As if on queue oil is already up $2 before the market open. This time I guess it is some thing going on in Nigeria.  As they say , if it is too good to be be true it probably is. So oil is heading back up which is no surprise to me. Like I said the hedge funds and market movers likely sold it off so they could move the price down to move it back up. As such i would not do your happy dance yet.

SINGAPORE (AP) — Oil climbed back above $130 a barrel Friday in Asia as news of an output cut in Nigeria helped to halt the steady decline in prices that began three days ago.

Eni SpA said Thursday that it had shut down pipelines carrying 47,000 barrels of oil a day after a “sudden drop of pressure.”

A Nigerian military official said an explosion had damaged an Eni pipeline in the country’s oil-rich south early Thursday, although he didn’t know how severely.

“I can confirm that there was an explosion, but we don’t yet know if the pipeline was vandalized or if it was an accident,” Col. Chris Musa, the head of the Bayelsa State military, told The Associated Press.

Eni said in a statement that the causes of the incident were unknown but that it had already call in units to start repairs.

“A lot of the threat to Nigerian production has already been priced in, but that explosion may create some interest,” said Mark Pervan, a senior commodities strategist with ANZ Bank in Melbourne.

Nigeria’s major militant group – the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta – denied any involvement in the blast. Armed gangs, some with political motives, regularly attack oil installations in Nigeria’s southern river delta region.

Attacks on the region’s oil industry infrastructure in the past two years have slashed oil output by almost a quarter in Nigeria, Africa’s top crude producer. The instability has helped push worldwide crude prices to historic highs.
Money.Cnn.Com – Click for Complete Story

General Electric Getting Out of Appliances
By Dana Cimilluca, Carol Hymowitz, Matthew Karnitschnig and Rick Carew
Of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

General Electric Co. (GE) plans to start an auction for its appliances business, people familiar with the matter said.

If completed, a sale could end more than 100 years of GE’s involvement with appliances.

GE has hired Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) to run an auction for the appliances, or “white goods,” unit, which could fetch between $5 billion and $8 billion, the people said.

(This story and related background material will be available on The Wall Street Journal Web site, WSJ.com.)

With appliance sales getting hit by the slowing U.S. economy and the housing bust, jettisoning the business could help GE reach its long-term goal of boosting profits by at least 10% annually.

The sale of the appliance business is bound to be emotional for many GE executives and for people in Louisville, Ky., where the business is located. But a sale would fit with Chief Executive Jeffrey Immelt’s strategy of shedding slower-growing industrial businesses and focusing on higher-growth technology operations. A sale could also help appease critics who are calling for a more dramatic restructuring of the 120-year-old company, a chorus that grew noisier after GE’s surprise first-quarter earnings disappointment and forecast reduction last month.

Smartmoney.Com – Click for Complete Story|

   Unless you live in a bubble you are well aware of the constant rise in fuel prices. People with heating oil are getting a double whammy. Some time ago I posted an article, “Getting Pumped at the Pump”,  about the government seeking to impose upon manufactures  a floor for gas mileage. The minimum mpg will need to be 35 by 2010. Not sure about you, but that is not going to help pay the mortgage now, or feed my kids now.

   To try and find a way to help stem the rising costs of fuel I began doing some research on diesel. Now, off the cuff I knew Mercedes and Volkswagen both made diesel sedans. In fact they are probably the most popular because they have done it the longest. After viewing several websites and a multitude of user comments it was clear that the best fuel economy in a U.S. diesel , was a VW Jetta between 1999 and 2003. See the EPA MPG data, click here .

   However, I did come across information that said VW, BMW, Mercedes and possibly other major car producers were coming out with even better and more efficient diesels that would be US legal. Because apparently there is a Europe only VW that gets 70 miles to the gallon which is AWESOME!!! Now I know you Prius lovers out there beat the Jettas economy and then some. However, I am talking about buying used and not new. Of course if I had $22,000 to burn I would go out and buy a Prius. My point is I can buy a car for half the price, and still really save on gas.

   So I could save $873 a year ( click here and select a 2002 4 cyl Galant and a 2003 Jetta TDI Manual ), on fuel switching to a Jetta diesel. And this will probably only improve as the price of oil continues to rise.  Plus, the money I would save buying used would provide a healthier buffer against any potential out of warranty repairs. I did see that these tend to have reliability issues related to the engine, but with the cost of living sky rocketing, I feel it is a risk worth taking. In fact, I found a 2003 Jetta TDI with 68k miles listed for $11,500 which is $2,000 grand under book value. Now that is a deal!

   As I mentioned before I have no experience when it comes to diesel cars, so any further insight is welcome. If you are saving money by driving a diesel let us know your make and model and what you get on average for fuel economy. Any information on the new wave of diesels would also be welcome.

   Wanting to buy a house in a couple years I began looking into whether or not low down payment options are still available. The reason being is the money is harder to get, but the homes are still so expensive you need a substantial amount of cash to do the traditional 20%. This is my observation only , so please meet with a qualified broker or lender , but there seems to be some hope. My findings are as follows;

1 – You use to need a good credit score to get the lowest interest rate , now you may need it to qualify for a lower down payment as well. Also FICO is changing its scoring model which may help people who have had minor slips in payments gain a higher credit score.

2 – FHA still offers low down payment programs , as low as 3% , through participating lenders and down payment assistance grants as well, find more information at fha.com

3 – Good Wells Fargo tool that shows the possibility of qaulifying for a loan with as little as 10% down.  Click here Wells Fargo Loan Tool .

Bear Stearns once commended as one of the greatest Investment Firms on Wall Street will soon be absorbed by JPMorgan Chase. A price agreement has been reached and shares of Bear will be swapped for shares of JPMorgan. Shares of Bear Stearns traded for as high as $163 now trades for $10 a share. Only $6 more than when it went public 23 years ago. Getting caught up in the subprime mortgage madness they would soon come undone. In less than a year Bear Stearns would be forced to sell itself or file chapter 7 bankruptcy.

Ticker Symbol: BSC
Company Key Dates:
1923: The original company is founded by Joseph Bear, Robert Stearns, and Harold Mayer as an equity trading house.
1933: Bear Stearns opens its first regional office in Chicago, and Salim L. “Cy” Lewis–future chairman–is hired to direct Bear Stearns’s new institutional bond trading department.
1955: Bear Stearns opens its first international office in Amsterdam.
1965: Bear Stearns begins expanding retail operations in the United States and, over the next eight years, opens offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dallas, Atlanta, and Boston.
1978: Alan “Ace” Greenberg succeeds Lewis as chairman.
1985: Bear Stearns forms a holding company called Bear Stearns Companies, Inc., goes public, and reorganizes from a brokerage house into a full-service investment firm.
1992: Company earnings double to over $295 million for best year in Bear Stearns’s history to date.
1993: James E. Cayne succeeds Alan Greenberg as CEO; Greenberg stays on as chairman.
1999: Bear Stearns agrees to pay $42 million to settle civil and criminal fraud charges in connection with its role as clearing broker for A.R. Baron.
2001: James E. Cayne succeeds Alan Greenberg as chairman.
2001: Bear Stearns completes construction of its world headquarters at 383 Madison Ave, New York, NY.
2003: Bear Stearns along with 9 other of the worlds top investment firms are forced to pay penelaties related to using their in house R&D release false or inflated claims to move stock prices in a favorable manor for the firm.
2006: The company had total capital of approximately $66.7 billion and total assets of $350.4 billion.
2007: Around June 2007 Bear Stearns pumps 1.6 Billion of capital in its Enhanced Leverage Fund and High-Grade Fund to keep them from closing.
2008: Bear Stearns agrees to be bought by JPMorgan Chase for $10 per share, underwritten by $29 billion in special financing from the Fed.

Company History:
Bear Stearns Companies, Inc., the holding company that owns Bear, Stearns & Company, Inc., was created on October 29, 1985, as the successor to Bear Stearns & Company and Subsidiaries, a partnership organized in 1957. The partnership, in turn, was the successor to a company founded in 1923 by Joseph Bear, Robert Stearns, and Harold Mayer as an equity-trading house. Headquartered in New York, Bear Stearns today is a full service brokerage and investment banking firm focused on three core areas: capital markets, wealth management, and global clearing services. The company maintains offices in major cities all over the globe.
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Congress Sends $168 Billion Economic Stimulus to Bush (Update2)
By Alison Fitzgerald and Brian Faler

 Feb. 8 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. Congress passed and sent to President George W. Bush a $168 billion economic stimulus package that he said is needed to help boost the slowing economy.

The legislation would send tax rebate checks to more than 111 million households, probably beginning in May. Lawmakers yesterday altered an earlier plan by making 20 million senior citizens and 250,000 disabled veterans eligible for the rebates. Bush said he will sign the measure.

“I want to thank the members for passing a good piece of legislation, which I will sign into law next week,” Bush said today in a speech to the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington.

In addition to the rebates and incentives for businesses to invest in new equipment, the measure increases the size of mortgage loans that government-chartered mortgage-finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can buy.

Bloomberg.Com – Click for Complete Story

Watching TV and they had a young man who retired by 28 and was a millionaire by 30. He didn’t start a big business or make a huge salary. He had several key factors:

1) He never paid for water, and always tried to get a deal on other groceries as well.

2) He lived in NY but never bought an umbrella because you always lose it or they break.

3) He made 40k a year but saved 61% for investments. So he was living on 10k net.

4) This is not the first time I have heard this, lived off of roman noodles for 3 months or during tight months. It costs 13 cents a meal. If you eat it twice a day thats only $94.90 a year. Thats leaving beneath your means.

 I think the lesson here is simple, but we often overthink. If you want to be wealthy you have to make sacrifices early on. But if you make those sacrifices early for a short time, you will have years of comfort and financial freedom. So work hard but save harder.

AP
Paulson: No Easy Answer to Mortgage Woes
Monday January 7, 3:52 pm ET
By Martin Crutsinger, AP Economics Writer 
Paulson Says There Is No Simple Solution to Housing and Mortgage Crisis
WASHINGTON (AP) 

     The Bush administration is working to combat the country’s severe housing crisis but there is no simple solution, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Monday, adding that a correction in the housing market is “inevitable and necessary.”

Paulson said the country was facing an unprecedented wave of 1.8 million subprime mortgages that are scheduled to reset to sharply higher rates over the next two years. He said this raised the threat of a market failure and was the reason the administration brokered a deal with the mortgage industry to freeze certain subprime mortgage rates for five years to allow the housing market to recover.

“By preventing avoidable foreclosures, we will safeguard neighborhoods and communities and fulfill our responsibility of protecting the broader U.S. economy,” Paulson said in a speech in New York. “However, let me be clear: there is no single or simple solution that will undo the excesses of the last few years.”
Finance.Yahoo.Com - Click Complete Story