A Disappointing Session, But Not All Bad

The market was lower today on comments from Bernanke as well as disappointing economic data. But growth stocks held up reasonably well, and GOOG and AAPL were actually able to buck the weakness and go up for once.4Q GDP was left unrevised at 0.6% this morning. Many were hoping for some positive revisions that showed growth a bit stronger than first forecast, but there were no revisions.Bernanke spoke for a second day in front of Congress, and said that he though there might be some banks that fail, bu[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

My Latin America investment pays 37%

The Invesco Perpetual Latin American fund - my only investment last year - returned 37% in 2007. Here's why I chose it

Read More...

[Source: This is Money | Money blog]

Coinstar Inc . (cstr)

is the stock on WALLSTRIP today.<[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Gmail Gets Invisible Chat Option

We all love Google Talk for a bunch of reasons, but one thing which I always felt as missed out from Google Talk was the ability to appear offline to your contacts. Both Yahoo and Windows Live Messenger had this feature sine a long time, and they allowed me to stealthily chat with my close buddies, while staying focused on my work.Gmail’s built-in chat has now added a new status &8211; "invisible", which does exactly the same thing. You can appear offline to your contacts by choosing "invisible" fr[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Stirring It Up...

Some days you just need to stir things up. Why not, since September I’ve listened to shitidiots cry wolf about crashes and other crazy musings as to why the market is going down. Unfortunately for most of them who can barely scratch any credibility out of there nose it hasn’t happened. Oh but they do try... Then there’s those hopless optimists who feel the market is full of helium thereby rising to new heights for ever a[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

How To Turn Problems Into Opportunities In Today&#8217;s Real Estate Market

by Michael SextonRealEstateJournal.com, the Wall Street [...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Venture Capital In The Rockies Wrapup

I’m at the Beaver Creek Resort in Avon, Colorado today for the VentureCapital in the Rockies event.20 startup and growth companies, including 14 from Colorado and 4 fromUtah are here to present business plans to 200-300 venture capitalistsfrom 8 states. Our company, FamilyLink.com, was selected as apresenter. We each get 15 minutes and then 5-10 minutes of Q&A.Here is a brief rundown of the presenters:- Albeo Technologies (Colorado) markets solid-state lighting systemsbased on white light-emitted diode (LED) technolo[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Nice Day For The Bulls

When I saw the high put/call ratios early this morning, I thought they might help the market rally during the day. That proved to be the case, as the big stock buyback from IBM helped ignite some buying interest.The market also shook off the negative economic data, including home prices. In fact, the homebuilders index was the biggest gainer on the day, +3.55%. Retail and semis were the next winners on the day, while financials lagged.MBIA had its AAA rating reaffirmed today, which also emboldened the bulls. This do[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Holding Up The Stock Market

Oil is over $100 per barrel and gold is approaching $1000 per ounce. Consumer confidence just hit a 15 year low and every statistic about the housing bust just keeps on getting worse. Unemployment has spiked upward and so has price inflation. How has the stock market managed to hold its own under these conditions? One factor was the surprise cut in the Fed Funds rate, another was the announcement in the media of a bailout of Ambac and MBIA, the bond insurers. Now we have the rating agencies reaffirming their AAA rating on Ambac’s and MBIA’s credit ratings which must be maintained. [...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

S&P 500 Breaks Out To Eight Day Highs

S&P 500 Breaks Out To Eight Day HighsBy Harry Boxer, The Technical Trader (www.thetechtrader.com) The markets had a very strong close and put on a good show to start theweek. The day started out with a move down off of the late spike rallywe had on Friday, but they held initial support and then ralliedsharply to new session and 2-day highs. Then they started a 3-wavepullback that severely tested the session lows on the Nasdaq 100 butheld about 5 points above the lows on the S&P 500. When that heldth[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Silver At 28 Year Highs, Extends Huge Gains Over Night

METALS COMMENTS FROM BARCHART.COM:MAY COPPER: Longer term it is on major resistance at 379.50. The daily formed a key reversal top yesterday, sold off more today but then rallie[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Tuesday Makes Three For The Bulls

Tuesday left the bulls with three consecutive wins on increasing volume. After another round of bad economic data we saw the market holding support and moving up, then mid morning IBM announced a big buy back and they released their outlook for the year. A struggling tech sector got the shot in the arm it needed and gave the market a big boost. Big chip leadership is always a good thing for the market for broader participation. Gold rallied $7.70 to $948.20 an ounce and crude hitting on all cylinders closed up $1.67 to $100.90 a barrel. Bad data and high en[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

IBM Thinking?

IBM (IBM) excited the markets by announcing a $15 Billion share buy back. Trading near its 52 week high the timing seems right to drive the valuation higher. (Read executive stock option) As we all get excited about what is most likely a fundamentally good story lets ask a few questions.The $15 Billion is somewhat in excess of one years annual profits. Although the dividend has been increasing, it currently trades around 1.39% dividend yield. Income investors are probably not rushing to tie this one up. If you believe share prices go up because more people want to buy than sell[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Prediction Markets

Here’s my article for the latest issue of Townhall magazine:They say every politician has a price. So you want to buy John McCain? Hillary Clinton? You can do it, online. You can buy a futures contract betting that McCain, or Clinton -- or any other candidate -- is going to be the next president. Or you can bet on whether the GOP will recapture the House of Representatives. Or whether the US will bomb Iraq. Or capture Osama bin Laden. You can do it all in the brave new world of online prediction markets.That kind of gamble may not be for you. But the market p[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

"how Do You Contact Expired Listings?"

Question: "How Do You Contact Expired Listings?" Opt in here By opting into Steves list you can get his tips sent to you on how to "do" the real estate business. The above is a pretty good example of some...[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Existing Home Sales

A: Market players call it stabilization. Lets just review and you can draw your own conclusions based on the data released today by the always trustworthy NAR.Here are the datapoints for Existing Home Sales (Yahoo Finance):* Existing Home Sales Hit 9-Year Low* Sales of Existing Units Fall 0.4% From December & Down 23.4% From Year Ago; slowest sales pace on records going back to 1999* Median Prices Drop 4.6% From Ye[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

More Signs Of The Negativity Bubble

More signs of the negativity bubble surface on a daily basis.There are front page articles on stagflation fears, the media talks about bank write-downs endlessly, the general public thinks the odds of recession are near 100% [...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Ishares Basic Materials (iym) Breaking Out

NOTE: Please click on the charts below to enlarge them if they do not appear clearly.Stocks followed through on last Friday’s late-day rally, albeit with quite a bit of intraday chop and indecision. The broad market opened flat, rallied in the morning, retraced most of the move at mid-day, then grinded its way above the morning high later in the afternoon. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.5%, the S&P 500 1.4%, and the Nasdaq Composite 1.1%. Relative weakness in large-cap tech stocks held the Nasdaq’s gain in check, but small and mi[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Midday Check: Gentle Ben Testifies

The market shook off its early losses, even as Bernanke testifies before Congress. Doesn’t it seem like every time he goes on TV the market sells off?The big news today was that the housing authority OFHEO is going to remove its portfolio caps on Fannie and Freddie, which would greatly improve liquidity in the mortgage market. IBM made more positive comments about its business and outlook, which seems to be helping boost the tech sector. Many of these stocks have come down so much tha[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Search Engine Visibility

Search Engine Visibility Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Infiltrating A Conversation

I thought this interesting enough to post it here for your amusement and more importantly to see how one can market ideas often thru stealth means.[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

The Truth About Feedback

You’ve worked hard to get your home ready for showings, and big moment arrives and you get a call for an appointment or two or three.The buyers arrive at the appointed time and you head out so the buyers can view your home comfortably. Dreams of sugar plumb fairies dance about your head as you envision an over list price offer with no conditions on kitchen table when you return.As you return home [...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

How Often Should You Be "All In?"

My anatomy teacher in medical school would always be disappointed if anyone in the class got 100% of the answers correct on his tests. This was frustrating for the students. But the point was that if several students got 100% of the questions correct he couldnt stratify out the students performance. For instance if 3 students were to receive 100% correct test results--you really cant tell which of the 3 knew more information because they all would be bunched together without more challenging questions to show who really knew the most information. To take that concept a step further, if [...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

**** Scheduling Conflict ***

---------------------------I will not be making any morning posts tomorrow as I have to take my son in for ear tube surgery. It is a relatively minor surgery, but it is still no fun watching them put your little guy under. Hopefully I will be back at my trading desk by midday.---------------------------[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Cash Trades

Over the last few days several people have questioned, and a few even challenged me on the relatively large cash position I have been holding for most of this month. As I write this the S&P500 is down 3.8% for the year, the Small Cap Russell2000 index is off by 6.2%, the S&P500 is down nearly 6.2%, while the Nasdaq is down over 15%. At the worst levels the S&P500 had shed 15.5% for the year, the Nasdsaq 19.8% and the Russell2000 just over 16%. Since most Mutual Funds and Hedge Funds actually put in worse performance than the Indexes its likely that the majority of them are d[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

High End Homebuilders Try Low End

Mortgage expo could help untangle lending optionsfrom the East Valley Tribune, reports that with standards frequently changing in todays lending environment, navigating the mortgage world can be a formidable and confusing task for hopeful homeowners. Industry leaders in the Valley are hoping to educate and help borrowers stuck in bad loans and homebuyers starting the process. The Arizona Association of Mortgage Brokers is joining with the Arizona Association of Realtors, state Departme[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

America?s Most Miserable Cities

Misery is defined as a state of great unhappiness and emotional distress. The economic indicator most often used to measure misery is the Misery Index. The index, created by economist Arthur Okun, adds the unemployment rate to the inflation rate. It has been in the narrow seven-to-nine range for most of the past decade, but peaked over 20 in 1980. There is also a "Misery Score", which is the sum of corporate, personal, employer and sales taxes in different countries. Forbes decided to expand on the Misery In[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

50 Topics I Wish I Had Blogged About

I keep a Google doc called Blog Ideas. I have added a few dozen ideas to it in the last few months, and haven’t gotten around to blogging about very many of them. Right now, I’m looking at the Google doc on my new iphone (Google applications work beautifully on the iphone). Here are some of the blog ideas that I would have blogged about if I had more time:Record page views the last two days on WorldVitalRecords.comMy new Amazon Kindle: I love it!The new Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

The Absurdity That Is Marin Re

Do you remember this POS in Forest Knolls (also blogged here)? It was first listed for $449,000 at least as far back as February, 2006 (when I first blogged it). It then dropped price to $399,000 in March, 2007. No surprise, it is still on the market. Here is some info from the current listing:Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Another Angle On Job Growth

Jon Lansner, proprietor of the excellent Orange County Register real estate blog, pointed me at an alternate source of local job data after reading my recent article questioning the accuracy of the monthly BLS/EDD employment statistics. Like the monthly job report described in the latest article (the Current Employment Statistics or CES), this other data is also put together by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

More Pressure On Financial Stocks

The market is under some selling pressure in early trading led by weakness in the financial sector.Merrill Lynch (MER) downgraded Fannie (FNM) and Freddie (FRE) to Sell, citing weak credit trends. Also, a popular analyst said that another dividend cut is likely at Citi (C). This has the financials down over -1.0% so far.There were some favorable revisions to the recent PPI inflation figures, which is a good sign after the elevated CPI readings. The 10-year yi[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Gazza magic - money can't buy happiness part two

Despite being the first superstar English footballer for my generation, Paul Gascoigne has been proof that money doesn't necessarily bring happiness. Here's a bit of Gazza magic to brighten the day

Read More...

[Source: This is Money | Money blog]

Breaking: Some Towns Drowning In Homes

I did some research to see where things stand regarding single-family homes for sale throughout several Massachusetts cities and towns.My research was by no means exhaustive.Still, it gives a quick snapshot of the situation you may find yourself in, if you are thinking of selling your home ... or thinking of buying one.I chose ten cities / towns - several I thought were considered "upper-class" and "upper-middle class" and several I thought were considered "not" "upper-class" or "upper-middle class". I also included the Boston neighborhood of Dorchester, since it’s [...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Inflation + Credit Crunch Means Higher Mortgage Rates

A: A hot CPI number wakes everybody up to the FACT that commodity inflation is hitting consumer prices! Even those that say inflation is under control won’t be able to continue that argument with a straight face. This inflation trend will continue as long as commodity prices remain at these elevate levels; and that will last as long as our fed attempts to re-inflate our economy out of this credit mess. Meanwhile, this credit storm is now a full blown category 5 hurricane on so many levels and is hitting land at numerous points; analogy --> credit crisis is spreading! Put both t[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Comparing Bond Etfs

The below chart compares the performance of four T-bond ETFs since last July, when money started to flow out of stocks and into bonds. The four ETFs represent different durations in the yield curve. Through the middle of January, the top performer was the 20 + Year Bond Fund (TLT). Next in line was the 7-10 Year Bond Fund (IEF). That was followed by 3-7 Year Bond Fund (IEI), which was followed by the 1-3 Year Fund (SHY). The chart shows that the longer duration bonds did better than the shorter-term ones. That situation, however, may be changing. Over the last month, longer duration bon[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Chicken Little Stays In The Chicken Coup

Wednesday was essentially the mirror image of what we had on Tuesday, markets gapped lower across the board on worries of inflation, highlighted by the oil closing above $100 and various other commodities breaking to new all time highs. By the end of the day though, the market had shrugged off the bad news and moved higher. The Dow closed up 90 points to 12,427.26, while the Nasdaq gained about 21 points, closing at 2327.10. Volume was higher on both exchanges, particularly so on the Nasdaq, where it surged 18% from the prior days level. Advancing issues led declining ones by 21 to 13 o[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Fomc Minutes Show Fed Concerned Over Economic Growth

The FOMC minutes from the last meeting just came out, and paint a picture of a Fed that is finally concerned with the growth prospects of the economy, even though all the Fed-heads ever talk about in their speeches is inflation.Here are the highlights:Fed raises core inflation forecast to 2.0%-2.2% from 1.7%-1.9%Fed says decisive rate cut seen as ’reducing economic worries’Fed raises total inflation forecast to 2.1%-2.4% vs 1.8%-2.1%Fed Minutes says 50-basis-point ra[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Random Observations On A Historical Chart

I&039;ve been updating the FAQ list and I thought it would be interesting to denote the start of the Econo-Almanac on a chart of home valuations (ie, CPI-adjusted prices) and sales. I used the beginning of 2000 as the start date because I like round numbers:Sitting back and looking at this graph, a couple interesting observations jump out at me. read more
Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Bird&#8217;s Eye View: Wednesday, February 20, 2008

All throughout 2007 I’ve been saying that the CPI numbers have grossly understated the inflation we are witnessing in the US.It seems after every FOMC meeting, we heard comments like "core inflation has improved modestly", or "core" inflation has "modestly improved". What a bunch of garbage!Courtesy of Barron’s/
Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Boone Pickens Bets Oil Prices Will Fall

The market is getting a nice boost in early trading, let by several positive developments in the tech sector.Cisco (CSCO) was upgraded to Buy at Citi, RIMM raised its net subscriber guidance significantly, and Microsoft (MSFT) said it will be making a "significant" announcement this morning that is not related to its Yahoo! offer.Of those items, RIMM is getting the biggest lift, as this news flies in the face of the well know consumer slowdown that was thought to hit the handset makers as well as the la[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Wednesday Shrugged Off Bad News

Wednesday finished the day green across the broader markets after a very weak start on the day. The volume on the NYSE and Nasdaq increased, which left an accumulation day for the NYSE and Nasdaq. Our volume is still under the 50dma, which is telling us we are not at the levels we saw back in January. Gold closed up $7.60 at $937.40 an ounce and crude rallied again today to close up 85 cents at $100.86, after touching $101.32 intraday (a new all time high). Our weak start on the day was off CPI showing worse inflation than expected. By late[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Alternative Bubble

The message today is simple: Buy energy (oil and alternative). Sell financials. I watched Cramer pound the table last week for First Solar and I thought the next bubble is really beginning.Suntech Power (NYSE: STP) missed earnings this morning and shares are paying the price. The solar player posted $0.34 EPS, $0.02 worse than the First Call consensus of $0.36 EPS. Its revenues rose 82.5% year over year to $397.5 million, but the consensus estimate there was $419.6 million. To top it off, Suntech issued lower guidance for Q1-2008: it sees revenues of $370 to $380 millio[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Inflation Concerns Weigh On Market Early

The market is weak out of the gate due to some slightly elevated readings on inflation today. Core CPI rose +0.3% m/m vs. expectations of +0.2%. This is worrisome, as the Fed does not like to lower rates when inflation is rising. But weaker economic growth usually leads to declining inflation.Telecoms are under pressure again today after AT&T and Verizon (VZ) announced an unlimited wireless plan for $99.99. I think this might spur a lot of people to simply use wireless at home and get rid of their landlines. The phone [...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

68 Bucks To Pick Up My Gift? Wtf?

I’m not well this morning and the last thing I need is for the Danish postal system to start playing silly buggers&160; with me.Some of you may know that my good friend Scot "Mr. Business Golf" Duke recently (as in a few weeks ago) sent me a hat (cowboy style of course) from Texas and I’ve been dying to get my grubby mitts on it and wear it on a show or two.I also think I’ll happen to look great in it this summer going around Denmark in a kilt and cowboy hat
Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Foreclosure Chart Extravaganza: January 2008

Over at VoiceofSanDiego.org, I just put up a piece on the January 2008 sales-per-default data. Conclusion: if potential must-sell housing supply was overwhelming demand back in the protracted downturn of the 1990s, it is now 3.5 times as overwhelming.read more[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Why do you hate people in debt?

It's becoming an increasingly frequent occurrence on the site: we write a story about debt or bank charges and a slew of often quite nasty reader comments about indebted people follow

Read More...

[Source: This is Money | Money blog]

Stock Market Technical Analysis Video 2/20/08