Nasdaq rebalances to reduce impression of Apple rumors on index

To temper the unpredictability of Apple shares, Nasdaq officials will rebalance the Nasdaq-100 index in May. By slashing the weight of Apple shares on the entire index by four eighths, which is two one quarter portions, or to go further, half of a whole, Nasdaq has performed a rebalancing. The action by Nasdaq is calibrated to discourage hedge funds from fiddling with Apple shares and encourage more scrupulous investors to throw down instead.

The Nasdaq to be redone with Apple going down

For the past few years, as Apple stock goes, so does the Nasdaq-100. Since the industry bottomed out in 2009, the Mac, iPhone and iPad have driven Apple shares skyward more than 250 percent. Since then, Apple’s stock has risen about another 150 percent to represent more than 20 percent of the total value of the Nasdaq-100 index. Apple stock is more than twice what it should be in the index, Nasdaq officials explained. On May 2, Nasdaq will rebalance anything. This will make, on the Nasdaq-100, Apple shares only 12 percent. The adjustment to repair for Apple realigns the ratio for the company's stock and outstanding shares with the way the Nasdaq-100 is calculated. This is a big change. It will change 81 other business positions. The change might make Apple rivals go up. They will be more prevalent. Microsoft will rise from 3.4 percent up to 8.3 percent. Other increases are expected in businesses. Intel will get to 4.2 percent, Google to 5.8 percent and Oracle ! to 6.7 percent.

All the Apple rumors change things

Any future manipulation by hedge fund traders that could hurt the Nasdaq-100 or short Apple will be prevented by the lower ratio of Apple shares. Recently, there was an instance where Apple stock swung in price due to Apple rumors, according to Jason Schwartz at Seeking Alpha. Apple was trading at $360 in February. At this time, a rumor that iPad 2 releases would be delayed until June because of "supply chain contacts" came out by Yuanta Securities. The rumors spread very quickly. Soon, Apple shares were shorted by Yuanta Securities to make money. It only took 2 days to lower Apple stock. It had a $20 decrease. The iPad announcement of being sold on March 10 was given by Steve Jobs right after that. Yuanta made lots of money off of it although investors felt really idiotic. This had a huge affect on the Nasdaq-100. It was a big deal.

No more of an Apple rumor influence

The Nasdaq rebalancing doesn’t take impact until next month, however money managers are already rebalancing their holdings. Apple stock went down on Tues from $337 to $341.19 with a $4.19 drop. There has already been less hedge fund able to use Apple to manipulate the industry. The iPhone delay rumors are, more than likely, not true. It will not affect the stock though since it is already going back up and is $15 below its high. Apple is anticipated to do better than expected in first quarter earnings while investors and traders can trade Apple shares.

Articles cited

Fortune

tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/04/05/a-good-day-to-buy-aapl/

Mac Observer

macobserver.com/tmo/article/nasdaq-100_to_cut_apples_index_share_nearly_in_half/

MSN Money

money.msn.com/market-news/default.aspx?feat=e52a3c86-3053-48e5-91eb-970765febdcc

Seeking Alpha

seekingalpha.com/article/260887-hedge-funds-bloggers-and-the-origin-of-apple-rumors

Keep away from credit at your peril

Several consumers looking to establish a credit history are denied credit because they don’t have enough credit to start with. And even a person with a high FICO score can be denied if the overall credit history bears too few records of active credit. Source for this article – Understanding the down side of avoiding credit by MoneyBlogNewz.

Being too responsible can hurt too

Everyone who is super responsible with credit might not do as well off as they think. Eventually, most people will conserve money by living generally debt free including paying off student loans right away and staying away from credit that is more than necessary. Some credit corporations don't like this though. There are some people that use credit, but have many choices to choose from. It can look bad to have credit inquiries too often though.

Experian's public education director Rod Griffin explained that credit can go down when there isn't much of a credit history and if you apply for charge cards often. Showing an ability to handle a reasonable number of open, active credit sources over time is paramount in illustrating credit-worthiness to creditors, including mortgage lenders.

Always have credit, however pay off loans

The argument Griffin has is that it is not bad to pay off loans early. This is despite what credit experts say. Negative marks will stay on a FICO report for about seven years while good things stay for about 10 years. Customers get put in the "no, thank you" zone by many creditors when they pay off loans very easily. You should have accounts open and active for at least 24 months for creditors. Otherwise, loan companies are likely to pass over the application and move on.

Use credit cards, but sparingly

Don't take on lots of credit cards in case you are a college student that is just beginning to build credit. Used responsibly and in moderation, having one credit card or two is a fine path toward building credit.

Griffin reports that this might change though. The Obama administration started the Charge card Act though. Several think that this makes it harder for young people to build credit. Experts say there is less of a possibility that students can build credit since access to college students is taken away.

Credit might be hurt more than you think when using just money

While you won't rack up revolving debt by living a cash-only lifestyle, you also will not build your credit. Maintain active credit accounts where you pay more than the minimum each month, and look to such goods as installment loans and no credit check loans when emergency funding is necessary. You can avoid building up too much debt on a credit card with these goods even though they will not make a difference on a credit history without reporting.

Citations

MSN

money.msn.com/credit-rating/raise-your-credit-score-to-740-weston.aspx

Yahoo

finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/112152/dangers-of-avoiding-credit?mod=series-m-article-c

Understanding the Credit card Act

youtube.com/watch?v=UbIDOZz6CPw

Online payday advance lender busted for Ponzi scheme in Utah

Two online pay day loans businesses owned by the exact same person have been hit with a fraud suit. The suit was brought in federal court by the Securities and Exchange Commission. John Scott Clark, of Utah, is being sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission for allegedly running a Ponzi scheme with two online financial services businesses. Clark is alleged to have stolen $47 million from more than 120 investors.

Online lending businesses deal with Securities and Exchange Commission fraud suit

The Securities and Exchange Commission sued the owner of two lending online payday cash advance companies for a Ponzi scheme costing millions of dollars. Impact Cash LLC and Impact Payment Systems LLC are both businesses John Scott Clark owned and were preparing on investing capital into with money given to him by over 120 investors over a five year period. This got the Securities and Exchange Commission angry and started a lawsuit. Clark allegedly recruited investors by promising an average return of 80 percent in exchange for capital, which he allegedly said would be used to fund payday loans to reliable consumers. From March 2006 to September 2010, Clark recruited investors and got over $47 million, reports the Credit Union Times, in investment.

Using investor money to get Clark a Mercedes

Clark lived the lifestyle he wanted off the money he stole from investors. Deseret News states that Clark simply needed to gain the trust of investors. Clark supposedly purchased three Mercedes-Benz cars, a 1963 Chevrolet Corvette, installed a home theater system in his home that cost $25,000 and also purchased lavish home furnishings. Clark refused to give investors their money when they started to get suspicious in 2009 that something was wrong. Clark got a lawsuit with five Securities Act violations by the SEC. A Federal judge has placed both Impact businesses into receivership and frozen the very same day loans lending companies, according to the Wall Street Journal.

A tiny mistake from one person

A lot of people have a bad connotation of online payday loan lenders. They are considered evil. This cannot possibly be true. Nobody reports honest transactions though. The individuals you give money to have to be trusted. Be careful over it. This is where the Better Business Bureau comes in. It is there to help consumers. Generally, it’s too good to be true if it sounds that way.

Citations

Salt Lake Tribune

sltrib.com/sltrib/money/51503972-79/investors-clark-complaint-payday.html.csp

Wall Street Journal

online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20110328-710072.html

Deseret News

deseretnews.com/article/705369480/Cache-County-man-allegedly-bilked-investors-of-millions-to-feed-lavish-lifestyle.html

Credit Union Times

cutimes.com/2011/03/28/sec-halts-47-million-payday-loan-ponzi

State of Minnesota finishes program to make mortgages Sharia-compliant

In Minnesota, mortgages targeted to increase home ownership have been ended. Pawlenty ended the program upon learning the program was compliant with Sharia law. The mortgage program was shut down by the Governor after providing three mortgages. Pawlenty cited religious freedom as the reason for shutting down this Sharia-compliant mortgage program. Post resource – Sharia-compliant mortgage program in Minnesota ends by MoneyBlogNewz.

Minnesota avoiding paying interest

A loan program was developed for Sharia law for low- to moderate-income families by Minnesota's state housing agency and the African Development Center in 2010. The borrower doesn't have to pay interest, which is against their religion, when getting the "Islamic mortgages" or "Sharia mortgages" as many call them. The borrower would pay the state for the home at a higher rate than the state would purchase the home. The payments are the exact same as a 30-year fixed rate mortgage, however the payments do not include interest to the bank. There was a larger program that this program came from. This larger program wanted to increase home ownership among minority groups.

Sharia loan program won't last long if Governor Pawlenty has anything to say about this

Upon finding out about the details of the Sharia loan program in his state, Gov. Pawlenty ordered it shut down. This decision had many asking questions. Pawlenty's spokesperson said:

“This program was independently set up by the Minnesota state housing agency and did not make any mention of Sharia Law on its face, but was later described as accommodating it,” he wrote in an email. “As soon as Gov. Pawlenty became aware of the issue, he personally ordered it shut it down. The United States should be governed by the U.S. Constitution, not religious laws.”

The way a government uses tax dollars is one the government gets to decide. In this case, the governor has not outlawed all Sharia-compliant financial goods in his state. State supported programs that support it are not allowed though.

The question of Sharia law

When it comes to conflicts between Muslims, a recent Florida court judge ruled that Sharia law can be used for disputes. This makes lawmakers worried. It’s a huge concern. The Sharia law is one that many states are considering banning. Some people against this support of the law feel like the "silent jihad" makes its way to the U.S. through this. Christian, Sharia and Jewish laws are all observed in the U.S.. As long as the state and federal law are not being violated, it is recognized. As long as religion is not being imposed on someone, observing it’s not against the Constitution. Pawlenty himself said, "The Constitution was intended to protect people of faith from government, not to protect government from people of faith." In the case of the Sharia-compliant mortgages, it appears that Pawlenty doesn’t want his state taxpayer dollars used to offer home ownership to religiously compliant Islamic residents.

Information from

Swamp Land

swampland.blogs.time.com/2011/03/25/is-there-a-double-standard-in-tim-pawlentys-disavowal-of-sharia-compliant-mortgages/

Minnesota Public Radio

minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/02/28/islamicfinancing/?refid=0

Rise in national vacancy rate not worth panicking over

The national vacancy rate is estimated to have reached 13 percent. Since that figure does not reflect how several of those houses are the; second, third or fifty-seventh home owned by the wealthy, that figure is incredibly misleading. The housing market is certainly down, but not entirely out.

Wealthy buying fewer homes in vacation hot spots

The media report numerous economic indicators, and statistics regarding real estate can cause a sense of doom on the horizon concerning the housing market. For instance, CNN recently published an article that said up to 13 percent of homes sit empty in The United States. That is a misleading statistic; CNN points out that many of the vacancies are in areas like Maine, Arizona and Florida — popular places for vacation homes. There was an increase in the last four years in vacancies from 12.1 percent to 13 percent. That is less than a 1 percent increase.

You will find more pending sales

Pending sales, homes that are being officially in the process of being sold, increased by 2.1 percent over February, according to Bloomberg. In the last few months, the number of homes selling went down. The cold conditions caused this. The housing market is not doing also still considering pending sales for February 2011 were 8.2 percent lower than they were in February 2010. Reuters reports that National Realtor's Association's chief economist Lawrence Yun believes that in 2011, older homes will sell faster than new homes meaning an increase in existing homes sales. The costs of new homes are much higher than the prices of old homes. This is how the market is right now.

Could there be a second crash?

When it comes to housing market news, the ides of a second crash is one that keeps coming back. The reality is that sales are slow, houses aren’t worth as much as they used to be, and banks may be less willing to lend. While loan providers continue to worry about lending in this economy, you will find also fewer people willing to purchase houses keeping prices low. More than likely, the individuals buying homes now will get good news. More good news shows that people who own now may have their home costs go up in the next few years also.

Citations

CNN

money.cnn.com/2011/03/28/real_estate/us_housing_vacancy_rates/index.htm?hpt=T2

Bloomberg

bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-28/pending-sales-of-u-s-existing-homes-unexpectedly-climbed-2-1-in-february.html

Reuters

reuters.com/article/2011/03/28/us-usa-economy-housing-idUSTRE72F3XG20110328

Internet news paywalls and how to keep away from them

Online news paywalls are on the way, and your information addiction may be in jeopardy. Without information, you can wind up choking in the digital dust. However don’t worry. A little misdirection and a handful of mobile apps can bring you the news for free or a very low price. Source of article – Money-saving ways to avoid online news subscription paywalls by MoneyBlogNewz.

Everything you need from news at Google

Google News links to news web sites across the Web. It’s easier to get news. It’s available every day. It’s really easy to access too with a very clear format that has local news and top news categories.

Apple app store has newspaper apps

Newspapers are an app at the Apple App Store that you pay $1.99 for in order to get links to all online newspaper web sites. You can use your iPod, iPad, iPhone or Safari to read articles. You are able to download stories and read them later. Instapaper is an example of an app to do this with.

RSS Reeder available

RSS feeds are a great way to keep up with the news that’s essential to you, and Reeder does it the clean and simple way. The iOS app is newspaper style and makes it easier to read with reformatting. Download the app for pretty cheap. You only have to pay $2.99.

There's Zite too

The free iPad app Zite acts as a kind of "personalized magazine," states Business Insider. News will be recommended to you. The Google Reader and Twitter accounts could be accessed to do this. However, simply picking articles to read from within the app can also drive your customization experience.

Don't pay for Associated Press and CNN apps

Mobile apps by the Associated Press and CNN are great iOS and Android possibilities for world, national and local news. Users of the AP app can even choose their favored local and national broadcasters and follow their stories in print and video. there are great videos accessible in the CNN app. It also has an iReport feature that lets users submit photos of news events.

How to get free access to NYT and The Daily

Users on Twitter have had access to NYT Twitter feeds. They can create a list for this. Clicking the links via Twitter or blog postings do not count toward the 20 articles per month limit the Times has imposed, so this amounts to free access. The Daily: Indexed, is a blog that the exact same thing happens with The Daily.

MediaMemo's Peter Kafka explained that there can be a limit of five referrals per day that are free from Google for NYT. This very same limit may not apply to Bing or other search engines.

The Times just blocked Google. Why is that? Because users could simply Google an article headline and get into the article without going through the front door, so to speak.

Information from

AP

ap.org/mobile/

Business Insider

businessinsider.com/how-to-get-around-paywalls-2011-3

CNN

cnn.com/mobile/iphone/

The Daily Index

thedailyindexed.tumblr.com/

What to expect with the NYT paywall

youtube.com/watch?v=jOkvPOY3VKU

Banks will cut debit card benefits next

The nation’s largest banks have been cutting customer benefits. Next on the chopping block are debt card rewards. Debit card benefits will cease entirely in July at JP Morgan Chase, after not any longer offering enrollment in the program in Feb. banks have been scaling back on consumer benefits and upping fees, as the potential loss of revenue from interchange fees is looming over the banking industry. Source of article – Debit card rewards next on the chopping block at large banks by MoneyBlogNewz.

Banks contend they’ll be brought low with interchange fee cap

The biggest banks are stopping many customer rewards for instance free checking due to the possible interchange fees cap which would stop the fees a financial institution can charge for payment transitions on debit purchases. More than likely, debit card rewards won't last long. This is the next casualty Bloomberg predicts will occur. Leading the charge in cutting back on rewards for customers is Chase, which stopped offering enrollment into the debit card rewards program to new customers in Feb.. Chase will stop offering rewards altogether on July 19, though any reward points that have been accrued by that point will still be honored. Consumers may eventually need same day loans to use their own money.

Bigger fees to pay at ATMs

MSNBC reports that raising fees for ATMs is another thing that banks are doing because of reform law changes. Chase, the second largest bank in America, is currently testing $4 and $5 fees for consumers who use Chase machines that aren't Chase customers. The program is testing $4 fees in Texas and $5 fees in Illinois. All other states will retain the $3 fee for non-Chase consumers, which are above the $2.33 national average. The fee Chase has for consumers at non-customer ATMs is $1.41 above the national average. This $2 fee will stay the same. In the nation, the second largest ATM network belongs to Chase. TD Bank and Citi bank are following suit, and Wells Fargo and Bank of America are likely to not be far behind. The idea of Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo having to run for installment loans because legislation prevents them from gouging customers is not likely to cause many people discomfort, but there is a catch.

Issue occurs also for credit unions

Forbes explained that interchange fees are charged by all banks, whether they’re for-profit or not. This is why the Durbin Amendment to the Dodd Frank Act is opposed by credit union trade groups like the National Association of Federal Credit Unions. For-profit banks can manage a huge drop in revenue much better than community banks and credit unions. This change would go from the average of 44 cents per transaction with the Federal Reserve proposal to a maximum of 12 cents per transaction. The House of Representatives and Senate can be looking at the bills soon while the Durbin Amendment wouldn't be able to happen for two years to study what would occur.

Information from

Bloomberg

bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-21/jpmorgan-will-cease-debit-card-rewards-program-because-of-proposed-fee-cap.html

MSNBC

msnbc.msn.com/id/42130464/ns/business-your_retirement/

Forbes

blogs.forbes.com/moneybuilder/2011/03/03/the-durbin-amendments-effect-on-credit-unions/