The US Map above graphically illustrates the 43 states whose companies received tax credits to support clean energy projects . If you are an investor, consider researching some of the companies that received the grants in order to see if these grants could materially benefit these companies and thus the share price. I looked at a few companies on the list (see the bottom of this page for an excel spreadsheet) and found that each one of the company’s share price increased after the announcement.

Notice all of the red dots on the US map – these represent homes that are currently under foreclosure. But, since this is a map of the US, the red dots actually represent clusters of foreclosed homes.  If you want to see foreclosed homes by address, start with this link to Google real estate search.  Once you have entered an address, if you check off the box next to Foreclosure, the search will return foreclosed homes by street, neighborhood, etc.

I read recently that the number of homes currently for sale is equal to the number of the shadow home inventory – homes representing distressed mortgages that have not yet been listed for sale.   It will be difficult for home prices to improve in communities with a high number of foreclosed homes for sale and a large shadow inventory of homes that will eventually be listed for sale.

photo credit: MjaMes1408

Interesting overview of Hyman Minsky in the Boston Globe (see article here), a 20th century Harvard trained economist who was not considered to have had a major influence on macroeconomic thought during his lifetime or after his death – until now.  Apparently, his ideas are now in vogue.  The article highlights his “Financial Instability Hypothesis” – namely, that economic crises arise after periods of economic stability, not instability, when lenders and borrowers take on more risk in order to make more money.   His proposed solutions to a depression like crisis included having the Federal Reserve serve as a lender to firms in trouble (being done) and having the government employ those out of work (not likely). (credit to Barry Ritholtz of the Big Picture blog)

Andy Dufresne at Zero Hedge just posted the above chart from StockCharts.com of the 10 Year Treasury Note and S&P index (see his post here). Please note on the chart how the 10 Year (in red) peaks before the market peaks and bottoms before the market bottoms, with a lag of 3 to 4 months. If the 10 Year is now rolling over and the same correlation holds true as the chart shows, the market should bottom in the Fall. The good news is that mortgage rates will drop, since rates are tied to the 10 Year Note.

April 2009 Site Update

Last month I posted the first monthly Wealth Itself progress update. Today I am posting the second update. I intend to continue to report the key site stats as I think that there are a few people who will be interested and it forces me to review the goals and objectives of the site.

Expenses = $0

• No new expenses incurred.

Income = $47.75

• I have sold a six month ad for $50.00, yielding $47.75 after PayPal fees.

Blogging

• I participated in another blogging carnival at Ask Mr Credit Card.
• My post on saving money through selecting alternative energy suppliers was linked to by two blogs, including an MSM Money blog which sent 32 visitors in April.
• Google has ranked my posts on eyeglasses highly and has sent many visitors to the site.
• Visitors:
  • 244 first time visitors, up from 174 for March
    • 18 visitors on the peak day
  • 25 returning visitors, a significant increase from the 4 returning visitors recorded in March
  • 371 pageloads, up from 234 pageloads in March
• Comments – none
• RSS subscribers (Feedburner) = 5, an increase from 4 in March

Search Engine Rankings

• Google PageRank = 1, no change
• Alexa rank = 523,102 up from March’s ranking of 1,101,771

General impressions

• Last month I mentioned that I had not fully settled on the focus for the site. I am still sorting this out, but I do recognize that I will have to post more regularly.
• I still have not actively promoted the site by participating in forums or posting comments on other blogs. I am still not sure about how much I will do this.

Although one has to be concerned about Google’s virtual monoply on search, tools such as providing access to government data can only be seen positively.  I have spent some time looking at government data and soon realized that I could spend hours trying to generate simple charts.   Google promises that this access to unemployment rates and population figuress is just the beginning to providing more access to government data.