Wealth Today » Banking

Forbes Warns of Banks Retaliating through fees

joshuak — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 04:50:31 +0000

Forbes wrote that as banks are grappling in their battlefield, they may have civilian casualties. Expect to be bled when banks are given the opportunity to offer a premium service such as overdraft fees and ATM fees for a hefty rate, and that those fees will be increasing and less frequently waived. Banks have realized that they must collect from their customer base in every corner of the market if they are to expect to survive in this gory economic times.

Forbes comforts the reader by offering the same common sense advice I believe in for dealing with the opponent: know the battlefield and plan ahead.

Wall Street Whacked In Its Pants Today

joshuak — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 02:20:32 +0000

The AP reported on a rough day on another rough day in Wall Street. It is one of the best articles I have read in awhile. Having dropped 800 points during the day, it finished at 370 less than last closing. Indeed it was rough. The article has an interesting statement : “[he] believes investors are sensing that what’s happening in the economy is a shift in the extent to which consumers and businesses take on debt.” I am interested in seeing how this will carry out. Will we have some way of engaging self-finance? It is obvious that will change banking, but how will it affect other markets. We can assume technology through forms of automation.

Also significant in the article is Joseph V. Battipaglia’s discussion on the deleveraging of economies and the open discussion that this phenomenon is occurring right now and very quickly. It will be interesting to see what will happen after the deleveraging of the economies, which is omitted from the article. I expect it to have some radical impacts on politics and perhaps even borders.

I also appreciate the candidness which fund manager Ryan Jacob openly admits that other big name players are still attempting to gain ground in the market, mentioning Buffett’s new checkmate and the melee over Wachovia.

You can find the article here.

The G7 Discusses the Dollar and Rising Food Costs

joshuak — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 16:35:06 +0000

Much of the world’s economy is based on the dollar and the dollar’s value has dropped. As a result, the price of food is increasing on a global scale. The economic advisors from seven of the largest economic-countries met along with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group.

All members recognized the impact that the falling dollar has had on food, and more important the all agree that price control and subsidies are not the answer because they “tend to create fiscal burdens and distortions.”

Interestingly enough, for the first time in a long time, the G7 is breaking the mold by bringing into action a move to slow the foreign exchange markets, hoping to put a halt to the dollar’s decline.

More On The Slowing US Real Estate Market

joshuak — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 18:59:48 +0000

With reports such as this one at Bloomberg, shed some alarming light into the dark world of the U.S. real estate economy. Some of the highlights include a 16 percent decrease in the average price of a home in Tampa while San Diego is the third worst in the nation, with a 21 percent plummet in value. Sacramento’s value dropped the most at 28%.

Watching this happen, I kind of believe it’s just beginning. I don’t know exactly how long it will continue, but I’m sure it’s not over, and I know things will turn around again. I feel that we’ll be experiencing more factors over the coming months that will be pulling down the value of home prices even more. We’re also seeing an increase in the unemployment filings, and as those increase we will likely expect to a corresponding increase in foreclosures which will affect the overall value of homes. Interestingly enough, the decrease in value will also affect tax revenue related to price of homes which has a negative impact on civic infrastructure.

New Balance Transfer Strategy

joshuak — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 15:51:08 +0000

I recently got an offer from one of my credit cards for a lower interest rate for balance transfers. I had already received an increase in my limit, and thought it would be a good opportunity for me. The promotional balance transfer rate is only for 3 months, but even after it’s over, the interest rate was better than another card with a balance, so I went for it.

Here’s where I saw the new strategy. The promotional rate will automatically be extended for another 9 months if I have another balance transfer post before before the current promotional period ends.

That’s some incentive to make sure I do another one.

401k unsteady picking itself up

joshuak — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 05:43:19 +0000

My 401k’s slowly making it’s climb, with just a small +0.18 in unit price today. It started out pretty good, but it does seem to have slowed down at a lot lower price than before the slump. I’m relieved to see that it’s progressing. I kind of wish it had held off until after the company had contributed their match. That would have been a significant increase on my match. I guess this is where dollar cost averaging is really going to pay off for me in the long run.

Did anyone not have the same kind of lackluster return to a pre-subprime-lending-crash state?

Managing Credit Card Debt

joshuak — Fri, 24 Feb 2006 06:35:42 +0000

Many of my readers already know that while I’ve already started my savings plan and enrolled in the company’s 401k, I do have some outstanding debt that I’m in the process of eliminating.

One of the first credit cards I got when I was trying to repair my credit was a CapitalOne card. It cost a bunch for the setup fee and the yearly fee was terrible (about $170-$200 combined), but I had to do something to get things turned around and headed in the right direction…no one else was giving me a credit card, and this was an unsecured card, so I took it.

I’ve maintained that account and watched my credit score climb. They were satisfied with me as a customer and have since offered me two more cards (Platinum Plus Preferred) with a 0% introductory rate and lower annual fees.

I took them up on both offers. That left me with three CapitalOne cards. It’s a hassle to manage all of those accounts and also pay for the annual fees, so I decided to do something about it.

After the success with lowering my interest rate on one of the cards, I thought maybe they could offer something as far as merging the accounts. I called and they were very accomodating. I combined the two lower credit limit cards into one and waited for that process to complete.

Today, I called to combine the remaining two. Those two calls took less than 20 minutes combined and saved me $90 this year. Yes, I’m really happy about it.

Money – Do It Now – 10 Resolutions

joshuak — Mon, 23 Jan 2006 21:32:01 +0000

I found a great all in one article on CNNMoney.com today. It’s not a site I regularly frequent, but this article is definitely top notch. It covers “10 simple strategies for finally achieving your financial goals“.

It takes a deeper look into saving more money, investing smarter, getting out of debt, getting your career kick-started, and more.

It’s actually a collection of 10 articles, and will take some time to get through all of them, but it’s time well spent.

My ExxonMobil Speedpass was stolen

joshuak — Wed, 11 Jan 2006 14:18:53 +0000

Oh boy. Here we go. I took a trip to Baton Rouge, LA over Christmas weekend. My Speedpass was stolen and I didn’t realize it until this morning. Yes, that’s been a long time, but my regular ExxonMobil stations have switched to Texaco and Chevron, so I haven’t needed it. I noticed a charge at an exxonmobil yesterday that showed FL and I haven’t been to FL in a couple of years, but sometimes merchant accounts will report a corporate address or something like that, so I kind of questioned it, however no big alarm went off in my head. $20 so it looked like a fill up. I thought : “My wife used the car in a different part of town on the day the charge was taken, so maybe she filled it up.” Today, I see two more. Another city in Florida and one in Mississippi. Now I know something’s amiss. I noticed they’re all at ExxonMobil’s and checked my keychain. Sure enough, it’s missing and I’m short $64. I called ExxonMobil and they’re cancelling and re-issuing new SpeedPasses and referred me to my bank. I called Wells Fargo and they’ve filed a fraud claim. I have to fill out some paper work, get it back to them, and jump through those hoops. I dug back a little further to see when the last time I used my speedpass was, because Wells Fargo asked me, and I noticed another fraudulent use of the Speed Pass. This time it was the day I left Baton Rouge (I didn’t get gas the whole time I was in Baton Rouge) and it said this charge was in Baton Rouge. I called Wells Fargo back and told them about it and asked if it could be put on the same fraud claim. I was told “not usually”. It takes Claims 24 hours to get it. They were nice and said that since this charge was so small ($11.75) that they would simply credit it back to my account and reference the already open claim. I know Wells Fargo is extremely conservative and has high fees, but quite frankly when I deal with them, they’re great.

I’ll let everyone know how the claim continues. Speedpass told me to call them back if Wells Fargo is unable to resolve the unauthorized use claim.