Clark Schultz is a financial writer and content editor who works for Great Sky Inc. His background include website development and management, content editing, HTML programming and writing detailed content for financial sites that has been published or cited in major publications - including Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Barron's and numerous other financial sites. Created the websites MoneyRates.com and Savings-Investor.com. Interests include social media, SEO, tennis, and coaching youth sports.
Zero Hedge stumbles on the answer as to how to boost U.S. GDP beyond 3% with a massive project to build the Imperial Death Star. A project that inflates the debt beyond all comprehension and incorporates extremely hostile foreign policy is sure to draw praise from both parties.
Cost = $852 quadrillion give or take
Cool factor = Unlimited
Original post from Zero Hedge
Random number generation? A striking report from S&P tips off that not only did 84% of actively managed funds fail to beat their benchmarks in 2011’s tricky market, but less than 50% of portfolio managers outperformed even over a five year tracking period. Even the best of the lot struggle, with only 12.2% of the large-cap funds ranked in the top quartile five years ago managing to maintain a spot in the upper 25% five years later. “There’s no evidence of persistence of performance beyond what would be randomly expected,” says Buckingham Asset’s Larry Swedroe.
via Barron’s and Seeking Alpha
Internet hotshot Pinterest blows past Twitter and closes in on Bing in a ranking of the websites that produces the most referral traffic. The visually striking manner of presenting user photos prompted Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg to “like” the Friendsheet app that aims to produce the same results on the social networking site. (Related: Why Google should buy Pinterest)
Kansas City appears set to easily beat St. Louis in one important category - fastest Internet speeds. The city was selected by Google as a site for an experimental broadband network infrastructure using fiber optic communication, with a launch date set for sometime in 2012.
According to Google:
We plan to build an ultra high-speed broadband network in Kansas City on both sides of the river. Our network will deliver Internet speeds of up to 1 gigabit (or 1,000 megabits) per second. That’s more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today
So Kansas City will soon be flying around the Internet at the same speeds currently seen in Asia and Europe, while most of the rest of the U.S. (including St. Louis) trods along.
From the BBC:
The average broadband internet speed across the US is 12.84 Mbps, according to Netindex.com. That makes the US 31st in the world (the UK is 32nd with 12.4 Mbps speed).
A quick peek at the widening yield spread between a basket of diversified high-yielding multinational stocks and the best savings account rates:
Dividend Stock Portfolio (4.04% yield)
Southern Copper (SCCO) 6.98%
Eli Lilly (LLY) 4.96%
Total (TOT) 4.90%
Merck (MRK) 4.48%
Kimberly-Clark (KMB) 4.14%
Waste Management (WM) 4.03%
Vodafone (VOD) 3.80%
Intel (INTC) 3.37%
Chevron (CVX) 3.12%
Coca-Cola (KO) 2.94%
McDonald’s (MCD) 2.90%
Microsoft (MSFT) 2.75%
Source: Seekingalpha.com
Savings Portfolio (1.27% yield)
Savings Account 1.01%
Money Market Account 0.90%
1-year CD 1.15%
2-year CD 1.25%
3-year CD 1.48%
5-year CD 1.85%
Source: MoneyRates.com, RateBrain.com, SavingsAccounts.com, Interest.com
The #Facebook #IPO buzz: At the $100B market cap price tag, do you take Mickey D’s ($MCD) or $FB? 2.8% yield & Happy Meals vs. tech darling.
Analysis at Seeking Alpha….
It’s a sign of the times: Portfolio managers can’t beat index funds. The Fed has handcuffed savers with rates below 1%. Real estate is still shaky. Growth in China and the Pacific Rim is slowing down. And, of course, the Europe sovereign debt debacle and U.S. budget woes are still major overhangs.
The answer for investors as the new year approaches?…do-it-yourself.
The rationale is clear. DIY investors have more online resources than ever to find personal finance tips and investment advice that can replace the need to pay commissions and fees to stock brokers and financial planners. All the resources you need to make smart investment decisions are online. Here are the best sites to watch for 2012:
1. Jemstep
Website: http://www.jemstep.com
Twitter: @JemStep
Why it rocks: Jemstep cleverly mixes portfolio advice with portfolio management tools to give investors unbiased guidance on mutual funds and ETFs. The future for ETFs as an investment vehicle for retirement keeps getting brighter and brighter with JemStep as an emerging resource.
2. Robotdough
Website: http://www.robotdough.com
Twitter: @RobotDough
Why it rocks: Robotdough is the best platform to backtest investing strategies and for do-it-yourselfers to track portfolios. The site’s stock screener includes coverage on all major exchanges, including the US, India, Pakistan, Australia, Hong Kong, and Europe
3. Simple (formerly BankSimple)
Website: http://www.banksimple.com
Twitter: @Simplify
Why it rocks: The philosophy behind of Simple is that each consumer should only need one card and one account without transaction fees for ATM machines or penalties for bank overdrafts. What is your bank doing for you except paying you low rates and charging you high fees? Simple is the ultimate DIY bank.
4. Wikinvest
Website: http://www.wikinvest.com
Twitter: @Wikinvest
Why it rocks: Wikinvest helps investors make decisions based on crowdsourced content and striking visual displays of data. The site has a great indy spirit that dovetails perfectly with investors who are making their own decisions.
5. Seeking Alpha
Website: http://www.seekingalpha.com
Twitter: @SeekingAlpha
Why it rocks: Seeking Alpha has the best stream of investing news and articles on the Internet. Editors on the site filter the financial universe to find a wealth of stock market analysis and actionable investing ideas. News you can use.
6. MoneyRates
Website: http://www.moneyrates.com
Twitter: @MoneyRates
Why it rocks: Created and developed by Clark Schultz, so more than a little unrelenting bias prevails. The site helps user find valuable personal finance tips, as well as the highest rates on FDIC-insured CDs, money markets, savings accounts, and checking account.
7. Doxo
Website: http://www.doxo.com
Twitter: @Doxo
Why it rocks: A simple idea – but one that has never been fully developed on the Internet. Store your valuable data and financial information in a secure digital filing cabinet. Don’t be sloppy – sign up for Doxo.
8. GreenChoice Bank
Website: http://www.greenchoicebank.com
Twitter: @greenmarkpr (PR firm)
Why it rocks: This bank is doing almost everything right, where nearly every other bank is doing everything wrong. The Chicago-based bank is committed to its local community and supports sustainable projects that help the environment. What exactly is BofA and Goldman Sachs & the rest of the TARP banks doing with your deposits again?
Wondering what countries rate the safest in the world by S&P for investors to hold sovereign debt? Here’s the list:
Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Down to 13….
It’s happening again. Market caps on newly minted public companies running wild.
Here’s the current checklist:
LinkedIn (LNKD): $8.9 billion
Pandora (P): $3 billion
Homeaway (AWAY): $3.1 billion
RenRen Inc. (RENN): $3.7B
Then around the corner are the IPOs for Facebook, Groupon, Zynga and Square (maybe) all at multi-billion dollar cap levels. You can read great analysis for the revenue potential of each stock at Seeking Alpha, but each justification relies on large assumptions. Whether it to be the number of subscribers (LinkedIn), fending off competition (Pandora) or even growing ad revenue in a slow economy (Facebook) - the case for each stock relies on a projection. What each company really needs to justify sky-high market caps is an industry-destroying model:
- Google killed off newspapers
- Netflix destroyed Blockbuster
- Amazon obliterated brick-and-mortar bookstore
Which of the companies above will not only grow customers and revenues at a rapid pace, but will change the face of its industry? If you know the answer, then that’s the company whose market cap might be in line with reality.
Trying to beat a 3% return on your savings these days is nearly impossible.
The highest online savings and money market rates are close to 1.20%. You can CD rates slightly over 3%, but you have to pick at least a 5-year maturity. Even the 10-year Treasury Bill dipped below a 3% yield this week. As for bond funds? Yikes, that’s a time bomb. No thanks.
Dividends yields are looking much better than they did a year ago. And there is value in some underpriced stocks. But with the economy still weak, do you want to put your money at risk just to earn that 3% or 4% dividend payout?
Savers are really getting hammered because right when that 3% return on their savings seems impossible, food and energy prices have shot up.
There is one sleeper investment that is earning well over 4% and is 100% backed by the federal government. Safe, secure and kicking out more income than the rest.
Savings bonds.
These aren’t your grandpa and grandma’s savings bonds, but the inflation-indexed variety.
With a nice little CPI adjustment made on May 1, Series I bonds are now earning 4.60% until next November. The downside is that you have to hold onto your savings bonds for five years to avoid paying a penalty when you trade them in. But if you are looking for a investment that tracks inflation for a portion of your portfolio, don’t forget about the Series I bond. They also have some tax advantages than can help you save money.
Here is more information on the Series I Savings Bond http://www.interest.com/cd-rates/news/i-bonds-set-to-soar-in-may/ from an article published on Interest.com
The Federal Reserve launched an ambitious bond-buying program to help the economy create jobs and growth.
The program, called Quantitative Easing 2 (QE2), is slated to end next month.
Now that the end is near and another round of Fed market intervention (QE3) seems likely, it is time to ask the question: who benefited?
Savers? No.
The unemployed? Just marginally.
Investors in stocks, gold, oil and other commodities? Yes.
An article on CBS MarketWatch did a good job laying out the real result of the program.
The truth? QE2 has created a massive new bubble in dollar-based financial assets, from stocks to gold. Meanwhile, it has had zero visible effect on the real economy.
Take jobs. According to the U.S. Labor Department, since last August the number of full-time workers has gone up by just 700,000, from 111.8 million to 112.5 million.
At a cost of $600 billion, that’s $850,000 a job
Sure, there is a little bit of Monday-morning quarterbacking going on here considering the U.S. economy was teetering on recession when the program was launched. But those facts are hard to ignore. Similar to how TARP dollars went to shore-up bank balance sheets (instead of increasing consumer loans), there appears to be a bait-and-switch with the Fed bond-buying program. Savvy investors (and probably hedge funds) made out like bandits, while the economically-depressed are stuck in neutral.
Read the rest of the Marketwatch article at http://www.marketwatch.com/story/qe2-was-a-bust-2011-05-21
