In the United States, a highly controversial issue right now is the debt ceiling limit.
The current debt ceiling of the US, set by law, is $14.3 trillion. According to the United States Treasury, this limit was reached in May 2011 and, if the limit is not raised, the US could fulfill all its obligations only until August 2, 2011 — less than a week from now.
We recently received an email from one of our readers asking how to determine the interest earnings on his time deposit account. In response, we explain below how exactly it’s being computed.
Earlier we wrote about the offers of free magazine subscription for BusinessWeek and SFO (Stocks, Futures, and Options).
Unfortunately, this is valid only to residents of the US and Canada.
We searched for some free magazine offers available to those in the Philippines and here’s what we found.
Get copies of BusinessWeek magazine and SFO (Stocks, Futures, and Options) magazine — absolutely free!
Here’s a good offer to those who want to get business and finance magazines for free, with no strings attached.
In this time of bear markets and economic downturns, you must check if you are financially healthy because, if not, you might end up as one of the casualties of the recession. You must not be complacent because if your financial health is in danger, you might end up with no cash to spare, drowning in debt, or worse, bankrupt.
CNNMoney.com has got this simple but good way of checking if your financial health is OK. It basically asks whether your liquidity status is excellent, your debt obligations are manageable, and if your retirement plan is sound.
Assess the following financial aspects and see if you are financially healthy.
What alternatives do you have if you have extra money which you won’t need in the near future and which you want to place in a safe investment?
Well, the easiest choice is to put it in a bank’s savings account. A savings account is highly liquid — meaning you can withdraw your money anytime you want. It is also safe because deposits up to P250,000 are covered by the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation.
If you want higher interest rate than a savings account, you may opt for a time deposit. Here you park your money for a certain period of time and, in return, the bank offers you an interest rate relatively higher than what your regular savings account will get. Like a savings account, time deposits are covered by the PDIC up to P250,000 per depositor.
Now, what if you still want a higher interest rate but are not willing to take additional risk? That’s when you can try investing in Special Deposit Accounts or SDAs.
Those looking for safe but higher-yielding instruments can turn to Long-Term Negotiable Certificates of Deposits (LTNCD). The Philippine National Bank is expected to issue a minimum of P3 billion worth of LTNCDs in the next few days.
What is LTNCD?
Long-term negotiable certificates of deposits (LTNCDs) are peso-denominated negotiable certificates of deposits that mature after at least five years.
In what is touted as the biggest corporate bond issue in the Philippines, beer company San Miguel Brewery, Inc. (SMB) successfully raised P38.8 billion or US$800 million during this week’s sale of its fixed-rate bonds.
