Online financial news
Which Reward Credit Card Would You Choose?
Does one reward credit card give you the same benefits as any other rewards card? Lloyds TSB have launched their Rewards American Express Credit Card, their first loyalty card, which offers customers one point for every pound they spend, customers can use their points at retailers such as Debenhams, Marks & Spencers, UCI Cinemas and PC world. They are also offering 0% balance transfers for the first six months and then a 16.9% standard rate after this initial period. Lloyds intend to market their new card to their existing cardholders before venturing to the wider market.
Some leading experts say that the new card from Lloyds isn’t all it is cracked up to be. When the customer has earned 2,000 points they will receive only a £10 voucher which is redeemable at certain retailers. That is only a half a percent reward rate.
Compare it to the American Express Blue Card, which offers 2% cash back for the first six months and 0.5% thereafter on purchases up to the sum of £4,000 and then 1% above this sum yearly. The
The Best Low Fee Credit Cards In Australia
Australians spend hundreds of dollars on credit card fees every year with individual card costs ranging from $30 up to $300 or more.
These costs can make an otherwise good credit card feel like a weight in your wallet, especially if there is a balance and interest rates to worry about.
But in a lot of cases the annual fee corresponds with how many features and extras a card is carrying, and many of the cards with no annual fee can seem bland compared to other options.
There is a compromise, however, in the form of cards with low annual fees and here is a look at four of the best cards for under $100.
American Express Gold Ascent
Credit cards from American Express have a reputation for great rewards and benefits but higher costs due to annual fees and interest rates.
The Gold Ascent, however, challenges this assumption with no annual fee for the life of the card, enrolment in the competitive Membership Rewards program and one point for every $2 spent.
Bank of Melbourne Vertigo
Bank of Melbourne is a newer bank on the block but it is sending out competitive card offers, like the 12-month 0.99% p.a.
Emini Trading and Quick One and Done!
We hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Years! We are ready to get back trading full time in 2012! Today was my first day back and I started it off with a nice 2 point EET trade! The VIX was really low, about 22. So this type of day I really want a quick one and done. Truth be told, I would have been happy with 4 ticks. However, I start my trades with a 2 point profit and adjust accordingly to my system rules. The market was slow, but in a blink of an eye it dropped about 10 ticks and I was out with a quick 2 pointer!
We are making a MAJOR announcement to our students tomorrow and we will then blog about it as well! Stay tuned!!
?
Northern Rock sale: The end of a sorry tale of British banking
The eagerness to join the queue to buy Northern Rock never came close to matching the rush to line up outside its branches to pull savings out.
But at least the sale means that the beginning of the end of a disappointing British banking saga has arrived.
Northern Rock stood for all that went bad in the UK’s banking system, as those who should have known better bundled recklessly into a headlong rush to throw money at borrowers, believing that the days of easy credit could never end and house prices could never fall.
Eurozone Bonds for a Breakdown
The Eurozone continues to dominate the mood of the market and it will do so until it breaks apart. The European Central Bank is under mounting pressure to buy unlimited amounts of Italian and Spanish bonds to keep the Eurozone together.
Apparently that will fix things. But the problem is these countries’ competitiveness relative to the German economy. Bailing them out and forcing reforms that call for internal devaluation to restore competitiveness just won’t work.
But that won’t stop self-interested politicians from wasting billions more euros in trying. German chancellor Angela Merkel is even prepared to sacrifice German sovereignty to Brussels to help ‘solve’ the crisis. We wonder what her people think of that?
The European leaders are like a bunch of two year olds trying to jam a piece of the puzzle in where it doesn’t fit. An adult needs to come along and tell them to go and play outside where they won’t hurt anyone, or themselves This is a slow-motion train wreck of epic proportions.
Measuring the Year Ahead
Given the abundance of unresolved issues left over from last year, perhaps it is no wonder that the range of forecasts for 2012 seems unusually polarized. Expectations seem to be clustered at either end of the spectrum, with little middle ground. Stocks are expected to produce either strong returns or sharp losses. The question of corporate earnings growth and its meaning illustrates the point.
One of the places many investors begin in their determination of whether or not stocks are attractive is the market’s price-to-earnings, or P/E, ratio. But admittedly, this metric is problematic, since for every one of its positive aspects there seems to be a corresponding negative. For example, assuming fourth quarter earnings projections for the S&P 500 are accurate, the market ended 2011 with a trailing P/E ratio of 12.9 based on its closing price of 1258. This represents a significant discount to the market’s thirty-five year average trailing P/E ratio of 16.8, according to Bloomberg. Ove Read more…