Wealth Today

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.

House Takes Action On Alternative Minimum Tax

joshuak — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 04:35:29 +0000

The house legislative body has just taken action to save 22 million tax payers thousands of dollars by making adjustments to the alternative minimum tax law. This law, from the end of the 1960’s was originally intended to guaruntee that no one, especially the wealthy, escaped paying any tax. When written, it was flawed because it did not account for inflation. Senate representatives applauded this new revision for not creating new taxes in compensation for the lost revenue.

Wall Street Battered by Brutal Reports

joshuak — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 02:46:51 +0000

Today, the Dow Jones dropped 340 points as the US government released its poor report on the employment status of Americans, revealing a further weakening economy. The Department of Labor’s report showed a reversal of continued decline in unemployment, with an increase of 15,000 applications for unemployment during August.

Also reported were further slumps in retail markets, that pointed to necessity spending by consumers and an abandonment of demand for luxury items.

Google Drops The Chrome Bomb

joshuak — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 03:43:43 +0000

Google’s launching into the browser wars head on with the announcement of Chrome. It’s a web browser that boasts some nice features.

sandbox tabs for security, meaning each tab will run in its own process in the operating system.
integrated with existing web based apps like Google Docs, Calendar, Gmail, etc.

The Windows binaries are available, but while they have stated it will be available for the Linux-based Android on the mobile platform, no current Linux binaries or source are available. I’m disappointed because I’m not sure I’m excited enough to reboot to Windows in order to find out.

This speaks volumes of their software development efforts for integrating their business into the entire user experience, from search engine to operating system, mobile phone platform, personal computers, web browser, office document suite, groupware service provider, ad content provider, automated electronic language translation and so much more… are the only things missing routers, peripherals, and servers?

Icahn Gets a Seat on Yahoo’s Board

joshuak — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 00:13:45 +0000

Today, Yahoo gave Icahn 3 seats on the board of directors, bringing the total to eleven. Icahn takes a seat as the second largest institutional shareholder. While Icahn has failed to get a majority of seats, the situation continues to be a disruption to their business. Icahn’s unable to negotiate on behalf of the company without Yahoo’s permission, and must be allowed to participate on any committee that deals with a possible deal topic. While Icahn has a history of success in these ventures, we still have yet to see if there will be any deal between Microsoft and Yahoo.

Dow Jacks Up Prices Again

joshuak — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 14:56:04 +0000

For the second month in a row, Chemical magnate Dow increased prices. This time by as much as 25 percent, compared to last month’s increase of 20 percent. Interestingly enough, they uncover a plan of surcharges for each truck delivery and railcar delivery. They offer consumers the same reason so many other business do when raising prices : rising fuel costs.

Icahn Stirs Muck for Yahoo on the Tails of the Microsoft Bid

joshuak — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 23:34:39 +0000

Carl Icahn, an ambitious investor and significant stockholder of Yahoo shares, expects to win a vote by the board to remove current CEO, Jerry Yang from his title. Icahn is disappointed with Yahoo’s rejection of Microsoft’s takeover bid, and with just cause. The company’s shares continue to deteriorate, falling 32 from last year. Yahoo claims their stock was worth more than what Microsoft offered and allows them to refocus their efforts to core business. With another drop in value today, the bid, no longer on the table, becomes a more attractive offer to shareholders, and momentum is building.

Dow Chemical Increases Prices By Twenty Percent

joshuak — Wed, 28 May 2008 20:50:30 +0000

Dow’s CEO, Andrew Liveris, blames the US Government’s long-standing policy of inaction towards the rising energy crisis for the company’s recent hike in prices on all products across the globe by up to 20%. Dow claims a 42 percent increase in cost of their energy and “feedstock” (the raw petroleum from crude oil) for the first quarter compared to a year ago. My concern : Dow’s extensive list of products and services is a far reaching bohemeth and this price increase will gouge into the pockets of other industries that are already hit hard by the increase in fuel prices.

AMD Goes Head To Head Against Intel

joshuak — Wed, 07 May 2008 23:10:36 +0000

This time, though, AMD will let the battle be decided by the clout-swinging suits instead of the cutting-edge Samurai-style technology touting ninja-neers. AMD has filed suit against Intel in a statement of anti-trust, alleging that Intel intervened and was able to sway decisions against AMD’s favor in many attempted business and marketing negotiations. Analysts expected this kind of response over 6 months ago. If the result of the complaint is in AMD’s favor, will it be enough to dig them out of this hole? Likely. They expected some losses this year as it acquired ATI, and have a new product launch planned this summer. While the move didn’t mangle Intel in today’s market, it didn’t look good. Intel seems adamant that they will come out ahead in the long run. On the other hand, AMD has already produced their statement of how they will continue to be successful as the move to integrated CPU and GPU architecture over the next generations of product lines. It is yet to be seen, but I am not convinced the outcome of the suit will make significant changes for AMD or it’s stock. We will also have to pay attention to how it will affect the consumers to see how that will play out.