Posted in Economy on Apr 23rd, 2008 No Comments »
In my local area, regular unleaded gasoline rose to $3.69 per gallon yesterday. It is strange that the price we pay for gas in west michigan is always higher than the state and national average, despite having a fuel depot and extensive underground pipelines in my town.
While high gasoline prices are a nuisance, I don’t [...]
Posted in Economy, News on Apr 11th, 2008 No Comments »
I find it ironic, but not surprising, that American Airlines is attempting to “pass the buck” to the FAA for its recent spat of mass flight cancellations because of wire bundles in the wheel wells of their MD-80 aircraft. By acting as if the FAA is the one causing the inconvenience on air passengers rather [...]
Posted in Economy, Investing on Mar 17th, 2008 No Comments »
Shares of Bear Stearns (BSC) took a dive today amid news of a $2 per share buyout offer from JP Morgan and a government bailout. I’m truly upset that the federal government has had to resort to bailing out institutions who made horrible investing decisions and lost billions of dollars. It just really burns me [...]
Posted in Economy on Feb 22nd, 2008 No Comments »
The tax rebate that most American’s are expecting to arrive sometime this year will hopefully spur the economy, my check will not. I don’t plan on spending my tax rebate, instead putting the full amount ($600 as I calculate it) toward paying down student loan debt and boosting my savings.
But, many people will be spending [...]
Posted in Economy on Jan 30th, 2008 No Comments »
Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, has announced a further 50 basis point cut in the Fed Funds rate bringing it down to 3%. This cut is the second cut in 8 days and brings the total of recent cuts to 1.25%.
I think Bernanke has changed his position on a lot of things since [...]
Posted in Economy on Jan 29th, 2008 No Comments »
It’s interesting how the majority of analysts are predicting the Federal Reserve to cut rates by 50 basis points on Wednesday January 30, 2008. I’m not sure if there will even be a rate cut, let alone a 50 basis point cut after the Fed’s emergency 75 basis point cut from last week.
Durable goods orders [...]
Posted in Economy on Jan 22nd, 2008 1 Comment »
In a surprise move, the Federal Reserve cut a key interest rate by three quarters of a percent today. This response was most likely fueled by the massive global stock sell off that occurred over the United State’s holiday weekend. In two days many global markets sold of over 10% of their value because of [...]
Posted in Economy on Jan 18th, 2008 No Comments »
President Bush has a press conference today at 11:30am to announce his plans for an economic stimulus package to try to shock the United States economy back into conciousness. He stated a desire for a stimulus the size of about 1% of GDP and no tax increases.
The two requirements President Bush gave for the package [...]
Posted in Economy, Investing on Jan 9th, 2008 4 Comments »
I’ve been watching the price movement of Countrywide Financial (CFC) and E*Trade (ETFC) closely lately and they are certainly taking a beating from the nationwide mortgage industry meltdown.
Investing in these two companies is not for the light at heart. Countrywide is trading around $5 per share and E*Trade under $2.50. But, the larger question here [...]
Posted in Economy on Jan 2nd, 2008 No Comments »
Earlier in 2007 I had predicted that crude oil would hit $100/barrel by the end of 2007 and I wasn’t far off. January 2nd marked the first time crude oil landed on $100, but it quickly subsided before the market close. Even though the price fell at the end of the day, the settlement price [...]
