Archive for the ‘Financial Today’ Category

Macquarie Chief Calls For Interest Rates To Be Cut

May 9th, 2012 Travis Brown

Nicholas Moore, chief executive of Macquarie has added his voice to growing calls made by leaders of industry for interest rates to be cut next week as a means by which confidence in the country would be boosted by helping export based industries who are currently suffering from the high value of the Australian dollar.

Mr. Moore made his comments after revealing profits at the investment bank plunged by nearly 24 per cent in the face of global market volatility. The performance was the worst on record since the very depths of the global financial crisis.

In response Macquarie has cut as many as 1300 positions from its workforce globally as it undertakes a strategy of cost control.

The investment bank blamed its poor performance on results from its two main units, Macquarie Capital and Macquarie Securities.

The latter business is Macquarie’s institutional broking business, which produced its first ever loss of $184 million.

Macquarie Capital, which is the group’s investment banking division saw profits tank by 60 per cent, earning just $85 million.

According to Mr. Moo

Read all post…

Tags: Cut, Interest Rates

New EM Exposure Indices Launched By MSCI

April 14th, 2012 Travis Brown

 

[This article previously appeared on our sister site, IndexUniverse.eu.]

 

MSCI has launched a new family of emerging market indices that includes companies according to their economic exposure rather than their country of domicile.

The MSCI Economic Exposure Indices have been designed to reflect the fact that many organisations have significant exposure to regions outside the country in which they are based.

The index provider cited Nestlé as an example of the type of firm it was looking to reflect—although it is a Swiss domiciled company, only 2.15 percent of its revenues are derived from Switzerland, while emerging markets countries account for 35 percent of its revenues.

“Globalisation and the rapid integration of markets have challenged us to explore alternative approaches to categorising the global equity universe,” said Baer Pettit, managing director and head of the MSCI Index Business. “Economi

Read all post…

Tags: Launched Msci, Msci

Choice Urges Mortgage Borrowers To Switch From Big Four Lenders

March 29th, 2012 Travis Brown

Choice the consumer, group claims that mortgage borrowers could save as much as $70,000 on their home loan, simply by switching from a major lender.

The consumer watchdog recently released its findings as part of its Move Your Money Campaign, which it argues suggest that there are huge savings on interest charges and fees to be had.

A comparison website recently published data which agrees with the consumer groups findings, and suggest that borrowers and savers could obtain better deals on credit cards and savings accounts by shopping around.

According to calculations, a smaller lender is willing to pay as much as $328 a year more in interest on a deposit of $5000 than the lowest interest rate offered by a major bank.

Credit card borrowers can save as much as $449 in both interest and fees on a $3000 loan by switching the debt from the highest interest rate product offered by a major bank to a smaller lender.

Matt Levey of Choice said that the major lenders dominate the mortgage lending and savings market in a manner that was unhealthy, controlling roughly 80 per cent of the entire market between them.

Mr.

Read all post…

Tags: Mortgage Borrowers, Switch

Some of My Favorite Tax Shelters

March 20th, 2012 Travis Brown

In last week’s column, I talked about the tax treatment of various types of dividend payments … and toward the end, I said you could avoid most of the issues by investing in a tax shelter.

I realize that when a phrase like “tax shelter” comes up, most people think of shady businesses … secret bank accounts on tropical islands … or other sophisticated schemes. But the reality is that plenty of tax shelters are available to all of us — and there is simply nothing suspicious or illegal about them.

Take Individual Retirement Accounts, or IRAs. Nearly everyone has heard of them, loads of Americans use them to save and invest, and yet they ARE, technically speaking, tax shelters.

Better Yet, You Still Have Time to
Open or Fund an IRA for LAST YEAR!

I’ll explain why in a minute. First, let’s back up and talk in broad strokes.

Like 401(k)s, IRA plans were created by amendments to the Internal Revenue Code. And they serve mu

Read all post…

Tags: Tax, Tax Shelters

How to talk to your contractor about paint

March 6th, 2012 Travis Brown

If there’s one thing contractors love, it’s when customers tell them how to do their job. Kidding. That’s actually right behind not getting paid on their list of pet peeves. Unfortunately, when it comes to painting projects, customer and contractor are often at loggerheads since the best paints for pros are not always the best paints for homeowners. So how do you navigate the divide?

Start by stating your priorities upfront. Pros tend to focus on how easily a paint is applied and how quickly it dries. But as Consumer Reports’ tests routinely show, paints have many performance attributes, and there is often wide variance from one product to the next. Some go on smoothly but lose their gloss over time, which could make them less effective on surfaces that you clean often, such as kitchen walls. Others provide excellent one-coat coverage, while others require two or more coats. That will change the material costs significantly with large projects.

It’s important to think these factors through before speaking with your contractor so that you can communicate your desires clearly.

Read all post…

Tags: Contractor, Contractor Paint

Answers to your biggest questions …

February 22nd, 2012 Travis Brown

Between my recent trip to the Orlando MoneyShow and all the regular e-mails I get from readers, I’ve had a lot of questions coming my way lately. And that’s why I wanted to take some time today to address a few of the most common topics that have been coming up.

For starters, the initial feedback on the new covered call strategy that I’ve started using in my dad’s income portfolio has been wildly positive. But a lot of people want to know:

“How Are You Deciding What Specific Options to Write? And How Hard Is It to Do This Myself?”

First, let’s start with how I’m selecting my trades. As I’ve mentioned before, I am ONLY going to recommend writing contracts on stocks that we already own … so that right there limits our choices to a very short list of companies to choose from.

I should note that plenty of other people DO write calls without owning the underlying stocks. But I consider that an extremely dangerous approach.

Still other people specifically buy stocks that they know have the potential to create very big premiums from call writing. I think that’s a fi

Read all post…

Tags: Questions
Page 1 of 3012345...102030...Last »