This is the age old question Santa Cruz window cleaners face every season. The short answer is this: If you can hold off...do it. Many of my window cleaning clients in Santa Cruz only get their windows done once a year, so it does make sense to wait until rain is finished. Window cleaning in Santa Cruz is particularly effected by this ... Read More

5/10/2010Last Week;it was all about the debt crisis in Europe. Even the April employment report took a back seat to the escalating decline in the euro currency with four countries in the EU teetering on debt defaults. Lead by Greece with Spain, Portugal, Italy and Ireland beginning to boil up. The US stock market plunged in very high m... Read More

  Fog Lifter Window Solutions offers solar panel cleaning in Santa Cruz for optimizing energy production.   If you are one of the many Santa Cruz property or business owners that have installed Solar Panels to supplement your energy demand Fog Lifter Window Solutions has a service that you may wish to avail yourself of.&... Read More

Last Week;A slight increase in long term interest rates, but the larger jump in rates was at the short to middle of the curve. The 2 yr not yield increased 11 basis points, the 5 yr note +12 basis points while the 10 yr note was up 5 basis points and the 30 yr bond declined 1 basis points. In the wider perspective the rate markets are ... Read More

Overview and Outlook The first quarter of 2010 was one of extremes and started things out with a bang. The S&P; 500 began the year at 1116 and quickly rose to 1150 before undergoing a 9.2% selloff (the steepest since the recovery began in March of 2009) down to 1044. Investors (such as ourselves) took advantage of the "sale" on stocks ... Read More

Last Week;another week of mixed economic data. The story of the week however didn't hit until Friday morning when the SEC announced it was charging Goldman Sachs with fraud in its dealings in the sub prime mortgage markets. Specifically, for mis-leading a client while another client was setting up to short the same security. Based on w... Read More

In ourprevious post, we emphasized the importance of having a comprehensive financial planning review as way to manage uncertainty and the never ending process of change. An important fundamental aspect of any personal financial planning review should include an analysis of your investment portfolio strategy. An investment strategy rev... Read More

I will not be adding anothernon failure from Stanford GSBtoday.  All my very successful friends fromGSBare now asking so I think I have a blog a day for about 60 days.Instead I wanted to call out a great quote fromSteve Blank.  Steve has not only done it once but he has now done it multiple times.  He creates great compa... Read More

It has been a while since I have blogged about a deal.  This one will be another on that I missed but not in the usual way.  This is one I never looked at investing in but where the founder is an executive who worked on my team at Spoke and who I talked to about creating MerchantCircle.  Tod is a great entreprenuer who h... Read More

Last Week;was dominated by Treasury auctions that were essentially well bid. The rate markets somewhat quiet but did manage to recover some of the price declines the previous week.  The better employment report on the 2nd of April and the better than expected Institute of Supply Mgmt (ISM) re;ports on manufacturing and service sec... Read More

Last Week;A pleasant surprise in March hiring has pushed up all long-term rates: 10-year Treasuries to 3.94%, and mortgages to 5.25%. Even better news than the jobs: rates could have gone a great deal higher. Other new data this week were as positive as employment: the ISM survey of manufacturing in March jumped past expectations ... Read More

Last Week;by the end of the week mortgage rates were unchanged from the previous Friday. The bellwether 10 yr note also essentially unchanged at 3.69% -1 BP. Short term rates however increased last week, somewhat preparing for the Fed withdrawing from the quantative easing programs initiated when the economic recession began; the ... Read More

Last Week;after all the chopping around the longer end of the yield curve ended generally unchanged, mortgage rates and prices were unchanged. At the middle and short end of the yield curve rates increased,  the 5 yr treasury increased to 2.41% up 7 basis points, the 2 yr note jumped 6 basis points to 0.96%. The short end saw posi... Read More

This may sound a bit like a Zen koan but if you are certain that uncertainty will continue and even increase then at least you are certain about that. Greek philosopher, Heraclitus first expressed this concept thousands of years ago with his observation that "the only thing that is constant is change". It is widely ... Read More

Last Week;interest rates increased on treasuries but remained unchanged for the mortgage markets The stock market rallied, defying those that continue to expect a big decline. Equity markets had a small retracement two weeks ago but it only lasted a few days and took the DJIA down 6.0% from its recent high last year. Jan personal incom... Read More