“Personal Finance Daily - Marketwatch” plus 3 more |
- Personal Finance Daily - Marketwatch
- Wednesday's Personal Finance stories - Marketwatch
- Real-world advice for Web app developers - Infoworld
- Core-Mark Quietly Builds Its Value - Street.Com
| Personal Finance Daily - Marketwatch Posted: 24 Feb 2010 11:24 AM PST Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full-text RSS service so we can continue developing it.
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By MarketWatch Don't miss these top stories: The housing market is having a winter of major discontent. Millions of homeowners owe more on their mortgage than their home is worth on the current market, a real problem for those who want to sell. New-home sales are at a record low, in large part because so many homeowners who might buy new homes don't want to venture into this market to sell their existing house. With snow storms shutting down large swaths of the Midwest and Northeast of late, and freezing cold as far south as Florida, you don't have to be a weatherman to figure the winds aren't blowing housing's way so far in 2010. The big question is whether there will be any life left when spring does arrive. If you're a buyer, though, the seasons are reversed. As long as you don't have to rely on selling your current home, buying a house today is like walking on sunshine -- prices have fallen so far that affordability is near record highs, mortgage rates remain near record lows and the selection, well, you pretty much have your choice since there are so few of you out there. All of this, in the end, boils down to confidence. A home is the biggest purchase most of us make, and signing for that big mortgage takes a great leap of faith that the times ahead will be good. Right now, nobody's jumping. -- Steve Kerch, assistant managing editor REAL ESTATE 11.3 million homeowners underwater on mortgage
More than 11.3 million homeowners -- nearly one-fourth of all Americans with a mortgage -- owe more on their loan than their home is now worth, according to a report released Tuesday by FirstAmerican CoreLogic.
New-home sales fall to record-low level
Sales of new U.S. homes plunged 11.2% in January to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 309,000, the lowest rate on record dating back to 1963, the Commerce Department estimated Wednesday.
Mixed results from housing index
There are early signs that the housing market has stabilized. The big question for 2010 is how housing will react after the government begins to move its support away, Nick Timiraos reports.
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| Wednesday's Personal Finance stories - Marketwatch Posted: 23 Feb 2010 01:48 PM PST Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full-text RSS service so we can continue developing it.
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By MarketWatch Don't miss these top stories: Our kids are fat, to put it bluntly, or overweight or obese, to put it medically. And who can blame them? Look who they have as role models -- us, a supersized America hooked on high-fructose corn syrup and infatuated with french fries. You can trace at least some of the problem to the end of the age of innocence: Where we used to feel safe dumping our children outside to bicycle or skateboard across the neighborhood in search of pals for a game of pickup ball we now drive them to play dates and group lessons or whatever and don't much think about the physical activity we deprive them of. But another part of the problem has been the medical community and attendant institutions like health insurers, who for too long paid little heed to childhood obesity. But those attitudes are changing and at least one initiative from the American Heart Association and the William J. Clinton Foundation is aiming to reach more than 6 million at-risk kids with targeted help from pediatricians and dieticians. Hopefully, in the process, we can start getting the parents off their duffs as well. -- Steve Kerch, assistant managing editor HEALTH CARECoverage for treating kids' obesity gets more comprehensive
Parents of overweight and obese children face a heavy burden in navigating a complex health-care system that does little to help them change their kids' course. But a growing number of employers and health insurers are trying to make it easier to get such help.
Anthem faces scrutiny from California lawmakers
Anthem Blue Cross faces the first of two days of legislative scrutiny Tuesday as the insurer goes before a California Assembly committee to justify proposed rate hikes up to 39% or more.
Lawsuits, state competition key to Republican health plans
Ending "junk" lawsuits, allowing Americans to buy insurance across state lines and creating high-risk insurance pools for the sick are high on Republicans' list of ideas to bring to the White House health-care "summit" on Thursday.
CARSFew used-car bargains in wake of Toyota recalls
Toyota cars, long known for their quality and reliability, are just about holding their own in resale value despite the massive recall of vehicles for sudden-acceleration problems and other issues.
Toyota U.S. president faces hostile crowd in Washington
Lawmakers sharpened their claws Tuesday ahead of testimony from Toyota's top U.S. executive relating to the automaker's handling of safety failures that led to massive recalls worldwide.
ECONOMY & POLITICSAlmost 10% of FDIC-insured banks on 'troubled' list
Driven by expanding problems with commercial real estate loans, the number of distressed banks in the U.S. rose to 702 in the fourth quarter, marking the highest level in 16 years, according to a report released Tuesday by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
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| Real-world advice for Web app developers - Infoworld Posted: 24 Feb 2010 11:38 AM PST Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full-text RSS service so we can continue developing it. Successful Web application developers suggest using enthusiastic users, not the standard influencers, to market productsHopeful entrepreneurs and developers attending the Future of Web Apps conference in Miami Beach received a heavy dose of real-world advice from successful peers, including some tips that at first pass seem counterintuitive. A sampling: Blab about your idea to as many people as possible, without fear it might be stolen. Let your Web site crash often. Skip industry "influencers" when marketing. Use open-source software liberally. [ Keep up with app dev issues and trends with InfoWorld's Fatal Exception and Strategic Developer blogs. ] The advice came from people who work at places such as Mint, Facebook, and Reddit who shared their experiences to help the hundreds of peers filling the Colony Theater on Wednesday, hoping to get tips to improve their chances of success. "I knew nothing," said Steve Huffman, co-founder of social news site Reddit. "I made so many silly mistakes along the way." Huffman, who co-founded Reddit with his college roommate Alexis Ohanian shortly after graduating from college in 2005, slept with his laptop and woke up every two hours to check if the site was down. His phone rang constantly with reports of site problems. Eventually, he and Ohanian discovered a nifty utility that monitors Web performance and restarts sites automatically when they crash. It was so convenient that Huffman and his partner ended up knocking out Reddit when a significant system error popped up, letting the Supervise tool from Daemontools boot up the site automatically. The lesson: By adopting existing tools and technology to automate time-consuming tasks, Huffman and the Reddit team were able to devote more time and energy to improving the site, which became so popular that media giant Conde Nast bought it in October 2006. David Recordon, who is in charge of open source and standards efforts at Facebook, sounded a similar note, advising attendees to become acquainted with open-source software that they can use, instead of trying to reinvent the wheel. "Don't be afraid of building on top of open-source infrastructure," he said, adding that many Facebook components run on open-source software, which the company has generally found to be very stable. Recordon suggested attendees check out wares like Facebook's Tornado Web Server, Google's publish/subscribe protocol extension to RSS, Pubsubhubbub, and the authorization protocol OAuth. Meanwhile, developers with a great application idea shouldn't be secretive about it, said Aaron Patzer, co-founder of Mint, the personal finance site acquired last year by Intuit for $170 million. "Tell anyone and everyone your idea without fear they're going to steal it," Patzer said. The world is full of people with great ideas that will never be implemented because it's hard to execute on a plan and bring it to a successful completion, he said. While the risks of the idea being stolen are minimal, the benefits of receiving a lot of early feedback on the idea are invaluable, Patzer said. For example, Patzer initially had planned to build an application to help people manage their goals in life, an idea he considered fantastic until he started sharing it with friends and family. Only one person out of 80 expressed interest in owning such software. However, many got excited about the personal-finance management component Patzer planned on putting into the application. Patzer then realized that people needed a better alternative to Intuit's Quicken and Microsoft's Money.  White PaperVirtual Workforce: The Key to Expanding The Business While Cutting CostsGet the independent advice and expertise you need to support a virtual workforce.
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| Core-Mark Quietly Builds Its Value - Street.Com Posted: 24 Feb 2010 11:24 AM PST [fivefilters.org: unable to retrieve full-text content] I'm often fascinated with what on the surface seem to be rather mundane businesses that are not well-known. Often their names are not at all suggestive about what the company actually does, and they just don't resonate with investors. It could be a ... |
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