Posts Tagged Budget

Four Tips for Single, Female Homebuyers

Posted by Tetyana Matychak in Investing on May 11th, 2010

Buying a home today takes a certain confidence — in the market and in your own financial strength. A lot of single, female homebuyers are taking that bold step in high heels, with no one at their side.

Nationally, single women accounted for 21 percent of all home purchases in the year ended this past June, while single men accounted for just 10 percent, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Experts say female homebuyers share characteristics and concerns that set them apart from male buyers. Following are four tips single, female buyers should keep in mind when purchasing a home.

Buy with confidence

A variety of factors — such as a greater likelihood of working at jobs that offer paltry retirement and other benefits — keep single women from achieving their financial goals, says Mariko Chang, a consultant who recently completed a report on the wealth gap for women for the Insight Center for Community Economic Development in Oakland, Calif. Read the rest of this entry »

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S&P Downgrades Spain

Posted by Tetyana Matychak in Favourites, Trading Markets on April 30th, 2010

Standard & Poor’s Corp. on Wednesday downgraded Spain’s long-term credit-rating by one notch, in a new sign of a deepening euro-zone sovereign debt crisis.

Spain become the third euro-zone nation to be hit with a S&P downgrade in just two days, following steeper cuts on Portugal and Greece. On Tuesday, S&P slashed its ratings on those nations, even junking Greece, amid concerns that nation’s policy options are narrowing because of weak economic growth prospects.

The ratings actions underscore mounting concerns that Greece could default on its debt and that European Union authorities are failing to halt contagion of its financial problems to other highly indebted euro-zone sovereigns. Spain, the euro zone’s fourth largest economy, is grappling with a double-digit budget deficit and faces years of weak growth following the collapse of a decade-long construction boom.

“Spain is the 800 pound gorilla in the room. Greece and Portugal are small countries, but Spain is about five times their size with regards gross domestic product,” Win Thin, senior currency strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman & Co, said in a note to investors.

The news of the Spanish downgrade sent equities in Spain broadly lower. S&P said it reflects a downward revision of its medium-term macroeconomic projections. Read the rest of this entry »

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Europe’s Next Great Test

Posted by Tetyana Matychak in Business on March 29th, 2010

European leaders may have bought some time by backing in principle a bailout for Greece, but even if the money is handed over, it will be no silver bullet for Greece or for the euro zone.

That’s because the euro zone’s problems are not limited to Greece and not solely related to government debt and budget deficits.

Right now, Greece’s debt burden is unsustainable. With government debt equivalent to more than the country’s annual output and the government paying close to 6.5% to borrow money, Greece’s debt burden is not just growing but accelerating dangerously.

The best a bailout can do is to buy time to reduce those interest rates to give the government time to slash its deficits and set the debt on a downward path.

Yet it is the euro zone’s second challenge that is at once more widespread and more intractable. That is the euro zone’s competitiveness challenge: structurally weak economies, in southern Europe and elsewhere, locked by a common currency to Germany’s low inflation rate and economic stringency. Read the rest of this entry »

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Iran budgets for $60 price for crude oil

Posted by Tetyana Matychak in Trading Markets on January 29th, 2010

Iran planned next year’s budget based on an oil price of $60 per barrel, nearly double the price from the last year, the official news agency reported on Sunday, indicating rising optimism over energy prices.

Last year, the parliament approved a budget based on $37.5 per barrel for the fiscal year ending in March, reflecting the steep drop in prices that severly impacted the economy. About 80 percent of Iran’s foreign revenue comes from oil exports.

Earlier on Sunday President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad submitted the budget to the Iranian parliament for approval, saying more money would be allocated to agriculture, education and research, as well as to the poor.

He did not give the size of the budget only saying there was “nothing complicated or untransparent” in it.

Iran’s parliament speaker Ali Larijani said the amount would be revealed later, according to IRNA. The budget requires approval of the parliament and a constitutional watchdog. Read the rest of this entry »

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White House: Budget deficit to top $1.8 trillion

Posted by Tetyana Matychak in Budget on May 14th, 2009

With the economy performing worse than hoped, revised White House figures point to deepening budget deficits, with the government borrowing almost 50 cents for every dollar it spends this year.

The deficit for the current budget year will rise by $89 billion to above $1.8 trillion – about four times the record set just last year. The unprecedented red ink flows from the deep recession, the Wall Street bailout, the cost of President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus bill, as well as a structural imbalance between what the government spends and what it takes in.

As the economy performs worse than expected, the deficit for the 2010 budget year beginning in October will worsen by $87 billion to $1.3 trillion, the White House says. The deterioration reflects lower tax revenues and higher costs for bank failures, unemployment benefits and food stamps.

For the current year, the government would borrow 46 cents for every dollar it takes to run the government under the administration’s plan. In one of the few positive signs, the actual 2009 deficit is likely to be $250 billion less than predicted because Congress is unlikely to provide another $250 billion in financial bailout money. Read the rest of this entry »

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Market myths

Posted by Tetyana Matychak in Fund Markets on May 12th, 2009

What have we learned from the crash? Nothing lasts forever. Even bear markets.

Numbers can talk. And one of the key indicators of this year’s Fortune 500 – the companies’ stock market value – is absolutely shouting. It’s telling us that nothing is forever, and that people, businesses, and governments can no longer depend on rising financial markets to bail them out.

The talking number is $4.1 trillion – the amount by which the market value of the Fortune 500 companies with publicly traded shares fell this year compared with 2008′s list. The decline, 37%, is by far the biggest in both dollars and percentage since we started tracking the market values of America’s biggest companies 22 years ago. The two-year decrease, $5.3 trillion and 43%, is a record as well.

Since the 500′s peak valuation in spring 2007 – our stock market years end in late March – the global boom has been replaced by global doom, and economies throughout the world have gone south. And get this: The 500′s valuation is down 13% from 11 years ago. Thus, big-company U.S. stocks have been dead money for more than a decade. Had they risen at their historical rate after 1998, they’d be worth more than twice as much as they are now. So much for the myth that stocks as a group are a fundamentally reliable investment over the long term. Read the rest of this entry »

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