It’s been a while since I’d heard anything from William Yeh of SogoInvest, so I thought I’d drop by the website and snoop around a bit. To my surprise, SogoInvest has changed its name to SogoTrade.

Mr. Yeh, CEO of SogoTrade, states in a letter to clients that the name change is an effort to align the brand identity more effectively with the business focus and core strengths. He goes on to say that:

SogoTrade will afford greater clarity by powerfully expressing our enduring qualities of innovation, service, and value while also expressing our business focus - providing advanced trading technology at low commissions to meet …

Read more…

As I suspected the old cast iron pipe had rotted out underneath the basement floor of my rental unit. My buddy Paul (who has his own plumbing company) stopped by to take a look, and after a few swings of the sledge hammer, found the bottom of an elbow joint completely corroded out to the point where the high flow rate from the spin cycle of the washing machine was forcing water out from under the foundation and back through the stone wall of the basement.

I told him to go ahead and fix the problem, as it …

I tend to view Jim Cramer as a ego-centric financial actor, but it sounds like we’re on the same page concerning the governments proposed economic stimulus package.

Evidently he agrees that lower interest rates will have a more immediate effect than handing out $600 to individuals.

As expected, Emigrant Direct has followed suit on lowering interest rates for its online American Dream Savings Account to 4.30%.  I can’t say that I didn’t see this coming, but the dropping rates are driving me to start maneuvering money back into the stock market.

I’m starting to rethink my goal of having $50,000 in the account to generate some secure passive income.  While it’s still a good goal to have, the money I have allocated for that account may work harder elsewhere, like in high yield ETF’s.

I’ve already got the mandatory 6 months worth of expenses stored up in savings, and am now strategizing on how to put my money …

You can now follow comments from The Corner Office Blog.

Click on the icon at the top of the sidebar to the right to subscribe to comments, or click on the icon below each post.

Thanks for contributing to The Corner Office Blog!

I’ve been watching Schering-Plough (SGP: chart, web, Y!) since I started looking for my next buy-it and forget-it stock. The stock price has fallen considerably since then on news that a company study produced disappointing results on the effects of Vytorin, a next generation cholesterol drug.

They study showed that Vytorin had no benefit on the buildup of artery plaque over the older drug Zocor. The silver lining to this story that is easily glanced over is that Vytorin cut bad cholesterol 40% more than Zocor or Zetia (Vytorin is …

On Monday the Fed dropped interest rates by a full 0.75% out of the blue. Unprovoked, unannounced, and unexpected, both in scale and timing. Sure, The Street had predicted a rate cut, but no one was predicting three-quarter basis points, and few were predicting an unscheduled cut.

There is something strange about this move.

Big Ben Bernanke has been fairly slow to react to economic data, and has at most taken a half basis-point chunk out of rates at any one time. So why the big bite all of a sudden?

I suspect that there is more to this interest rate …

Last Tuesday, Duncan Energy Partners (DEP: chart, web, Y!) announced the fourth quarter distribution amounting to $0.41 per share, an increase of 2.5% over the initial quarterly distribution of $0.40 per share starting in February 2007.

The distribution will be paid on February 7th to shareholders on record at the close of business January 31.

Duncan will also announce Q4 earnings on January 28th prior to the market open.

Falling Stock Price

DEP shares have been falling for the last couple of months, and in part I believe this is due to the low daily volume. Citi was a large holder (over 600,000 shares) and …

Last week I dropped by the Verizon Wireless store to snoop around a bit. My 2-year agreement was up, and my existing cell phone had taken a beating. In fact, the outer LCD display was cracked and non-functional from the time I put the phone in my pocket and then smashed my keys (in the same pocket) into the phone. Now I had options. Lots of options, and that is a good thing from a consumers standpoint.

At any rate, I had also been looking at my monthly cell usage. Between my wife and I, we rarely were using more than 200 anytime minutes per month, …

Today President Bush shed some light on how the government plans to artificially stimulate the economy.

The President said he’s looking for “direct and rapid tax relief” for both consumers and businesses. To achieve this, he plans on implementing an income tax rebate of between $300 and $600 per person, and depending on your circumstances, your rebate may be even bigger.

The white house is looking for a repeat performance from the plan implemented in 2001. It seemed to work back then, however I think the direct effect was a bit over inflated.

But this time it’s different.

We’ve got a different situation this time, with different economic pitfalls pushing the health …