You Should Keep In Mind The Huge Tax Hikes Coming Next Year When Deciding Whether To Sell Domains - If you make $200K or more there is a huge tax hike coming for next year if you are in the United States. In the domain business it can only tax one domain name sale to put you over the top into the “rich people” tax bracket. Its pretty hard to keep politics out of any discussion about taxes but we are going to try to stick to the facts If your pondering a big sale there are some tax implications you should be aware of: Starting in 2013, families whose overall income is above $250,000 (individuals ... read more ...

comScore: Record Week In Online US Holiday Shopping History - comScore.com reported today, for the holiday season-to-date, nearly $32 billion has been spent online, a 15% over last year. For the week ending Dec. 18, four days surpassing $1 billion in sales, making for  an all-time record of $6.3 billion in online retail spending for a week, up 14% from tthe same week last year. The final shopping weekend before Christmas reached $1.04 billion to rank as the second heaviest weekend of online spending on record. 2011 Holiday Season To Date vs. Corresponding ... read more ...

Online Shopping Is Up Big This Shopping Season According to comScore, IBM & Buy.com - Three reports out today indicate that online shopping is up big so far this holiday season. comScore (NASDAQ : SCOR), reported that holiday sales season-to-date, are $9.7 billion 14% increase versus the corresponding days last year which was $8.4 Billion in sales during the same time frame. “The official comScore 2011 holiday season forecast is that online retail spending for the November – December period will reach $37.6 billion, representing a 15%t gain versus year ago. ” “This strong ... read more ...

Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco: “Odds Are Greater Than 50% Chance Of A Recession In Early in 2012″ - Well if your a believer in the recession is over and the economy if on the way to recovery, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco in a post disagrees saying that the “Odds Are Greater Than 50% Chance Of A Recession In Early in 2012″ In its Economic Letter the two co-authors, one Travis J. Berge is an economist in the Research Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City the other Early Elias is a research associate in the Economic Research Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of ... read more ...

Gold Vs. Google 2 Years Later To The Day: One Is Up Over 70% a Other Only 4% - September 23rd 2009 Google hit $500 a share and Gold hit $1,00 an ounce and we asked the question: “What you think is a better investment right now, Google at $500 a share or Gold at $1,000 an ounce.” We put up a poll for a week and the results were split right down the middle, 50% picking Google, 50% picking Gold. So we sit exactly two years later. Google is trading at $520 a share up 4% over 2 years. $10,000 invested in Google two years ago would be worth just $10,400. Over the last 52 weeks ... read more ...

So How Much Will The Stock Market Go Down Tomorrow In Wake Of Downgrade? - Tomorrow will be the first day the US stock exchanges open up for trading since SP downgraded the credit rating of the US on Friday from AAA to AA+. So the big question is what will happen in the markets tomorrow? In the middle east, the only place markets have opened since the downgrade the news wasn’t too good. Israel’s stock market fell more than 6%, and the Tel Aviv 25 Index ended the trading day down 6.99%. The Dubai Financial Market (DFM) General Index fell 3.7% on Sunday the General Index ... read more ...

Disney Was Wrong: It’s A Big World After All - With all due regards to Walt Disney, whose song I,  and I would assume many of you grew up singing, “It’s a Small World After All”, is wrong. In fact it’s a big world, with billions of people competing, in what has become a global marketplace, for their share of the pie. It’s really not Mr. Disney’s fault. Time’s have changed. The song was written in the 1960′s and premiered at the New York World’s Fair in 1964. Yes I’m from New York City. I was born in 1958,  and was 11 in ... read more ...

Good News: The Recession Ended Over A Year Ago, How’s That Working Out For You? - News comes today from the National Bureau of Economic Research,  that the recession that “officially” began in December 2007 “officially” ended over a year ago, in June 2009, “In determining that a trough occurred in June 2009, the committee did not conclude that economic conditions since that month have been favorable or that the economy has returned to operating at normal capacity. Rather, the committee determined only that the recession ended and a recovery began in that month,” “The ... read more ...

Gold Vs. Google: 9 Month Update: Gold Up 20%, Google Down 6% - Back in late September 2009 Google hit $500 a share and gold hit $1,000 on the same day prompting us to post whether Gold or Google was a better investment. We told you at the time we would keep you updated and its time for the 9 month update. Since our orginal post, Gold has continued its climb and currently sits at just about $1,200 a ounce, or 20% higher Google on the other hand as we sit here today, is around $470 a share, about 6% lower. So if you bought 1,000 of each 9 months ago your gold ... read more ...

comScore: Online Christmas Season Sales Hit $27 Billion - According to a report released by comScore today, people spent $27 billion online from November 1 through December 24, a 5% increase  over last year. Here is a the detailed chart from comScore: Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...

Finally Some Good News: The Unemployment Rate Unexpectedly Falls To 10% In US & 8.5% In Canada - Finally some good news coming out of the monthly jobless rate that was just released for November. The unemployment rate unexpectedly declined, a sign the job market is finally starting to recover. Nonfarm payrolls fell by just 11,000 last month, slowing down from a downwardly revised 111,000 drop seen in October. It was the best showing since December 2007, when payrolls rose by 120,000. The unemployment rate, fell to 10% in November from 10.2%. Economists had forecast the jobless rate would remain ... read more ...

Cyber Monday Kicks Black Friday’s Ass - Marketing-optimization firm Coremetrics said today sales from Cyber Monday were up, almost 14% from last year. Other findings for Cyber Monday Coremetrics included: Consumers spend an average of $180.03 per order this year, compared to $130.24 in 2008, an increase of over 38%. Consumers bought almost 30% more items per order this year. Coremetrics said apparel and jewelry retailers enjoyed the “biggest jumps in the average dollar amount consumers spent per online order, up 26.4% and 14.3%, respectively.” Department ... read more ...

Unemployment Tops 10%; Highest Rate Since Apr 1983 - Outside of the world of domaining, but extremely important for the overall economy, the The U.S. unemployment rate rose more than expected in October to 10.2%, its highest level in more than 26 years. Nonfarm payrolls fell by 190,000 last month, with the largest job losses in construction, manufacturing, and retail trade. Economists had expected a 175,000 loss. The unemployment rate is now the highest since April, 1983. Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...

Apple’s Best Quarter Ever: Profits Up 47%, Revenue Up 25% - Apple reported  its “most profitable quarter ever” after the market closed today. Check out these numbers: Profits up 47%. Revenue up 25% to $9.87 billion. 7.4 million iPhone’s sold,  up 7% from year-ago. 3.05 million computers sold, up 17% from a year earlier. 10.2 million iPods (down 8%). Shares of Apple were up over 6% in after market trading back over $200 a share. Microsoft is releasing Windows 7 in a few days on 10.22 Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...

Did Domainers Call The Stock Market Bottom? - I published a poll back on March 7, 2009 asking you to pick the stock market bottom, just about a week before, it hit, what is regarded to be the bottom, (the lowest point hit by the Dow Jones average) Since the Dow closed about 10K for the first time since, I went back and looked at the results. Your choices were: We are at the bottom now 6,000 5,500 5,000 4,000 3,000 2,000 1,400 (which represented 90% of all time high) Over 100 domainers voted with 31 saying we were either at the bottom or called ... read more ...

Bigger Game Changer: GM Selling New Cars On eBay, Or Cars Using Only 50 Gallons Of Gas A Year? - GM, the new GM has two major announcements in the last couple of days which has huge implications for not only this car manufacture but the automotive industry. First GM announced its going to start selling new cars on eBay.com with “Buy It Now Pricing” and also allow people to “make offers” on the new cars. GM is rolling this out, testing selling new cars on eBay with 250 dealers in California, by initially listing 20,000 new cars. Can the Internet save GM? Second,  GM announced today, ... read more ...

How Bad Is The Economy? “Joe The Webmaster” Can’t Get A $25 Renewal Fee Approved - So a good friend of mine, who operates one of the largest adult websites in the world, let’s call him Joe the website owner, tells me that starting just about 30 days ago, he is seeing about 10% of his attempted re-bills declined by the credit card company.  This mean about 10% of his customers, which number in the millions, and would be a good sample of the general economy, don’t have $25 available on their credit card for a charge to go through.  This is not even a monthly charge but an one ... read more ...

Sign of a Times: NASDAQ Starts Bailout Index - According to USA TODAY, the NASDAQ started the Government Relief Stock Index, that tracks the performance of publicly traded companies that have accepted government bailout money, under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Currently index is comprised of 24 companies, but more will be added as additional companies accept TARP money from the Government. Some of the companies in the index are GM, AIG, Bank Of America and Goldman Sachs. The index began with a value of 1,000 on Monday and by the ... read more ...

Has a Net Killed Brick and Mortar Retailing? - According to a new report by the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC), up to 73,000 brick and mortar retail establishments could close in just the first half of 2009. The ICSC says there was a net loss of about 33,000 retail establishments in 2008. In making its prediction for 2008, the ICSC pointed to the national chains like Sears and Talbots, which already announced plans to close hundreds of stores, as well as the bankruptcy or liquidation of big chains like Circuit City, Linens’n ... read more ...

NY Times: Online and Print Ad Revenue Down - The New York Times Company, announced today that total revenues for the company had fallen 13.9% in November compared with a year ago. Ad revenues were down 20.9%. Most worrisome: Internet revenues, long seen as the potential salvation for the company’s future as more of the world’s news audience migrates online, slid along with print. Even though the company’s flagship Web site, NYTimes.com, got a 10% traffic boost in November, total Internet revenues decreased 2.6% and Internet advertising ... read more ...

Florida Housing: Sales Up, Prices Down - According to the Florida Association of Realtors, for the first time in two years, single-family home sales rose last month  . However, median sales prices continued to decline. Ft Lauderdale reported 581 existing home sales, down slightly from last year’s 559 sales. The median sales price fell 19%, to $303,600 from $373,700. Miami saw just 392 existing homes sold in July, a 22 percent drop from 505 home sales during the same period last year. The median sale prices declined to $322,700 from $377,400. West ... read more ...

Next Must See Documentary “I.O.U.S.A” Opens Tommorow - A critically acclaimed new documentary about the US economy, how the budget deficits are effecting the country, the ability to fund social security and medicare in coming years, are all discussed in I.O.U.S.A opening tomorrow around the country. Click here to see the trailer Reuters said this movie “May be to the U.S. Economy what An Inconvenient Truth was to the environment.” In an exclusive one night event in select movie theaters nationwide, tomorrow, Thursday, August 21st. will include ... read more ...

Bad Economic News Continues - The bad news on the economy keeps coming. The Labor Department reported today that Wholesale inflation surged in July, leaving prices for the past year rising at the fastest pace in 27 years. Wholesale prices shot up 1.2 percent in July, pushed higher by rising costs for energy, motor vehicles and other products. The increase was more than twice the 0.5 percent gain that economists expected. Core prices, which exclude food and energy, rose 0.7 percent. That increase was the biggest since November ... read more ...

Has a Economy Fundamentally Changed (Part 2) - A little over a month ago we asked in a post:  “Oil: Has the Economy Fundamentally Changed and If So What Does it Mean to Domainers?” At that time Oil was at $139 a barrel.  On Friday it closed at over $145. Gold was under $900, Friday it closed at $960. The euro was $1.55 to the dollar, on Friday it closed at over $1.59. This week saw Freddy Mae and Freddy Mac lose half of its market value. Freddy Mac (FNM) which started the week at $18, closed at $10.25 after falling as low as $6.68. Freddy ... read more ...