Geldpress

How About This for a Hedge Combo: TBT and TLT

Check out this article on TBT risks before jumping into the TBT:
www.geldpress.com/2009.../

Thursday Options Update: BAC, C, FRE, MS, JPM & RYL

It looks like there is a lot of interesting action happening in the April GE options today as well.
www.geldpress.com/2009.../

Mortgage Bait for the Two-Legged Rat

The bottom line is that human psychology and greed feeds on itself. When the trend was up, consumers and bankers were clamoring at each others throats to get into the next deal - regardless of underlying fundamentals. And that accelerated the price increases. Now the tide has turned and consumers want nothing to do with housing, and rightfully so. Take a look at this house very close to Microsoft, which is off 18% in a single year.
www.geldpress.com/2009.../

Better to Rent than Buy a Home

Take a look at this home in Redmond Washington, (home of Microsoft, and supposedly "immune" from decline). Prices are off over 18% in just 1 year.

www.geldpress.com/2009.../

Reasons To Short the Euro

Time to play the DRR? The European problems are coming out of the woodwork:
www.geldpress.com/2008.../

Was the iPhone Deal Worth It for AT&T?

The $900 million iPhone cost to AT&T only includes subsidies and other up front sales and marketing costs. The true cost of the iPhone to AT&T is in the additional demand it places on the RF network. With a voice call, a user only occupies one time slot. But with a data session - something the iPhone is remarkably good at hogging up - a user can occupy 4 or even 8 simultaneous time slots. Those data time slots are extremely expensive to AT&T because they place additional constraints on the voice network. When AT&T tunes the network at each cell site, they pre-determine how many data time slots vs voice slots are available. The more iPhone demand, the more data slots they need, and the more cell sites they have to build. AT&T does not come forth with accurate iPhone data usage statistics, but it's virtually certain that they are losing their A$$ES by selling the data plan to iPhone subs.
www.geldpress.com/2008.../

A Quick Review of I.O.U.S.A.

Anyone seeing the movie should get the clear message that this nation is heading toward a fiscal train wreck. But the details of that train wreck were just not covered in adequate detail through IOUSA. In fact, what few concrete explanations did exist in the movie were rushed through. As an example, there was one scene that put the cost of unfunded government liabilities above $53 trillion. But the calculation started with $11 trillion and no explanation of what it stood for, and ended with $1 trillion in "Miscellaneous" liabilities. I was not at all impressed with the movie, or the "Empire of Debt" book that it was based off for that matter. It's an important topic, but there are far better sources out there for learning about it.
www.geldpress.com/2008.../

Debt Ceiling Upped to $10.615tn, Just in Case

The debt "ceiling" is an anachronism. We overspend until we get close to the limit, then we raise the ceiling and start over! The debt ceiling was first created in 1917 with the second liberty bond act.
www.geldpress.com/2008.../

National Debt & Interest Payments For Fiscal 2008

Also check out a great article on how to interpret the 2 components of the national debt - debt held by the public and intragovernmental holdings:
www.geldpress.com/2008.../

Apple's 3G iPhone Appears Profitable

According to geldpress, AT&T is losing money on the iphone data plan, despite the higher charge:
www.geldpress.com/2008.../