&P 500 has finished with a negative return in January only 17 times as shown by the table below. When the S&P 500 has finished with a negative January return there have only been 3 years (2003, 1982 and 1968) in which the S&P 500 has ended the year with a gain greater than 5%. Thus in 14 out of 17 years (82%) the S&P 500 has finished the year with either a marginal gain (5% or less) or a loss. The worst performing years were in 1974 [...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Bernanke Speaks, Market Declines...go Figure

The market was getting a bounce at the open, but two events hit it and caused it to quickly go back into the red.The first was the Philly Fed survey, which hit its lowest number since October 2001. That’s a pretty weak reading, related to manufacturing.The other factor was that Bernanke began his speech. I have commented on my dislike for this Chairman, and the fact that the market seems to go down nearly every time he opens his mouth tells me I’m not the only one that feels this way.He didn’t really say anything new, othe[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Love Hotel Bail-out

It costs millions to renovate a decent love hotel. Patrons want the latest in love hotel accoutrements and decor. It’s expensive. All well and good in the roaring 80s when credit flowed like water, but not today. That’s when niche funds like MHS Capital Partners, an offshore private equity firm, and Tokyo’s Global Financial Support Co. (GFS) investment group come in and securitize them. At 8.4 percent annual returns, pink real estate funds are arousing interest in individual and institutional in[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Market Bounces Ahead Of President&#8217;s Speech

Now you know why I don’t like strong market opens. Again today, the market opened on a very strong note, but it has since faded. This erodes confidence. Of course, we have the President speaking today, where he will announce his fiscal stimulus package. Let’s hope it’s something substantial.I still hold that the Fed could have avoided the need for a big fiscal stimulus package if they had just acted sooner with bigger rate cuts. And you don’t have to e-mail me and tell me that that would have spurred more inflation and a weaker dollar. I’m su[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Rebate Wish List: Home Buyers, What Would You Do With A Tax Rebate Plus A Real Estate Rebate?

Pull quotes from: Bush backs $145 billion economic planThe president and Congress are scrambling to take action as fears mount that a severe housing slump and painful c[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Open Thread

So I was at a Marin middle school today. The teacher in one class was lecturing to a classroom of mostly 13-year-olds. The topic was global warming and its anticipated effects -- loss of habitat, changing weather patterns, flooding, extinction of polar bears and other creatures, human diaspora, famine, disease, etc.One of the students rais[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Pitbull Of Local Real Estate

So, the big news in our neck of the woods from Rain City Guide is Russ Cofano has taken a position with John L. Scott Real Estate as Vice President and General Counsel.Russ was the long time counsel to the Washington Associationof REALTORS and played a crucial role in significant events impacting the Washington real estate industry. He wrote for Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

How Many Users Watch Video?

Half of All Users Watch or Share Video Pew Internet and American Life Project says that 48% net users have visited a video-sharing site like YouTube at least once to watch or post a video. This is an increase over the 33% number in December 2006. [...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Yahoo Go On My Blackberry

I switched to GMail about 2 years ago, but I have kept my Yahoo email account around so it can forward everything automatically to GMail. But today, because of Jerry Yang’s CES Keynote, which makes it clear that Yahoo is going to become very friendly to third party developers, and because Yahoo Mail still has more users (I think) than GMail, I decided that I would download Yahoo Go! to my Blackberry, and start using YahooMail again, so I can keep my feet in both camps.My company email will still be GMail based, but I’ve got a ton of contacts in Yahoo that I never transferred[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Beige Book Shows What We Already Knew

The market is well off its lows from this morning, and is on the fringe of going positive for the session. This would make for a nice turnaround day on a day when we broke below the August lows in the morning.The Fed’s Beige Book was just released, which gives a snapshot of economic activity among the various Fed districts. I didn’t say anything we didn’t already know. But here are the highlights:Reports from the twelve Federal Reserve Districts suggest that economic activity increased modestly during the survey period of mid-November through December[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Gun The Printing Presses And Hope For The Best

It occurred to me after a few minutes of watching Ben Stein on Larry Kudlow’s show this afternoon that, unless there is another asset class out there that can be inflated in order to once again temporarily delay the inevitable "easy money sobering up" process that has been due for many years, it is going to be a rather hard slog for the U.S. economy for some time to come.What’s most disturbing about our collective long-term prospects is that all anyone really talks about today is how much and how quickly the Fed needs to cut interest rates, how much and how soon fiscal stimulus sh[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Lifestyles Of The Rich And Zesty

Zillow announced an upgrade to their site a few days ago, one which increases the number of homes with Zestimates and also significantly changes their models and algorithms to attempt to give a better ultimate home value. The new algorithm takes into account owner and agent-edited facts that have been made by their community of users.Since everyone’s daughter is the prettiest girl at the prom, I’m sure it will be difficul[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

No Intraday Rallies, Market Closes At Its Lows

Nice day in the market, huh? The market really never lifted, and closed at its lows.After hours, Intel (INTC) reported disappointing earnings, and the stock was down a lot. That should make for a weak open tomorrow morning, which will surely mean that we break below the August lows.This marks a change in character for the market, which has not made a lower low in the charts for a few years. I have been lightening up and getting more defensive because of this possibility.I have seen more and more indicators this week that lead me to raise [...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Dendreon Bulls Not A Cult, But Wild Optimists

by Michael ShulmanBiotechBlitzThe Dendrreon (DNDN) bulls are not exactly a cult. Cult is not the right word -- I would say they are an unreasonably large number of wild optimists who love the stock they own, always a dangerous thing.A little history for new readers.In my paid service I recommended DNDN for several years and said they would get an FDA panel approval. Only the folks at Biotech Stock Resear[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Today&#8217;s Open: Down

Major Averages’ Rise On Lighter Volume Leaves Questions About ConvictionPICTURED BELOW: The Nasdaq Composite rallied +1.57%, below the +1.7% threshold needed to produce a sound follow-through day, on the fourth day of its rally attempt. Volume was also light, whereas an expansion in trading volume would offer a more reassuring sign of institutional accumulation."U.S. stock futures continued their zig-zag pattern, heading lower on Tuesday as Citigroup and Merrill Lynch received massive overseas investments in response to housing ma[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Needed: Transparent Government And Transparent Media Coverage Of Elections

I am tempted sometimes to wring my hands in despair at the sorry state of the Federal Government, at our $8+ trillion national debt, at our incredibly low popularity ratings around the world, even from our allies, at our lack of global competitiveness in some key industries, of our economic slowdown, and most of all, at the incredibly biased and inane media coverage of politics and elections.But then I think about how the internet is changing everything, and how the ideas of openness and transparency and collaboration for the common good are powerful and viral and may never be able [...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Market Has Poor Reaction To Citi&#8217;s Earnings

If everyone and their mother knew that Citi’s earnings were going to be bad, and that they would take a huge writedown, then why is it hurting the market so much?Citi (C) reported a larger EPS loss than expected, and took an $18.1 billion write-down on subprime and fixed income. They also had a $4.1 billion increase in credit costs due to estimated losses on consumer loans. Citi also cut its dividend by 40%, to save capital, and will sell $2 billion in securities to raise money.The comments on their consumer loans is hurting retail stocks, as it incre[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Boosterism And December Foreclosures

The Union-Tribune&039;s latest monthly housing data wrapup features a parade of industry types saying that now is the time to buy. A few of them acknowledge the inventory glut, but not a single one happens to note that homes are still far too expensive in comparison to rents and [...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Facebook Strategy Lunch For Utah Executives

I organized a Facebook Group for Utah CEOs who have a Facebook strategy or want to develop one. I wish I could change the name of the Facebook Group, but Facebook doesn’t allow that. I can see why. What if someone set up a group called "Mothers Against Drunk Driving" and got a million members, and then arbitrarily decided to change the name of the group to "We Love Beer." The creator of a group can control a lot of things, but can’t change the name after people have joined it.If I could change the group name I would broa[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Asset Location And The Use Of Multiple Accounts

Investors have multiple accounts to minimize, delay and avoid taxation. Assets are taxed when a capital gain is realized or when income is received through coupon payments or dividends. Taxes can be delayed with a Traditional IRA, 401k or 403B plan. Taxes can be avoided by using a ROTH IRA or ROTH [...][...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

A 92-year Old Finger Pointed Squarely At The Fed

Geez, the next thing you know, Milton Friedman is going to rise from the grave to condemn former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan. In this report from the Telegraph U.K., Ambrose Evans Pritchards explains:As rebukes go in the close-knit world of central banking, few hurt as much as the scathing indictment of US Federal Reserve policy by Professor Anna Schwartz.
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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Semiconductor HOLDR (SMH) - Another Short-Term Bounce Setup

NOTE: Please click on the charts below to enlarge them if they do not appear clearly.Largely blowing off the bullish mid-week reversal, the stock market sustained another round of substantial, broad-based losses last Friday, The Nasdaq Composite swooned 2.0%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average 1.9%, and the S&P 500 1.4%. The small-cap Russell 2000 and S&P Midcap 400 indices fell 2.2% and 1.4% respectively. A modest bounce in the final forty-five minutes of trading lifted stocks off the session’s lows, but each of the main stock market indexes still fini[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Will News Rule The Week Or Buyers Look For Bargains?

Friday closed another day in the red, off the weeks lows, but another big losing day. Volume dropped off on Friday, leaving Thursday and Friday to have lower volume than the first half of the week. Our week was pretty nasty despite the two day bounce we saw on Wednesday and Thursday. The Nasdaq 100 and Nasdaq composite on the weekly and daily charts are short term oversold, the S&P 500 along with the Dow are short term oversold on the daily, but not the weekly. The bank sector did eke out a win on the week, but that was the only key sector to manage tha[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Weekend Watcher: When Bloggers Sing ...

The delightful Teresa Valdez Klein sings. From the Intel blogger event in Las Vegas, CES2008.TeresaCentric Blog[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

Not long ago I was raving about someone who took a picture of one of their properties from their car. How could I tell? The car’s side door mirror was in the immediate foreground of the picture.&nbs[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

My New Personal Facebook Strategy

I have been a serious user of social networks since joining LinkedIn several years ago&8211;the fourth person in Utah to join, as I recall. My friend Michael Tanne, now CEO of Wink.com, turned me onto it. Of my 858 connections, I think I personally know about 98% of them. I have turned down a ton of connection requests because I really did want to be part of a trusted network. But I read that you should connect to a couple recruiters and a couple of the most networked people in the world, and I did, and it has dramatica[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Swanepoel Trends Report 2008

Stefan Swanepoel author of the Real Estate Trends Reports 2006 & Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Surprising Strength At Ibm Boosts Market

I don’t like to see these big up opens in the market, but I did like the news out of IBM. The company said that results would top expectations, with earnings rising +24%. The firms said strength was driven by Asia, Europe, and Emerging Markets.This helped give a boost to the tech market, with the Nazz leading the way so far today. Ag stocks are also on fire.The market is pricing in bigger rate cuts, and this is driving the dollar lower today. I admit I was worried when I saw the Yen up, but I think today its being driven interest ra[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Canslim.net Morning Comment and Links (for traders)

MORNING MARKET COMMENTARYfor Monday, January 14, 2008Major Averages Led Lower By Retail and Tech Group Weakness - Kenneth J. Gruneisen, CANSLIM Certified, Registered Principal, Source Capital Group, Inc. (Members NASD, SIPC)The major US averages ended lower for a second straight week as the ongoing credit crunch and housing woes have led the benchmark S&P 500 Index to its worst start since 1991. Friday was Day 3 of the market’s current rally attempt. Wednesday marked Day 1 of a new rally attempt, and as long [...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Now, What Do You Think Will Happen To Housing Prices In 2008 & Beyond?

Please take a few minutes to update this survey of housingprice expectations in Massachusetts after a week of negative housingheadlines. This survey is being conducted independently by
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[Source: The Money Blogs]

$100 Laptops, $2500 Cars

In this morning’s post I mentioned low cost cars coming from India. Today Business Week reported that Ratan Tata’s new $2,500 car, called the Nano, is being met with "extreme enthusiasm" and is going to put India on the map in the auto world. CrunchGear indicates that Tata plans to introduce the Nano to other low income areas like Africa and South America in the next four years.May[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

?tax Reduction And Reform Act Of 2007? (h.r. 3970)

The TaxReduction and Reform Act of 2007 (H.R. 3970) is stillon the table. If enacted, it could have profound tax consequences for traders. By Robert A. Green, CPAYou all know the popular line, ’There are two things that are certain in life:death and taxes.’ Thereis another certainty this coming year and that is that Democrats andRepublicans wi[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

The new barometer of High Street misery

Retailers are tackling falling sales by employing armies of security personnel - armed with walkie talkies - to show publicly how bad the company is performing

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[Source: This is Money | Money blog]

Sellers&#8217; Expectations

How true it is. And in Marin? Lots of sellers still asking, no expecting, no feeling entitled to prices from a[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Morning Look: Financials Trading Higher

It looks like the vote is skewing towards the ’end of day’ preference. That’s fine, I just wanted to get an idea of what is more helpful. I will still post morning comments frequently as well.This morning, the market is opening on a down note, although the market has recovered from early losses the last couple of days. Consumer worries are weighing on the market after American Express (AXP) warned about increasing consumer defaults. This follows yesterday’s cautious comments from Capital One (COF).But the financials are trading high[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Waiting?.

Real Estate Scientists are a No-Show[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

World Vital Records Record Visitors And Page Views

World Vital Records President David Lifferth keeps the company well informed about our key metrics. I got this information from him yesterday in an email: "Yesterday, Jan 8th, we set an important traffic record on WVR. For the first time ever, we surpassed 300,000 page views in a single day. We had 336,665, which was a big jump over our previous best of 294,000. The last record was set in Nov 27th, 2007. We had come within a few thousand page views of that record for every day so far this month. I knew we were going to break that old record any day. The newsletter and[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Amt Patch For 2007

December 19, 2007Another annual ’patch’ for AMT in 2007.As a short-term remedy (’extender’ or ’patch’), while big tax changeproposals are being debated (which include AMT), Congress once againacted to temporarily fix AMT for the current tax year (2007); in thesame way they have patched it for years past with no new taxincreases to pay for it.One of the big problems with AMT is that by-law its not indexed forinflation; whereas regular income tax rates and most phase-ins andphase-outs (for deductions and credits) are indexed for i[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

December Housing Data

The size-adjusted median resale price was absolutely crushed in December:read more[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Notes From Nicholas Negroponte Keynote At Ces (1-9-08)

Thanks to my brother Curt who taught me to be inspired by visionaries, I always make an effort to hear the great thinkers and movers and shakers in person. It is so much different and better than hearing about it later. Nothing, for example, was better than attending the Facebook Platform launch event in May 2007, and even meeting Mark Zuckerberg afterwards in person. I’ve heard Marc Andreesen in person (2001), Bill Gates (2003ish), Larry Page (2005), Jerry Yang, Guy Kawasaki multiple times, Mary Meeker (2000), Bill Joy (2001), and many other influential VCs and entrepreneurs. One o[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Why Should I Invest In Something That&#8217;s Declining In Value?

Paul, I’ve been reading your articles online and your book. I’m trying to implement one of your suggested portfolios using Vanguard funds. Both the Small Cap Index Fund and Small Cap Value Index are showing loses for last year and already down for this year. I’m certainly reluctant to purchase these when they’ve been losing money. Do you have any suggestions for alternative funds? You and millions of other investors are facing one of the toughest aspects of investing. Investors are much more comfortable investing in funds when they are up rather than when they are[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Reader Poll

Question: Given the choice between an opening commentary on the market, or one at the close, which would you prefer:An opening look at early trading in the market?An end of day wrap up on the market action?
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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Realtor&#8217;s Association Of Edmonton Economic Forecast 2008

The newly name Realtors Association of Edmonton held its annual economic forecast seminar for the 20th year on Wednesday. I was delighted to get up at 5am after arriving the day before in Edmonton after 15 hours of travel, with only about 2 hours sleep in 48. Sara bailed on me...something to do with a cold. Anyway I met Gord McCallum for breakfast, the president, CEO , founder and owner of First Foundat[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

How To Shake Out The Best 2008 Stocks

If you’re like most stock traders, you want to speed up the trading activities that take up most of your time.Click here for your complimentary 49-page guide that reveals a critical time-saving tactic that all successful traders use.Let’s be honest, it’s not a lot of fun spending hours staring at charts trying to find the bes[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

House price crash 2008 - will the bears be right?

Will house price crash be the catch phrase for 2008? The doom mongers think so. But asked if I would stand by my prediction of very low average price rises, I said 'yes' - for now.

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[Source: This is Money | Money blog]

Picking The Bottom

In a letter to clients on January 4, 2008, Laszlo Birinyi noted that based on current models the trading range for the S&P 500 indicated a bottom at the 1378 level. A chart of the S&P 500 on 1/9/08 and that bulletin are shown below.Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Goodbye Bull Market, Hello Bear

The best news is that all of this will pass. All preceding financial crises have. The bad news is that there will be more bad news. What started as bum subprime loans has now morphed into a full-blown bank credit crisis. Loans by banks are the oil that lubricates the economy, keeps its wheels turning. Without that oil, the gears will grind to a halt, factories won’t be built, buildings won’t be constructed, people will lose their jobs, etc. All previous financial crises were finite -- we knew how much Mexico needed to right itself; we knew how to stem Long Term Capital Management’s problem; we[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Ces 2008?for Me, It?s About Facebook

I’m in Las Vegas for CES 2008. Last night on my drive from Provo I listened to some podcasts in the Stanford Entrepreneur Lecture Series. (You can download them for free from iTunes or from Stanford’s web site.) The most interesting was Mark Zuckerberg’s talk 2 years ago when Facebook had 5 million users and was still limited to authenticated college students and invited high school students. It was growing by 20,000 member per day, was generating $1 million per month in revenue, was cash flow positive, had taken mo[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Was That The Bottom?

Today we finally got some constructive action in the market. Actually, today had many of the same characteristics of the August 16th market bottom.Today was a high-volume reversal. The market was down big intraday, but reversed higher to close[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

All Hail The King

RisMedia notes How Graceland Celebrates the King’s Birthday.Become a member of Elvis Candlelight and promote a greater understanding of Spirit through the example and spiritual seeking of Elvis Presley during his life time, and h[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

What A Way To Start The New Year!

Well Happy New Year to everyone! I hope everyone is recovering from their Christimas dinners and New Years parties, and are looking forward to a banner year! I certainly am, despite some of the bad news we’ve seen these first few weeks of ’08. For those of you hiding your heads in the sand and peeking out every once in a while to see how bad it’s really getting, here’s a brief recap:

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Best Money-savings Tools & Trends For Home Buyers In 2008?

The Real Estate Cafe’s "Booth Sleuth" is eager to attend the leading real estate technology conference in New York t[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Expired & Canceled Listings Soar In Ma As Petitions To Foreclose Approach Mls Sales

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

From Stocks To Housing To Precious Metals

We were out doing our civic duty in support of the economy today with another day-long trip to Costco - it didn’t seem to help any as equity markets plunged again and the outlook for housing became even more grim, if that’s possible.Juxtaposed to the numerous "Avoid Foreclosure" signs and mixed in with the "Are you in over your head in credit card debt?" commercials on the radio were two commercials enticing listeners to buy gold.You know that the public is starting to get involved when you start hearing ads on the radio which are obviously some company’s scheme to sepa[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

When Will The Pattern Be Broken?

I hate to see the market down, but I also am tired of all of these strong opens that fade into the close. Yesterday’s late day selloff was very disheartening for the bulls. Maybe we can break the trend today, and have one day where the market closes higher.Goldman Sachs (GS) made comments this morning that they think the trend in jobs mean a recession is likely. This Goldman economist has been on the bandwagon for a little while, so these comments are not really new.More Fed-head speak, as St. Louis President Poole said U.S. fundamen[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Money For Nothing

I found this video over at the most excellent The Mess That Greenspan Made
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[Source: The Money Blogs]

What are banks playing at?

My first few months at This is Money have been peppered with daily e-mails detailing the galling fashion in which many banks treat their customers

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[Source: This is Money | Money blog]

Nasdaq Makes It Eight In A Row

Talk about going down in a straight line? I can’t remember the last time I saw the Nazz down this many days in a row.The market was actually looking very nice with a couple hours to go, but then the comments by the CEO of AT&T, and the trading in Countrywide (CFC) and others proved to be too worrisome, and investors sold stocks into the close.A reader asked me if I see any silver linings? Sure. I know it’s hard to remain constructive during these corrections, but if you go back and look at all the big corrections we’ve had si[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

My Smoking Ban

New Year resolutions are boring - and quitting smoking may be the most hackneyed of them but it is still not quite as bad as the whole giving up drink for the month of January tomfoolery

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[Source: This is Money | Money blog]

Another Early Market Bounce

The market got a strong bounce in early trading, but seems to be giving most of it back at the moment. This is exactly what happened on Monday, and is one of the reasons you always hear me say that I don’t like strong opens in the market. I would much prefer early weakness, and then have the market rally into the close. Maybe that can still happen today.The Yen peaked on Friday, and is down today for the 2nd day in a row. I don’t want to see the FXY take out its November high. A lower high on the charts would be better.Sentiment remains highly nega[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

December Home Prices

I&039;m going to get the whole December resale data rodeo up very soon. In the meantime, here&039;s a quick look at the pummeling taken by prices (as measured by our imperfect indicators, of course).For the month of December, the size-adjusted median price was down 4.6% for single family homes, 5.8% for condos and 5.0% overall. That&039;s right, for the month. The graph below shows the declines from the peak.The plain vanilla median fared even worse, for what that&039;s worth, down 6.4% in a single month. More to come...Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

What The Vxo Is Telling Me Now

I like to use the VIX (or VXO) as a tool for timing the market. When looking at the VXO I normally relate it to a short-term moving average rather than looking at absolute levels. Below is one test I ran this weekend that I found particularly interesting. I looked to see what happened if you bought the S&P 500 under the following conditions: 1) The VXO closes at least 10% above its 10-day moving average for 3 days in a row. 2)  [...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Can The Market Shake The Bears This Week?

Friday was a big ouch and a call to the emergency room for the market. The blood red day across the broader markets on volume that is back over the 50dma. The second half of the week we saw a lot of participation come back in the market, but it is all on the selling side. The last drop of this caliber was February 27, 2007, which was also a gap down on bad news and sold off throughout the day. The following day resulted in a small bounce then more selling for almost a month before the market recovered the lost ground and headed up until we saw the highs in July.&[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Waiting For Proper Short Sale Entry Points

NOTE: Please click on the charts below to enlarge them if they do not appear clearly.The broad market suffered a severe beating in the first week of the new year, as stocks swooned on higher volume last Friday. The major indices gapped lower on the open, moved lower throughout the morning, consolidated for a few hours, then suffered another bout of selling in the afternoon. The Nasdaq Composite plummeted 3.8%, its biggest single-day loss in nearly a year. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 2.5% and 2.0% respectively. The small-cap Russell [...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Some November, 2007 Data

The following is November, 2007 data that was sent to me by a Marin RE agent. I added the columns in red since for some reason that I cannot fathom they were missing from the original. I’m sure it was just an oversight on her part.(Click on image for larger view)Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

What The Vxo Is Telling Me Now

I like to use the VIX (or VXO) as a tool for timing the market. When looking at the VXO I normally relate it to a short-term moving average rather than looking at absolute levels. Below is one test I ran this weekend that I found particularly interesting. I looked to see what happened if you bought the S&P 500 under the following conditions: 1) The VXO closes at least 10% above its 10-day moving average for 3 days in a row. 2) &nb[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Silver Wheaton: Pure Play On Silver Prices

If you’re bullish about the outlook for silver prices and have a little mad money to throw around, take a look at Silver Wheaton (NYSE: SLW), the only company that derives 100% of its revenue from silver sales.[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

December Recap & January Newsletter

.Download The January 2007 Spider Juicer newsletter (coming soon)Subscribe to the most recent posts. Find out when a new article is posted. Click HereDecember Recap
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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Will A Small Win Put The Bulls Back On Top?

Thursday left a mixed close across the broader markets on slightly lighter volume. Volume just under paced yesterdays, but it did show a digestion day from yesterdays big expansion range. The Nasdaq Composite did close red and the S&P 500 closed with no change leaving the Nas 100 and Dow to close green. Overall was just a very narrow range day leaving many inside days in the broader markets and even key sectors. Gold rallied again today to close up $8.80 at $868.80 an ounce and oil closed down 44 cents at $99.18, after hitting $100.05 after the inventory data rel[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

The Silver Lining On This Morning&#8217;s Jobs Report

The market is getting hit on this morning’s weak jobs report. December payrolls grew just 18k (vs. +70k consensus), although last month’s figures were revised higher. But these figures are volatile from month-to-month, so extapolating today’s figures into the future could be a mistake.The 10-year yield plunged on the news, taking out recent lows and hitting 3.83%. So the concern about the economy is elevated. I think the silver lining of today’s data is that it should get the Fed to act quicker and stronger than before. If they think job growt[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Awakening From My Slacker Slumber?

The Implode-o-Meter suit has been settled and has been dismissed. The last paragraph of the statement made by the Implode-o-Meter’s author re-inspired me somewhat:We feel that the outcome of this suit represents only a partial victory for bloggers and internet-based public forums in general. The judge in our suit did agree that the site was indeed fundamentally focused on an important topic of public discourse. However, almos[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Solar Energy ETF Continues To Shine Brightly!

NOTE: Please click on the charts below to enlarge them if they do not appear clearly.Stocks attempted to rebound from their four-day losing streak yesterday morning, but the rally attempt fizzled out in the afternoon. By day’s end, most of the major indices settled near the flat line. The benchmark S&P 500 was flat, the Nasdaq Composite slipped 0.3%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.1%. Small and mid-caps showed significant relative weakness. The Russell 2000 and S&P Midcap 400 were lower by 1.1% and 0.7% respectively. All of the main s[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Consumer Stocks Getting Ready To Bounce?

Just a quick note as we are approaching the open and I’ve much to do... This morning’s gap down is putting some indicators I follow into extreme territorty - suggesting a strong bounce is likely in the next few days. I have developed a tool which attempts to measure the amount of capitualtion occuring in different groups. I will discuss this indicator in greater detail in a future post. Notable is that it is now beginning to hit significant levels in Consumer related stocks. One way to take advantage of this would be to begin [...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Top stories in 2007

Editor Andrew Oxlade reveals the top stories of the year, plus the big issues in blogs, polls and guides

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[Source: This is Money | Money blog]

Ag Play Is Still Working

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[Source: The Money Blogs]

Thousands Of Mls Page Views Over 2 To 4 Years: Will Bubble-wary Buyers Extend Wait Thru 2008?

Temperatures in Boston are approached zero yesterday which, regrettably for this fee-for-service real estate consultant, was about the le[...]

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[Source: The Money Blogs]