Financial Updates

Suddenly the cost of living has increased in manifolds. We, Americans are facing great trouble to keep track with this sudden increase. Some are using public transport to save money for the rocketing food prices. In some places it is hard to find a buyer for your home as lenders are refusing to lend money to persons with bad credit. Even employers are refusing to pay a hike to counter the slowdown in the economy. All the people are feeling they are being trapped in such a crisis. Everyone is trying to get out of it by finding new alley to earn money and help the family.


Ways to make more money when due to Depression the growth is declining

Finding a second job can solve your problem little bit but you will get less time to spend with your family. Selling your time for money is not good.

With the advent of every dawn, thousands of people are opening their network marketing business through web. Due to the squinching economy the number is rising. Every day millions of people newly acquainted with the web and the internet user number already touches billions. So the market potential is infinite.

Having a home business will give you new experience. You can get ample time for your family. The persons who have started their own business, knows how simple it is. You won`t have to bother anything. The networking business model proved to be very powerful. The training and support is easily available. There is potential to have huge money at the end of every month.

In the time of great depression people are finding new ways of business as little jobs are available in market. Now individuals are creating their new income source to have a good sleep at the end of the day. So lets have a new business for our own.

Some Resources:

Cut Your Costs In Half - Learn effective ways to save money around your home, banking and investing tips, ways to save money on your vehicles, saving money while shopping, and much more.

Today when we are going through bad economy, everybody are confused over where to put their money. If you want to put in stock market – it can be suicidal. If invest in bank – the return would be very low. Then where to invest the money?

One of the best place is to invest in mutual funds. It is lot safer than shares & returns better than the banks. But at this time of economical depression everyone must be careful before choosing a mutual fund. In case of bonds, regular interest payments and possible capital appreciation (in case bond price increase) are assured. Bond mutual fund assures all. These funds invested in bonds and debt securities. These always provide regular income from interest payments and at the same time protect the invested capital. Like mutual funds, they also have NAV (Net Asset Value) [in mutual fund NAV is value of each share]

Benefits of Bond Mutual Fund

It is much safer than the stock investment.

These ensure stability.

The fund is diversified and the portfolio normally distributed across various bonds to reduce the risk of default. This also assures regular payment.

Some are exempted from federal or state taxes.

Compared to bond these are more liquid. The bond mutual funds can be easily bought or sold. So bond mutual funds are preferable than bonds.

Different Bond Funds

Now several types of bond funds are available in market. Some of them are Government (or Federal bond funds), Municipal, Corporate bonds.

Government Bond Funds or Federal Bond

These are invested in debt securities issued by government (i.e. – Treasury bills and bonds, notes, mortgage backed securities from government agencies etc.).

Municipal Bond Funds

These are invested in issued securities from state or local govt. for different development project. As these are backed by federal govt., these considered to have high credit rating.

Corporate Bond Funds

These are invested in the debt securities of corporations. These have a little bit of risk as are not backed by govt. but pay higher interests than other funds. There are some other Bond Funds too like zero-coupon funds and international funds.

Some days ago to get a mortgage with excellent credit report was a child`s play. But due to financial turbulence it has become walking on a rope. Now when mortgage default rates have touched all time highs the lenders are questioning all and the persons from higher strata of credit score are too being caught in the net.

Are you one of those with excellent credit scores and facing problems to get a mortgage or other loans? Lets take some easy steps to ensure to get the best loan.

1. First of all you need to have a copy of your credit report. Without this you cannot find your credit state. This will place you in a stronger position during the negotiation with the lenders.

2. Next thing is to make your credit score as high as possible. Slight better credit score can get you a better loan.

3. After taking all the steps, you must focus on choosing the best lender. Its better to have a lender who provide loans only for the borrowers with excellent credit. You can easily find such a lender. But be careful otherwise you can have to burn your hand at the end.

After following all these steps you can be sure of getting a best loan available at the market. If you have excellent credit score, can lead you to a better fee structure, lower interest rates and also shorter processing time.

After a distressful start of the growing season which spread - out fears of food shortage & huge economic losses, the United State’s most important crop is now on the way for a great harvest, according to the government.

The Agriculture Department is forecasting the second highest corn production on record with production of 12.3 billion bushels, and about 600 million bushels more than it had expected earlier in the summer.

“We dodged a bullet,” told Bill Nelson, a Wachovia grain analyst.

April`s cool weather the downpours of May gave way to widespread flooding in June, and prospects seemed pathetic for corn. Corn has long been the most important feed used in the meat production, and in recent years it has got more importance as ethanol made from corn has become a government- assigned gasoline additive...For complete article see nytimes

Last week the no. of unemployed people signing off for jobless benefits has rose to its highest spot in more that 6 years as companies bring down their employee number due to stumbling economic situation.

According to Labor Department, the new applications filed for unemployment insurance has risen by a seasonally adjusted from 7000 to 455000 in the week ending on August 2. Since March 2002 this increase left insurance claims at their highest level. The recent picture of unemployment was worst than the analysts suspected. They were estimating the new claims for jobless benefits to drop to around 430,000.

This data has disappointed Wall Street too and Stocks appeared heading for a lower opening with the Dow Jones industrial average futures down 99 at the 11,532 level

For complete article click yahoo news

The biggest identity theft case ever prosecuted in America, turned the spotlight on just how secure is our credit or debit card information?

This question is a simple one but the answer might seem to be a bit harder to pin down.

VeriSign that secures websites for e-commerce, told the BBC that debit and credit card information is "vulnerable" but they are thinking with retailers to alter that.

"Credit and debit card information is just not incredibly secure," said Perry Tancredi, senior product manager of VeriSign for fraud detection.

"But it is counterbalanced by the amount of fraud losses due to cheque fraud and direct debit fraud which is much greater than credit card fraud."

Mr. Tancredi told: "Regardless of how strong the security measures, and how vigilant, the weak part of the chain is there is always a human who is responsible and who has overall control over the information."

He suggested the best way was for all users to "assume that there will be some sort of fraud on your account sooner or later" and put in place a plan to counter with it.

How to be safe

Espousing a completely different view is Jerry Tabeling who is the president of IDP, a company that carry out vulnerability assessments of networks and online business applications...

For more details click BBC News

Credit card processing - First Atlantic Commerce offer offshore credit card processing, online payment services and international merchant accounts for businesses across the world.

Today`s high prices, decreasing home values, motionless wages and tight credit is a potent combination which has struck the American consumer hard.

In June, the second biggest inflation in nearly three decades mummed the impact of billions of dollars in government stimulus payments, figures showed Monday. The incomes barely budged in June and spending of the consumer deteriorated due to the higher prices for food, energy & other items, as the Commerce Department data show.

Kathy Stanley from rural Franklin County west of St. Louis said on Monday that rising gasoline prices had consumed into her budget so forcefully that she and her husband both have cut almost all their discretionary spending...
For more details check Yahoo News

For more finance updates have a look at our other posts at Finance Updates

To know which is better bankruptcy or debt consolidation