General Finance News

After a strong showing yesterday, the major indices ended today’s session mostly flat. The Nasdaq showed only a 0.05% loss, with the S&P 500 gaining only 0.04%. The Dow was the only major index to post even a moderate change, rising only 22 points, or 0.18%. The European debt crisis talks hit some bumps today, as the yields on government bonds rose unexpectedly high in Italy and Spain. In corporate news, some companies pleased investors with recent announcements, including Bank of America with plans to scale back debit card fees, and Hewlett-Packard as they decided to keep their PC division. Other companies, however, disappointed investors, such as Coinstar with its decision to hike prices at Redbox kiosks. Crude oil futures fell 64 cents to close at $93.32 per barrel. Read more…

The Ballot for the new Commonwealth Bank Enterprise Bargaining Agreement 2011/2012 has been open since Monday and it is now time for you to have your say before it closes next Monday. The FSU is encouraging all members to take part in the Ballot.
 
You can vote by going through to the following link:

http://www.myvote.com.au/cba
 
Don’t have computer access at work or at home? Speak to your manager who can assist you in arranging a computer and facilitating time for you to vote at work.
 
As a recap your new agreement contains the following:

Not a member yet?
 
Click here to Join online or call 1300 366 378.

Debt Consolidation Loans unite multiple debts into one big loan. Debt consolidation loans is assured against your property and can give lenders with a greater ability to lend.

An assured loan is one in which the client uses something that belongs to him as collateral for a loan. Debt Consolidation Loans mean that you have to pay only one small part of the debt each month. This gives you money to make your ability to live freely and you pay your debt as soon as you can. Debt Consolidation Loans are proposed to borrowers in two ways. Read more…

Muammar Qaddafi took his last breath this week in his hometown, publicly murdered by his former subjects like some sort of digital age Nikolae Ceausescu. This was but part of the wider global unrest were experiencing currently, from Sirte to Athens to Lower Manhattan. Lets take a look at how and if last weeks banking news fits in to all of this.

As ever, rancor over Dodd-Frank has dominated the headlines. In Florida, a bill was introduced by Representative Jeff Clemens to the state legislature that seeks to make it illegal for banks to charge debit fees. Rep. Clemens would do better moving to a smaller bank, like Federal Bank of Florida.

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– The major U.S. index futures are pointing to a higher opening on Friday, with sentiment improving on hopes of European leaders reaching an agreement among themselves to diffuse the debt crisis. The release of better than expected domestic earnings has also assuaged fears. While the Asian markets closed lower earlier in the global trading day, European stocks are advancing strongly.

With very little economic catalysts to digest in the session, the markets may stay tuned to some Fed speeches scheduled for the day and also any clues emerging concerning a weekend European Council meeting. Risk appetite has perked up and this is being manifested in the form of buoyancy in risky bets such as commodities.

Some of the confidence the markets were building about Sunday’s European Council meeting zeroing in on a panacea for the debt crisis was dented after Germany and France called for a second meeting on Wednesday.

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Investors love dividends and that is being proven yet again when you look at LyondellBasell Industries NV (NYSE: LYB) today.  The chemical company is far from its days of bankruptcy reorganization and now on top of refinancing debt it plans to pay out as much as a $2.6 billion special dividend by the end of the year.

If you look at the outstanding shares, it comes close to $4.55 per share.  Just this week it has also tendered for some $2.8 billion in notes due in 6 years and 7 years.

If you want to know what a good refinancing effort is, try this: noteholder modification that allows for more shareholder payments, and at a lower interest rate that will significantly add to the net earnings.  In short, the company’s capital structure is moving away from the old bondholders to the stockholders.

Shares are trading up over 10% at $30.20 on more than 7.5 million shares (about 150% of normal trading volume).  The current market cap is $17.2 billion and the share price compares to a 52-week trading range of $22.90 to $48.12.  This is the first day shares have been back above $30.00 since September 27 and the stock has not closed above $30.00 since September 20.  This was a $40 stock as recently as August 2.

The August 15, 2011 dividend was listed as $0.20 per share and that would generate a dividend yield of about 2.65% today.

The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE: DOW) is also down considerably from a year high of $42.23 to $27.30.  Its market cap is almost double that of LyondellBasell at over $32 billion and Dow also offers a 3.8% current dividend yield.

Eastman Chemical Co. (NYSE: EMN

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Investing in real-estates, one of the best way to increase your wealth for your future retirement .Investing in real-estates may help one help in acquiring or making a lot of gains , even more better when you do it with cash. Visiting roth-ira.org would provide a better picture as to what Roth-IRA is, how it works and the various schemes one can avail and make gains and what not?

To people who are already well-versed with what a Roth-IRA account is , I will move on to the main topic. Now,I will start off with the basic question. Read more…

The Apple iPhone 4S arrived in stores this morning, and Consumer Reports’ secret shoppers were among the first in line (at 3:30 am) to buy them. The new iPhone, which looks nearly identical to the iPhone 4, boasts a faster dual-core A5 processor, an 8-megapixel camera, and an intriguing voice-activated feature called Siri that accepts and responds to verbal commands in a conversational manner previously possible only in science fiction.

Our engineers have confirmed in their initial, informal tests that the phone launches apps and performs other routine tasks faster than the iPhone 4. Camera performance has also improved noticeably. Our initial tests found that the iPhone 4S is able to take better photos in low-light conditions.

Read more…