Sunday Catch up

It's been an eventful week. Not a lot of huge things, but many many little things.

First off, this colitis is kicking my ass. My health sucks. The colitis itself is still not regulated. The side effects of the meds are strong - joint pain like nobody's business. I can barely walk or bend my knees sometimes. The final side effect is the absolute exhaustion. I talked to the specialist this week and she said this is mostly due to my body working so hard to try to fight this for the last 6 months. Between the physical problems and the changing of the meds and the dehydration, I'm just tired. I am a very very lucky girl. My admin is giving me a couple days each week to stay at home and rest. I still have to prepare for the sub teacher, but the days off will hopefully give me time to get my health balance back. I truly do realize how fortunate I am to be given this time. I didn't want to take full leave and abandon my babies for two months.

I have now completed my second week of WW. I am doing it at home, with my old materials. My first goal is to lose the 20 lbs I gained on the steroids. Then I can continue on the 'normal' weight loss journey. I thought long and hard about signing up again, either for meetings or for WW online. Both of course, cost $ and I would be forced to work with the new Points Plus program, which I haven't really had any success with. I figured there was no point wasting money right now on a program that I didn't have success with, when I have all the tools needed for the old program at home, for free. The catch is, will I stick with it. So far so good. I have lost 10 of the 20 steroid pounds in my 2 weeks and I really really want to have success with this. My mantra, this time, is quite blunt. Lose weight or die. Yup, that's where it is for me right now.

DS2 got his learner's licence this week so mother is back in the passenger seat teaching another child to drive. I don't know if my nerves can handle it. I thought DS1 was bad when we first started but oh lordy, DS2 needs a LOT of work. Good thing we have the summer coming soon so we can practice. His learner's cost me $25 for the year. He won't be eligible to take his driver's until April of next year when he turns 16.

My brother in law's brother passed away this week. A very quick heart attack. I didn't know him terribly well but seeing the sadness in my brother in law's soul, is hard. It was a reminder that life is very very fragile, and quite finite.

Our local MS walk was today. There were 20 of my family there walking for the cause. My parents didn't walk, nor did my sister. I wasn't able to and I hated that I was too weak and sore to walk. I have simply GOT to get better.

Source: http://shakingthemoneytree.blogspot.com/2012/05/sunday-catch-up.html

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Does It Matter That a German Exchange May Control the NYSE?

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NYSE Euronext-Deutsche Boerse Merger TalksCapitalism has many ways of dealing with failure. If a company is small enough to fail without bringing down an entire industry or economy, it files for bankruptcy. If such a failure seems to threaten wider economic stability, the company gets a government bailout. And if it fails moderately but still has some assets with value, it gets acquired.

This last form of failure comes to mind in the case of NYSE Euronext (NYX). In 2005, it handled 80% of all trading in the stocks it listed. Today, that share is down to 23%, according to Bloomberg. New competitors have hacked away at its market share by offering superior service at a lower price.

And, as I reported in a DailyFinance article in June, the NYSE has been trying to offset some of the lost revenues by selling high-speed access to the NYSE's computers so hedge funds can trade a fraction of a second ahead of regular customers -- a practice that skims $3 billion out of investors' pockets each year. Now, Germany's 18-year-old Deutsche Boerse (DBOEY) wants to buy 60% of the combined companies for $10 billion in stock.

Considering that the NYSE is a storied American institution -- founded back in 1792 by traders standing beneath a buttonwood tree -- it's not unreasonable to ask whether the U.S. should allow a German company to control it. But the reality is that the luster of NYSE's name and history is far greater than its competitive position today. If Germany ever decided to close down the NYSE, nimbler U.S. exchanges would jump in immediately, eager to pick up the slack.

Computerized Competitors: Faster, Better, Cheaper

Investors don't decide where to trade based on an exchange's address: They want fast, inexpensive trade execution. And thanks to regulatory changes regarding what exchanges can charge, and an evolution of the industry structure that made room for new, computerized exchanges, that's what they get. A decade ago, it cost 6.25 cents to execute a 100-share trade. Today that cost is down to a penny.

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And unlike the NYSE, which still has a few costly specialists whose job is to match up buyers and sellers for a specific stock, the 50 computerized exchanges -- up from 20 in 2000 -- don't. So exchanges such as Getco, Bats Global Markets and Direct Edge can make money -- with margins as high as 55% for trading derivatives -- while offering low prices and fast execution, reports Bloomberg.

The NYSE has been going downhill for at least 40 years. The competition really got going in 1971 when the Nasdaq was formed to provide computerized trading and price quotes. In 1984, I consulted to the NYSE -- analyzing the competition it faced in the then-lucrative business of selling those price quotes. The business of charging for such quotes has essentially gone away.

Two scandals -- a 2003 flap over then-CEO Dick Grasso's $140 million compensation package and 2005's revelation that 15 NYSE specialists had manipulated prices to steal $19 million from clients -- tarnished the NYSE's remaining luster. In 2006, a reverse merger with Archipelago Holdings took the member-owned NYSE public.

A Decade of Merging for Leverage

If the Deutsche Boerse-NYSE Euronext merger goes through, it will be one among many similar marriages that have taken place over the last few years -- $95.8 billion worth since 2000, reports Bloomberg. The reason is simple: Once you build a computer system that can execute trades, the more trading volume you pump through the system, the higher your profits. This is bad news for people who work in the exchanges in jobs like sales, marketing and computer support. But it's better news for shareholders because mergers reduce costs.

If the two exchanges combine, they'll dominate the futures market. The Futures Industry Association estimates that the merged exchanges would be the top-ranked global futures trader, controlling 11 derivatives markets in the U.S. and Europe with 4.8 billion in contracts (based on last year's numbers). That's 55% more than 2010's futures leader, CME Group (CME).

For all the patriotic chest-thumping that might ensue over the idea of letting a German company control the NYSE, the truth is that the NYSE has been falling behind for decades. This merger is a way to rescue a failed company while it still has some salvage value.

As long as the U.S. can keep innovating in the creation of computerized exchanges, the price and speed of execution that investors want will keep improving -- and trading market share will shift to those innovators.

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Source: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/02/10/nyse-deutsche-boerse-merger-stock-exchange-germany/

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More Tax Tips From the Pros

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We gathered top tax tips from tax professionalsLast week, I shared my top tax season secrets with you. I also emphasized that there's no one-size-fits-all approach to taxes. To give you a wide range of advice, I asked a number of tax professionals from all over the globe for their best tax tips for tax season. Here's what they had to say:

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Source: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/03/14/more-tax-tips-from-the-pros/

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Waiting for Godot… and kids to grow up…

Welcome New York Times readers!  For regular readers, here’s the NYT article that talks about the Person Under the Stairs (aka my son who lives in the basement): Rules for When Your Child Moves Home Here’s the stages of learning myself and my kid had to go through to learn about money since it wasn’t a talent [...]

Source: http://singlemomrichmom.com/waiting-for-gdt-kids-to-grow-up/

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Tax Treatment of Restricted Stock Unit (RSU) Benefits

If you work for a large company, chances are Employee Stock Option benefits (ESOPs) have been replaced with Restricted Stock Units (RSUs). There are significant differences between tax treatment of ESOPs and RSUs. In this post, we will look at how RSUs are taxed for Canadian residents. Restricted Stock Units are simply a promise to [...]

Tax Treatment of Restricted Stock Unit (RSU) Benefits is brought to you by Canadian Capitalist -- Helping you to invest & prosper.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ccapitalist/~3/yOVMzFYNrBI/

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The maxed out CPP/EI “raise” is here!!!

There’s few things quite as exciting as seeing an automatic payroll deposit in your account that’s higher than you expected.   I haven’t been on a traditional payroll for a few years so had forgotten how awesome it is to get a ~ 7% raise mid-year. If you’re wondering when you’ll reach the the max annual employee [...]

Source: http://singlemomrichmom.com/the-maxed-out-cppei-raise-is-here/

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How To Become A Financial Asset In Your Relationship

After graduating and starting a career, the next life-cycle stage for most people is marriage. Getting married to the right person is an important process towards financial success. The simple and straightforward way would be to marry into money, and that wouldn’t hurt, but for most choosing a partner who shares the same financial comparability [...]

Source: http://www.financefox.ca/financial-asset-in-relationships/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=financial-asset-in-relationships

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