Some actions ahead of the “Fiscal Cliff”

By now we all have heard about the looming “Fiscal Cliff”.  If President Obama and the Congress failed to act, a series of serious budget provisions including tax increases and spending cuts will go into effect as of January 1, 2013.  The Bush era tax cuts will expire and every one’s tax rates will go […]

Can Chinese premier-elect Li Keqiang fix the slowing economy?

China’s once in a decade leadership transition took place at the recently concluded communist party meeting.  As expected the incoming Communist Party General Secretary and President-elect Xi Jinping take control in March 2013.  Much has written about Xi Jinping but not much about the China’s premier-elect Li Keqiang, who will be in charge of the […]

Troubles for Hewlett-Packard continues

The Palo Alto, California based hardware giant Hewlett-Packard (HP) just announced that it is taking an $8.8 billion accounting write-off for the acquisition of British software giant Autonomy they bought in the summer of 2011 for $10.3 billion.  Due to the size of the acquisition two lawyers and several financial institutions assisted HP to make […]

Does the size matter when investing in ETFs?

There are more than 1,400 ETFs covering very narrow emerging market segments to much larger indexes in developed nations.  But more than 87 percent of the money invested in ETFs are with four providers; iShares, State Street, Vanguard and PowerShares.  Does the size matters when investing in ETFs? Buying ETFs are easy.  But liquidating or […]

The ever continuing Syrian struggle

The new United Nation’s and Arab League’s Syrian peace negotiator, Lakhdar Brahimi, is making headlines on newspapers and on the Web for his attempts to negotiate a truce between the Syrian government and freedom fighters before the start of the Id al-Adha holiday that begins on October 25, 2012.  He is holding talks with key […]

A case for dividend growth companies

Thanks to Federal Reserve’s latest attempt dubbed as QE3 (Quantitative Easing three), the low dividend paying companies may increase their dividend payments. According to Barron’s the Dow Jones U.S. Select Dividend Index ETF (Exchange Traded Fund) which has a 4.1 percent yield only paid out 30 percent over the past two years. Companies are sitting […]

Effects of QE3 (Quantitative Easing three)

It has been more than a month since the introduction of QE3 by the Federal Reserve. It intends to purchase $40 billion of mortgaged-backed securities a month with an aim to boost employment and housing. Some expect the program to continue until the end of third quarter of 2013. Since QE3, the mortgage interest rate […]

Bond market is thriving even with low returns

Even with high unemployment and looming fiscal cliff, the U.S. stock market is steaming ahead. The just ended third quarter results prove this. The $3.9 trillion strong U.S. diversified-stock funds that contain 7,857 funds gained 5.29 percent in the third quarter and 25.5 percent gain for the last 12-month period. Meanwhile the bond funds gained […]

Apple’s iPhone 5

The much anticipated Apple iPhone 5 finally went on sale on Friday, September 14, 2012 on Apple Stores and on-line as well as its carriers including AT&T, Verizon Communications and Sprint Nextel. The Apple stock, ticker: AAPL, reached a new all-time high as a result. Some Wall Street analysts were quick to declare that the […]