Now that Wesabe is officially closed, many users are looking for an alternative that offers the same flexibility and features -- for many this alternative is, or should be MoneyStrands.
MoneyStrands is a free tool that has helped people manage their money online since it launched in March 2009 -- and in short order has won a Webby award for the best of the web in the banking and bill-pay category. This honor is no surprise when you consider that MoneyStrands offers features you won't find in many competing tools such as Mint.
Like all modern personal finance tools, MoneyStrands can connect to a large number of banking and financial institutions, but unlike most competitors gives users the ability to manually upload their account data. This option is a must-have for those who don't want to give their login info to a third party, or who bank at a smaller bank or credit union that personal finance tools cannot connect to for automatic updates.
MoneyStrands also sets itself apart from the competition because it is designed to make it easy for international and non-English speaking users to use the tool. The MoneyStrands website can be viewed in both English and Spanish with a toggle in the settings and users can choose their preferred currency from a long list. According to MoneyStrands, consumers use the service in 44 countries.
These features supplement the standard account linking and money management that the MoneyStrands tool handles well. Users can view spending and account history in one location as well as compare spending in categories such as shopping, food & dining and more to see how they stack up to the rest of the community. Filters allow you to compare yourself to other members based on age, gender, marital status, education and other variables.
MoneyStrands also has a budgeting tool that tracks spending and sets email alerts when a budget category reaches a certain level so spending can be put in check. The tool is fairly simple and requires users to figure out their own goals, but Atakan Cetinsoy, General Manager of MoneyStrands told WalletPop in a phone interview that an improved budgeting tool that walks users through the process is coming in the next few months.
MoneyStrands is easy to use and offers significant value to users; especially those who can't or don't want to link their accounts directly to a third-party service.
As investors search for yield anywhere and everywhere, bonds are trading in uncharted territory. Please consider Obama Wins Low Yield as Markets Shrink Aiding Deficit
Bond investors seeking top-rated securities face fewer alternatives to Treasuries, allowing President Barack Obama to sell unprecedented sums of debt at ever lower rates to finance a $1.47 trillion deficit.Piles of Cash Equates to Piles of Debt
Shrinking credit markets help explain why some Treasury yields are at record lows even after the amount of marketable government debt outstanding increased by 21 percent from a year earlier to $8.18 trillion. Last week, the U.S. government auctioned $34 billion of three-year notes at a yield of 0.844 percent, the lowest ever for that maturity.
Spending by companies and consumers has slowed as the economy has shown signs of weakening. Companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index have stockpiled a record $2.3 trillion of cash and equivalents. Company borrowing slid 29 percent in the first half of the year to $528 billion amid a dearth of business investment, Bloomberg data shows.
Companies are piling up cash alright. However, the flip side of that cash is debt.
Moreover, analysts mistake that cash for willingness to expand. The reality is corporations do not want to get trapped like they did in 2008, unable to borrow.
For more on corporate cash levels, please see Are Corporations Sitting on Piles of Cash?
Individuals are also hoarding cash. The U.S. savings rate reached 6.4 percent in June, up from 1.7 percent in August 2007, the start of the financial crisis.Are Individuals Hoarding Cash?
Individuals are not really "hoarding cash" either. Instead they are paying down debt. Most do not realize that by definition, paying down debt constitutes "saving".
For most wage earners, the savings rate is after-tax salary minus personal consumption expenditures (PCE). For a more precise definition, please see What's Behind The Soaring Savings Rate?
“There’s been a collapse in both consumer and business credit demand,” said James Kochan, the chief fixed-income strategist at Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin-based Wells Fargo Fund Management, which oversees $179 billion. “To see both categories so weak for such an extended period of time, you’d probably have to go back to the Depression.”Food Stamps and Unemployment Insurance Mask Depression
I believe we are in a depression now. The key difference is food stamps and unemployment checks have replaced bread lines.
We also have hundreds of thousands of people living in their homes without making payments on their mortgage or home equity lines. The slow foreclosure process encourages more to do the same.
“The diminishing supply” of alternatives to Treasuries “is giving Washington an opportunity to continue with its fiscal irresponsibilities,” said Mark MacQueen, partner and portfolio manager at Austin, Texas-based Sage Advisory Services, which oversees $8.5 billion. “The only way to tell Washington and America ‘no more’ is a weak dollar, which eventually leads to higher interest rates.”Thoughts on the Fool's Game
“We are slowly playing a fool’s game as rates go further down to unsustainably low levels,” said Dan Shackelford, a money manager who helps oversee $15 billion in fixed-income assets at T. Rowe Price Group Inc. in Baltimore.
If you are managing $15 billion thinking it is a "fool's game", then in my opinion you ought not be doing it. It seems to me there is a lack of fiduciary responsibility if one is investing client money in a "fool's game".
What the hell - Anything for a fee!
I do think corporate bonds, especially most junk is playing for the greater fool. In regards to treasuries, there is going to be an exit problem for sure, but that could be years away. In Japan, yields stayed low for a decade. Why can't it happen here?
Yields certainly might stay low for an extended period. Whether or not they do remains to be seen. I happen to like long-term treasuries right now, but certainly not as much as when the 10-year was at 3.75% and bears were foolishly shorting treasuries like mad.
The government isn’t the only one getting a good deal. Armonk, New York-based International Business Machines Corp., the world’s biggest computer services provider, sold $1.5 billion of three-year notes on Aug. 2 with a coupon of 1 percent, the lowest of the more than 3,400 securities in the Barclays Capital U.S. Corporate Index of investment-grade company debt.Uncharted Territory
Portland, Oregon, sold about $408 million in sewer-system revenue debt on Aug. 11, with utility bond yields at the lowest level on record. Yields on 10-year, AA rated tax-exempts backed by utility revenue stood at 3.02 percent on Aug. 10, according to Bloomberg Fair Market Value data. That’s the lowest since the index was created in November 1993.
“We are in unchartered territory,” said [William Larkin, a fixed-income money manager in Salem, Massachusetts at Cabot Money Management]. “We are pushing and pulling levers that we don’t understand the full implications.”
This is indeed uncharted territory thanks to the Fed pushing and pulling levers in a manner it does not understand. William Black, a former bank regulator, is one person who does understand. Black says U.S. Using "Rally Stupid Strategy" to Hide Bank Losses - Will Produce Japanese Style Lost Decade.
I agree with his assessment.
Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
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