Financial Solutions

This and That: Interest rates, MF Global and more…

December 5th, 2011

Before we dive into today’s round-up, an update on the Bloggers for Charity initiative. The top bid is currently $400 by Straight Talk Investing’s Dr. Dale Rathgeber. Thank you Dr. Dale! If you’d like to outbid Dr. Dale, please contact me directly.

Keeping Steady: The Bank of Canada decided to keep interest rates level this week. The Bank’s statement seems to suggest that interest rates are stuck at neutral but did note that it is monitoring economic developments carefully. The Prime Rate to which variable-rate mortgages and lines of credit are tied stays at 3.0 percent.

The Mystery of MF Global’s Missing Millions: MF Global was a large brokerage firm that recently filed for bankruptcy. Clients o

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Pending Homes Sales Rise From A Year Ago

December 3rd, 2011

A monthly index that tracks pending sales of U.S. resale homes rose in September compared to a year ago, while falling on a month-to-month basis, the National Association of REALTORS reported today.

Also today, NAR released its latest forecast report for 2011 and 2012, revising up an earlier prediction for U.S. real gross domestic product growth in the wake of third-quarter GDP data released today.

Third-quarter data showed a 2.5 percent rise in GDP, compared with 1.3 percent in the second quarter. NAR expects U.S. GDP growth of 1.8 percent for the full year in 2011, with 2.3 percent GDP growth in 2012. A previous NAR forecast, released last month, anticipated U.S. GDP growth of 1 percent this year and 1.3 percent in 2012. Actual U.S.

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Tags: Ago, Year Ago

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Millipore reports redemption completion of outstanding 3.75% Convertible Senior Notes Due 2026

December 3rd, 2011

Millipore Corporation, the Life Science business of Merck KGaA of Germany, that operates as EMD Millipore in the U.S. and Canada, today announced that all its remaining outstanding 3.75% Convertible Senior Notes Due 2026 (the “Notes”) were redeemed on December 1, 2011, at one hundred percent (100%) of the outstanding principle amount of the Notes.

Most of the Notes were already converted by its holders between June and August 2010 in connection with certain conversion rights resulting from the acquisition of Millipore Corporation by Merck KGaA, and only a principal amount of US$ 27.2 million of the originally issued notes in the principal amount of US$ 550 million remained outstanding upon the call for redemption as of December 1, 2011. All remaining outstanding Notes have now been redeemed.

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Tags: Millipore, Millipore Reports

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Financial advice for free or fee, what’s more expensive?

November 29th, 2011

“Jo cheez free mein milti hai uska paisa kyon de bhai?” said one person when his financial advisor asked him to pay a fee for advice, something which he has been giving free for the last 4 years. It may sound obvious that if you are getting something for free then why should one pay for it. But when it comes to financial advice, free can be very costly.

It is very common these days to hear about stories of investors losing money because of wrong financial advice. You can call it mis-buying of financial products or mis-selling or both. And while it is reasonable to expect every individual to gain enough knowledge before buying a financial product, I think a much bigger responsibility is upon the financial advisor to guide investors in selecting appropriate financial products. But

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Tags: Fee, Fee What’s

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