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Jul 05.11
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Macroeconomics
/ by Ro Econ
Summer time usually means the real-estate market heats up as people come out of their winter shells and look for property. Sales are historically higher in the Spring-Summer compared to the Winter. This year is no exception in Canada as single-family and condo sales were up sharply over the Winter period, but more importantly, over the same period from 2010. In Calgary single-family dwellings were up over 30% from the previous year.
What’s the cause of the increase? We can chalk it up to two main factors: 1) economy, 2) consumer confidence.
The first has to do with current state of the economy, which in Canada, and particularly in Alberta, is recovering. Now the pace of this recovery is actually quite slow, is just looks torrid in comparison to the continued problems south of the border.
Continue reading this article »
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Jul 04.11
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Uncategorized
/ by Ro Econ
DiscussEconomics would like to wish all our American blog readers and contributors a happy Fourth of July. Hope you actually got the day off! PS. Please stop buying so many things on credit.
-B
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Jul 01.11
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Uncategorized
/ by Ro Econ
To all our Canadian readers and students we want to wish you a Happy Canada. Keep it real Canada! (Which is where we’re from FYI.)
- B
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Jun 20.11
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Uncategorized
/ by Ro Econ
DiscussEconomics is celebrating our 1000th comment! We wanted to spend special attention to this occasion because part of ‘DiscussEconomics’ is the ‘discussion’ and that includes you the reader! Thanks for being a participant and cheers towards another 1000!
Our 1000th post located in this post on printing money.
4 Comments
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Jun 10.11
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Energy
/ by Ro Econ
*Updated June 9th, 2011*
Here is a list of resources online that are in the midst of the discussion regarding the role of speculators in driving the price of oil sky high. Let us know if we’ve forgotten some important / useful articles. We’ll be continually updating this post with new articles so check back frequently.
Correlation Between Speculators and Oil Prices
1 Comment
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Jun 09.11
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Macroeconomics
/ by Ro Econ
Here are core definitions when discussing the topic of inflation (courtesy of the Bank of Canada)
CPI inflation
A measure of price movements, produced by Statistics Canada and obtained by comparing the retail prices of a representative “shopping basket” of goods and services at two different points in time. Learn more
Core inflation
Year-over-year growth in a variant of the CPI that excludes the eight most volatile components —which account for 19 per cent of the CPI basket—(fruit, vegetables, gasoline, fuel oil, natural gas, mortgage interest, intercity transportation, and tobacco products) as well as the effect of changes in indirect taxes on the remaining components.
Continue reading this article »
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May 24.11
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Investments
/ by Ro Econ
Here is a list of five major categories of capital markets and some corresponding investment instruments. Capital markets include the likes of the stock and bond markets and consists of companies or the government raising money for themselves.
(List of Typical Securities Traded)
1) Bond Market (ideally holdings for 3 yrs and up)
Mortgage bond: secured
Debentures: unsecured
Convertible bonds/debentures
Retractable Bonds: end bond early
Extendable Bonds
Real Return
Stripped Zero Coupon Bonds: just face value of bonds, low discount
Continue reading this article »
5 Comments
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May 20.11
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Foreign Exchange
/ by Ro Econ
The reason domestic currencies drop may baffle some newbie FOREX investors since many movements are rooted in what are called ‘expectations’. You see, currency movements move up or down (depreciate or appreciate) based on expectations and/or real announcements. Here is an article to help you track currency movements because predicting currency movements is a skill that can be learned to some degree.
Continue reading this article »
5 Comments
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May 17.11
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Macroeconomics
/ by Ro Econ
There are two types of monetary standards, one far more prevalent in developed economies than other. Monetary standards refer to the ‘system’ or ‘framework’ that controls or facilitates the movement of money.
The two monetary standards are:
1. Commodity Standard.
2. Inconvertible ‘managed’ paper standard.
1. The Commodity Standard
This standard exists where the value of monetary units equal the value of specific amounts of commodity (for example gold).
Continue reading this article »
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Apr 20.11
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Personal Finances
/ by Ro Econ
Are you in the habit of buying things that look nice and might give you some sense of joy? Do you find yourself struggling to meet larger financial goals? Maybe you struggle with the age old dilemma of needs vs. wants. Here are a couple of stories on how to approach financial decision making.
The first story involves a couple in their early 30s has a mortgage balance below the average for their stage of life due to prepayments. They have no other debt other than the mortgage (YES mortgage is a debt), They have worked hard to pay off debts as they wisely used a financial gift, and at present have only one vehicle. The lower mortgage balance, wise use of a little extra money, and only one vehicle by choice makes them unusual in their peer group. Continue reading this article »
