Is Leasing a Car Bad?

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new car lease

There are far too many people out there insisting that certain things are “bad” in every case. For example, some very prominent financial personalities will tell you that you should never lease a car. While car leases aren’t necessarily a great deal all of the time, neither is getting a regular car loan, or even buying a car for that matter. If you don’t know what you are doing, and work with people you can’t trust, you can get strung out in any number of ways during a car purchase. The lease isn’t the only potential problem What Is a Lease? So, what exactly is a car lease? When you lease a car, you change the mechanics of the standard auto loan, but at the end of the day, both processes are a way to borrow money to buy a car in exchange for monthly payments. Check out my Credit Karma reviews When you buy a car using financing, you can either get an auto loan, or an auto lease. Most people are at least familiar with the basics of a car loan, so let’s start there and move onto how a lease works. Auto Loan With an automotive loan, you …

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Fed Raises Rates On Schedule

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The Fed has been telegraphing a September (2018) rate hike for quite some time now, and they followed though with another 0.25 increase today. They also anticipate a December rate hike still this year as well. I mentioned last time, this increase marks the end of the “free” rate increases that really didn’t do much to affect the economy as the rates were laughably low so much so that getting any commercially available rate meant a lot of “padding” in the rate from the Fed rates. This rate increase pretty much ends that. From here on out, ever quarter percent increase goes right into the economy as an increasing headwind. Between political uncertainty, a burgeoning trade war, and an economic expansion getting long in the tooth, it’s my opinion that the Federal Reserve is acting recklessly here pushing ahead with its rate increase timeline without any evidence of inflation, and no evidence of wage growth. In other words, the Fed is raising rates despite there being almost no inflation. Traditionally, this does not work out for the American economy. Every time the Fed starts raising rate for reasons OTHER than fighting inflation, the result is a recession, often a big one. …

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Are These The Tariffs You’re Looking For?

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tariffs imports markets

OK, so that isn’t a very search engine friendly title for this article, and I don’t really care. The tariffs in Trump’s trade war are starting to make real impacts on certain Americans, and the rest of us may start feeling the effects soon. The most noticeable, immediate impact, is that after a decade as an experienced, professional freelance financial writer, it is now necessary for me to be able to spell the word ‘tariff,’ which up until now never really came up except in examples and edge cases. Generally speaking, tariffs (one r, two f-s) have never been the kind of thing that impacted the middle of Main Street America. Now, I guess we are going big, or going home. In a lot of cases, Trump is shutting the barn door after the horse got out. There used to be real, U.S. manufacturers of solar panels, for example. Not anymore. The companies getting “protection” from Trump’s solar panel tariffs (one r, two f-s) are American, only in the legal sense of subsidies and corporations.  In other cases, maybe something like the steel tariffs could save the few remaining stell companies and mills. The second big impact is now dropping …

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Investing For Hurricanes

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I usually wouldn’t write an article like this, but I’m trying something new, so let’s do this. Do hurricanes affect the stock market, and the overall U.S. economy? How Hurricanes Affect The Stock Market Like the vast majority of stock market moves caused by news items, the actual impact on the stock market tends to be negligible when measured over any period of more than a week or two. In other words, investors love to freak out about the news, only to forget what the story was a short time later. Weather, like hurricanes, is no different. Check out my Ebates review. Consider that an upcoming hurricane, no matter how large, has a relatively small area of impact compared to the country overall. While a hurricane might completely decimate, say, South Carolina, that impact won’t be felt in Ohio, Texas, or pretty much any other state you can name. And, if we are being really honest, the biggest of hurricanes don’t really do much long-term damage unless accompanied by flooding. Whether it’s Hurricane Katrina, or Hurricane Sandy, the damage beyond some power failures, damaged roofs, and fallen tree branches was all done by the flooding. So, if you want to …

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No-Brainer High Risk Apple Trade Coming Up

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apple event stock trade

Apple has announced an event on September 12. Traditionally, Apple announces new iPhones and other “gadgets” in September, and expectations are high. So, what is an investor to do? If you are a long-term investor, nothing. Absolutely nothing. The event will generate some noise in Apple’s stock price, but the actual effects will take place over the months and years as Apple executes on its strategy, and how well the new phones are received. Short-Term Apple Trade What about a short-term investor looking for a little trade on Apple’s big event? In that case, it’s time to look into options and start pricing volatility plays. No matter what Apple announces there will be a reaction. In fact, there is a very good chance that there will be an OVER-reaction. That reaction will show up in a quick rising, or falling stock price. Check out our Zelle review. Now, if you don’t understand options, and don’t already have an options enabled account, this move is not for you, but if you’ve been to this rodeo once or twice before, there is money to be made here in a good volatility trade, coupled with the usual leverage of stock options. Buy Apple …

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Interest Rates Rising Into the End of the Year

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defenses economy

The Federal Reserve did not increase interest rates at its August 1st (2018) meeting. That was widely expected after the increase from the pervious meeting. Traditionally, the Fed tries not to raise rates in back to back meetings unless it feels like the economy is getting away from them. It allows the markets, and just as importantly, the economic data The Fed relies on to adjust to the previous hike before implementing another one. Rate Hike In September The Federal Reserve Bank did try and telegraph that it is currently looking at another rate hike for September. While the Fed did not raise rates, it did repeatedly say how “strong” the economy was, and how strong all the economic data was. Check out our Digit App review. And, for the first time in a long while, inflation is actually running near the Fed’s so-called target rate of 2%. While the Fed’s actions seem much more like 2 percent is a ceiling, rather than a target, recent data does suggest that inflation is running solidly near the two percent mark, so action is likely warranted. Will Higher Rates Trigger the Recession? Here is where things get tricky. While the Federal Reserve …

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What Is After Hours Trading

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stock market price down facebook

Facebook reported some garish earnings guidance after the market closed today and the reaction was pretty big. In fact, it was so big, that news outlets and other investment analysts started publishing stories about how far down Facebook stock was trading “after hours.” When this happens, people have questions, mostly, What is After Hours Trading. After Hours Markets Although it never really matters to most people, the reality is that isn’t just one stock market. There are actually several different exchanges. A couple of decades ago, accessing these other exchanges wasn’t really the kind of thing that your average trader had much ability to do. Of course, times change. These days, with the advent of electronic trading, and online brokerages, it’s actually pretty easy to access the other exchanges, even if you don’t know you are doing it. After the standard trading markets — NYSE, NASDAQ, and AMEX – close at 4:00 PM Eastern, those other markets fire up offering After Hours Trading, sometimes referred to as Extended Hours trading. Most major brokerages offer their clients the ability to access those extra trading hours, although you usually have to sign some forms saying that you understand the risks. Basically, the …

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Contribute a PERCENTAGE to Your 401k

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Sometimes, it’s easy to let the small (but BIG) stuff get lost among all of the other information and knowledge out there. I’m just as guilty as anyone else, and that’s why I’m ashamed that there are already hundreds of other articles on my personal finance advice blog before I got around to writing this one. It comes from a friend who was “running some things by me” who showed me that his 401k contribution is $750. “Why isn’t a percentage instead of fixed amount,” I said. “What difference does it make,” he said. Oh boy. Have you seen my Credit Karma reviews?  Set a Percentage to Save Into Your 401k You’ve already heard it a million times before. There are fancy names for it, like “paying yourself first,” or whatever you like. But, in order to save, to really save you need to get money out of your hand, before it ever gets into your hands. It’s just human nature. We spend what we make. That’s why, no matter how old you are, and no matter how many times you’ve said it before, it still seems like just another hundred, or thousand, dollars a month is all you would need …

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The Fed, Inflation, The Economy

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is recession coming soon

Here is where things start getting tricky. For the better part of the last decade, the U.S. economy has been on an expansion back from the Great Recession. Various measures of recovery show the economy having regained its footing and moving forward. That’s all well and good, but it puts us in a rather odd spot today. The Coming Recession Economies contract and expand. Period. End of discussion. There is no new normal, not this time, not the last time, not the time before that. Every economy eventually runs out of steam and pulls back. Sometimes it’s a brutal collapse. Sometimes, it’s a more gentle, pull back, but there will be a recession. On a strict time-basis, this economy’s expansion is now very old. The official start of this economic expansion is June 2009. That makes it the second-longest expansion in U.S. history. On the one hand, YEA!, on the other hand, it’s like your dog living to be 17-years old. It’s great, but you know there aren’t many years left. If this expansion makes it to mid-2019, it would be the longest in history. Before you break out the champagne, you probably want to know that the longest expansion …

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Vacation Almost Over

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Wow. What a crazy time to be on vacation. Let’s see… The Fed raised interest rates. There was a bit of hiccup regarding that. In my humble opinion, this is the last “freebie” interest rate hike the Fed has in its quiver. In other words, this interest rate hike probably doesn’t have the possibility of tanking the economy. But, the next one might be a different story. If the Fed pulls the trigger on the next hike too quickly, that could be the one that pops the whole economic expansion and heads us into the next recession. If you are a conspiracy theorist, it’s too late to affect the mid-term elections, but a series of ill-timed rate hikes toward the end of this year, and into the next drops the economy into recession just in time for the next Presidential election. That’s pretty far fetched, that they would do it on purpose, but it could happen nonetheless. (I like that nonetheless is one word 🙂 Also, a trade war! Again. Not just with China this time, but with Europe and Canada?!? Actually, there are a few glitches in our trade with Canada, but this taking a club to some pealing …

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