There are certain things you must understand about bonds before you start investing in them. Not understanding these things may cause you to purchase the wrong bonds, at the wrong maturity date.

The three most important things that must be considered when purchasing a bond include the par value, the maturity date, and the coupon rate.

The par value of a bond refers to the amount of money you will receive when the bond reaches its maturity date. In other words, you will receive y ... Read More

Among all of the happy talk in the media, all the green shoots and the ever rising Stock market, it is nice to see Deutsche Bank come out with such a happy forecast.  Gee, only about half of the mortgages in the U.S. will be upside down by 2011.  That is about double what the current rate is for you sports fans keeping score at home.  Really, check it out.  We couldn't make this up.

I guess that means since bad news is good news these days that we can expe ... Read More

Wanted to do a quick update on where I think we are in these great unchartered waters.  Today the market closed up 96 pts right at 8500 on the DOW.  It seems like things just want to keep going up for now.  I was thinking this morning that the fundamentals may not matter anymore and I am kind of on the fence with those thoughts.  What I mean is we keep hearing about recovery this and recovery that but what is it all really based on?  The market is up over 30% from the ... Read More

Oh that is rich.  I guess if you close your eyes and wish hard enough maybe you can make someting happen or make the boogeyman go away..  I am reading this story about Capital One and I just have to laugh. 

"Capital One Financial, an issuer of MasterCard and Visa credit cards, said Friday U.S. credit card defaults fell in April as the company changed its customer bankruptcy accounting.

In a regulatory filing, the company said the annualized net charge-of ... Read More

Yesterday May 4th was another foray into the unreal.  The market ended the day up over 200 points.  Wells Fargo was singled out as likely needing more capital along with Citi and B of A and lo and behold, their Stock shot up over 20%.  I must say I am glad I sat that one out as I would have probably been short. 

Momentum is clearly to the upside, even though it really does not make much sense.  We keep hearing from the financial media that the "funda ... Read More