I’m not normally the doom and gloom type but what I’ve been reading about subprime mortgage debt has me a bit concerned… I don’t know what will happen but one possibility is laid out below.

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Rates for the next six months for I Bonds were released today. The fixed rate was raised to 1.4%, while the variable rate is 1% as expected from the CPI-U numbers announced in mid-April.

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The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.6 percent in March, before seasonal adjustment, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. The March level of 199.8 (1982-84=100) was 3.4 percent higher than in March 2005.

What this means for I Bond investors

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This is the first post of a series I’ll be doing on government and other public sources of solid financial information. I’ve added a category called Financial Information Resources which will contain all of the posts in the series. I’ll be characterizing and rating the sites based on the type of information they have as well as how valuable I found it to be. So without further delay, my guide to Financial Information Resources:

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I’m still waiting for funds to transfer to my account at Prosper.com. The PFBlogger group I started has been approved. If you’d like to join click here. It is set for 100% sharing of rewards so anyone borrowing as a member will get a slightly lower interest rate.

There are a couple of things with the site I’d like to point out.

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Saw this in the NY Times… prosper.com is a relatively new site which matches lenders and borrowers in an online format.

I don’t currently carry any debt outside of our mortgage so I won’t be likely to use it for borrowing myself but I do plan on spreading some of my risk portfolio into these loans. The idea of being able to help people in need out just fits with where I am in life right now.  My plan is to spread my loans out among many borrowers with a mix of good and bad credit profiles (and lower or higher interest rates).  This should help alleviate risk and provide a better return than a savings account.
I’ve also started a group there called “PFBloggers”. It’s currently waiting for approval. Belonging to a group allows you to share in a payment reward system of up to 5%. This could lower your effective interest rate on the loan.

So, if you can’t get in on the 0% offers we often talk about and are carrying some high-interest credit card debt check it out. I’ll be giving preferential treatment to those who are in my group with the money I have to loan.

Mittal (symbol MT), one of the stocks I hold in for my Investment Experiment just launched a surprise bid to buy the Arcelor, another huge steel company.

I have to admit this one took me completely by surprise. MT has been climbing recently well exceeding my $30 strike. This underscores the main risk of selling covered calls. If the stock moves up a large amount here I don’t get to participate in the gain. In essence I’ve already sold my shares for $30. (Actually a little more when you include the premium I received for the option.)

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Went to check my HSBC balance today and noticed they’ve bumped their interest rate to 4.25%. That’s the best I’ve seen anywhere and certainly kicks the crap out of Virtualbanks 3.55% rate. I imagine some of the other banks will follow suit shortly but so far I’ve been very happy with HSBC and plan to keep using them as my primary bank. I may even just close my Virtualbank account, especially now that I’ve linked my TreasuryDirect account to HSBC and Netbank.

Kind of a pity that my current 0% balance is coming due and we haven’t gotten any new offers. The best I’ve seen recently is 1.99% for the life of the balance which isn’t bad but is not enough of a return after tax to make it worth my while.

For those of you who don’t have an account already there is a $25 account opening bonus available. Details (courtesy of FatWallet):

http://hsbcdirect.com/1/start.htm
Promo Code: start

HSBC has raised the interest rate on their Online Savings account to 4%. This beats the 3.55% I am currently getting at Virtualbank. I think I’ll wait a few days and see if Virtualbank bumps their rate too before I move our 0% balance transfer funds over. It does represent at extra $6 a month though which is significant.

I *still* have not received my $35 account opening bonus. (Account was opened in early September) I have a message into their bank mail system. Will report my results as soon as I have any.

New Carnival of Personal Finance is up at hellodollar.com. Also, the Carnival of Debt reduction is up at ksfinancialprogressreport.blogspot.com. Haven’t read them yet myself but will in a min…