Housing Double Dip: Is it Over?

One of the oddities of the rebound from the recent recession is how much housing has lagged the rest of the recovery, and with the economy growing so slow that is somewhat of an achievement. While the economy has continued to limp along, housing has backtracked. After rising in 2009, with the help of tax incentives, real estate prices began falling again in late 2010. But that might now be changing.

On Tuesday the latest numbers from the widely watched Case-Shiller housing index showed that home prices rose in May for the second month in a row. The two month stretch is notable because before that home prices had fallen for eight months in a row. What’s more, a report from the Census Bureau also out Tuesday showed that new homes sales were up from a year ago. Even more important, the supply of unsold new homes, one of the things that had been weighing on the housing market, had fallen to 6.3 months, which means at the market’s current pace it would take just over half a year for every available recently build house in America to find a buyer.

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Seychelles presentation at investment forum covered in full by South Africa radio

The attendance of the CEO of the Seychelles Tourism Board, Alain St.Ange, at the Seychelles Investment Forum held in Johannesburg, South Africa, as part of a large Seychelles delegation, won the attention of South Africa’s popular TravelRadio station which covered his presentation in full during the forum.

The Seychelles Investment Forum was held at Johannesburg’s Greystone Sun Hotel on July 22 and 23 and attracted over 100 potential investors in the country who came to listen to several speakers from different sectors of Seychelles’ economy, make presentations, and then engage the audience in pleniary sessions and one-on-one meetings.

South Africa’s TravelRadio has aired several times over and is set to continue, during the course of the week on where the insert was broadcast, with the coverage of the presentation at the Seychelles South Africa Forum delivered by Alain St. Read more…

Blackberry maker Research in Motion to cut 2,000 jobs

Have the makers of the Blackberry been outsmarted – or outsmartphoned – by Google and Apple?

Blackberry developer Research in Motion announced Monday it is laying off “approximately 2,000 employees,” according to a statement posted on the company’s website. The company is also shaking up its senior management positions.

According to a recent ComScore report, Google’s Android is the top smartphone platform in the U.S. As of May, 38% of all U.S. smartphone users use Android devices.

Between February and May, Apple’s iPhone overtook BlackBerry as the second-most popular smartphone platform in the U.S., with nearly 27% of the total smartphone market.

RIM’s Blackberry trailed its younger competitors with approximately 25% of smartphone usage in May – down from nearly 29% in February.

Apple and Google continue to command growing shares of the U.S. smartphone-subs Read more…

BG Group leads gains on 100

European equities markets were mixed Tuesday as some individual stocks declined on missed analyst estimates, and on growing concern that US legislators will not come to an agreement on raising the debt ceiling there, risking a default by the United States on its debt.

The FTSE 100 saw gains, but was only up 0.08 percent to 5,929.73, while the FTSE 250 added just 0.02 percent to 11,788.9 after the Office for National Statistics said that the UKs gross domestic product was up by just 0.2 percent in the second quarter from the first quarter.

Oil and gas producer BG Group (LSE: BG) added 4.32 percent to lead gains on the 100 and in the energy sector after it reported that net income doubled in the second quarter, but BP (LSE: BP) was the biggest decliner among energy companies, dropping2.56 percent after its profits report did not meet analyst expectations, while the best performance on the 250 came from electronics group Pace (LSE: PIC), which makes set-top boxes for cable and satellite television, as it added 8.29 percent.

Food producer Cranswick (LSE: CWK) was the worst performer on the 250 as it dropped 14.94 percent after it reported that sales were down in its fiscal first quarter and on an analyst downgrade from buy to hold, while software group ARM Holdings (LSE: ARM), which was down 3.33 percent, did the worst on the 100.

Most sectors were mixed on the session, but most home builders were lower, only two constituents of the real estate sector saw gains and there was only one gainer in the chemicals sector.

The utilities sector, on the other hand, was mostly higher as water utilities Pennon Group (LSE: PNN) and United Utilities (LSE: UU) added 1.97 percent and 0.25 percent respectively after analysts made positive comment on both, while JPMorgan Chase upgraded Pennon from neutral to overweight.

The FTSE Eurofirst 300 was down 0.29 percent to 1,101.55 while the IBEX was 0.33 percent lower to 9,833.4 and the CAC-40 dropped 0.66 percent to 3,787.88, but the Dax added 0.07 percent to 7,349.45.

Most markets in Asia and the Pacific region were higher, although the Sensex was down 1.87 percent to 18,518 2 after the Reserve Bank of India raised the repurchase rate there by 0.5 percent to 8 percent in order to fight inflation.

It was the 11th time the Bank has raised rates in less than a year and a half.

The Nikkei 225 added 0.47 percent to 10,097.7 in Tokyo, while the Topix index was up 0.5 percent to 866.2 and the Mothers market gained 0.27 percent to 483.32, although power companies saw declines after reports that fuel costs at power companies will likely go up due to the ongoing shutdown of nuclear plants that is causing them to rely more on power from other sources.

Chubu Electric Power (TYO: 9502) was down 1.1 percent while Tohoku Electric Power (TYO: 9506) was 1.3 percent lower and Tokyo Electric Power (TYO: 9501) dropped 1.3 percent.

Camera and copier maker Canon (TYO: 7751) added 2.6 percent after it issued an improved outlook on net income.

The Straits Times Index was up 0.47 percent to 3,186.57 in Singapore, the Shanghai Composite added 0.53 percent to 2,703.03, South Koreas Kospi was 0.85 percent higher to 2,168.7, Australias markets were up as the Sydney Ordinaries gained 0.92 percent to 4,646.3 and the SP/ASX200 added 4,573.3, Hong Kongs Hang Seng was up 1.25 percent to 22,572.1, and Taiwans Taiex was 1.28 percent higher to 8,794.24.

New York equities markets were mixed at just past 1 p.m.

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Carbon Monoxide Detector – A $30 Investment to Save Your Life

A few weeks ago I was reading an older article about a family killed in their sleep by carbon monoxide poisoning. Just like that, a family was wiped out overnight because of a silent killer in their home, one that could be present in any of our homes at any given moment. Without a carbon monoxide detector to alert them, they had no idea that the pilot light had gone out on their ancient heater and gas was filling their home; they just never woke up.

While it was an incredibly sad story to read, it reminded me to check on my own detector in my house, which I then found to be broken and not working at all. I haven’t the slightest idea how long it had been out of commission, but I sure am glad I read that article and then walked over to check my unit. It wasn’t the batteries, which were fine, but rather the unit itself had gone bad at some point something they obviously don’t have an alert/alarm for. So I

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