Gold Up Big After Fed Announces QE 2

As The Federal Reserve puts hundreds of billions of dollars into the economy, diluting the money supply, and lowering the value of the US dollar, gold is turning into an attractive way to hedge again possible future inflation. Although inflation is not a worry today, fears that the billions of dollars in extra money supply will eventually raise everyday prices, has really helped the precious metal. Commodity prices are already rising, meaning that everyday prices of goods will also too eventually rise, lowering the spending power of the dollar.

Over the last 12 months the price of gold has risen a staggering 25%, or $286.90 per ounce. Other precious metals are also all up this morning including platinum and silver.

NJ Election Question

John Steven, of Atlantic City New Jersey said, “I just voted ‘NO’ because I had no idea what the heck it was asking me.”

Others that were interviewed had the same type of reaction.

The question on the NJ ballot reads:

Shall the amendment to Article VIII, Section II of the State Constitution, agreed to by the Legislature, which: prohibits collection by the State of assessments based solely on employee wages and salaries for any purpose other than providing employee benefits; dedicates all employer and employee contributions collected for any employee benefit fund, and all returns on investments of those contributions, to the purpose of that fund; and prohibits any transferring, borrowing, appropriating or using of those contributions or returns for any other purpose, be approved?

What does it mean?

A “yes” vote means that you do not want the state government to be able and take excess money from the state unemployment-insurance fund in order pay for other items in the state’s budget. A “no” vote means you support the idea that they should be able to take excess funds and use them for other budget items.

The problem with a “No” vote is that you will allow the government to take the excess unemployment funds to use on other budget items. However, when you have years like this year, where unemployment is so high, that fund will not have enough money in it to cover everyone’s unemployment. A “Yes” vote would allow the unemployment-insurance fund to accumulate and be built up for times like this.

Find Your Polling Place and Voting Times Online

Google Election Center – http://electioncenter.googlelabs.com/vote/
Simply enter your address or zip code, and Google will plot a course for you to follow on their maps, enabling you to get your your voting location in a timely manner. Since it utilizes Google’s own mapping technology, you can be sure it won’t steer you wrong.

Raise Your Vote’s Polling Places – http://pollingplaces.raiseyourvote.com/
Raise Your Vote has teamed up with Google maps to allow voters to quickly enter both their address and zip code to find their voting location quickly. It will also provide you with the voting times that the polling location is opened, so you can avoid missing out on this Important Election day

Facebook’s Polling Place Locator – http://www.facebook.com/uspolitics?v=app_146081198769400
This simple application on a Facebook page will quickly allow you to enter your home address to find exactly where you need to vote. This application also uses Google Maps, and works similar to that of the Raise Your Vote locator. Judging by the number of fans of the application, quite a few people seem to be utilizing this app.

Good luck on this Election Day.

Are Prices on the Mend in Orlando, Miami, and Fort Myers Real Estate Markets?

Some of the most hard hit areas such as the Orlando, Miami, and Fort Myers areas have seen nice rebounds in the number of homes sold over the last several months, raising hope that prices will soon follow. Fort Myers, located in Southwest Florida, has seen the number of home sales rise from about 850 sales in February of 2008, to well over 1,700 in October of this year. Miami has seen even bigger gains in that time period, with approximately 2,000 sales in February of 2008, compared with over 5,100 last month.

As inventory reduces, prices should begin to rise, not only in hardly hit Florida, but in real estate markets nationwide. The one variable that is still an unknown is what affect remaining foreclosures may have on this market. As long as foreclosures trickle in, instead of all hitting at once, inventory reductions should hopefully leave us with a stronger market come the end of 2011, and 2012.

Discover Card Having Website Issues

Discover card has over 50 million card members worldwide, and over 4 million merchant and cash access locations. The cards were introduced by Sears in 1985, and have grown tremendously over the last 25 years.

M&T Bank

Wilmington Trust has been struggling quite a bit lately. They have reported 5 straight quarters of losses. They were about to report their 6th straight quarterly loss before the acquisition.

When asked about the acquisition, M&T Bank’s CEO Robert G. Wilmers said, “We are building an even more powerful franchise with strength and stability, scale and density and top-of-class products and services.”

At the time this article was written, M&T Bank Stock (NYSE MTB) was up 3.80% to $77.59 for the day.

Stock holders of Wilmington Trust (NYSE WL) look to lose approximately 46% of the money they had invested in the company, after the acquisition.

Pfizer Extends Lipitor Recall

The latest recall is for bottles of Lipitor containing 90 of the 40 milligram pills. Although studies have revealed that the musty odors coming from the bottles do not pose any significant risks to consumers, the recall is being initiated as a precautionary measure by the company. Pfizer said that the odor stemmed from a chemical called 2,4,6 tribromoanisole, also known as TBA. The chemical is used as a wood preservative, and was on the pallets used to transport the bottles, as well as store them.

A spokesman for Pfizer, ray Kerins stated, “The Lipitor recall won’t have a financial impact, customers who notice a smell can replace the bottle at their pharmacy without charge”.

Pfizer was founded in 1849, and is headquartered in New York City, New York. The Lipitor drug is the number one selling branded pharmaceutical in the world today.

And the Mega Millions, Winning Numbers Are....

The winning numbers for last night’s (Friday, October 29th) Mega Millions drawing are as follows:
4, 19, 26, 28, and 39. The Mega Million Ball was 14

The next drawing will be help on Tuesday, November 2nd, and have a jackpot of $12 million.

Dean Jeffers

Dean Jeffers was the Chief Executive Officer of Nationwide from 1972 until 1981. One of Jeffers’ traditions every single year while with the insurance company, was to shake all 5,000+ employees’ hands on Christmas to wish them a “Merry Christmas”. It would take him nearly 3 days to do. Before working for Nationwide, Jeffers was a teacher and principal in Ohio for 5 years. He also earned a purple heart as a Marine during World War II.

He passed away at the age of 94 on October 27, at Riverside Methodist Hospital. He was known as a great business man, and better person.

Reports started about an hour ago that the Virginian Pilot newpaper Website, Pilotonline, was down. We have confirmed that the Pilotonline.com website is not loading at this time, and currently brings up a “500 – Internal Server Error” message. It is interesting however that the sub domains of the website do seem to work, indicating that a server overload is not the culprit.. This is likely just a server glitch that hopefully will be fixed ASAP.

The newspaper out of Hampton Roads, Virginia has yet to release any information, that we are aware of, on this down time.