Title: New Housing Era: 30-Year Mortgage May Fade. By: Appelbaum, Binyamin, New York Times, 03624331, 3/4/2011 Database: Academic Search Premier Section: National Desk WASHINGTON -- How might home buying change if the federal government shuts down the housing finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage loan, the steady favorite of American borrowers since the 1950s, could become a luxury product, housing experts on both sides of the political aisle say. Interest rates would rise for most borrowers, but urban and rural residents could see sharper increases than the coveted customers in the suburbs. Lenders could charge fees for popular features now taken for granted, like the ability to ''lock in''
Despite caution of the dangers of speculation, many believed that the market could sustain high price levels. Before the crash, economist Irving Fisher famously proclaimed, ‘’Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.’’ The optimism and financial gains of the great bull market where shattered on ‘’Black Thursday’’, October 24, 1929, when share prices on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) collapsed. Stock prices plummeted on that day, and continued to fall at an unprecedented rate for a full month. The 1929, crash came during a period of declining real estate values in the United States (which came up a round 1925) near the beginning of a chain of events that led to the Great Depression, a period of economic decline in the industrialized nations. After a six year run the world saw an Industrial Average increase in value fivefold, prices peaked at 381.17 on September 3, 1929.
Ding Gao Ms. Marcolini BAT 4M November 22, 2013 Stock Market Challenge The Nipissing University stock market simulation challenge is a good overall stock market simulation. The objective of the stock market challenge is to use the $500000 given and to invest to gain as much return as possible. My personal experience of participating in the stock market challenge is that the stock market game is very confusing and difficult. I found myself stressing over what to invest in during the start of the challenge. The stock market game goes by very fast and one day, stocks can be doing very well and the next day they suffer a major loss.
The book Dumb Money, written by Daniel Gross describes the era of “Dumb Money” and even “Dumber Money” causing the credit bubble that occurred prior to the 2008 financial crisis. Gross explains that it wasn’t “skeezy money managers” that caused the recent financial tsunami, but rather Ph.D. economists, central bankers, CEO’s and investment bankers. Gross reveals that the four factors that precipitated the Dumb Money era were low decreasing interest rates, increasing asset prices (real estate in particular), plentiful borrowers, and a strong debt market. He explains that due to the “shadow banking system” American financial culture was too fixated on short-term gains rather than long-term gains and encouraged excessive borrowing, lending, and trading. Gross criticizes
The Minsky Model of a General Financial Crisis A Synopsis of ‘Chapter 2 -- The Anatomy of a Typical Crisis’ in Manias, Panics and Crashes - A History of Financial Crises by Charles P. Kindleberger and Robert Z. Aliber, Sixth Edition, Palgrave Macmillan, Copyright 2011 By William R. Henry, Ph.D. (May 08, 2013) Since the end of the Great Depression “…financial failure has been more extensive and pervasive” in the 30-year period 1980 to 2010 than at any other time leading up to the present day (p. 7). Four financial crises occurred in this 30-year period. The closest in time of the four financial crises to the present period is the recent liquidity crisis, the so-called Great Recession of 2007 – 2009, beginning in the United States, Great Britain, Spain, Ireland and Iceland. Eventually all of the countries of the Eurozone succumbed to the disequilibria of the Great Recession with the Eurozone’s suffering further intensifying because of the emergence of the so-called Sovereign Debt Crisis, a sub-crisis morphing out of the Great Recession in 2010 and 2011, involving Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy and Cyprus. The Sovereign Debt Crisis is still ongoing having recently extended itself into calendar year 2013.
Prepare a partial income statement for Stacy beginning with income before income taxes. The corporation had 4,954,000 shares of common stock outstanding during 2014. Brief Exercise 4-7 Your answer is correct. Vandross Company has recorded bad debt expense in the past at a rate of 1.5% of net sales. In 2014, Vandross decides to increase its estimate to 2%.
ASX & Media Release Thursday 12 September 2013 Myer Full Year Results ending 27 July 2013 Full year total sales up 0.8 percent to $3,145 million Operating gross profit up 1.8 percent to $1,312 million Operating gross margin up 40 basis points to 41.7 percent Net profit after tax down 8.7 percent to $127 million Full year dividend of 18 cents, fully franked FY2013 Financial Highlights Sales Total sales up 0.8% to $3,145 million, up 0.4% on a comparable store sales basis Myer Exclusive Brands sales up $40 million to 20.0% of sales, Concessions up $18 million to 15.4% of sales Operating gross profit Operating gross profit up 1.8% to $1,312 million Operating gross profit margin up 40 basis points (bps) to 41.7% Earnings Cost of doing
"To what extent was it Romney's '47%' comments that meant Obama won the 2012 Presidential Election? 45 marks. Mitt Romney lost the 2012 presidential election to Barack Obama. However the election on paper seemed to favour Romney, Obama in his first term had faced unemployment as high as 10% and it sat at 8% before Election Day. The economy was still facing an upward struggle and suggested that Obama had failed to deliver on promises made in his campaign.
In 2008, the souring economy hit Whole Foods rather hard. Sales increases at Whole Foods stores open at least one year rose only 0.8 percent in 2008 versus 8.2 percent in the previous year. In August of 2008, Whole Foods announced that planned new store openings for 2009 would be reduced. Whole Foods had to back out of signed leases or revise the lease terms of 70 new stores that had been scheduled to open in 2009 and 2010. Whole Foods recently arranges to sell $425 million of preferred stock to private equity investors, which equated to an ownership interest of 17 percent in the event the private equity investors exercised rights to convert their preferred stock into common
PEST ANALYSIS POLITICAL Analysis • Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index (CPI): 94th out of 176 nations, score of 36 out of 100 on a scale from 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean) • Political instability: factions, criminal cases against leaders, corruption • Government stipulation for foreign single-brand retailers: source 30% of what they sell from SMEs. Ikea requested for moratorium on this, government agreed to 7 years a 10-year • Frequent strikes, protests and bandhs (complete or partial shutdown of cities), often instigated for political reasons – Often in response to some change introduced or proposed by the ruling party – If it’s a union or organization strike / protest, opposition party will support it in order to bolster its vote banks – Examples of reasons for strikes / protests / shutdowns: • Increase in LPG or petrol prices, or even onion and potato prices • Allowing foreign supermarket chains to enter • Not raising public transport tariff (autos and taxis) • Death of a political leader • Release of a controversial movie • Regulation changed to allow 100% FDI for single-brand retailers. However, states free to allow or bar retail FDI – Key cities and states for Ikea: • • • • Mumbai (Maharashtra) New Delhi (Delhi - Designated National Capital Territory) Chennai (Tamil Nadu) Bangalore (Karnataka) – Two strong parties in most states; one is more liberal and supports progressive reforms, the other supports the masses and blue-collared workers. For e.g., • Mumbai: Congress-NCP v/s BJP-Shiv Sena • Chennai: AIADMK v/s DMK – State policies keep changing according to who’s ruling and what alliances have been formed between which political parties Hurdle & Solution - Ruling and opposition political parties have different stands on FDI - If opposition comes to power,