Archive for March, 2008

Market view

I am relatively bearish on all the US market right now. Market sentiment for both stocks and bonds is pretty bad. Most of the analysis I have read calls for no recovery until next year at the earliest and the housing market may take a full two years or more to show growth again. The steep drop in housing prices and equally steep rise in unsold homes means it will take a while for the housing market to reach a bottom. I’ve got some cash I would like to put in the market, but I’m going to wait a few more months at least. I think the financial stocks are also going to be hurt more, but I think they have been hurt plenty already so I’m not sure if it will continue. Obviously I’m no economist so don’t put too much faith in my view.

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Optimistic opportunity

A few days ago someone left a note on my door saying they were coming to paint the street numbers on my curb and that they would do it voluntarily and they asked for a donation of $10. I was a bit skeptical, but last night they came knocking on my door for the donation and they had indeed painted my curb.

Now if they had tried to sell me a curb painting service for $10, they would have never gotten my money because I hate being sold things. But because they provided the service first and then asked for a donation later, they actually got my money. I wonder what sort of donation rate they get by giving it away for free and then asking for money later. I wonder how that compares to the rates of donating for free online music.

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Switched to GMail

This week I switched from my old text email client mutt over to GMail. I’m pleased with my increased productivity. GMail is faster and just generally makes managing mail easier. Things I like: keyboard shortcuts, labels, filters, better attachment handling. I don’t actually use conversation features much.

There are some features I am still not sure about. For instance the spam filter is a too aggressive. I had to look through my spam folder for some legit email which my old filter would deliver correctly, but GMail didn’t like them. Also I’m not yet sure how I like the AIM integration. And the Calendar to Exchange sync feature has failed pretty miserably so far.

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Baby Fishy

Lucas has trouble pronouncing Baby Sister, so instead it’s Baby Fishy. We’re still undecided on names, so I think this is the winner.

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New Conforming Loan limits

Yay. The new conforming loan limits are out. I put together a table with all of them, and it looks like all the SF Bay area markets hit the cap and are now $729.5k. Let the refi craze begin.

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