Archive for January, 2008
« Previous Entries Next Entries »WSJ: Forclosures Up 75% in 2007
Tuesday, January 29th, 2008I saw this ($) in today’s Wall Street Journal: Foreclosure filings soared 75% in 2007 from a year earlier as credit trouble and falling home values fell on homeowners, a foreclosure-listing service said. There were 2.2 million foreclosure filings last year. More than 1% of all U.S. households were in some stage of foreclosure during [...]
Countrywide’s CEO Will Forfeit His $37.5 Million Severance
Monday, January 28th, 2008I read in the Wall Street Journal today that Angelo Mozillo, the CEO of Countrywide, will forfeit his $37.5 million severance package ($) when he leaves Countrywide after its sale to Bank of America is complete. Have no fear, Angelo won’t be destitute. He’ll be able to live on his pension and retirement plan that’s [...]
Another Way Responsible Borrowers Could Get Screwed: Property Taxes
Monday, January 28th, 2008I think the handwriting is on the wall for citizens of areas facing lots of foreclosures. If municipalities are left with lots of vacant properties due to foreclosures, they will have to cut expenses, raise property taxes, or a combination of both in order to meet their budgets. Remember, there are two parts to the [...]
Will Qtrax Be a Success?
Monday, January 28th, 2008From the TimesOnline: With CD sales in free fall and legal downloads yet to fill the gap, the music industry has reluctantly embraced the file-sharing technology that threatened to destroy it. Qtrax, a digital service announced today, promises a catalogue of more than 25 million songs that users can download to keep, free and with [...]
What a Difference a Year Makes!
Monday, January 28th, 2008It’s amazing how one year can impact the annualized rate of return of a longer period of time. To see what I mean, take a look at the two graphics below. The first one shows the annual returns from 1987-2006 of the indexes represented in Callan Periodic Table of Investment Returns that I reference fairly [...]
OT – Guitar Hero Helped Me Form a Bond with my Boys
Friday, January 25th, 2008It’s Friday and after a week of blogging about the market and subprime crisis, I thought it would be fun to do something different and way off-topic. About a year ago, my boys started playing Guitar Hero. If you’re not familiar with the game, it’s a video game that simulates guitar playing to classic rock [...]
Another Trader Loses Lots of Money – $7 Billion to be Exact!
Thursday, January 24th, 2008How does this kind of stuff happen? Société Générale, one of the largest banks in Europe, was thrown into turmoil Thursday after it revealed that a rogue employee had executed a series of “elaborate, fictitious transactions” that cost the company more than $7 billion, the biggest loss ever recorded in the financial industry by a [...]
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