Oh, THAT SEC The Wall Street Journal headline (above) earlier this week was certainly encouraging. Unfortunately, the accompanying article appeared in the Journal’s sports section, not finance. So, while the Southeastern Conference’s football teams may be on the rise, the Securities and Exchange Commission is still very much a door mat, at least as far...Read More
Online Real Estate Listings: What Do Buyers Look At? “First impressions matter when it comes to dating, job interviews, and online real estate listings.” –Bryan Thomas, Wall Street Journal video (3/21/13) According to WSJ reporter Sanette Tanaka, here’s what people looking at online real estate listings focus on: Photos: 60% Property Description: 20%...Read More
Cobbling Together a Real Estate Deal Steal “All manner of assets, from government and corporate bonds to oil and other commodities, have posted big gains since the grim days of the 2008-09 financial crisis. The rising tide has been lifted partly by the slowly recovering U.S. economy but, more important, by the monetary policy of...Read More
“Victimless” Insider Trading? Really, Mr. Jenkins?? It’s hard to take seriously Wall Street Journal columnist Holman Jenkins’ latest broadside against prosecuting insider trading when it contains whoppers like this one: “Whoever was a buyer when SAC Capital was selling would have been a buyer anyway, whether SAC’s motive in selling was inside information or the maundering of...Read More
Dubious Logic According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, “some high-end sellers are taking a counterintuitive and risky step: raising the price.” Does such a strategy ever make sense? Before answering, let me trace the three-step logic implicit in such a move (at least most of the time): One. “Their home is like mine.”...Read More
That Synching Feeling, Indeed In a post last month titled, “iCloudy,” I discussed one of the two main risks associated with transferring (and entrusting) your digital life to the iCloud. Namely, that it won’t work exactly as advertised. Or at all. Synching Feeling Especially if you’re an independent contractor like me straddling multiple software platforms, learning to successfully synch...Read More
