Archive for December, 2007
Wednesday, December 12th, 2007
Can You Insure $3 Trillion with $49 Billion? Who’s Keeping An Eye on FDIC?
Are there any insurance agents or insurance bean counters that can shed some light on the title of this post? I pulled that question from the FDIC website. In a time of possible bank failures, it becomes necessary to ask a few basic questions and clear up some misconceptions. The #1 misconception that I keep [...]
3 Comments » - Posted in Financial Safety by RichSlick
Tuesday, December 11th, 2007
State of Florida Seizes Interest Payments
It’s getting really ugly out there now…. By Demian McLean and David Evans Dec. 11 (Bloomberg) — Florida’s state investment pool will keep November’s interest income instead of paying it to counties and schools, using the $95 million to shore up a troubled portion of the fund. The decision was announced by officials from the [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Financial Safety,Watch Out by RichSlick
Tuesday, December 11th, 2007
Cracks in the Foundation – Warning Signs of Major Banking Problems
As you might have read, I liquidated all my stock holdings yesterday and I wanted to follow up why I did so. Let me be blunt, I’m not spooked, I’m scared sh*tless! There are major cracks showing up in the financial system all over the place and people are way too complacent. If you haven’t [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in Financial Safety by RichSlick
Monday, December 10th, 2007
Liquidated All My Positions
Announcement that Bank of America just froze some redemptions on a money market fund. I’ve just liquidated all my positions (except one) and moved to cash. I’ll likely move to Treasuries soon. Bookmark to: Hide Sites $$(‘div.d422′).each( function(e) { e.visualEffect(‘slide_up’,{duration:0.5}) });
3 Comments » - Posted in Financial Safety,Watch Out by RichSlick
Saturday, December 8th, 2007
Family, Friends, & Faith, The Three Demons You Must Slay To Be Successful
Trent over at The Simple Dollar wrote perhaps one of the best PF Blog posts I’ve read in a long while entitled, “Does Peer Pressure Keep Us From Succeeding?” and I had a similar post mulling over in my head for some time now but my had been titled, “Family, Friends & Faith, The Three [...]
8 Comments » - Posted in Misc by RichSlick
Friday, December 7th, 2007
Arbitrage Around the S&P 500
With the great success of my ETF Covered Call strategy, I’ve decided to expand onto a mathematical model surrounding arbitrage around S&P 500 index. With the volatility in today’s market as it is, it makes sense to explore this theorem and cook up a new recipe for success. The ingredients: SSO (Ultra S&P 500 Proshares) [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in MMO by RichSlick
Thursday, December 6th, 2007
Fair Isaac (FICO) Insiders Selling – The Aftermath of the Housing Mess?
We are still in the early stages of this whole housing mess and one of the things that I keep coming back to is how so many banks got so many things wrong. If you visit the myfico.com website, it claims “90% of the largest U.S. banks use FICO® scores*” and seems to be quite [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Financial Safety by RichSlick
Wednesday, December 5th, 2007
I Want My Credit Card APR Locked at 0% For Five Years
If you haven’t heard the latest and greastest plan for the housing mess, Bush plans on a five year plan to freeze ARM rates at their current levels. I’m thinking it’s a great idea and I’d like to extend it to my credit cards, auto loan, my own home loan, and any other debt I [...]
7 Comments » - Posted in Watch Out by RichSlick
Wednesday, December 5th, 2007
A Brief History of Bubbles
Do you remember the Nasdaq (dot com) bubble? What about the Japan real estate bubble? Often, it takes a review of history to understand where we are heading tomorrow. Take a look at the real estate graph from Japan circa 1986 So during the boom in Japan, the real estate and stock markets were at [...]
2 Comments » - Posted in Financial Safety,Watch Out by RichSlick
Tuesday, December 4th, 2007
Turn Foreclosures Into Government Housing?
There’s an interesting solution being talked about in Florida regarding all those condos sitting in foreclosure or soon to be in foreclosure: let government buy them for public housing. Imagine a pristine beach front condo turned into a drug infested gang ridden crime zone! What possibilities! If that fabulous plan catches on, you might see [...]