Weekend Linkage - July 20, 2008

Summary of the Week

It was a pretty sweet week last week, after weeks of steep losses in the stock markets. Some good news came from the financial sector, which is the hardest hit industrial group in the current crisis. First both Wells Fargo and JPMorgan reported better than expected earnings, then on Friday Citigroup said it lost less money than, sending the Dow for the third consecutive winning day. The NASDAQ, however, wasn’t so lucky as the index was dragged by earning warnings from Microsoft and Google. Another piece of encouraging news is the oil, which has been going up relentlessly, backed down nearly $17 since last Friday to close the week at $128.82/barrel.  For the week, the Dow gained 3.6% to 11,496.57, the S&P rose 1.7% to 1,260.68, and the NASDAQ added 1.9% to 2,282.78. Gold posted a moderate weekly loss of 0.22% to settle at $956.70 an ounce on Friday and Euro was traded at $1.5844 last Friday, down 0.5% for the week.

Weekend Readings

Here are some what I read over the weekend from The Money Writers and beyond. Hope you will enjoy them as well:

From the Front Lines: Changing Your Risk Tolerance Based on a Bear Market: “When the market is down and you are losing money, it is reasonable to question your investments. Nobody likes to lose money, but it is how you react to the losses that will determine whether you retire rich versus poor.”

5 Ways to Learn from Others: “Leave yourself open to good advice.”

15 Fire Safety Tips To Protect Your Home: “Some fire safety tips to keep you and your home protected no matter where you live.”

Free Credit Scores from Credit Karma: “There might be a small string attached to Credit Karma. You need to surrender your social security number to them. It’s a necessary piece of information required to get your credit report which is needed to determine your credit score.”

A Simple Low Cost Diversified ETF Portfolio: “However, even as an aggressive performance chaser, there is always room in the portfolio for some passive investing that goes with the flow that comes with the benefit of reduced risk.”

True Credit Review - How I Use the Credit Score & Credit Report Monitoring Service: “True Credit is a credit monitoring service that allows you to check your reports and scores from all three credit bureaus each month.”

The Best Airline Rewards Credit Cards: “What better way to travel, than for free?”

Seven Traits of Successful People: “Ever wonder why some people can never do wrong?”

Having A Plan Allows Me To Enjoy Spending Money: “I have a plan. I’m sticking to the plan. And, as part of the plan, I have some discretionary spending.”

A 75-year Emergency Fund?: “A 75-year emergency fund doesn’t do a darn bit of good if I’m dead, or if I can’t buy the food I need to keep from becoming dead.”

Free Investing Books to Round Out Your Investing Knowledge: “I love free stuff - it means more money to investing in dividend stocks! ”

FDIC Insurance Q&A: Businesses, Joint Accounts, CDARS, WaMu, and More: “Will multiple accounts at the same bank, like having both a checking and savings account, increase my coverage limits?”

Carnivals

Once in a while, I did remember to submit my articles to blog carnivals and last week was just one of those occasions when I participated in the following carnivals:

Carnival of Personal Finance at The Budgeting Babe

Festival of Frugality at On Financial Success

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