Written on June 30, 2011 by Julia Woodard
We are downgrading our recommendation on Hudson City Bancorp (NASDAQ:HCBK) to Underperform. It reported a loss on a GAAP basis in the first quarter of 2011 for the completion of the balance sheet restructuring during the quarter. Lower interest and dividend income, and increased non-interest expense, were on the downside.
Going forward, the low interest rate environment would likely result in a compression of the net interest margin from its new higher level resulting from the restructuring transaction, and in combination with the reduction in the size of its balance sheet from the restructuring transaction, would lead to a reduction of net interest income.
While its strong business model and solid capital position would aid results, the dividend cut somewhat dampens investors appetite for the stock. Increase in FDIC insurance costs also remains an overhang.
Posted in Financial Planning | Comment Now!
Written on June 29, 2011 by Cheryl Rankins
With the comforts of owning your home come huge responsibilities. The maintenance and repair work that is needed over time can be very exhausting. There are some very important systems at work in your home like electrical, roofing and plumbing. They need regular maintenance work. It might cause you to remember your renting days woefully.
The HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning) System:
These systems are complex and you will not be able to do the maintenance work by yourself. You will need to hire a professional HVAC expert from time to time. He will inspect the system and replace or repair accordingly.
After a period of time, you will be required to buy new units. The existing ones will wear out with time and new ones will be needed. You should replace the air conditioner and furnace regularly to ensure that the machines keep running efficiently.
Read more…
Posted in Financial Glossary | Comment Now!
Written on June 29, 2011 by Wiley Hayden
The Chicago PMI fell 3 points in April, but remained elevated at 67.6. However, all important subcomponents except for supplier deliveries declined significantly, and the substantial slowdown in delivery time – generally a positive sign – could this time have been connected to disruptions in the supply chain caused by the Japanese disaster. Given that the regional manufacturing indices for May have been weaker for the most part, we expect the Chicago PMI to have fallen markedly to about 60.0. However, as the expansion threshold is 50, this would still be a fairly high level.
As the graph shows, the pace of growth in private nonfarm payrolls has been accelerating continuously for some time, and the 3-month moving average reached 253k in April. In the past, such changes have been accompanied by much higher levels of consumer confidence than the current ones. As
Read more…
Posted in Financial Consultant | Comment Now!
Written on June 29, 2011 by Wiley Hayden
The Federal Reserve’s decision on debit interchange fees seems to exclude eBay Inc.’s (NASDAQ: EBAY) PayPal from being treated as a “payment card network”, Jefferies said in a note to clients.
“After discussions with eBay, Jefferies’ Payment Services research team (and a review of the complex 300+ page document), we believe that PayPal will not be affected by the new cap rules, (except for its co-branded Mastercard debit cards, which are immaterial to financial results),” said Youssef Squali, an analyst at Jefferies.
Squali said the primary reason Paypal does not seem to fall under the definition of a “payment card network” is that for any PayPal transactions that take place between a merchant, a customer and the customer’s bank with PayPal as the payment operator, the transaction is settled on PayPal system (versus being routed to the individual parties), whereby PayPal makes the appropriate debit (customer) and credit entries (merchant).
Read more…
Posted in Financial Consultant | Comment Now!
Written on June 28, 2011 by Cheryl Rankins
Do you wonder where your money goes or do you tell it where to go?
Creating a handwritten budget from scratch before attempting to use an existing software or spreadsheet can deliver extra flexibility when forming your first budget. Before using this spreadsheet it may be useful to create a paper budget from the ground up. No spreadsheet no software. Once you get the hang of your handwritten budget, turn it into a spreadsheet so you can take advantage of the calculations and ease of monthly reproduction.
Thats what I did.
What follows is a brief history of my budget, followed by the budget worksheet in 3 usable formats with sectional instructions for use.
I did handwritten, and it worked great. Manually forming the structure of my budget was necessary, but once the foundation was solid it was time to move to a system that enabled me to easily and quickly fill in each and every month.
Slowly I began developing a spreadsheet to capture the simplicity and function of our handwritten budget, but with the added bonus of auto-calculations and ease of monthly budget reproduction. I
Read more…
Posted in Financial Glossary | Comment Now!