| Property Prices In 2005-Level Fall
House prices fell at their fastest rate for more than two years during October as would-be buyers continue to stay away from the market, the latest figures have revealed. The cost of property in the UK fell for the third month in a row in October and at its fastest pace since July 2005, said the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. At the same time, the number of people looking to buy a home fell for the 11th consecutive month. A combination of higher interest rates, the recent credit crunch and tighter lending criteria from mortgage lenders is hitting demand. But, the group said, a shortage in the number of homes being put up for sale was continuing to prop up the market. And surveyors' confidence in future house prices has reached its lowest level since April 2003.
Caution urged at sharemarket 'stocktake sale'
WHILE January 2008 has wreaked havoc on share portfolios, brave buyers dubbed it a stocktake sale. Last week the stock market was down by 18 per cent for the month, the lowest monthly fall since the crash in 1987, which saw the market plunge 42.45 per cent. Wilson HTM Investment Group senior adviser Carl Daffy said consecutive falls over 12 days of trading triggered a flurry of buyers. "It's like a Myer stocktake sale for investors," Mr Daffy said. "If Myer had 10 per cent off tomorrow, shoppers would flock to it. Investors are doing the same thing." There were more than 2.5 million trades in last week's frenzy, up from the December weekly average of 1.4 million trades, the ASX said. Some blue-chip shares, including Wesfarmers and the Commonwealth Bank, fell to their lowest prices in a year.
Undernews Alert: Obama
Kennedy pushes the boundary--he was elected to Congress in 1946, won the presidency in 1960. Lizza gives FDR's gestation period as four years, but FDR was the Democrats' vice-presidential nominee in 1920, twelve years before he was elected president. Nixon took 21 years to reach the White House after his first election to Congress in 1947. (Yes, Nixon was elected Vice President in 1952. But if the problem is that national politicians grow stale and record-bound, why should their "expiration date" be put on permanent hold just because they're elected to the vice-presidency? Shouldn't national office and national exposure make them staler quicker?) c) Lizza's chartist panic is at war with the common-sense view that before he runs for President, maybe Obama should have accomplished something, or at least demonstrated the ability to wield executive power effectively.
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