Filed under: Borrowing, Cards, Debt, Home, Recession

While a recession creates many economic woes, those who are in the market for a loan (mortgage or otherwise) can often find value during these times. Here are a few suggestions for taking advantage of opportunities and hedging your bets.

Rates are low. In an effort to calm recession fears and boost the economy, interest rates have been lowered again. That’s good news for borrowers, who can find superior bargains than in the recent past.

Refinance your house. With lower rates, you might have an chance to refinance your home and save some money. If you currently have an adjustable rate mortgage that resets in the next year or two, you might think about refinancing early to lock in a good rate. Waiting another year or two to see where rates end up might not be the smartest move if you qualify for a competitive rate now.

Use home equity to help. If you were planning on borrowing money to attend school, start a business, or to fund some other long-term worthwhile venture, you might think about tapping into your home equity. While it might be harder to get an ordinary personal loan, it is probably a little easier to dip into home equity. Please do so responsibly though, as you don’t want to lose your home because of a failed business venture.

Beware using home equity to pay off credit cards. Tapping into home equity to ease the burden of credit card debt can be a financially savvy move, but you’ve got to be careful. Using home equity can lower your interest rate, and the interest is often tax deductible. However, if you do this, you’re swapping unsecured debt for secured debt. You’ve just pledged your house as security on that debt, and if you don’t pay, your home can be in jeopardy. Don’t roll credit card debts into home equity loans without thinking very carefully about it first.

Put off major purchases. If all else fails, think about putting off your major buy until the economy rebounds and your financial situation is a bit more secure. New appliances, home remodeling, and a better vehicle might be things you can do without for now. It’s better to be a little more cautious than to over-extend yourself when your finances are in flux.

Tracy L. Coenen, CPA, MBA, CFE performs fraud examinations and financial investigations for her company Sequence Inc. Forensic Bookkeeping, and is the author of Essentials of Corporate Fraud. This post is part of a series offering consumers advice on what to do during a recession.

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Filed under: World wide web, Social Software, web 2.0

The Twitter 100 is an easy way to keep track of all the people you’re following on twitter (or 100 of them at least) at once. To use Twitter 100 you just enter your Twitter user ID and are then taken to a page with 100 of the people you’re following and their most current tweet. You can set the refresh rate at each 3 minutes, 10 minutes, or every half hour.

Twitter 100 would be a lot superior if you were able to update your own Twitter page from the Twitter 100 page. As it stands you’ll still have to do your own tweeting from another source. If you’re away from Twitter for a while (you know for that sleeping thing) it can however be an excellent way to quickly catch up on everything you’ve missed while you were away.

For more great Twitter tools check out Twitter tips-tools for your tweets.

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Filed under: World wide web, Social Software, web 2.0

Are you the sort of person who likes to bookmark interesting web pages on del.icio.us, submit important or odd articles to digg, share rumors with Truemors, and send funny photos of cats to your Twitter followers? Then have we got a Firefox add-on for you.

Sharealic is a Firefox add-on that works with Firefox 2, 3, and Flock and Songbird. It adds a handy menu to Firefox that lets you submit any web page to a ton of social bookmarking sites or similar services with just a few clicks. Sure, there are plenty of other ways to share items with your friends, but it you like to spread your love across multiple services, Shareaholic can save you a lot of time.

Shareaholic also lets you know at a glance how many times a page has been dugg or submitted to del.icio.us. Of course, if you’d rather submit a site to multiple services all at once, you might want to check out the Mahalo multi-submit toolbar. Shareaholic requires you to submit your links to one service at a time.

[via Mashable]

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Filed under: Internet, Social Software, web 2.0

Are you the sort of person who likes to bookmark interesting web pages on del.icio.us, submit important or odd articles to digg, share rumors with Truemors, and send funny pictures of cats to your Twitter followers? Then have we got a Firefox add-on for you.

Sharealic is a Firefox add-on that works with Firefox 2, 3, and Flock and Songbird. It adds a handy menu to Firefox that lets you submit any web page to a ton of social bookmarking sites or similar services with just a few clicks. Sure, there are plenty of other ways to share items with your friends, but it you like to spread your love across multiple services, Shareaholic can save you a lot of time.

Shareaholic also lets you know at a glance how many times a page has been dugg or submitted to del.icio.us. Of course, if you’d rather submit a site to multiple services all at once, you might want to check out the Mahalo multi-submit toolbar. Shareaholic requires you to submit your links to one service at a time.

[via Mashable]

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Filed under: Fun, Social Software, web 2.0

If you’re new to the whole Twitter scene, and your friends have yet to climb on the bandwagon, your Twitter page might be looking awful lonely. You might have no one to stalk, er, follow-and no one is following you. Enter the Twitter Pack Project, a wiki where the community suggests fellow Twitter-ers by topic of interest or geographical area.

The Twitter Pack Project has lists of all shapes and sizes. For example, if you’re an Apple nerd, you can find a list of Twitter-ers whose Tweets are more or less related to Apple. Like having a good belly laugh? Visit the laugh pack and become a follower of your favorites. Want to follow fellow Twitter-ers in the same city? Packs exist for San Francisco, Los Angeles, and more; basically every major metropolitan area is included.

If you don’t find a pack to suit you, you’re encouraged to sign up for the wiki and create your own (the invite key is: project). You can add new lists to existing packs (say, a new geographical location) or create an entirely new pack (for example, packs by birthday dates, and so on).

So what are you waiting for? Get to following.

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Filed under: Raising money, Investments, Value and lack thereof

Landry’s Restaurant (NYSE: LNY) received a letter from Tilman Fertitta, Chairman, President and CEO of LNY to acquire all of the company’s outstanding common stock for $23.50.

LNY closed at $16.67. LNY over all option implied volatility of 59 is above its 26-week average of 41 according to Track Data, suggesting larger price risk.

M&A Update is provided by Stock Specialist Paul Foster of theflyonthewall.com

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Filed under: Options, The Blackstone Group, Raising money, Public or private?

Alliance Data Systems (NYSE: ADS) is recently at $39.00 in pre-open trading, below its close of $65.60. ADS states affiliates of The Blackstone Group (NYSE: BX) have informed ADS that they do not expect closing the merger due to problems obtaining approvals from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).

ADS announced on Might 17, 2007 it would be acquired for $81.75 in cash ($7.8 billion) by BX. ADS is expected to announce Q4 EPS on January 30. ADS February option implied volatility of 105 is above its 26-week average of 41 according to Track Data, suggesting bigger risk.

M&A Update is provided by Stock Specialist Paul Foster of theflyonthewall.com

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Filed under: Raising money, Public or private?

Funds backed by Qatar may take a $3 billion stake in Credit Suisse (NYSE: CS), another step toward sovereign funds owning a piece of nearly every big financial institution in the US and Europe. Due to losses related to subprime financial instruments, it is a good thing that the entities have money to invest.

According to The Sunday Telegraph, “powerful funds backed by the Qatari government are considering assembling a significant stake in Credit Suisse, one of Europe’s largest banks.”

Continued at 24/7 Wall St.

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Filed under: Raising money, Apax Partners

Apax Partners, which took clothier Tommy Hilfiger private in 2006 and had planned to take the company public again soon, has shelved (subscription) those IPO plans in light of the weakened capital markets.

The company said that, “Considering current volatile market conditions, management and shareholders decided to postpone an IPO process until such time that market conditions have stabilized”.

Regardless of when the IPO takes place, the $1.6 billion buyout of the company is a shining example of the value-adding changes that buyout shops can make. After Apax took it private, the company moved its headquarters to Amsterdam, and let its U.S. sales plummet by 50% in one-year, focusing instead on the European market where the label is trendier and able to sell at higher price-points.

As recently as October, it was expected that Apax would be able to book a $1.7 billion profit on the company. As strong as the performance has been of late, I can’t help wondering whether Hilfiger would do ideal remaining private. Even with improved financial statements, Hilfiger is best-known as a brand that was iconic during the 1990’s, and Apax might have a hard time getting investors to pay up for that.

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Filed under: Raising money, Public or private?

Tech Confidential had an interesting conversation Wednesday with Mark Pincus, the Silicon Valley serial entrepreneur who founded the Zynga Game Network. Zynga brings players together via Facebook and other social networks and boasts several popular titles, including a version of the trendy poker game Texas Hold ‘Em and a Scrabble knockoff called Scrabulous, each with about half a million people playing daily.

The startup recently won a $10 million Series A round, led by Union Square Ventures and including Avalon Ventures, Foundry Group and power angels Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn, and Clarium Capital managing partner Peter Thiel. We asked Pincus about how Facebook Inc.’s opening up its application programming interface, or API, is changing today’s on the web applications, including games.

Continue reading at TechConfidential.com.

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