More Wall Street Insight

Found this little tidbit interesting:

Alan Greenspan stated it most eloquently (2004):

“If Fannie and Freddie Mac continue to grow, continue to have the low capital that they have, continue to engage in the dynamic hedging of their portfolios, which they need to do for interest rate risk aversion, they potentially create ever-growing systemic risk down the road... We are placing the total financial system of the future at a substantial risk.''

Surprisingly, in 2005 the Senate Banking Committee actually listened, passing a reform bill that would have created a “world class regulator” that would have required the Bobbsey Twins to eliminate many of their investments in risky assets. Unfortunately, our pandering politicians decided to “party on,” and never even allowed the bill to come up for a vote. The rest, as they say, is history.

Monday Morning Funnies

Loretta + Jamie

Well my last wedding was a nice laid back affair. Loretta and Jamie had an old fashion barn wedding out in the country. The hospitality was wonderful and the whole wedding came off as a good time get together with home made wine and a pork roast.

As you might gather from the slide show below - these two are die hard hockey fans, and they love different teams, so fights tend to break out rather often.

Thanks for letting me be a part of your day - we had wonderful weather and beautiful light, it was a very enjoyable time.


CSI New York?


If you're friends or family of Loretta and Jamie and wish to see ALL of their photos, CLICK HERE to be notified when their online gallery is launched!

And now a show of slides, just hit play:

Calming the Markets

Over the last month I have been posting the odd article about Wall Street and our meltdown that started in the US and is rapidly spreading across the world. Why do I do it? You need to understand that the only person that cares about your money is you. Not your broker or mutual fund salesman, or financial adviser. Unless you have a signed fiduciary contract, the responsibility is all yours/mine.

In that vain I have posted articles that have shown some of the 'behind the scenes' antics of Wall Street - and how we the investing public are at a disadvantage. I find it fascinating to learn what we don't know and how they profit off of that. This is interesting and explains the wild ups and downs we've been having:

The Fed doesn't have many bullets left to rush in with to try to calm markets. They have a bit more room to move in lowering interest rates. But the big globally coordinated rate cut a few weeks ago certainly was no help in providing confidence.

But they do have increased quid pro quo arm-twisting power with brokerage firms and banks, after providing so much in rescue efforts, to ask for some market manipulation, that is for the institutions to use the power of their market-moving buy-programs to soften the decline.

Is there more to come? Who knows? I sure don't - but I have been saying the market as a whole has been over valued for a long time and when it corrects it usually over corrects and creates a great buy. That could very well be DOW 5000. Check this article out - if nothing except a history lesson. How Low Can Stocks Go

Rent or Buy?

Just came across a very interesting article about renting or buying a home. We are use to housing prices going up, thinking that you can't lose money with a house.

Read the article, it's a little eye opener - good knowledge to have and I bet you never thought about it in these terms. Click on the colored text above.

Cheers,

Album and Wedding Portrait of the Year!

Sweet fancy! It was a busy weekend with our Professional Photographers of Canada - Manitoba convention taking place this past weekend. We had guest speakers Robert Evans from LA and John Ratchford from Eastern Canada.

Of course it also meant that it was competition time once again. Much to my surprise I won Wedding Portrait of the Year with this image:



And came away with another back to back Wedding Album of the Year with the book Natalia and Robert.


Thank you to all the judges, but most importantly, you my clients that make this possible.

Cheers!

R & R for a day or two

My wife and I decided to get away for a few days of R&R, so I'm taking it easy.

Wall Street's problems

If you are at all interested in your money, or care to understand what has been happening on the Street during the last year, I hope you've read some of our comments and articles posted below.

I just found another one that I thought was insightful for understanding the banking debacle. Click here for more history.

Can the bail out work? Fat Chance

It's a great time to be afraid.

Happy, or shall I say not so happy reading! There are a few more in the posts listed below.

Wedding Fun

Well I'm off today to second shoot for the talented Trevor Brucki on a wedding assignment that should prove to be quite lavish.

Check back in a few days to see some of the images.

Cheers,

Rachel + Stuart

Classy, class, class. - that's how you would explain Rachel and Stuart's wedding day. That and add the fact that they didn't have a wedding party and I'm super excited! Why? Because I get to spend all my time and attention on two great people. That makes for a great day. And to top it all off - Stuart is Australian, so I get to hear that wonderful accent all day long.

We meet at the Basilica at the start of our day. My assistant kept asking "is that them?"
"No they're not into spinning mag wheels"
"Is that them?"
"When they pull up, you'll know"
At that moment a blue Rolls Royce pulls up around the corner. "That's them", " Ahhhh"

When they got out of the car my assistant just smiles, "wow, they are cute, love the dress, flowers and tux". I had to agree. I'm going to have say Rachel's bouquet was 'tops' for me!

Photo time!
Love old car cockpitsThe rings

Location: Fort Gibraltar

Decorations: Madelines Weddings

Florist: Floral Elements

Dress: Jessica Designs Intl (Jessica's Bridal)

Celebrant: Monique Grabowski

Quartet: Armadillo string quartet

Stu's Tux: Tip Top Tailors

Cake: Dessert Sinsations

Band: Class Act

If you're friends or family of Rachel and Stuart and wish to see ALL of their photos, CLICK HERE to be notified when their online gallery is launched!

Just press play

One Year All Ready - but not in a good way

Well okay, this isn't a wedding anniversary - it's one year to the day that the stock market was at it's all time high, the Dow market topped out exactly one year ago today, at 14,164 on October 9, 2007. Today the Dow fell to 8,579 crashing through the 9,000 level for the first time in five years.

This is a historic run of declines, let's look at the facts:

• The Dow suffered a triple-digit loss for the sixth day in a row, a first, and the average dropped for the seventh day in a row, a losing streak not seen since 2002.
• That's a 5585 point decline or a 39.5% drop
• The average is down 2,338 points, or 21 percent, in the last four weeks, since the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy escalated a long-running credit crunch into a full-fledged crisis
• Of the last 19 trading days, there have been 11 triple-digit losses — including the unprecedented six straight. The six gains have all been triple-digits, and only one of them was enough to make up the losses of the day before.
• The Dow now stands only about 1,300 points above its lowest close of the bear market that followed 9/11. In a market as volatile as this, that gap can be closed in a couple of trading days, or less.
• In percentage terms, the drop in the Dow exceeded the day the markets reopened after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. It was not close to the 22.6-percent decline on Black Monday in 1987, the last stock market crash. (TIM PARADIS and MARTIN CRUTSINGER)
• Most of the world's markets are down even more than the Dow

$872 billion of investments evaporated today, and paper losses for the year add up to an staggering $8.3 trillion or that's what the media wants you to believe. They are not paper loses, but real, and it didn't disappear or 'evaporate' - it changed hands. The markets are a zero sum game. For some one to win, someone needs to loose. To loose means someone else wins.

Who's winning now when you the 'buy and hold' public is loosing their retirement fund? Technical traders on the Street taking the back side of the falling market. As you can see it's a huge amount of money to make in a short time. There's no point in being mad or upset with them - they fulfill a need, it's what makes it a free market.

Listen folks, the buy and hold bull market of the 90's is over - we've lost the last 5 years of gains in the past year. We could easily see a decade of no returns like 1968-82. Now is not the time to be a 'buy and hold' investor - but now is not the time to sell either. The truth is that Wall Street wants you to believe in 'buy and hold'. They need the other side to trade against. They prey on you - the buyers of mutual funds to line their pockets.

There are so many products in the markets that can benefit the individual investor, but are kept hush, hush and not brought to people's attention.

If you'd like to learn more, drop me a line - I'd love to help you out.

Cheers,

Kiss the Babies, it's election time!

Okay, I'm not running for office. But the other day I shot some family photos on location. I'm going just post a few of my favorite of the kids.

Cheers!

Familiar Faces

Shot some cool portraits of my buddies the other day. Care to guess who the bottom one is?


Shot with my friend's Nikon D700, 50 1.4

Wall Street again

Well it continues, the manipulation of the Wall Street to suck your money away. Here's some interesting points of note:

The ban on short-selling that was due to expire today, was extended as expected, the SEC saying it will be removed no later than October17.

As the Wall Street Journal says about it this morning, "The decision two weeks ago to ban short-selling of nearly 1,000 stocks failed to prevent big declines in share prices in some of the best-known financial companies, has made an already edgy stock market more volatile, and has raised trading costs for all investors."

Have the troubled financial firms found another way to trick investors? Last week Goldman Sachs wanted to raise $10 billion from investors by selling more stock. They made Warren Buffett an offer no one in their right mind would refuse, $5 billion of preferred stock at a discount, that will also pay him a juicy 10% coupon yield, plus warrants as a sweetener on the side that allow him to buy common stock 8% lower than the current price at some time in the future, if the stock goes up. It worked great. After announcing Buffett was investing in their stock, they had no trouble selling the new issue of common stock.

Yesterday G.E., after having had to assure Wall Street for the third time in a month that its finance arm would not face a funding squeeze, announced it was going to raise $15 billion of capital by selling additional common shares.

And G.E. was also able to announce that Warren Buffett is investing in G.E., always a big influence on investors, as in if Buffett is buying, it must be a buy. As did Goldman Sachs the prior week, G.E. had pre-arranged with Buffett so they could make that announcement, allowing Buffett to buy $3 billion in preferred stock, plus giving him warrants allowing him to buy $3billion of common stock at $22.25 a share any time in the next five years. Buffett dutifully came out and made positive noises about G.E. being "the symbol of American business in the world, with strong global brands and businesses."

What an inexpensive way for firms to move their stock in difficult times, using the image of "the smartest investor in the world". And all Buffett has to do is sit there and wait for them to come to him, to pay billions for the use of his name. What a deal. Which firm will be next?

What a fantastic deal for Warren Buffett - how can I get billions for using my name?

Nicole + Josh

We shot their engagement photos a few months ago, and now got to finish the job with the wedding.

Man I was pretty stoked when Nicole came out with a bird's nest veil and a vintage look! I love it! It was a pretty cold day but we got some great shots, even if I had to lay on the highway to get them.

Thank you guys for letting me be a part of your day - it was great fun hanging with you two! and the wedding party was a blast as well. Thanks for hanging in there despite the cold.

Photo time:














What fantastic brown eyes she has!

If you're friends or family of Nicole and Josh and wish to see ALL of their photos, CLICK HERE to be notified when their online gallery is launched!

And now a show of slides, just press play: