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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Chen who wrote (213347)	7/30/2009 3:10:42 PM
From: Les H	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 306849

Equivalent to a Short Sale Ban? Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo put inverse and leveraged funds under review; Discount brokers may also be next to curb trading of short and levered ETFs bloomberg.com

To: John Chen who wrote (213347)	7/30/2009 8:25:13 PM
From: Jim McMannis	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 306849

And people want to let them run healthcare? Sources: Government to stop ‘cash for clunkers’ msnbc.msn.com Officials worried $1 billion rebate program may quickly run out of money July 30: The government's so-called "cash for clunkers" program has increased auto sales so much that dealers asked Congress Thursday to expand the program. NBC's Chris Jansing reports. American automakers are offering some amazingly good prices on their products as they try to climb out of the abyss of the global financial meltdown. Here are 10 of the best. The government plans to suspend its popular “cash for clunkers” program amid concerns it could quickly use up the $1 billion in rebates for new car purchases, congressional officials said Thursday. The Transportation Department called lawmakers’ offices to alert them to the decision to suspend the program at midnight Friday. The program offers owners of old cars and trucks $3,500 or $4,500 toward a new, more fuel-efficient vehicle. The congressional officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Rae Tyson, a spokesman for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which administers the program, declined comment. Congress last month approved the Car Allowance Rebate System program, known as CARS, to boost auto sales and remove some inefficient cars and trucks from the roads. The program kicked off last Friday and was heavily publicized by car companies and auto dealers. Through late Wednesday, 22,782 vehicles had been purchased through the program and nearly $96 million had been spent. But dealers raised concerns about large backlogs in the processing of the deals in the government system, prompting the suspension. A survey of 2,000 dealers by the National Automobile Dealers Association found about 25,000 deals had not yet approved by NHTSA, or nearly 13 trades per store. It raised concerns that with about 23,000 dealers taking part in the program, auto dealers may already have surpassed the 250,000 vehicle sales funded by the $1 billion program. “There’s a significant backlog of ’cash for clunkers’ deals that make us question how much funding is still available in the program,” said Bailey Wood, a spokesman for the dealers association. Dealers had noticed earlier the program was proving to be more successful than they had anticipated, fueling concerns about massive backlogs. Some said cars were flying off the lot faster than they could keep them in stock, promising disappointment for buyers. “In just one week, we’ve gone from having a full-stocked inventory to virtually nothing,” Casey Lindgren, sales manager at Corwin Chrysler-Dodge in Fargo, N.D., told area station KVLY. “This is a major surprise to all of us.” The program was scheduled to run through Oct. 31. The program was designed to spur vehicle sales while the auto industry is struggling with the effects of the economic downturn. U.S. auto sales are selling at a pace of about 10 million units per year, down sharply from a few years ago when they sold at the historic level of 15 million vehicles annually — the benchmark for more than a decade.