Articles filed under 'Advice'
So here we sit and see that the USD has dropped and breached the 1.30 mark against the Euro. The question is why? I would have responded on this question earlier, but could not. Last Friday my oldest English Bulldog Patches (11.2 years) went into the doggy hospital, and she died on Monday. Until Wednesday I have been a bit of a vegetable as Patches was my first real dog that I bonded with. So I have been oblivious to what is going on in the markets.
So why did the dollar drop? Is the answer here? Or how about here? What about here? Or what about here? Notice how nowhere you will find the reason why the dollar dropped? I find that really odd! Of course some will say, “Oh its the huge deficits of the US”, or “This drop was long in coming and finally somebody did.” Great love the comments (NOT) as they still do not make it any clearer. Many now say that this is the longer trend, and the drop will be bigger.
I think most people create huge, out of reach goals like, “I need to have $1,000,000 in the bank by the time I’m 40.” A great goal, obviously, but I think that may be going about things the wrong way. What if we took that type of goal and switched it around? What if we first started by setting a goal we can control and achieve now?
Airbus is in deep do-do. The company that was heralded as the role model of a European Corporation, is well, getting bogged down in the reality of Europe. If there is one thing that the European governments and the American Federal government share it’s getting bogged down in details and bickering. Conventional wisdom says that Airbus is a dud stock! After all there are financial problems, A380 shipping problems, and let’s not even talk about the hen pecking between France and Germany.
Back when I was a financial young’un, I went to one of those free seminars hosted by a mutual fund company. Speaking there was a financial “guru” that I had admired for some time. I had read his books, watched his weekly tv show, and scanned his newspapers columns. I really thought he knew anything and everything about finances.
He was selling a can’t lose investment that supposedly not only provided a good return but saved the investor on taxes too.
What a great deal, right?
An ARM can be a huge money saver, or a time bomb. Unfortunately, there are a lot of time bombs out there.
One of my basic assumptions with regards to planning for the future (whether it is financial planning, or career planning, or other) is that we are in a period of disruptive change (which I’ve been calling the “Information Revolution” - as a way of indicating it is analogous to the Industrial Revolution”).
Periods of gradual change are relatively easy to deal with. Individuals can extrapolate and plan based on the past. Words of wisdom from parents and elders more or less make sense.
Disruptive change adds discontinuities to trend lines. Suddenly what worked in the past does not work anymore. Common knowledge is incorrect. What was good advice can suddenly become very bad advice.
Whether it’s due to bad or irrational decisions, youthful naiveté, a bad streak of luck, or situations totally beyond our control, we’re all faced with mounting debt at some point.
If it gets bad enough, some of us may even have to work with our creditors to forgive some of our debt just to remain solvent. But did you know that getting a break on your debt could greatly effect your tax situation? How about the effect of accepting a settlement offer has on your credit report?
As I’m sure you’ve all heard by now. Vonage has decided to offer some of their customers a shot at getting in on their IPO action. I happen to be one of those elligible customers, but should I buy in?
Today I got an offer for a new Visa credit card. Now, most credit cards offer you incentives for signing up, a low introductory APR, low interest rate balance transfers, gift cards, and the like. But this offer was different, by signing up for this card. I could get a free Dell laptop.
Jason and Frank both purchased 100 share positions in Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) after its share price dropped 11% because of lower-than-expected earnings guidance. I wanted to chime in on my assessment of the company, and share why I think now is not the time to buy.
