Archive for January, 2008
E*Trade Shares Continues to Climb
Jan 31st
E*Trade is on the move again, this time because several insiders have picked up nearly $2 Million worth of stock in the beaten down company in the last week. The insiders bought on the open market the first day they were allowed to after an earnings blackout period insiders must abide by.
On Thursday, E*Trade rose over 10% on the news of share purchases and because of that was not really affected by the announcement of the 50 basis point cut in the Fed Funds rate. This latest move puts E*Trade shares over the $4.50 mark, more than doubling since my post about the company being one of the bargains of 2008.
Technorati Tags: etrade, mortgage, investing, stock market, fed funds rate, interest rates, bargains of 2008, shaun carter, insider buying
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates 50 Basis Points
Jan 30th
Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, has announced a further 50 basis point cut in the Fed Funds rate bringing it down to 3%. This cut is the second cut in 8 days and brings the total of recent cuts to 1.25%.
I think Bernanke has changed his position on a lot of things since he took office and announced his intention to target inflation and not be at the mercy of the market. But now Bernanke has fit perfectly into his nickname of “Helicopter Ben” as he rushes to the rescue of the stock market traders who demanded and continue to demand steep cuts in the discount rate.
Not surprisingly, CNBC is reporting that the market is anticipating a near 80% chance of a further 50 basis point cut at the next FOMC meeting. This just goes to show that Helicopter Ben is now in the business of pleasing traders while killing the value of the dollar and turning a blind eye to inflation targeting, which was the foundation of his core beliefs when he took office.
Technorati Tags: ben bernanke, shaun carter, federal reserve, economy, united states, fed funds rate, interest rates
Ebay Turns Against Sellers
Jan 30th
Ebay has once and for all destroyed their business model by rearranging their fee structure charged to sellers. Ebay is promoting the fact that they are reducing up-front listing fees – very, very slightly I might add.
Ebay has long been criticized for taking too much of the final value of a sold auction item, but beginning on February 20, 2008 Ebay will begin raping and pillaging its sellers until they bow to their knees.
Go check out the new fees here.
Notice the extremely steep increase in Ebay’s cut for the first $25 of the auction’s final value? Jumping fees from 5.25% to 8.75% is insulting to every seller using Ebay and will make profitability for Power Sellers very difficult, if not impossible.
Because of the increased Final Value fees, more sellers will be inclined to begin their auctions at much higher prices to ensure their fees get covered, but alas Ebay will benefit from the increased starting price as well because the seller will most likely jump to another fee level.
Add to the mix that Ebay owns the payment processor PayPal and you see that they will also more than likely collect another couple percentage points on the value of the sale in the form of Premium and Business account transaction fees.
For a company who is growing quarterly earnings at 50%, has no debt, and nearly $5 Billion in cash they sure don’t blush at taking even more from the very users that keep them running. I think this planned fee restructuring will backfire horribly and open the market up to competitors who will be in a position to gain market-share from the current leader in internet auctions.
Technorati Tags: ebay, online auction, shaun carter, online selling, auction, sellers, buyers, paypal, internet payments
Did Barack Obama Snub Hillary Clinton at 2008 State of the Union?
Jan 29th
This unfortunate photo was snapped showing Hillary Clinton greeting Edward Kennedy while Barack Obama turns away. Obama is saying he wasn’t turning his back on Clinton, but the photog’s timing couldn’t have been better to fuel a debate that will rage for days. It shows great class for Clinton to meet with Kennedy despite his scathing remarks during his speech earlier in the day where he announced his support for her chief rival Barack Obama.
Technorati Tags: barack obama, hillary clinton, state of the union, edward kennedy, shaun carter
Make Money With Audio Ads
Jan 29th
One of the thing that many web publishers struggle with is monetization of every visitor to visit their blog or website. For many, the only option has been pay per click ads which only reward the publisher when a visitor actually clicks the advertisement. There are CPM (cost per thousand) advertising programs out there that will pay you per impression on banners displayed on your site, but they are typically reserved for the cream of the crop of web publishers generating hundreds of thousands or millions of impressions every day.
Now, there is a CPM solution for all web publishers, but it won’t take up an inch of space on your website. The company is called Net Audio Ads and they offer an audio advertising format that will guarantee you payment for every visitor to view your pages.
Net Audio Ads solves several major problems that webmasters face today including adequate monetization of every visitor and pageview and monetizing without devoting additional screen space to flashy, distracting ad banners.
There is also an affiliate program that will be active for the next couple days that will allow you to refer other publishers and you will earn money for every pageview on their site for the life of their account. But you need to sign up before February first to get a spot in the affiliate program. After February 1st, the affiliate program will close to new publishers and Net Audio Ads will revert to a “host only” model.
Net Audio Ads isn’t anything new, they’ve been around for over two years, but they are opening their doors to serious website operators that want to enhance their earning potential on the Internet.
The Net Audio Ads payouts are currently:
- 25% of the advertiser’s spend for ads on your pages
- 5% of the advertiser’s spend for ads on your direct referrals pages
- 5% of the advertiser’s spend for ads on your second level referrals pages
Be sure to get signed up soon as advertiser bidding will begin on February 1st. The bidding system will be similar to that of the Google Adwords program and will play the highest paying ads for your website niche before all others so your revenue is maximized to its full potential.
January Federal Reserve Interest Rate Decision
Jan 29th
It’s interesting how the majority of analysts are predicting the Federal Reserve to cut rates by 50 basis points on Wednesday January 30, 2008. I’m not sure if there will even be a rate cut, let alone a 50 basis point cut after the Fed’s emergency 75 basis point cut from last week.
Durable goods orders for December were up 5.2% – double what analysts expected. Currently, economists are predicting last quarter’s GDP to have grown by only a 1.2% annual rate signaling a stalling of the economy and adding considerable fuel to the inflation fire.
It is very hard to read Fed Chairman Bernanke’s intentions because he seems to flip flop more than John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election. In the beginning of his freshmen term as Chairman, Bernanke made it clear that his decisions will not be swayed by investor sentiment, but by inflation numbers because he is of the philosophy that the Fed should target a certain inflation rate and manipulate monetary policy to maintain that rate.
But his sudden emergency rate cut move amid a global stock sellof has proved that he is, in fact, at the mercy of the markets demands for cheap money and now his actions are extremely unpredictable. I just don’t see how he will justify a 1.25% cut in the fed funds rate in the span of two weeks and don’t see that as a possibility.
Technorati Tags: federal reserve, ben bernanke, shaun carter, interest rates, january, economy, lending, inflation, durable goods, gdp
13 Year Old Texting Champ Doing Her Part For The Economy
Jan 28th
The 13 year old, Morgan Pozgar, who won a cell phone text messaging championship in New York has declared she will spend her $25,000 to “go shopping and buy lots of clothes.”
Way to go Morgan for helping the economy by throwing away her money on clothing that she will outgrow in a year. I’m surprised President Bush didn’t recognize Morgan, during his State of the Union address, for her excellent money management skills and forgoing a college savings account in the name of saving the U.S. economy.
Technorati Tags: text message, sms, shaun carter, morgan pozgar, economy, united states, cell phone, new york, george bush, president bush
Quixtar Awakes From Its Slumber
Jan 28th
Quixtar posted its first message since November on its Media Blog and it has discussed something we already know. Mainly that Quixtar and TEAM are in arbitration and nobody is talking about it and most likely never will because the terms of the arbitration will most likely be kept confidential.
Instead of Quixtar just moving past this whole TEAM fiasco and working to better its business for the transition to Amway, they have decided to file a lawsuit against TEAM in the state of Nevada, for what sort of damages they do not disclose. I just don’t see how that action is going to help their business or their reputation heading into such a transitory period for their company.
The Amway name is already tarnished and I did not think it was a good idea to go back to that name when they announced it, but now they are becoming the aggressor instead of the company that was taken advantage of and I don’t think that will sit well with prospects in the future. It will be just one more negative thing they’ve heard about Amway and turn them off on the idea of working for the class bully – remember, IBO’s are no longer business owners, they are business OPERATORS.
Technorati Tags: quixtar, amway, team, team of destiny, lawsuit, litigation, shaun carter, mlm, network marketing, ibo, signature management, arbitration
E*Trade Forecast Surprises Investors
Jan 24th
I recommended looking into Countrywide Financial and E*Trade in a post back on January 9th and since then Countrywide made a 70% profit on the day their sale to Bank of America was announced and now E*Trade is up more than 60% since then.
Smart plays in the mortgage and financial sector can be very rewarding right now and these two companies are a prime example of that opportunity present in the market.
E*Trade actually reported earnings much below analyst expectations, but the surprise was in the statement regarding the company’s expectation of returning to profitability this year.
” The company announced details of a widely anticipated “turnaround plan” and acting Chief Executive Jarrett Lilien said he was confident of achieving profitability this year despite some dark clouds on the U.S. economic horizon. ‘We have factored in a pretty dim economic year ahead but we think customers will remain active, and that is what we have baked into (our) plan,’ he said in an interview.”
Shares of E*Trade popped over 9% in after hours trading and should continue to rise in trading on Friday. This could be a very attractive accumulation point for long term investors. I doubt we will see prices under $4 per share much, if at all, in the near future.
Technorati Tags: etrade, countrywide, financial, mortgage, shaun carter, investing, stock market, subprime, earnings
RF Micro Devices
Jan 24th
RF Micro Devices has been beaten down horribly during the last month, falling from over $5 per share to $3. The drop is attributed to warnings of slowing growth potential because of the possibility of a global recession and less demand for the company’s specialty radio frequency parts.
RF Micro is announcing earnings on Jan. 31 and I think the stock could surprise to the upside considerably between now and then. The businesses fundamentals are strong and although they may see some sales declines in the immediate future the stock is undervalued and oversold.
I’ve been accumulating at anything around $3 a share and see this as a $5-10 stock over the next 12 months. If the US economy staves off a serious recession and the worldwide economy remains strong, RF Micro could see even stronger growth over the next year or more.
Technorati Tags: rf micro devices, technology, investing, shaun carter, stock market, earnings, nasdaq
