“Hot Off the Wire - dBusinessNews.com” plus 3 more |
- Hot Off the Wire - dBusinessNews.com
- Intuit Grows Revenue 13 Percent in Third Quarter – Raises Fiscal ... - Newswiretoday.com
- Business, Personal Finance, Technology, Employment news for Austin and ... - Austin American-Statesman
- Thursday's Personal Finance stories - Marketwatch
| Hot Off the Wire - dBusinessNews.com Posted: 21 May 2010 04:01 AM PDT MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- More than 3 million people turn to Mint.com (www.mint.com) for insight into their spending habits. Now, they can learn how to save and do more with their money with Mint Answers, a new feature on MintLife, the Mint.Com award-winning blog. "Should I buy or lease a new car?" "How should married couples divide their money and expenses?" "What retirement account is best for me?" This is a sampling of the questions people send to Mint Answers based on what they learn about their saving and spending habits, or triggered by what they read in the blog. Answers are provided at no charge, coming from a panel of professional advisors and from other users. Ultimately, people can apply the answers directly to their own situations. "Because of the recession, people are talking more openly about money, a once-taboo topic," said Aaron Patzer, general manager and vice president of Intuit Personal Finance and founder of Mint.com, citing results from a recent Intuit Money Matters Town Hall Survey. "Mint Answers helps them make informed decisions about their finances. They get real-time access to experts and peers to answer their money questions." Questions are grouped by topic, Budgeting, Debt Management, Future Goals, and Savings. The forum is open to anyone, with answers screened by the MintLife editorial staff and ranked by other users based on the usefulness of the response. Patzer said the process allows the most helpful content to rise to the top, making it easier to find the response that best suits people's needs. Initially, MintAnswers will feature expert advice from the Alliance of Cambridge Advisors (ACA, www.acaplanners.org), a group recently featured on the former FiLife website. "We're glad to be able to bring our highly qualified, ethical advice into the Mint.com dialogue," said Catherine Stegmaier, executive director of ACA. "Having advice tied to people's actual spending data is invaluable." Mint Answers is the latest tool that stimulates conversation between Mint.com and its users, joining the Facebook fan page, Twitter, and a recent integration with GetSatisfaction that takes customer support and feedback to a new level. The Answers platform is provided by Sponge, a white-label question and answer platform that helps sites capture high quality content optimized for search traffic. About Mint.com Mint.com is a leading online personal finance service from Intuit Inc. (Nasdaq:INTU), providing over 3 million users a fresh, easy and intelligent way to manage their money. And it's free. Launched in September 2007, Mint.com has quickly grown to track nearly $200 billion in transactions and $50 billion in assets and has identified more than $300 million in potential savings for its users. Mint.com's innovation is in applying advanced technology to deliver breakthrough ease-of-use. Using patent-pending technology and proprietary algorithms, Mint.com allows users to see all their financial accounts in one place, makes it easy to set and keep to budgets, and helps identify money saving ideas. Mint.com is so effective that more than 90 percent of users say they have changed their financial habits as a result of using the service. For more information on Mint.com's free online personal finance service, please visit http://www.mint.com and follow Mint.com on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mint. About Intuit Inc. Intuit Inc. is a leading provider of business and financial management solutions for small and mid-sized businesses; financial institutions, including banks and credit unions; consumers and accounting professionals. Its flagship products and services, including QuickBooks ®, Quicken ® and TurboTax ®, simplify small business management and payroll processing, personal finance, and tax preparation and filing. ProSeries ® and Lacerte ® are Intuit's leading tax preparation offerings for professional accountants. The company's financial institutions division, anchored by Digital Insight, provides on-demand banking services to help banks and credit unions serve businesses and consumers with innovative solutions. Founded in 1983, Intuit had annual revenue of $3.1 billion in its fiscal year 2009. The company has approximately 7,800 employees with major offices in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, India and other locations. More information can be found at www.intuit.com
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| Intuit Grows Revenue 13 Percent in Third Quarter – Raises Fiscal ... - Newswiretoday.com Posted: 20 May 2010 06:00 PM PDT
| Results Led by Strong Tax Season; Small Business Returns to Double-Digit Growth Third-Quarter Highlights:
• Revenue increased 13 percent over the year-ago quarter to $1.6 billion, exceeding the guidance range. The company raised fiscal year guidance based on strong results across the board. For fiscal year 2010, which ends July 31, Intuit expects revenue of $3.410 billion to $3.425 billion, growth of 10 percent. Note: all comparisons are versus the same period a year ago.
Company Perspective
"We've worked hard over the past few years to position Intuit to take advantage of the secular market trends that we see as catalysts for sustained growth. In addition, we've invested in hiring and developing skills and capabilities that will benefit us for years. We've strengthened our engineering talent pool, and we've developed technology that improves the usability of our products, adds mobile capabilities, and readies our solutions for global deployment. We've also invested to ensure our customers are delighted with our products and find them incredibly easy to use. This quarter's performance is another proof point that we are stronger now than when the recession began," Smith said. Small Business total revenue grew 13 percent for the third quarter, driven by strong performance in Financial Management Solutions and Employee Management Solutions. Financial Management Solutions
• Revenue increased 16 percent versus the third quarter of 2009, led by outstanding growth in QuickBooks for the desktop, QuickBooks Online and Intuit Websites. The online customer base grew 32 percent compared to the year-ago quarter. Payment Solutions • Revenue grew 8 percent, driven by a 16 percent increase in merchants. Charge volume grew 1 percent year over year, the first increase since the third quarter of fiscal 2008. Consumer Tax Group
• Revenue increased 12 percent, with an increase in share in both the desktop and online categories. Total units were up 11 percent for the season, with Web units up 18 percent. We now believe Consumer Tax revenue will grow 12 to 13 percent in fiscal 2010. Accounting Professionals • Accounting Professionals revenue grew 15 percent over last year, capping off a solid tax season for the segment. Excluding a $9 million revenue shift deferred from the second to the third quarter, Accounting Professionals revenue grew 10 percent. Financial Institutions • Financial Services revenue grew 21 percent and bill pay users grew 16 percent. This tax season, more than 1,100 financial institutions offered TurboTax for Online Banking. Revenue grew 9 percent, excluding TurboTax for Online Banking. Approximately 450 financial institutions are signed up to offer FinanceWorks, with a growing number of banks adopting Intuit's online bill payment and mobile banking solutions. Other Businesses
• Segment revenue grew 20 percent, driven primarily by strength in Personal Finance and favorable foreign currency impact from the Canada and United Kingdom businesses.
Forward-looking Guidance
• Revenue of $3.410 billion to $3.425 billion, growth of 10 percent.
Conference Call Information
Replay information The audio webcast will remain available on Intuit's website for one week after the conference call.
About Intuit, Inc. Founded in 1983, Intuit had annual revenue of $3.1 billion in its fiscal year 2009. The company has approximately 7,800 employees with major offices in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, India and other locations.
Intuit, the Intuit logo and QuickBooks, among others, are registered trademarks and/or registered service marks of Intuit Inc. in the United States and other countries. This press release and the accompanying tables include non-GAAP financial measures. For a description of these non-GAAP financial measures, including the reasons management uses each measure, and reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable financial measures prepared in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, please see the section of the accompanying tables titled "About Non-GAAP Financial Measures" as well as the related Table B and Table E. A copy of the press release issued by Intuit today can be found on the investor relations page of Intuit's Website.
Cautions About Forward-Looking Statements Because these forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, there are important factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from the expectations expressed in the forward-looking statements. These factors include, without limitation, the following: product introductions and price competition from our competitors can have unpredictable negative effects on our revenue, profitability and market position; governmental encroachment in our tax businesses or other governmental activities or public policy affecting the preparation and filing of tax returns could negatively affect our operating results and market position; if economic and market conditions in the U.S. and worldwide continue to decline, our customers may delay or reduce technology purchases which may harm our business, results of operations and financial condition; we may not be able to successfully introduce new products and services to meet our growth and profitability objectives, and current and future products and services may not adequately address customer needs and may not achieve broad market acceptance, which could harm our operating results and financial condition; any failure to maintain reliable and responsive service levels for our offerings could cause us to lose customers and negatively impact our revenues and profitability; any significant product quality problems or delays in our products could harm our revenue, earnings and reputation; our participation in the Free File Alliance may result in lost revenue opportunities and cannibalization of our traditional paid franchise; any failure to properly use and protect personal customer information could harm our revenue, earnings and reputation; our acquisition activities may be disruptive to Intuit and may not result in expected benefits; our use of significant amounts of debt to finance acquisitions or other activities could harm our financial condition and results of operations; our revenue and earnings are highly seasonal and the timing of our revenue between quarters is difficult to predict, which may cause significant quarterly fluctuations in our financial results; predicting tax-related revenues is challenging due to the heavy concentration of activity in a short time period; we have implemented, and are continuing to upgrade, new information systems and any problems with these new systems could interfere with our ability to deliver products and services and gather information to effectively manage our business; our financial position may not make repurchasing shares advisable or we may issue additional shares in an acquisition causing our number of outstanding shares to grow; and litigation involving intellectual property, antitrust, shareholder and other matters may increase our costs. More details about these and other risks that may impact our business are included in our Form 10-K for fiscal 2009 and in our other SEC filings. You can locate these reports through our website at investors.intuit.com. Forward-looking statements are based on information as of May 20, 2010, and we do not undertake any duty to update any forward-looking statement or other information in these materials. Five Filters featured article: The Art of Looking Prime Ministerial - The 2010 UK General Election. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. | ||
| Posted: 20 May 2010 06:21 PM PDT Home > The Real Deal > Archives > 2010 > May > 20 > Entry Homes sales soar in April, fueled by tax creditCentral Texas home sales skyrocketed nearly 31 percent in April and pending sales were up almost 47 percent from a year ago, as buyers rushed to beat the April 30 deadline for a federal income-tax credit, the Austin Board of Realtors said today. "Although the tax credit has expired, we are entering a growing economic, real estate and seasonal cycle which we hope will continue to provide momentum to carry our market upward," said board Chairman John Horton. The tax credit was $8,000 for first-time buyers and $6,500 for repeat buyers. For purchases where a binding contract was signed by the end of April, qualified buyers have until June 30 to complete the sale. The board reported that real estate agents sold 2,043 homes in April compared with 1,561 in April 2009. The median sale price was unchanged at $190,700. From January through April, sales are up 17 percent, the board said. The amount of time homes were on the market fell 13 percent, to an average of 69 days vs. 79 a year ago. The number of homes on the market in April — 10,749 active listings — amounted to a 6.5 month's supply, which represents a balanced market, the board said. Sales of condominiums and townhouses also were strong in April, with the 213 sales amounting to a 63 percent increase from a year ago. Pending sales for condos and townhouses rose 70 percent. "The significant increase seen in the condo and townhouse market can most likely be attributed to the first-time homebuyer tax credit," Horton said. "The median price for condos and townhouses is approximately $30,000 less than the median price for a single-family home; and therefore, these properties can be a more affordable alternative for first-time buyers." Horton said that although the tax credits have made it more attractive for some buyers to purchase now, "there are a lot of buyers who have been waiting to purchase until they were confident in the economy. Now that we are seeing recovery in the economy and real estate market, in combination with historically low interest rates, those potential buyers who have been on the fence are now taking the leap and entering the housing market." Permalink | Comments (9) | Post your comment Categories: Residential Five Filters featured article: The Art of Looking Prime Ministerial - The 2010 UK General Election. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. | |||
| Thursday's Personal Finance stories - Marketwatch Posted: 20 May 2010 03:08 PM PDT
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By MarketWatch Don't miss these top stories: The stock market is doing its volatile best to scare buy-and-hold investors and retirement savers. The Dow Jones Industrial Average /quotes/comstock/10w!i:dji/delayed (DJIA 10,193, +125.38, +1.25%) lost 376 points Thursday, losing 3.6%, and the S&P 500 Index /quotes/comstock/21z!i1:in\x (SPX 1,088, +16.10, +1.50%) dropped about 43 points, also closing down almost 4%. With both indexes falling 10% or more from their closing highs in April, this marks the first official correction of the bull market that started on March 9, 2009. What's a long-term investor to do? That'll depend a lot on who you are. You could note that stocks are a lot cheaper today than they were yesterday -- good news if you're dollar-cost-averaging into the market. On the other hand, if this volatility is setting your teeth on edge, it might be time to reconsider your investment choices. Not that there are lots of good options out there right now. Read Robert Powell's Your Portfolio column for a look at where some investment experts are stashing their cash these days. (Hint: For some of them, it's not bonds.) -- Andrea Coombes, Personal Finance editor Bogle's in bonds, but should you be?
Jack Bogle and Chris Davis agree on many things, but they are at opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to investing.
REAL ESTATEMortgage rates fall to lowest level this year
Mortgage rates dropped again this week, with both the 15-year, fixed-rate mortgage and the 5-year, adjustable-rate mortgage falling to record lows, according to Freddie Mac's weekly survey of conforming mortgage rates.
INVESTINGSeven big mistakes people make when hiring advisers
I have given countless talks over the last 15 years to groups of people interested in hiring financial advisers or working better with the helpers they have, and I typically poll my audience to learn about their experiences.
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By austinbubble.blogspot.com
May 20, 2010 12:23 PM | Link to this
Sales are up? What does that mean? What happened to prices despite the massive government stimulus? The only people who care how MANY sales are made are the realtors because they get paid on number of transactions. Dig a little deeper statesman. You're being spoon fed by the realtors.
By Jim
May 20, 2010 12:42 PM | Link to this
Sorry John Horton but a 30k difference between condo and single family would equate to a HOA fee of about $189 which is far lower than a lot of them out there. All this article does is help TCAD justify raising taxes next year.
By Jim
May 20, 2010 12:46 PM | Link to this
Sorry John Horton but a 30k difference between condo and single family would equate to a HOA fee of about $189 which is far lower than a lot of them out there. All this article does is help TCAD justify raising taxes next year.
By Billy
May 20, 2010 12:57 PM | Link to this
IF you could steal $8,000 from your neighbor and not get caught—would you do it? This is legalize THEFT! Only certain people can get this $8000 credit——YOUR neighbors get to pay for it. OH LOOK AT ME—-I stole $8000 from the feds and my neighbors will pay for it!
By Brian
May 20, 2010 1:15 PM | Link to this
Median really fell if you discount for the tax credit giveaway $$$. Don't forget to file your property tax protest before June 1st. If you need help, go to www.changeaustin.org for valuable links.
By bb
May 20, 2010 4:29 PM | Link to this
That is weird. My house has been on the market for a spell and I've had zero offers. Where are all these buyers?
By Garry Wise
May 20, 2010 6:05 PM | Link to this
How can you ground the assertion that these sales were fueled by the tax credit? My research into historical sales says differently. Once you research the % of sales of homes below $250,000 and measure that against April of last year….they are the same percentage. If, in fact, the tax credit fueled the activity, wouldn't the numbers indicate a higher percentage of lower-priced homes? Updated stats and assessments will be loaded here tomorrow afternoon: glt.bz/stats
By McNasty
May 20, 2010 10:26 PM | Link to this
Please don't try to pass comments from ABOR as objective. When is the last time this group presented a negative outlook? You have exhausted your market of sellers in the near future, and more buyers are looking to list.
By Jack Miller
May 21, 2010 11:01 AM | Link to this
Shonda-
The devil is in the details on this. We have a different assessment based on the percentage of overall home sales below $250k, which is essentially unchanged from last year (70%). So is it the tax credit, or the overall market if the same percentage of buyers were purchasing in 1st time home buyer price ranges?
Jack