It was only a matter of time I suppose. Emigrant Direct dropped their rate to 4.65%, down from 4.75%. To be honest, it wasn’t nearly as large of a cut as I was expecting considering how much the Fed has dropped rates lately.

Emigrant Direct’s rate is still higher than the best Bank of America has offered me, so the decision on where to stash my emergency fund cash is really a no-brainer.

A little weekend entertainment.

This would make college football that much more fun to watch!

“Givin’ him the business…”

Now that’s funny.

It’s very unsettling when you open the mail box and pull out any piece of paper with a U.S. Government return address.

It was a long walk back up the driveway, when I pulled out not one, but two official documents from the U.S. District Court, one addressed to me, and the other addressed to my wife. The text “…REFUND NOTICE” slipped by me as my mind wondered why the Government thought it necessary to “get in touch” with my wife and I.

After sitting down, I opened the letters, and to my surprise, the U.S. District Court would like to give me $25, or more if I can show that I’ve been out of the country between February of 1996 and November of 2006.

Evidently, there is a class-action lawsuit claiming that Visa, MasterCard, Diners Club and others conspired to set and conceal markups and fees, typically of 1-3%, on foreign transactions. (i.e. when you withdraw cash against your credit card at a foreign ATM, the dinged you for an additional percentage on top of the published fees).

So somehow it was determined that we’ve been out of the country during this period. It shouldn’t surprise me that they were able to find this information…

Are you a member of the settlement class?

If you made a foreign transaction on your Visa, Mastercard, or Diners Club card between February 1 of 1996 and November 8 of 2006, you are a winner!

You can check out the settlement website, www.ccfsettlement.com for more information; however you have three basic options:

Refund Option 1: an “Easy Refund” of a flat $25 and is recommended if you travel outside of the U.S. for less than one week or had foreign transactions of less than $2,500 using your eligible cards during the class period.

Recently our good buddy Winston mentioned a few stock ideas in a discussion about Walgreens. He mentioned that Archer Daniels-Midland (ADM: chart, web, Y!) was his buy-it and forget-stock. So I thought I’d dig into the numbers a bit to see if I agree.

Archer Daniels procures, transports, stores, processes, and merchandises agricultural commodities and products primarily in the United States. They operate in three segments, namely oilseeds and corn processing, and agricultural services. Effectively they refine seeds and beens into vegetable oils for the food (i.e. salad dressing) and feed industries.

The AG-services side of the company engages in buying, storing, cleaning, and transporting agricultural commodities, such as oilseeds, corn, wheat, milo, etc, and reselling these commodities to the agricultural processing industry.

An interesting, yet lightly publicized aspect of Archer Daniels is their interest in processing corn. For those of you who regularly read The Corner Office Blog, you know that I view the ethanol boom as nothing more than a farce. However, if you can make money in the face of a farce, by all means, run with the bulls!

Financial Summary

For the most recent quarter, Archer Daniels first quarter (FY08) net sales increased to $12.83 billion, up 35.8% from $9.45 billion for the same quarter in FY07, stimulated by commodity prices, and strong product demand in processing and AG-services segments. Oilseeds Processing sales increased 42.4% to $4.61 billion, boosted by higher prices and volumes due to strong demand for vegetable oil and soybean meal, and the higher average selling prices of fertilizers and oilseeds exported from South America. Corn Processing sales increased 12.6% to $1.52 billion, due to higher average selling prices in sweeteners and starches despite lower sales volumes and lower average selling prices for ethanol, whose current capacity exceeds customer demands.

The twelve days of Christmas, a-cappella style, with a little humor injected to keep things interesting…

Buy the DVD here.

Well, by now the 25 basis point rate cut is old news. It’s interesting to see the mixed reaction to the cut; some say it wasn’t enough and that The Street was expecting 50 points, others say that the Fed should quit trying to save the economy from recession and let the free market play out.

A few highlights:

This Fed continues to display their cluelessness. They will definitely have to cut more times, so just GET IT OVER WITH now. Silly Fed. -Jordan, In The Money

What is the right number for interest rates? 4%? 3%? 2%? No one knows for sure, and that’s the problem. Investors are …

Read more…

Back in October, I started looking for the next buy-it and forget-it stock. My initial thoughts were Southern Copper (PCU: chart, web, Y!) and Schering-Plough (SGP: chart, web, Y!). However, through comments on that post, Mike chimed in and mentioned Walgreen Co. (WAG: chart, web, Y!).

At the time Mike mentioned the stock, it was around $39 per share, and has since dropped a bit more and is starting to show signs of increasing value. I must disclose that Mike says he is a pharmacist and individual investor, and worked for almost all of the chain pharmacies (like Walgreens).

Financial Summary

The stock has a 3-month average volume of 9.2 million shares traded per day with a current market cap of $36.8 billion. The company is paying a $0.095 per share dividend on a quarterly basis, which translates into a 1% annual yield.

The price to earnings ratio (P/E) is 18.3 as of the writing of this post, which is a significant discount to the rest of the companies in the sector. The average P/E ratio in the sector is 29.82.

Earnings growth is 18.6 as compared to a 21.41 average for the sector.

Earnings per share (EPS) is $2.03 and continues to increase quarter to quarter.

A few quick facts about the company…

Walgreen Co. was incorporated as an Illinois corporation in 1909 as a successor to a business founded in 1901. Walgreens is the nation’s largest drugstore chain (based on sales) and recorded its 33rd year of consecutive sales and earnings growth. During the year, the company opened or acquired 563 stores for a net increase of 478 stores after relocations and closings, not including 58 locations acquired from Option Care, Inc. The total number of locations at August 31, 2007 was 5,997 located in 48 states and Puerto Rico. Aggressive growth will continue as the company anticipates operating more than 7,000 locations in 2010.

Your credit health may start going south, and it may not be your fault.

Currently, your FICO score is the long standing gauge on risk when it comes to lending money. Some are saying that the FICO financial thermometer may be due for calibration, all thanks to the current credit crunch, backed up by the mortgage epidemic.

Analyst Meredith Whitney, on the notion that more people have taken on “more house”, says that a loan-to-value (LTV) may be a more appropriate way to measure financial risk when it comes to lending money. Lenders who have put too much weight into credit scores when it came time …

It seems our good old government is setting a course to bail out those who weren’t responsible enough to take care of their own financial house.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said today that the Department is “aggressively pursuing a comprehensive plan” to aid as many homeowners as possible. He went on to offer fresh details about a nearly complete government and private-sector effort to stem a huge number of foreclosures next year.

“We are leading the industry to develop a systemic means of efficiently moving able borrowers into sustainable mortgages,” Mr. Paulson said today in a speech to the Office of Thrift Supervision’s housing forum.

OK, so in not so many …

It seems that AT&T is no longer seeing the value of the pay phone.  The company announced today that its pay phones will be phased out over the next year. They declined to say how much revenue its pay-phone business generated, but the number is small and declining, after all, how can they compete with cell phones at $0.50 per call?

It’s interesting that a service long thought to be impossible to live without could be phased out of service, but it’s happening.

It certainly leaves one to think about what other iconic items once thought to be revolutionary will be a thing of the past in the not too distant future…

From …