In a case of what could be over saturation in the online discount brokerage firm field, ex24 has closed up shop.

Back in November of last year, I had a chance to speak with Anthony Link, ex24’s Chief Operating Officer. Bound with excitement, both he and James Lennane, the company’s founder had high expectations for the company.

Perhaps the expectations were too high.

Despite marketing campaigns that included iPod giveaways, free trading periods, guaranteed portfolio performance and access to fractional shares of sought-after stocks such as Google Inc. (GOOG) shortly after its initial public offering, the platform never gained momentum.

“We were looking …

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The global warming farce has made it’s way into shareholders meetings, as evidenced by the tongue lashing Exxon (XOM: chart, web) shareholders gave CEO Rex Tillerson at the companies annual meeting.

Evidently, a group of Exxon shareholders want to know why the company hasn’t addressed the global warming “epidemic” by investing more money in alternative energy. They even went so far as to insite a resolution to withhold votes aimed at ousting board member Michael J. Boskin, chairman of the company’s public issues committee. Luckilly the got nowhere with this venture.

There are times when I …

It seems like former Fed Chief Alan Greenspan just won’t go away. Even more, it seems influence over the markets has increased since leaving office.

Just last week he was in on a teleconference and dropped it on his listeners in Madrid that the markets in China were due for a “dramatic contraction”. Pretty strong words given that the economy in China is going great guns and to the uninitiated to the cyclical nature of economics, would sound rather bearish.

But who is Greenspan to make predictions on world markets? He isn’t even the Fed Chief any more!

Oh contraire. Within minutes of his …

A while back, I started thinking about how our information would be delivered to us in the future. Provoked by a discussion with futurist David Houle, I thought about how we are starting to favor the internet as a means of media delivery as opposed to traditional television or newspaper.

One reason I believe people favor the internet is that they can tailor their experience based on what they feel is important to them. If you’re a Wall Street fanatic, you may get your news from the online Wall Street Journal, or MarketWatch.com, or TheStreet.com.

If …

According to the LA Times, the House voted, 284-141, to pass a bill that would make gasoline price gouging a federal offense.

If that doesn’t make you feel good about the work our government is doing in Washington, you’re not alone…

Meanwhile, the Senate is working like mad to introduce a new energy bill, the first since they took control of the Congress and promised change in the first 100 hours. A committee also held a hearing on whether oil industry mergers had contributed to higher fuel prices.

If all else fails, blame capitalism. If anything it will make you feel good inside.

“I was at a funeral Saturday, and when the monsignor greeted me, he said, ‘My God, Bart, you have to do something about these gas prices!’ ” said Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), chief sponsor of the anti-gouging bill.

Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas) told her colleagues: “I can’t go home, and I imagine none of you can, without saying we tried to do something.”-Source

What a bunch of baloney!

This worthless legislation allows the government to investigate and prosecute anyone selling fuel at a price deemed “excessive” during a Presidentially declared “energy emergency” or under the premise that the seller is taking advantage of unusual market conditions.

Let’s be vague, shall we?

First of all, define what constitutes an “energy emergency”. Then define how you will determine if someone is taking advantage of “unusual market conditions”. While you’re at it, tell the convenience store owner that he’s charging too much at his pump when the customers are fully willing to pay him for his product!

And I’m sure we’ll appoint a new “energy czar” to go around and enforce these new laws, which of course will require a new 25 cent gas tax to pay for the enforcement agency…

I sold all my shares of GLD today. I just didn’t have enough shares to really make it worth holding on to, and the stock (and hence the metal itself) has seemed rather directionless for the last couple months.

I still like the prospects of Gold for a hedge against a falling economy, which readers of this blog will know that I’m preparing for.

I think the market in general is in denial concerning the effects of the “softening” housing market, and high gas prices to boot. Once these market forces rear their ugly head, it may warrant taking another …

A new airline start-up is bringing an interesting business model to our inefficient airline industry.

Skybus is the newest low-cost carrier that is trying to find out what you’ll pay for and what you won’t, when traveling by air. In essence, they make you pay for everything.

Skybus Airlines will make its inaugural flight on Tuesday, jumping into the cash poor industry of low-cost air travel. The company has plans to fly to 25 cities from its Columbus hub, in an effort to compete with Southwest and other no-frills airlines.

What do you mean by low-cost?

Ten bucks for a ticket! Each Skybus flight will offer …

The students I have living in my rental have decided they will renew their lease for an additional year. While they haven’t been trouble free, they have never been late with the rent, and haven’t torn the place up. So I’ve really got little to complain about.

I’ve also decided to raise the rent by about 5% to try to stay in line with the local rental market.

I’ve been told by several people that have or do own rental property that it’s very important to keep increasing the rent each year, within reason of course. This is primarily …

After a week of several evening service calls to get my at&t U-verse service straightened out, I am finally reconnected to the internet and rejoining the blogosphere.

Needless to say, my U-verse experience has been frustrating, but now that I’ve got the kinks worked out, it’s turned out to be a very impressive service.

Coax isn’t what it seems to be…

The tech came out Monday night and ran some tests coming out of the gateway unit, which is much like a modem of sorts and found that while the signal from the unit itself was good, the signal at each coax TV outlet wasn’t worth beans. There was something happening between the gateway and the outlets.

He ended up isolating the problem to the coax run from the gateway that feeds each of the three televisions. This means he’d have to run a new line of coax, which would not be easy.

Gas prices in my area jumped 20 cents over night a couple days ago, reaching a price of $3.19 per gallon of 87 octane.

Unfortunately, those on the West coast in San Francisco would consider this cheap.

I have to suspect that this rise in gas prices is going to have a lasting effect on the economy. An effect that has yet to be taken into consideration by the equities markets, as well as futures. The fed has a growing concern about the effects of the housing market on the economy, and only through the last …