Archive for March, 2009
« Previous Entries Next Entries »Be Careful if You Use Dividend Yields As Your Guide for Valuation
Friday, March 6th, 2009Wells Fargo just announced that they are slashing their quarterly dividend by 85%! EIGHTY-FIVE PERCENT! What used to be an annual dividend of $1.36 is now $.20. Based on Wells Fargo’s current stock price of $8.58, the dividend yield went from 15.9% to 2.3%. To put it in perspective, if you had 1,000 shares of [...]
Welcome to Mortgage Fantasy Land!
Thursday, March 5th, 2009Check this out: Nelia Price stopped making mortgage payments in December, after struggling for months to make payments on her option adjustable-rate mortgage. The monthly payments on the $420,000 mortgage began at less than $2,000 and gradually increased to $3,000. She hopes that by missing her payments, her bank will modify her loan. The value [...]
Interesting Question Regarding Tax Software
Wednesday, March 4th, 2009Philip, a long-time AFM reader, sent me this email: I was wondering what your opinion is on whether you think that the availability of simplified tax software has left many people knowing even less about their taxes than they used to? I know recently Nickel had a post about taxes and lots of people seemed [...]
Let’s Talk About TALF
Wednesday, March 4th, 2009If I’m understanding this correctly, we’re going to fix our economy by going back down the same road that got us into this mess in the first place. That’s the impression I’m getting from the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF) that was detailed in today’s Wall Street Journal ($). According to the WSJ, here’s [...]
The New Dow Jones Indexes Website Stinks!
Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009I have a confession to make: I DON’T LIKE CHANGE. Okay, that’s not entirely true. I like change for the better. But, I have found when it comes to web offerings, companies usually make changes in order to offer less than before or slap some sort of price tag on what was formerly free information. [...]
The Last Time the Market Was This Low…
Monday, March 2nd, 2009The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed today at 6763.29. The last time the Dow was this low… • It was April 28, 1997—nearly 12 years ago (that was an intra-day low). • My youngest son was about 2 months old. • My oldest son was a year and a half old. • My daughter was [...]
How Low Can It Go? How Low Can It Go?
Monday, March 2nd, 2009What is the market telling us? I think the market is telling us that it is not sure where the economy is headed or how long it’s going to take to get things back on the right track. Surely at some point stock market valuations have to be bargains.
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