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  Financial FYI: Credit Card Late Payments, Mobile Banking Growth, Heating Oil Prices Set To Increase, 401(k) Automatic Enrollment Report, Second Quarter Earnings Forecast, Black Monday Statistics, CFO Report

  http://financialfyi.com/?p=64
  35 days ago in FinancialFYI.com · No authority yet

  Financial FYI: Creating Financial Buzz With Interesting Financial News, Statistics, and Research. Credit Card Late Payments Increase A study last year by Consumer Action found that late-payment fees had gone from an average of $13 in 1995 to $28 in 2007. The highest is $39. One tardy payment, even by a few hours, and you can get slapped with a penalty interest rate as high as 32%. Source: Money.cnn.com. Full Story Mobile Banking Growth Mobile banking is set for rapid growth over the next three years with the number of global mobile banking transactions predicted to ramp up from 2.7 billion in 2007 to 37 billion by 2011, according to analyst house Juniper Research. The analyst forecasts 41.5 billion mobile financial service (MFS) transactions will be made by the end of 2011. Source: Businessweek.com Full Story Senate Mortgage Bill The Senate is poised to vote as early as this week on a package of housing initiatives that would mark lawmakers’ most comprehensive effort yet to deal with record numbers of foreclosures and a housing slump that is weighing on the economy. The Senate bill would expand the size of single-family mortgage loans that can be acquired or guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to $625,000 from the $550,000 set in an earlier bill approved by the banking committee. Source: Wall Street Journal. Full Story Heating Oil Prices Set To Increse Residential heating oil prices are projected to rise 29% to $4.46 per gallon in the fourth quarter of 2008 from $3.16 per gallon during the same period last year, according to the Energy Information Administration. Those who use natural gas to heat their homes (a fair majority at 48% of U.S. households) shouldn’t expect to fare much better. The EIA projects the average price of natural gas to rise 27% year over year (from $12.65 per thousand cubic feet in the fourth quarter of 2007 to $17.21 per thousand cubic feet in fourth quarter of 2008). Source: Smartmoney.com. Full Story Art Report Sotheby’s spring contemporary art auction on Wednesday evening was the most lucrative auction in the company’s history, blowing past the high end of Sotheby’s estimate with sales totaling $362 million, including a record $86.3 million for a 1976 Francis Bacon triptych that had been expected to sell for about $16 million less. Such extravagant consumption is an optimistic sign for art dealers. Source: money.cnn.com. Full Story 401(k) Automatic Enrollment Report A survey of 190 mid- to large-size companies by the consulting firm Hewitt shows that a growing number of firms offering 401(k) plans are automatically enrolling employees in the plan, automatically increasing worker contributions and sometimes even automatically rebalancing their accounts so they are not overexposed to any particular type of investment. Source: Kiplinger.com. Full Story Second Quarter Earnings Forecast Second-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies are forecast by analysts to fall 9 per cent, according to Thomson Reuters. Source: ft.com. Full Story Black Monday Statistics Three of the five best days the Dow Jones Industrial Average has ever experienced occurred in one 10-day stretch in 1987: Oct. 20 (up 5.88%), Oct. 21 (up 10.15%), and Oct. 29 (up 4.96%). But that was not a great week for investors. It came in the wake of Black Monday — Oct. 19, 1987, the single worst day in the Dow’s history — when, by 4 p.m. ET, the market became $500 billion less valuable. The Dow dropped 22.61% that day and followed it up a week later with an 8% drop — the second-largest single-day drop in history. Source: Fool.com. Full Story CFO Report Economic woes are expected to continue until at least mid-2009, and things may get worse before they get better, according to a quarterly survey of chief financial officers. The quarterly Duke University/CFO Magazine Global Business Outlook study found 71% of more than 1,000 CFOs surveyed said the U.S. economy will not begin to rebound until 2009. And 54% think the turnaround will happen by next summer at the earliest. Source: Money.cnn.com. Full Story Bookmark Us Today! FinancialFYI.com

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