Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Archive for March 17th, 2008

The title of a great song by the Boomtown Rats, but also maybe how I feel today (Saint Patrick’s Day aside).

That’s a Bargain?

Bear Stearns was sold for a pittance to JPMorgan/Chase for $2.00 per share, given Bear Stearns was worth over $150 a year ago, and they were the #5 investment bank in the states, this is going to mean some great nasty cogitations on the markets today. Remember your investing plan if you have one and stick to your guns, but also remember your thresholds on when you want to sell and what you value in stocks too.

Is this the end of all of this? No, I think there is more of this to come folks so batten down your hatches, because this is going to be a bumpy ride.

U.S. Fed Cuts Rates to 3.25%

The Fed in the U.S. in a weekend move surprise for Saint Patrick’s day cut their Emergency Lending rate to institutions to 3.25% from 3.5%, wonder if they got wind of this Bear Stearns thing and tried to preempt another melt down? Who knows, but the move will drive the American dollar further down but might cause some optimism in the stock market (where optimism is a relative term, that is for sure).

Taxes Done?

Better think about getting those taxes done soon folks, because each day you wait will add at least 5 days onto how much longer it will take to get your refund from the government (if you are getting one that is). Of course if you owe money it might be good to wait until the latest day you could too.

Roof Shoveling

Here is one of those “value for what you pay things”, there have been many tragic roof collapses in Quebec and in Ontario due to the high volume of snow on some folks roofs, and people have been taking it upon themselves to go onto their own roofs to clear the snow off. Let me point out the danger and stupidity of this, and that yes if you fall off you might land in some fluffy snow, that is covering up your kids play structure or possibly your deck!

If you are worried contact a roofing company to come out and check on your roof and pay them to send someone up on your roof to stomp around and remove the snow. It is well worth the money spent and you are not the one who might fall off too!