Incremental Is Not Innovative: Where Is The Next Big Thing?

Excellent article by Jeff Nolan, an ex-VC, writing in SandHill.com on venture capital investments and locating the next big thing.Incrementalism and ’The New New Thing’ - With all the venture capital moving around in the Silicon Valley, where is the real innovation?He makes many good points especially that there is a lot of money flowing into companies that only offer incremental improvements over what is already available[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Real Estate Agent Or Professional Blogger?

If you have read any of HouseBlogger you know I am a bit of a curmudgeon on the whole Web 2.0 thing and Social Media and Blogs. This seems hypocritical I know. But, I am not against them, just the hype around these web 2.0 entities. In fact, these platforms get lots of search engine spider activity and thus should be part of a marketing strategy. But these things are just words to describe platforms. And platforms are just software. And I am sorry I am not going to get too excited about my Outlook or Word Software programs. So why should I with a blog or social network?Bu[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Markets Sluggish In Early Trading

I was out all day yesterday and was not able to do any blogging.This morning, the markets are opening on a weak note. There were lots of better than expected earnings reports this morning, but the reactions in the individual stocks have been mixed.MasterCard (MA) reported blowout numbers, and that stocks is surging +10% higher. Corning (GLW) and Burlington Northern (BNI) are also higher after reporting solid results. But Visa (V), Archer-Daniels (ADM), and US Steel (X) are trading lo[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

American Democracy Versus The American Democrat

Years ago, H.L. Mencken noted that "every election is a sort of advance auction of stolen goods." Since then, the tendency for electoral politics to undermine property rights has grown exponentially. For example, current presidential candidates treat it as a bragging point to claim that the shower of benefits they promise is "paid for," even though that payment steals other people’s property, backed by government’s coercive power.T[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Becoming A Top 1,000 Web Property

Yesterday we set two traffic records. WorldVitalRecords.com had more than 36,000 unique visitors--6,000 higher than our two previous best days, earlier in April. And We’re Related on Facebook had more than 105,000 daily active users.One of the best parts about being an internet entrepreneur is how immediately your actions translate into measureable results. Our team members are working hard on search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising, email marketing campaigns, and improving our aff[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Page Rank Update & What It Means To You

Pat alerted us to a new Page Rank update. I really do not pay much attention to the PR bar anymore. At best it is a glimpse into the past about 4 or 5 months. And at worse it is a fabrication. (I tend to go with the latter).Simply put in an ungeek way, Page Rank is the relative importance of your page. In the old days it was hugely responsible for big SERPS in Google. Today, many believe it simply does not exist, or is not very important. I believe it is still important to a certain degree, [...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Readers Weigh In On Herb

Several readers responded to my post yesterday about Herb Greenberg. Here’s Forbes Tuttle:Years ago (10-15), when I wrote research -- on special situations -- Herb Greenberg used to phone me up and ask questions about certain stocks, and stories. He was a good reporter. He asked insightful questions. He wrote interesting and thought-provoking stories. Now he is asked to have opinions of the broad market and the economy of which he has no background in experien[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

S&P 500 In A Holding Pattern

NOTE: Please click on the charts below to enlarge them if they do not appear clearly.A lazy session ahead of this Wednesday’s Fed meeting left the main stock market indexes little changed yesterday. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average traded in slightly positive territory throughout most of the day, but selling pressure in the final hour of trading caused the indices to lose 0.1% and 0.2% respectively. The Nasdaq Composite eked out a gain of 0.1%. The small-cap Russell 2000 showed bullish divergence by trending higher throughout th[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Wsj Walks Bernanke To The Gang Plank

Fed chairman Ben Bernanke may be a bit unfocused at the runnning 2-day FOMC meeting. The Wall Street Journal, for the first 95 years a staunch supporter of every Fed move, walks him to the gang plank. After being equalled to an alcoholic desiring ever more liquidity and given the advice to join Central Bankers Anonymous by an anonymous writer on Monday the Wall Street Journal has stepped up its attack on Tuesday. Fed expert Greg Ip thrus[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Small Business Irs Survey And Tax Tips

The IRS Small Business/Self-Employed division will conduct its annual telephone survey in May and June. Potential participants will receive a letter from SB/SE Commissioner Kathy Petronchak inviting their participation. If you do decide to take part in the poll, PacificMarket Research (PMR), the contractor used by the IRS, will call you. Responses are confidential, says the IRS, and there will not be any questions about your personal[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Mises’s Apriorism Against Relativism In Economics

Mises’s work on the logical status of the science of economics needs to be brought back to public attention: his work actually forms the intellectual bulwark against the degeneration of the free societal order. The positivist-empiricist doctrine, which forms the core of today’s mainstream economics, is not only an intellectual failure; it also encourages -- actually provokes -- social relativism, thereby opening the door to anti-free-market policies, which, once set into motion, are difficult to reign in. In that sense, posit[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

News Analysis: Cox Acquires Adify For $300m Cash - Will Others Follow?

Recently I had been writing about the business opportunities for media companies acquiring advertising networks and advertising networks acquiring media companies. We are starting to see this happen. Please see: The future battle between ad networks and publishersToday Cox Enterprises announced it had acquired Adify, a leading ad network, for $300 million in cash. I spoke with Joelle Kaufman, VP of marketing at Adify, and Rodney Mayers assistant VP of interactive media at Cox.<[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

The Scale Of The Problem.

Submitted by my friend Richard, and via fivecentnickel.com:c|net Green Tech Blog: Can renewable energy make a dent in fossil fuels?Quotes:4.2 billion.That’s how many rooftops you’d have to cover with solar panels to displace a cubic mile of oil (CMO), a measure of energy consumption, according to Ripudaman Malhotra, who oversees research on fossil fuels at SRI International. The electricity captured[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

February Case-shiller Hpi

Yet another crunchy beating was dispensed to the Case-Shiller-HPI last month.read more[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Upgrading Hor - Day 14

Today for updating HoR I added a few more products to the site to various sections, nothing particularly crazy but a necessary step in the improvement process. I also took advantage of a feature in the recent upgrade of Shopsite: Google Sitemaps. The new software automatically populates a sitemap specially designed for Google and submits it via the Google Webmaster Tools.[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Today&#8217;s Open: Down

Stocks End Mixed on Light Volume MondayPICTURED BELOW: The S&P 500 index closed with a small loss on light volume yesterday. The major indexes pulled back in late trading and closed mixed on the day. Volume, an important indicator of institutional demand, was lighter than the prior session as traders await Wednesday’s Fed decision on interest rates. Advancers led decliners by about a 10-to-7 ratio on the NYSE and by nearly 16-to-13 ratio on the Nasdaq exchange. The number of stocks making new 52-week highs led the the number of stocks making new 52-week lows o[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

18.6 Million U.s. Homes Are Vacant

Here’s a scary statistic for your Tuesday morning: 18.6 million homes in the US were vacant in the first three months of 2008. That’s almost 6% higher than the same time last year and the highest rate since since the census bureau started keeping track in 1956. San Francisco, which is supposed to be immune from real estate downturns, reflects this statistic from the curb. I pass at least four empty apartments each day that have been on the market for more than 6 months. How does it[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Cut Gas Tax? Clinton Says Yes; Obama, No

With the start of the vacation driving season a month away, Sen. Hillary Clinton has joined her potential presidential foe Sen. John McCain, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, in calling for a summertime suspension of the federal gasoline excise tax.However, Sen. Barack Obama, who is battling Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, disagrees. Obama says temporarily halting collection of the 18.4 cents per gallon wouldn’t provide much relief to drivers and [...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Combating The High Price Of Food, Step Two: Making A Master Menu List

For me, this step is crucial. A big part of my food budget woes boil down to lack of planning. Dinner time, it seems, rolls around every day at the same time. As my husband and I like to joke, "Didn’t we just feed those kids yesterday?"Seriously, on most days I’m just not motivated to figure out dinner as the crucial hour approaches, so having a plan in place saves me from myself.It may seem logical to just sit down with pen and paper to plan the first week’s menus. But that’s when writer’s block can set in. In that case it helps to back it up a step and create a Master[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

$tarbucks

Starbucks (SBUX: chart, web, Y!) has been making valiant efforts in marketing to combat the effects of cheaper coffee shops and gourmet coffee-selling fast food chains. But they’re coming up short.Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Britney&#8217;s Latest Trouble: California Taxes

In addition to marital, child custody, career, financial and public relations problems, Britney Spears now can add tax troubles to her list of woes.According to the cable television celebrity channel E!, one of Brit’s brand-name compa[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Retailers Explore Ways To Get Your Rebate

Rebates start arriving today (revised delivery schedule here), and retailers are making a concerted effort to get you to spend your tax cash.The latest lure: Several retailers will give taxpayers extra spending money if they’ll put their full rebate amount on a store gift card. The typical percentage add-on is 10 percent of the rebate amount.Pat Conroy of the consulting firm Deloitte & Touche Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Trying To Sell Your Home? Be Flexible

While working on an evaluation yesterday, Sheldon thought it would be interesting to compare the absorption rate of vacant properties with seller and tenant occupied properties. The absorption rate shows how long it will take for the existing listings to sell.In general, a vacant property does not show as well as an occupied property, but in this case the vacant properties were actually selling better. I[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

U.c.c.

When a business is considering invoice factoring as a way to increase capital availability, they must be certain that their accounts receivables are clear to offer as collateral. If the business has used its assets to secure any credit from an individual or credit facility, chances are a UCC-1 financing statement was filed on that collateral. The Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) has a long history based on laws passed to modernize and codify the various individual state laws that apply to commercial transactions. You can read much more about the UCC Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Its Slip Slidey Out There, Be Caefo

The S&P500 gained 9.02 points, closing at 1397.84 Over in Nasdaq land they gained 6 points, closing at 2422.94 Finally, the small cap S&P600 gained 3.7, closing at 381.38. We had 1587 Advancing issues with 37 of those being new highs We also saw 1290 Declines, 62 being new lows.

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Will The S&P 500 Confirm Last Week&#8217;s Move?

NOTE: Please click on the charts below to enlarge them if they do not appear clearly.A tug-of-war between the bulls and bears last Friday caused the major indices to finish at pivotal levels and with mixed results. After gapping higher on the open, stocks sold off throughout the morning, then grinded their way higher in the afternoon. Gaining 0.7%, the S&P 500 finished fractionally above the previous day’s high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq Composite lagged behind, advancing 0.3% and losing 0.3% respectively. Small and [...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

The Coming Business Week

I’ve been aimlessly wandering the business journals for the past couple weeks, and really haven’t been all that excited about the financial markets... until now.The Fed is set to convene on Tuesday and is expected to announce another quarter point rate cut. Up until the last few days, most have expected a half point rate cut, but it appears the calm in the markets has lowered that prediction to just the 0.25% mark.What would be better?I think a pause in the cuts would do the markets even better. Over the past several months, rate cuts have be[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Grantham On Greenspan, Bernanke, And Volcker

Jeremy Grantham’s latest musing Immoral Hazard(.pdf) has been forwarded to me by a number of you - thanks.This is certainly deserving of a more careful read, something that will be attended to a little later this morning, but just skimming through it reveals a virtual treasure trove of Greensp[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Playing An Acknowledged Theme - Is Outperformance Possible?

"It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future." - Yogi BerraJust like a trying to see a lighthouse on a foggy day, trying to clearly envision the future can be tough. However, making out the likely shape and dimensions of those things you are trying to avoid, or aim towards, will likely speed you safely on your journey.It’s like that in investing too. Picking out the broad trend[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Fm Media Looks To Invest In Content Companies And Tie Up Multi-year Ad Contracts

I spent much of last week away from the Web 2-point yawn crowd. Instead, I was at my favorite conference, New Communications Forum held this year in Sonoma county.I was speaking on two panels, the second one included Neil Chase, VP of Author Services at Federated Media (FM) Publishing. He is a former journalist at the New York Times.On the panel he introduced himself and FM Publishing saying that the company "ra[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Fed Week Begins

Friday left the markets shaking off an opening that faded off and then regained its footing to rally all afternoon. Volume was mixed on the day the NYSE was higher than Thursdays by a hair, but the Nasdaq significantly underpaced Thursdays. The Nasdaq and Dow traded narrow range inside days and the S&P 500 traded just over Thursdays high. All broader indexes are still in range and not really a week that changed a lot technically speaking. Oil closed up $2.43 at $118.49 and Gold was down $1.00 to $888.40 an ounce. Into next week we can look for a [...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Canslim.net Morning Comment and Links (for traders)

MORNING MARKET COMMENTARYfor Monday, April 28, 2008Major Averages Close Above Resistance For Second Consecutive Week - Kenneth J. Gruneisen, CANSLIM Certified, Registered Principal, Source Capital Group, Inc. (Members NASD, SIPC)The major averages ended mixed after US consumer confidence plunged to a 26-year low on Friday. Volume, an important indicator of institutional demand, was lighter than the prior session. Advancers led decliners by about a 3-to-2 ratio on the NYSE and by nearly 16-to-13 on the Nasdaq exch[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Faux Redfin

While reading Real Estate Webmasters forums, I came across a fellow named Ron Park from Tuscon who was enamoured with the Redfin site, so he hired a tech company in India to try to re-create Redfin’s mapping technology and cababilities. He wanted a Redfin clone for the Tuscon real estate market, and it’s unclear if he just wanted the mapping capabilities or if he was also [...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Economic Stimulus Checks Being Sent Out Early

The IRS has announced that they will now be sending out economic stimulus payments starting this Monday, April 28th. Initially, the first direct deposits were going to be sent on May 2nd, but the government can’t wait to stimulate the economy.Of course, I have no idea how sending everyone a one time check will actually stimulate the economy over an extended period of time. Maybe the underlying assumption is that recipients will go out and spend the money on goods and services that they dont need. But, I suspect that many people will use it to pay off credit card debts, payday loan[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Why I Do Not Tgif ??

Almost everyone is doing Facebook nowadays. High School classmates, college classmates, ex-workmates, partners, clients, friends, family (even my mom and my aunt) and a few others that I do not know how to classify. I love the status bar in Facebook: it lets me know the interesting things that people are doing or thinking. I do not want to see taglines like: "TGIF (Thank God Is Friday)". There are a few reasons I do not like to see such things: It doesn’t give me any more information. I know it is Friday.[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Glad To Be Out Of Wfr

MEMC Electronics (WFR) reported earnings last night and gave guidance that was disappointing at best. Management continues to talk about production problems at its Texas poly plant, but then they also said that demand "is a bit weaker than typical".Well, which is it? Is it a supply problem, or demand? I had owned this stock for a couple years, but sold it last month after becoming frustrated with what I felt was poor execution on the part of management.Spot poly prices are high, and they signed some good contracts, but I began to hear more about buyers [...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Hot Mess

If you’re married and you have cable TV you know who this little dude is and that one of his phrases is hot mess. CNBC used this term to describe what is going on with Starbucks (SBUX).I had owned this stock for quite a while before selling [...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Rebate Checks To Arrive Sooner

Dubya took off his blinders today and actually admitted that "It’s obvious our economy is in a slowdown." Then, simultaneously patting himself on the back, he announced that delivery of the economic stimulus rebate checks has been accelerated by a week. The IRS hasn’t yet updated its official Web page showing the new rebate delivery schedule, which is still based on the last two digits of a taxpayer’s Social Security number. But I’ve adjusted the ones Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Tennessee&#8217;s Spring Tax Holiday Underway

Many die-hard Tennessee shoppers are already at their local malls this morning, as the Volunteer State’s special spring sales tax holiday began today.The sales-tax price cuts on selected items began at 12:01 a.m. today, April 25, and ends Sunday, April 27, at 11:59 p.m. During this time, Tennesseans won’t have to pay the an extra 9.25% levy, which is the combination of the 7% state and 2.25% local sal[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Trillions To 1

Just the other day I was thinking, if, 31 years ago, the two gametes from which I was formed - those two first cells of me - differed in location by a millimeter, I would not be here today. Someone else would be in my place, someone looking very similar, but it would not be me. I would have never awakened to life, but would have remained non-existent. Someone else - a pseudo-Jonathan-Aquino - would have grown up with my family, attended my school, fallen in love with computers, contributed to society - in my place. All without me knowing it; I would never have been born into reality. I would h[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Ticket to (take me for a) ride

Just as we've got used to being charged 20% of the cover price for the privilege of being sold tickets to various sorts of entertainment, so now the ruse has spread to train tickets

Read More...

[Source: This is Money | Money blog]

Pre-market Open News&Links For Friday

U.S. stock futures point to third day of gains; Microsoft lower"S&P 500 futures rose 7.5 points to 1,393.50 and Nasdaq 100 futures rose 8.25 points to 1,929.00. Dow industrial futures added 57 points." Gold for June delivery dropped $19.60 to end at $889.40 an ounce.
Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Prediction That Microsoft Vista Will Go Quietly

TechRepublic columnist argues-I think persuasively--that Microsoft will "use smoke and mirrors to conjure up an early release of Windows 7, the next edition of the worlds most widely-used operating system. Then they will quietly and unofficially allow IT departments to migrate straight from Windows XP to Windows 7." He says this move would echo Microsoft’s recovery from the Windows ME/Windows 2000 debacle, and would aggressively address their current problem. He says it will be around the end of 2009.
Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Google Launches Website Optimizer

Google has taken the beta label off a project that is significantly younger than Gmail, which remains in beta. Google Website Optimizer has been available to AdWords customers for the past year, but now the company is making it available to anyone who wants to test out different web site layouts.Basically, the tool lets you tr[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Apple Inc (aapl)

is the WALLSTRIP stock today.here’s a technical look at the stockRead More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Using Twitter To Introduce Home Buyers To Fsbos

This time of year, most real estate agents are helping sellers prepare their homes for the Spring housing market. But as fee-f[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Web Two-point Yawn . . . Conference Fizzle?

The Web 2.0 conference seems to be a dud. But don’t ask me too much about it because I’ve been out of town for a few days recently. I’ve been at my favorite conference bar none: The New Comm Forum up in Sonoma county.Wednesday, late in the day, I popped back to San Francisco to catch up with some friends that were in town for the conference. I asked around about the show and I was surprised at the lukewarm, almost tepid response.The reports I got about the show were surprisingly bland or maybe beige is a b[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Can The Euro Overtake The U.s. Dollar As The World&#8217;s Reserve Currency?

by S. Wade Hansen The U.S. dollar (USD) is currently the world’s reserve currency. If you look around at most central banks around the world, you will see that the majority of them hold the majority of their assets in U.S.-dollar based assets---like U.S. treasuries. However, the slide of the USD has caused many to wonder if the governments and central banks of the world are going to shift from the USD to the Euro (EUR) as their reserve currency of choice. This is a fundamentally paramount question because if the majority of governments and cen[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Cyber Invitation To Annual U.s. Small Business Week

Cyber Invitation to Annual U.S. Small Business Week.The importance of small business in the U.S. will be formally recognized this week (April 21 - April 25) with the annual celebration of U.S. Small Business Week, including speeches, panel discussions, award ceremonies and receptions in Washington D.C. and New York for those who can and want to attend in person, and Internet access to a number of these events, for interested small business women and men throughout the country.Starting with the opening reception at the U.S. State Department on April 21, the week[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

City Of Brockton To Offer 100% Loans On Foreclosed Properties

Okay, does this seem maybe like, crazy, to you?The Brockton Housing Partnership launched a program Wednesday that will provide discounted services and 100-percent financing with no down payment to home buyers who purchase bank-owned properties in Brockton.The program, called "Buy Brockton," is the first home buying initiative of its kind in Massachusetts, according to a release from the organization.The program is a a joint effort between Brockton Mayor James E. Harrington and the city of Brockton, MassHousing, and a group of Brockton-area community banks, credit[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Canslim.net Morning Comment And Links (for Traders)

MORNING MARKET COMMENTARY- Thursday, April 24, 2008Nasdaq Outpaces Big Cap Indices as Semiconductor Group Rises - Kenneth J. Gruneisen, CANSLIM Certified, Registered Principal, Source Capital Group, Inc. (Members NASD, SIPC)The major averages ended higher on Wednesday with slightly better volume totals reported on both exchanges. The number of stocks making new 52-week lows outpaced the number of stocks making new 52-week highs on the NYSE and on the Nasdaq exchange. Advancers narrowly led decliners on the NYSE a[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Ofheo Finds Surprising Home Price Jump In February

The Cost of Commuting’The traditional measure [of housing affordability] is that a family can afford to spend about 30% of its income on housing. The Brookings Institution argues that families instead should spend no more than 48% of income on housing and transportation combined Some urban neighborhoods are more affordable than they seem, because it costs less to get around, while some suburban areas seem more affordable than they are: Cheap homes, expensive com[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Todays Sba Loan Tip: Sba Loan Requirements Vary By Lender

Today’s SBA Loan Tip comes from Andy Dobrov at Premier Business Opportunities:"Everyone in my circles talks about the fact that equity lines have dried up recently and that SBA loans are far more difficult to get than they were just six months ago. In spite of the gloomy anecdotes, I just completed a Quiznos transaction in record time that involved 85% Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Ag And Energy Themes Taking A Much Needed Breather

Big rollovers going on in the ag/energy/materials complex. Yesterday, we sold half of our steel etf (SLX) just to take some profits. Today, we are joining Doug is initiating a position in the short oil etf (DUG), just to hedge some of our energy exposure.As for ag, we sold most of our ag etf (MOO) last week, as things looked to be getting too frothy. I think the reaction in POT to the outstanding earnings speaks to a near-term top.Many I speak with think ag is a bubble, and a major top is in place. But [...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

What A Way To Run A Direct Mail Campaign

My friend Marc recently had a movingexperience. That is, he bought a new home, and went through the usualgymnastics of dealing with brokers, lawyers, utility companies, and movers, toname but a few. His new mailbox was full of "welcome to your new home" offersfor various services and discounts, including a free oil change, and a 10% offcoupon for one of the big box stores. On closer examination, Marc realized that the coupon wasn&39;t really a coupon.It was an offer for a coupon. To receive the coupon, he ha[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Disclosure

Bryan Caplan superbly replies to those who think more government-mandated disclosure would help us avoid another sub-prime problem (or pretty much any other problem):Here’s the thing: I’ve been through the whole mortgage process, and seen what government actually does. We don’t have laissez-faire now. Instead, we have a grotesque web of regulations and lawsuit avoidance that already make the mortgage process ridiculously complicated. I had to hear a dozen mandatory mini-lec[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Ask Dave: How Do Bond Indexes Work?

A reader named Charles asks a very good question about how bond indexes work?Quick question for you. I, of course, know how TIPS and bond works but what about a short-term bond indexes (XSB or XRB or TD e-Series) for instance? Does an investor actually gets coupon payment? (I dont think so...). Because the market value of the bond doesn’t change much, so the investor basically gets its return from the quarterly dividends only?I have a good understanding about how bonds work myself although I don’t know much about t[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Delta, Northwest Post Losses As Fuel Costs Rise

One of the more popular things we have been doing in class this past year has been to allow each group to pick at least one of their own cases. Thus we will be looking at the Delta-Northwest merger. So in light of this, some required reading for my classes. Delta, Northwest Post Losses As Fuel Costs Rise: "Delta Chief Financial Officer Edward Bastian said that the airline has moved quickly to address higher fuel prices by cutting U.S. capacity and controll[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Is The Eur Stuck In A Feedback Cycle?

I play a hollow body electric guitar. The sound is great but one hazard of playing too close to your speakers is the body starts to resonate and creates a feedback cycle. As sound exits the amplifier speakers it hits the body of the guitar and makes it vibrate, that vibration moves the strings, which is then registered by the pickups and sent back to the amplifier. As you can imagine, if I am not holding the guitar, which prevents the feedback, the noise escalates, annoys everybody and could seriously damage my amplifier. The ECB is facing a similar problem. [...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Look For A New "business" Section In The Wsj

Maybe passing on that recent offer to extend my Wall Street Journal subscription for two more years at the current rate will turn out to be a good decision.By then, who knows what the paper will look like.The political content moving forward in the first section of the print edition over the last few months was something that was eventually going to be mentioned here. It’s kind of like a game now - count the business articles in the first part of the paper and see if you have to use one hand or two.The next thing you know they’ll just have a separate se[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Commodity Etf Ready For Another Leg Up

NOTE: Please click on the charts below to enlarge them if they do not appear clearly.The stock market sustained its first day of substantial losses in more than a week, as higher turnover confirmed the bearishness of yesterday’s session. The major indices opened slightly lower, chopped around throughout the morning, then made another leg lower at mid-day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.8%, the S&P 500 0.9%, and the Nasdaq Composite 1.3%. The small-cap Russell 2000 suffered a 2.0% decline, as the S&P Midcap 400 shed 1.4%. [...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Some People Will Say Anything To Get Published In The Mainstream Media

And you’ve got to say some really crazy stuff to get into the Los Angeles Times. Here’s Shawn Mercer:Ye Gods, have you seen this from Bruce Bartlett in the LA Times?I know you two have gone round-and-round on other subjects, but how can any honest supply-sider who wanted permanent tax cuts in 2003 instead of temporary cuts say this?Republicans respond that they had no choice; they didn’t have the votes to enact p[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Bessemer Pulls A Hat Trick!

Congratulations and thanks to the teams at Sirtris, PA Semi and Gracenote, three Bessemer portfolio companies who all signed and announced their acquisitions in the last 12 hours.Sirtris, the startup that cheats death, fetched Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

The Biggest Ripoff In State Spending, Ever

As I’ve pointed out before, the Commonwealth’s movie tax credits program (ie., giveaways) is the biggest ripoff in state spending that we have seen in a long time.Bruce Mohl, he of Commonwealth magazine, seems to agree.In an op-ed piece that ran in the Globe he says:The 25 percent film tax credit is a perfect example. A movie spending $20 million here would receive credits worth $5 million that could be sold to someone who owes taxes in Massachusetts or sold back to the state [...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Meet-ups And Events For 28th Of April - 5th Of May

I’m starting to keep the length of my videos down on BlogTV so that I can cross post them to my YouTube channel. This is the first one that I recorded this morning which is essentially a run down of what’s going to be happening the week of 28th of April - 5th of May.It’s [...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Bailoutwatch: I Can't Even Keep Up

When I wrote the first installment of BailoutWatch this January, I intended to post occasional updates to keep readers apprised of the ongoing housing bailout efforts. Well, the truth is that I haven&039;t even been able to keep up.That column wasn&039;t even the first on the subject -- it had followed hot on the heels of this one. Since the January post, the bailout attempts have been coming [...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Selling In A Buyer&#8217;s Market

My thoughts on how to get your home sold in Edmonton today. [...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Making A Big Bet On Housing

This morning, a report from housing industry group Dataquick said that foreclosures in California soared +39% in Q1 to 113,676. That’s more than 1200 per day, and the highest since they began keeping records in 1992. Ouch.While many are looking to call the bottom in housing, data like this make me think they are still early. I beleive the rate of declines has and will slow materially, but any bounceback will take considerable time.I am in the process of selling an option on my house to a large company. It’s basically akin to selling a call option on the[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Email Never Getting There?

Lyris ISP Deliverability Report (PDF), nearly 1 of every 5 permission-based email messages sent to U.S.-based ISPs gets automatically junk mail folder. That means slightly more than 76 percent of invited email successfully makes it to the inbox. [...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Buffett, Seeking Acquisitions, To Travel To Europe

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett will visit Europe next month to scout potential acquisitions, said an executive at an Italian refiner who is organizing the tour. ``The purpose of the trip is to meet family-owned companies, owners of family companies, the typical European dynasties,’ said Angelo Moratti, vice president of Milan-based Saras SpA, in a telephone interview. ``His idea is that sooner or later one of these great businesses will fall into his hands.’ Scheduled for the third week of May, the tour will take the Berkshire Hathaway chairma[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Blogs, Emails And 2 Point Oh.

This is a snippet from a recent email thread I had with a UK journalist. I cut her part out as she never did give me permission to print her part:First EMail reply by me:Popularity by whom? On readers :No I don’t and I wouldn’t trust the (blog) stats anyway. I believe that the majority of people do not know that they are reading a blog. And with some of the new designs that I am seeing the lines of a blog and traditional website and social website are becoming fuzzier and fuzzier.I think most people would call a blog a websi[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Escape From Web 2.0 . . .

They started arriving Friday evening from all over. By Saturday evening there was a large British encampment in the Clift’s Redwood Room. Sunday the Germans were holding court, and Monday the Finns were throwing a party at The Foreign Cinema. All Web 2.0 entrepreneurs.The Web 2.0 conference starts this week and it has become huge. I can’t remember a time when a conference has grown so large, so quickly, and become so international. The Internationale should be rewritten with the words "Web 2.0 will unite the wor[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Market Commentary For 04/22/2008

Market commentary for 04/22/2008 Good day! Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Old Vs. New

Yesterday Sheldon talked about the number of new and vacant properties on the market, and it made me wonder - what’s been happening with the prices of resale homes compared to new homes? At the end of 2007, CMHC explained at the Housing Outlook conference that the gap in pricing between new homes and resale homes had grown quite large in the Edmonton area, and suggested that new home prices would need to come more in line with resale homes. Now, my stats only include homes sold on MLS, and may in fact include a number of resale homes since I can only separate the sales va[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Tough To Rally In The Face Of Oil

Stocks just could not gain any traction today as oil continued its endless ascent, and nearly hit $120. Even energy stocks took a breather, and you would think that with $120 oil, the drilling stocks would be screaming.Given that last week was such a huge up week for the market, today’s selloff really wasn’t all that bad. The put/call ratios were low this morning, so I knew we might have a day like this. By the end of the day, the put/call climbed back to 1.06, so there is still anxiety.Short-interest on the NYSE came out and showed [...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Primary Long-term Downtrend Lines Coming Soon

NOTE: Please click on the charts below to enlarge them if they do not appear clearly.As anticipated, stocks took a "pause for the cause" yesterday, trading in a relatively narrow range before finishing with mixed results. The major indices spent most of the day in negative territory, but a modest rally in the final ninety minutes of trading erased most of the losses and enabled a few sectors to close positive. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average registered matching losses of 0.2%, but continued strength in the tech arena helped[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

The Lowest Hanging Green Fruit

The annual Earth Day celebration is a nice opportunity to focus on some of the not so earth friendly practices that small business owners can easily fall into.Without a doubt small business owners can and should 1) recycle, 2) shut down computers at night, 3) turn out the lights, 4) ride a bike to work, 5) use web tec[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Real Estate Outlook: Spring Market Warm, But Consumer Confidence Low

Price corridor site to include offices, hotelsfrom the East Valley Tribune, reports that construction began on Park Place less than two months ago and it will include 2 of 4 hotels for the immediate area, 1.2 million square feet of office space, 18,000 square feet of retail space and possibly high-rise office towers fronting Loop 202. The project will serve as a gateway to the high-tech jobs hub along Price Road. Christine Mackay, a senior economic development specialist with the[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

The Return Of Slamball?

This is a true story. In late 2003 I sat next to Mason Gordon on a flight from Los Angeles to somewhere in the Midwest where I had a connecting flight and he was meeting up with LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers for a promotional shoot of some sort for Slamball.Mason founded the sport of SlamBall which is ba[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Part Deux:please Not Another "have We Hit Bottom Post"

I just found the clip that I referenced in an earlier post on the market bottoming in Orange County and LA.[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Momentum Builds For Foreclosure Relief

’Jewel’ community to rise at proving ground sitefrom the East Valley Tribune, reports that according to developers of a prized east Mesa property, they are on track to turn 3,200 acres of dirt into a "jewel of a destination" for the East Valley. John Bradley, vice president of DMB Associates said, "Nothing’s been done before that’s quite like this in the Sonoran Desert." The Scottsdale developer is planning to turn the General Motors Proving Ground into a shin[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

End-of-earth Day Movies

I’ve been working today on, well, work and putting together a blog item for tomorrow about Earth Day and taxes. Yes, there are connections.But a friend and fellow financial journalist/blogger, Dan Ray at CreditCards.com, momentarily distracted me from my nobler cause. He knows I’m a movie nut so he tipped me off to a great feature on End-of-the-Earth Day movies over at Yahoo.The site, tongue firmly in cheek, notes, "Earth Day is a time to consider the ac[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Today&#8217;s Open: Flat

Major Averages Quietly Consolidate After Last Week’s GainsPICTURED BELOW: The S&P 500 Index pulled back on light volume as it continues consolidating its recent move. The major averages ended mixed on Monday as stocks paused to consolidate Friday’s move. It was encouraging to see volume dry up as the major averages gave up little ground. Decliners led advancers by a 19-to-15 ratio on the NYSE and by nearly 17-to-13 on the Nasdaq exchange. The number of stocks making new 52-week highs outpaced the number of stocks making new 52-week lows on the NYSE but continu[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Please Not Another "have We Hit Bottom Post"

I know I know....but doesn’t it seem like some of the bad news is starting to get crowded out by some of the positives lately. Just last night I heard on KABC TV in LA that there is lots of proof that LA and Orange County real estate have hit bottom.I looked all over for the video but cannot find it anywhere online. Meanwhile Zogby Aol just released a poll showing that over 50% of Americans believe that home ownership is still attainable for everyone.31% of participants feel their home is worth more than it was a year ago56% do not think their [...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Summer&#8217;s Cancelled In Edmonton

Tough sledding in Edmonton as spring and summer are officially cancelled. Is it me or did someone turn on the air conditioning too early and jinx the weather? One day were sitting on the deck having a BBQ at plus 20 and t[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Marathon: Little Known Facts

Dateline: HopkintonWhy is a "marathon" 26.2 miles?It is roughly 26 miles between the Greek cities of Marathon and Athens. In 490 BC, the Greek army repelled a Persian naval invasion on the plains surrounding the coastal city of Marathon. According to legend, a runner was sent to Athens to relay news of the victory. Upon reaching Athens, the young man shouted "Rejoice, we conquer!" and fell to the ground dead.The current marathon distance (26 mi., 385 yds.) was set for the 1908 London Olympi[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Election Effects On Investments

You might have made up your mind about which presidential candidate you’ll vote for this fall, but have you decided yet what to do about your investments in light of the coming election?Every time we pick a president, lots of attention is paid to what the financial markets might do depending on which party moves into the White House.Well, quit worrying. Historical data shows us that the bond between election results and the stock market’s performance is, at best, a minor connection.I got to thinking about this issue after receiving an investment newsletter[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Real Estate Outlook: Spring Market Warm, But Consumer Confidence Low

Price corridor site to include offices, hotelsfrom the East Valley Tribune, reports that construction began on Park Place less than two months ago and it will include 2 of 4 hotels for the immediate area, 1.2 million square feet of office space, 18,000 square feet of retail space and possibly high-rise office towers fronting Loop 202. The project will serve as a gateway to the high-tech jobs hub along Price Road. Christine Mackay, a senior economic development specialist with the city s[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

An Interesting Screen-deteriorating Operating Margins And Increasing Capital Intensity

As one would expect, deterioration in operating margins will occur in economic slowdowns. Marginal competitors frequently will try to clear inventories at ever lower margins in order to generate cash flow. I am particularly interested concerned if a company exhibits not only operating profitability deterioration but also a build up in working capital intensity (i.e. accounts receivable and inventories may be building and cash is not coming in as quickly as one would like.) Finally, if at the same time, the company is building capital expenditures, free cash flow generation can be impeded.

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Bay Area Home Sales Remain At Two-decade Low

Bay Area home sales remain at two-decade lowFor the seventh month in a row, Bay Area home sales were at their lowest level in more than two decades as potential buyers and sellers continued to wait out market turbulence. . . On prices:The median price paid for a Bay Area ho[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Where Commodity Futures Prices Open Sunday Night

Use this tool to follow the futures markets during the bull market in commodities that, according to historical cycles, will run 9 years (every 30 years for the past 200 years) and end around 2010. (prior starts - 1911, 1941, 1971, 2001). Why isn’t gold at $2000 when it should be? I don’t know, but the big moves don’t happen overnight. Expect 80% of the move to happen in the last 20% (2 years) of the cycle. Also, wi[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Union Mayhem Thwarted

Last month we warned about the Service Employees International Union’s attempt to block California’s public pension plans from investing in private equity funds. Happily, the state Assembly has rejected this transparent grab for union power. The real impetus for the bill...was to help the SEIU organize employees of ManorCare, a nursing home chain owned by the Carlyle Group p[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

March Results

March results (care of DataQuick) for Marin as reported by the Marin IJ:The median price of a single-family home last month was $862,500, down from $965,000 a year earlier, and just 110 single-family homes were sold - about half as many as the 218 sold in March 2007, DataQuick reported. Sales totals were easily the slowest March in Marin, said John Karevoll, a DataQuick analyst, who noted the research firms records date back to 1988."This is a pitifully low sales count is m[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Made $1645 In Online Income

For March, the break of online income is as follows: Online Income: $1645.30 Adsense: $339.28 Linkworth: $456.70 TLA: $103.61 Kontera: $62.07 Direct Ads: $330[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Is Google Really Helping You With Free Tools?

Google offers a plethora of great tools for Webmasters. But why?DataMany of us webmasters love Google’s "help", while others see their tools as an unwelcome intrusion. More specifically, an unwelcome look into your website’s inner workings and your users behavior. Some skeptics even go so far as to call these tools "spyware". WOWzie. Harsh words indeed. However, understand whenever you drop someone elses code into your website, and that someone does not charge you, then you should expect that you are being dat[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Employment Goes Negative

San Diego employment has just decreased on a year-over-year basis, falling by 1,700 jobs between March 2007 and March 2008.That is a very small drop in the grand scheme of things, representing a decline of just .1 percent. But it&039;s the first time in a long time that employment has turned negative at all. The data I pulled from the Employment Development Department website goes back to the year 2000, and it shows that even during the recession and slowdown that took pl[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

The Difference Between A Liberal And A Radical

Albert Jay Nock, writing in 1920, spells out the difference between a Nation-style liberal and a Freeman-style radical. "The liberal believes that the State is essentially social and is all for improving it by political methods so that it may function accordingly to what he believes to be its original intention. Hence, he is interested in politics, takes them seriously, goes at them hopefully, and believes in them as an instrument of social welfare and progress.... The radical, on the other hand, believes that the State is f[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Greenspan & Bernanke - Central Banking&#8217;s Siegfried & Roy

German weekly Der Spiegel inspires some of the most uncomfortable imagery yet in this commentary describing the state of U.S. central banking, likening the current and former Fed chairmen to two long-time entertainers in Las Vegas.The dollar is in a tailspin,[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Google Gets The Last Laugh

Thursday brought a narrow range split day for the markets. The Nasdaq was slightly red and the Dow along with the S&P 500 were slightly green. Volume fell off for this digestive day and let the dust settle. After the bell we heard from Google (GOOG), which surprised the market with a big earnings blow out and is currently up about $75.00 (Im typing this about 5pm est.). SNDK was mixed but trading up, AMD also trading up slightly on a mixed report. We heard from AMD last week so this was pretty much expected. Futures are trading up now, but nothing is running[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

An Hour With Boone Pickens.

Okay, technically 51:29, but who’s counting.. Mr. Pickens talks about oil & energy, but he covers other topics too, and he’s a pretty funny guy.A geologist, a savy, seen-it-all businessman, a decent American, he’s warning us about our energy situation, and we seem (so far) not to be listening.Bloomberg: Boone Pickens Expects Oil Prices to Continue to Rise.[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Googlicious

I admit that I was nervous about Google (GOOG) going into the conf call. I had sold most of my shares much higher, and then recently added back to the positions around $450. So when I saw that the company beat earnings estimates by a whopping 32 cents, I breathed a big sigh of relief.The fact that the stock is rocketing $80 higher today, or +18%, is just proof of how low expectations had gotten for the company. That is a huge move for a company with as big a market cap as GOOG.While GOOG was certain to get the juices flowing on the Nazz today, the st[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Credit crunch? Banks are throwing loans away

Banks are falling over each other trying to attract borrowers that take on debt and can handle it, but only just.

Read More...

[Source: This is Money | Money blog]

Income Needed To Buy Vs. Median Household Income

Interesting graphic over at Dr. Housing Bubble (annotation courtesy of yours truly):Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Intel Ignites The Bulls

The market is getting a huge boost in early trading on the heels of several better than expected earnings reports. After GE stunk things up, I think expectations got extremely low for the rest of the companies reports. I am a little guilty of that myself. But such is not the case today.Intel (INTC) started it off last night by topping estimates and giving solid guidance. Then this morning we got another handful of good reports, from the likes of Wells Fargo (WFC), JPMorgan (JPM), Coca-Cola (KO), and CSX.<[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Savings Bond Alert #032

Next I bond inflation component will be 4.83%The next I bond inflation component will be 4.83%, up from the current 3.06%. The component is based on the difference between the Consumer Price Index in September (208.490) and March (213.528). The March CPI was released this morning.To determine what your own I bonds will earn during their next six-month rate period, you have to add their fixed base-rate to the 4.83% inflation rate. The fixed-base rate for your I bonds can be anywhere between 1.0% and 3.6%, depending on when the I bond was issued.Moreover, keep in mind that th[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Looking For A Catalyst

The market endet the day in positive territory after a volatile session. The PPI was higher than expected and it will be interesting to see the CPI numbers released today. Major indices are still holding support and this is positive, but the bulls will need a catalyst here to move higher and INTC could be what they are looking for. INTC reported better than expected number in after-hour trading and was up around 9%.

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Will Ibm Continue The Upside For The Market

Wednesday brought a big rally for the market, we found the catalyst today. The broader markets all closed very green at the highs on the day and on increased volume leaving another accumulation day. Earnings were good for IBM, a lot to do with currency advantage and a tax write off and dont forget all the stock theyve bought back to help things out. EBAY also very good but saw no growth in new users so that took some air out of that report. Which leaves the after hours futures up a little but we have a full night yet to trade and an extended market. Oil closed [...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

More Help For The Housing Market

I think the news from Freddie Mac (FRE) today was pretty significant, although it received little attention.In the press release, Freddie said it will buy jumbo mortgages in high-cost regions from Wells Fargo (WFC), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Citigroup (C) and Washington Mutual (WM). The government-sponsored enterprise expects to finance between $10 billion and $15 billion in new jumbo mortgages in 2008.The move is meant to increase liquidity in the housing markets, and today’s announcement marks the first large-scale effort[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

The Interchange Fee: The Most Expensive Credit Card Fee Of All

While youve perhaps never heard of it before, chances are, you pay at leastone interchange fee every day certainly every time you use a credit card. Itswhat merchants have to pay for the privilege of accepting credit cards, and onaverage, it amounts to 2% of every charge, including sales tax. You know what happens to a charge like that it gets passed on to us. Accordingto R. K. Hammer Investment Bankers, wepaid $33 billion in interchange fees in 2007. Thats more than we paid inpenalty fees (18.1 billion), cash advance fees ($8.2[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Southland Home Sales Log Tepid Gain; Record Price Drop

Southern California’s ailing housing market is no island. The home slump is a very regional condition, by DataQuicks math. There was apparently no March Madness for house hunters to make deals.Says DQ: ’The onset of spring did little to thaw Southern Californias semi-frozen housing market: The seasonal boost in sales between February and March was less than half its normal level[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Intermediate-term Uptrend Alive And Well!

NOTE: Please click on the charts below to enlarge them if they do not appear clearly.A positive reaction to the quarterly earnings report of semiconductor giant Intel Corp. sparked a broad-based rally yesterday, enabling all the major indices to zoom back above their 50-day moving averages. Stocks gapped substantially higher on the open, then built on their gains throughout the entire session. The Nasdaq Composite raced 2.8% higher, the S&P 500 2.3%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average 2.1%. The small-cap Russell 2000 and S&P Midcap 400 rallied 3.1% and 2.9% res[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Charts Of The Day

These charts are as of yesterday’s close, and my first chart is of the S&P 500 Index (SPX). Yesterday’s rally was very constructive. The price action vaulted the index back above its 50-day average, and volume rose nicely, making for a second straight accumultion day.If you look at the chart below, you can see the building reverse head & shoulders formation. The left side of the shoulder is the January lows, the head is the March lows, and the right side of the shoulder is the recent pullback in April.The completion of this formation [...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Finally, A "Pure Play" ETF In The Solar Energy Sector

NOTE: Please click on the charts below to enlarge them if they do not appear clearly.The main stock market indexes showed signs of life for the first time since breaking down below their 50-day moving averages on April 11. After opening slightly higher, stocks trended lower throughout the morning, but afternoon buying interest enabled the major indices to close the session near their intraday highs. The S&P 500, Nasdaq Composite, Dow Jones Industrial Average, and S&P Midcap 400 scored identical gains of 0.5%. Small caps outperformed, sending the Russell 2000 Index[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

The Recession Is Upon Us

"It’s now clear that we have entered what we anticipate will be a mild recession, running through the first half of this year, and there are substantial downside risks to this economic scenario," said David Seiders, of the National Association of Home Builders, in a statement today.What a load. Seriously, I found this story over at Inman. Recession or no recession. Who cares? Sellers sell. If you buy into this Internet Kumbaya load that you do not have to sell you will be looking for a jo[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Be Bullish.

WSJ: Crude, Heating Oil, Gas All End at Record Highs.Quotes:Buyers also found inspiration in global demand. China imported 1.66 million tons of diesel from January through March, the General Administration of Customs reported Tuesday, a sevenfold increase from the 230,000 tons imported in the same period last year.Yahoo Tech Ticker: High Oil Prices? You Ain’t S[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Canslim.net Morning Comment And Links (for Traders)

MORNING MARKET COMMENTARY- Thursday, April 17, 2008Indices Repair 50-Day Moving Average Line Violations With Gains on Bigger Volume - Kenneth J. Gruneisen, CANSLIM Certified, Registered Principal, Source Capital Group, Inc. (Members NASD, SIPC)Stocks enjoyed healthy gains on Wednesday after the latest round of economic and earnings data impressed the Street. It was encouraging to see volume expand on both major exchanges compared to the prior session, for a second straight day which is a clear sign of accumulatio[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

The Hottest Niche In Real Estate

What real estate niche is still selling like hotcakes? Luxury in pretty much any industry the high end is impervious to any market. They have the credit and the equity to stay fluid.So what to do in the rest of the markets? Well, ramp up your marketing and your persona as marketing expert Dave Lakhani said in his podcast. Allow me to repeat what I learned from Mike Ferry almost 20 years ago.The best priced home will sell. If you list, the house better be the best priced home [...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Adding Youtube Video To Your Google Local Profile

Google Maps (local) allows you to build a pretty detailed profile for your business including product lines, hours of service, credit cards accepted and up to eight product images. In the past couple of weeks they added a feature that allows you to add video to your profile.This is certainly another in a long strings of signs that you need to be a) working on your local profiles and b) creating short promotional videos.Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Our Broken Airline System

It’s becoming increasingly apparent to me that our airline system is broken. Today it has been revealed that airline pilots are raising concerns about the minimum amount of fuel carried on board aircraft, with several incidents being filed with the NASA ASRS reporting system of arriving at a destination or an alternate airport with minimum fuel.It seems that the cost cutting measures management is employing at their airlines is starting to spread into the margins of safety mandated by the Federal Aviation A[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Intel (intc) Earnings

got the shorts scared and the market traded higher in the after hours. The Nasdaq was the biggest beneficiary as it closed above the declining 5 DMA. The SPY closed the session just under the 5DMA. There is still a lot of work for this market to turn around, but there is the possibility of a strong trend day tomorrow if the markets can hold onto the gains in early trading.Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

How Do You Use The "ultimate Buy & Hold Strategy" For Distributions In Retirement?

I’m a retiree. I’ve read "The Ultimate Buy & Hold Strategy". What about a buy & hold strategy for income investors, like retirees?The Ultimate Buy and Hold Strategy is the first of three articles that concludes with a way to use the strategy for creating cash flow in retirement. The purpose of this article is to make the case for why we believe your portfo[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

It&#8217;s Over! For Most Of Us, Anyway

Here in the Central Time Zone, as well as for fliers east of us, Tax Day has come and gone.But if you’re like me and asked for an extension (see my reason for postponing here), our new deadline is Oct. 15. To help us keep track, I’ve replaced the April 15 countdown clock with one monitoring the October deadline over there in the right column. Jus[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Pre-billing

In order to use accounts receivable financing for growing a business, the work being performed must be completed and accepted. Submitting an invoice to be funded prior to the work being done is called ’pre-billing.’ A good example of this are advertising transactions. A magazine publisher has collected a group of customers who plan to advertise in an upcoming issue. This means the ads have not run and the customer has not received the full service which gives them grounds to not pay the invoice.The crux of pre-billing and why factoring companies are reluctant to fund those invoice[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Wednesday

Just the Facts The S&P500 gained 6.11 points, closing at 1334.43. The Nasdaq gained 10.22 points, closing at 2286.04 The Small Cap S&P600 gained 2.86, closing at 365.53 Nasdaq Volume came in around 1.8 billion shares, substantially higher than on Monday. NYSE Volume also increased, to around 1.14 billion shares. Most of the increase in volume on both exchanges occured later in the day after the markets had rebounded off lows, a bullish sign. We saw 77 new Highs and 79 new Lows on the NYSE and 19 new highs alongside 174 new lows in t[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Improving Hor - Day 8

Improving HoR today dealt mainly with making the Glowstick section more congruent.I changed a lot of the prices (as they have been raised), properly calculated shipping[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Quotes From The Papers

There have been a whole bunch of articles about Alberta and Edmonton and the economy in the past few days. So I thougt I’d just put some of the quotes from these articles here...enjoy:Alberta remains an island of prosperity in a roiling sea of economic uncertainty. Geoffrey Scotton, Calgary HeraldThere almost seems to be distinct economies between Alberta and the rest of North America, really. It’s a rather interesting situation -- we’re pretty well insulated from the stuff happening in the U.S. Calgary Economic Development chief economist Adam Legge.Our[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Recovery

The market surged after several companies top earnings estimates and rallied. This was exactly what I ment with a catalyst yesterday. Industrial production came out stronger, but the CPI numbers disappointed as expected. A follow-through could be in the cards today, but the mood could chance quikly if the earnings will be weak. (IBM),(MER)<[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Top 10 Sectors&Stocks By Relative Strength (weekly Update)

Use this tool to buy the right sector ETFs or their leading stocks by RS:Weighted - Industry Name - Chart - Top Names Alpha+97.82 Agricultural Chemicals
Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Just Say "no"...

... to mortgage bailouts. That’s what the Heritage Foundation is saying.And who pays for this bailout? Not the government. Its all the responsible homeowners and renters who resisted the temptations of the housing boom, ref[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Lower Lows & Broken Trendlines

Yesterday it was the Semis which broke lower and provided reason for caution. Today, the Financials are back below their key level (26.00). The weakness has also caused further erosion in SPY and Qs which have broken lower as well.Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Vix Intact But...

This chart is hanging around beneath the all important 200 day ma for longer than is comfortable if you’re a bear; at least if you’re a bear that likes to remain whole. MACD and Trixy have broken their coil[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Read This And Get Rich!

Hello, I’m Nicholas Collard, the Associate Editor for TradingMarkets and The Money Blogs. You might see some blogs of mine pop up here from time to time. Go ahead and read them, I encourage it. Here at TradingMarkets, were interested in what you, the readers, have to say. We also sometimes get the feeling that you, the readers, are interested in what we have to say. If that last part applies to you, then I propose a deal. Ill crank out blog postings that are of a reasonable literary caliber. Most of it will be commentary on business news of the day or ot[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Mixed Media

I’m continuing to see how television is going to be a thing of the past. Well, not television in the broad sense, more the way television is delivered. Right now, my television programing, my internet connection, and my phone service are delivered over the same pair of copper lines. The same lines that just 5 years ago could only deliver voice service.It used to be that you had a twisted pair running to your house for telephone and a coax cable running to the house for tele[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Riots In Egypt

You probably have heard about the riots going on in Egypt over the rising price and rationing of bread (wheat).I only know what I read (here and Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Bears Are Knocking

Wednesday let the door open up for the bears, closing the broader markets red on the day. Volume fell off on the day, slightly underpacing yesterdays. Which is good for the bulls, but they still gave up ground today. The first two hours of the day outpaced yesterday and then we slid off, Futures did outpace yesterdays volume so we do have distribution days on futures. Gold closed the day up $20.10 at $938.10 an ounce and Crude closed up $2.43 at $110.93 after hitting a new all time new high over 111.00. After five days of range and doing a lot of[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

How The Rich Buy Real Estate

I recently read an article on how the rich buy real estate that reminded me of my only experience with how the super rich, buy a house. Or in this case, build a mansion.As the article points out celebrities and the wealthy like to buy incognito under the guise of a trust. Well, years ago, back in the days of Heavy Metal and the Sunset Strip here in Los Angeles, the band Guns N Roses seemed like they would always rule the genre.A good friend who [...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Home Price Comparison Index

My favorite toy on the Coldwell Banker website is the Home Price Comparison Index.Just enter the market value of your current home and the location, along with 3 other comparable cities, and you can see what your home would sell for in those other places.For instance, if you live in a $1M home in Seattle, that same home would cost $3,962,121.00 in Beverly Hills, but only $303,030.00 in Houston, TX.[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

How To Equalize Seemingly Junky Traffic

A recent study says that 80 % of all searches are "informational" in nature while 10 % are "navigating" to a specific website, and 10% are what the researchers call "transactional" whereby the searcher is looking for an item to purchase.The sample was based on 1.5 million queries from hundreds of thousands of search engine users.How can we interpret this? Well, one way is to figure that 90% of web search traffic is crap! Or....Maybe if we as marketers put out an information "vault&qu[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Nasdaq Had Its Day In The Spotlight

Thursday was Wednesdays opposite, leaving us green and on higher volume. Actually the best volume weve seen this month on the Nasdaq, the NYSE is not the best of the month, but it was higher than yesterday. Futures were also higher volume. Our day started weak and shook that off to rally throughout the day and fall off late day. Gold fell $5.70 to $931.80 on the day and crude was also down on the day by 89 cents to $109.98 a barrel. Into Friday we have some economic data, most likely to see the 10:00 Consumer Sentiment move the markets over the 8:30 da[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

2008 Housingpanic Award Nominees

HousingPANIC has come up with a list of nominees for most f*cked up builder, lender, real estate agent and others working in the monumental Real Estate Industrial Complex. Sadly, I was not nominated in any of the categories. But it’s not too late! I’ve never won anything in my life. Please help me fulfill a dream....[...]

Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]

Losers

Those ex-Marinites, Vernon and Marty Ummel, were schooled yesterday on the meaning of the phrase "Read More...

[Source: The Money Blogs]