Personal Finance

PPI Falls

Posted on 03/17/10 at 9:01am
The Producer Price Index declined 0.6% in February after increasing by 1.4% in January. The consensus was looking for a smaller decline of 0.2%. Energy prices contributed to the decline, falling 2.9% for the month. Gasoline prices fell 7.4% while heating oil and distallate prices fell 5.6%. Crude oil fell 8.7% in February. Core prices rose 0.1%, in-line with consensus expectations.
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Using Financial Ratios – An Investor’s Most Important Tool

Posted on 03/15/10 at 1:18pm
Many people who invest in stocks pay close attention to earnings estimates, and analyst recommendations. And all of that is important. But the key to understanding a company’s financials is financial ratios. Financial ratios are a way of taking a company’s financial statements and putting them into an easily digestible form.
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Virginia Cracks Down on Speeders, Budget Deficit

Posted on 03/15/10 at 11:47am
In an effort to help close a $2.2 billion budget, the state of Virginia sent its police officers out on a “ticketing blitz”, issuing 6996 traffic tickets to generate government revenue. “Operation Air, Land & Speed”, as they called it, was across Interstates 81 and 95 and gave officers two days to issue as many tickets as possible.
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Is Commercial Real Estate A Disaster (MI, SNV)?

Posted on 03/14/10 at 5:59pm
Commercial real estate. Upon hearing those words you are likely to immediately think of the negative implications: more defaults, more bank losses, next shoe to drop, derailed recovery..well, you get the idea. But, will commercial real estate really have such a pernicious effect on the economy? Here are some facts about commercial real estate:
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Democrats Attempt Two Birds, One Stone Trick With College Aid Plan

Posted on 03/14/10 at 12:41am
Leading Democrats in Congress announced yesterday that they are seeking to combine a college aid bill designed to cut out the private loan middleman from government financial aid to students with the health care reform bill set for a vote next week.
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Consumer Sentiment Weakens In March

Posted on 03/12/10 at 11:54am
The preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index came in lower than expected in March as consumers continued to fret about the labor market. The March reading for the overall index was 72.5 versus the 74.0 consensus. The February reading was 73.6. The survey's gauge of current economic conditions fell to 80.8 from February's final reading of 81.8.
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No More Overdrafts from Bank of America (BAC, C)

Posted on 03/10/10 at 10:54am
In hopes of preempting new credit card regulations, Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) announced that it will change the way debit cards operate with overdrafts. Previously, if a customer tried to make a debit card purchase greater than what is in their account, the transaction would be processed and a $35 overdraft fee would be assessed.
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Ready for Retirement, Not Yet

Posted on 03/09/10 at 3:32pm
According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute's annual Retirement Confidence Survey, the percentage of workers who said they have less than $10,000 in savings grew to 43% in 2010, from 39% in 2009. Confidence in the ability to save enough for a comfortable retirement hovered at 16% of respondents, the second lowest point in the 20-year history of the survey.
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Americans Still Unprepared For Retirement

Posted on 03/09/10 at 1:46pm
An alarming study released today found that Americans are woefully unprepared for retirement - raising more questions about the troublesome outlook for the economy.
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50 Stock Market Rules (AAPL, JPM, AIG, UNP)

Posted on 03/08/10 at 4:00pm
Over the weekend I found an old book titled "Stock Market Rules: 50 of the Most Widely Held Investment Axioms Explained, Examined and Exposed" by Michael Sheimo. The book is quite dated now, published in 1991, so I wanted to see if some of the axioms it discussed are still relevant today. Let's take a look at a few. Rule #13: Never Short a Dull Market.
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