Ive been in the middle of a refinancing frenzy. Last week my wife and I closed on a second refi in under 12 months on our home. We brought our rate down from 5.625% to 3.875% on a 30-year fixed. And my business partner and I are in the middle of refinancing three rental properties. [...]
Much as singles use social media sites to find a good match, employers and prospective employees see them as great conduits for getting to know one another, taking a lot of the guesswork out of the hiring process. Long a leader in building business contacts, the venerable and popular LinkedIn is now joined by less [...]
After tech stocks led an early rally in the markets, they came back down, with the Dow keeping a 0.76 percent gain but the S&P 500 and Nasdaq remaining flat. A report from the National Association of Realtors claims that December home sales were up 5 percent from November. In other positive news, California’s unemployment [...]
– The major U.S. index futures are pointing to a modestly lower opening on Friday, as the positive mood ushered in by a series of debt auctions by eurozone nations this week is being marred by insipid domestic developments. Financial giant JP Morgan Chase (JPM) reported fourth quarter profits that declined from a year-ago, as [...]
Recently a reader e-mailed me with the following question: I definitely do want to open a Roth IRA as soon as possible because I hear its typically better than the Traditional IRA. However, Im not certain whether one should be putting money way in ones 401K or Roth. As you can tell, Im not that [...]
The list of ills still weighing down the U.S. economy is long. Employers have retrenched since 2007, and the nation’s unemployment rate is at 8.6%, 30 months after the recession officially ended. Wage gains are paltry for anxious workplace survivors. Income inequality has widened dramatically in a nation where equality of opportunity ranks among the [...]
Today the Federal Reserve announced that it would not be making any changes to its current monetary policy because its officials saw key indicators of a recovery in the economy. Major indices responded by falling, as investors had hoped for a more expansionary policy to be announced. November retail sales data provided some positive news, [...]
– The major U.S. index futures are pointing to a modestly higher opening on Friday, with sentiment receiving a lift from the fact that the EU nations have agreed to boost funding to the IMF by 200 billion euros. Additionally, most euro area leaders have also agreed to adopt stricter deficit control mechanism. That said, [...]