new condo

kerstin311 — Sun, 10 May 2009 12:05:28 MDT

new condo - house12.jpg

front of itthe new condo adam is in the process of buying

Realtor

gpage100 — Sun, 9 Aug 2009 13:18:37 MDT

Realtor - 0006050x9rs.jpg

Buying a home is a process that takes time and patients Let me help you

First Time Home Buyer Community

myfirsthome — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 03:35:23 MDT

First Time Home Buyer Community - FirstTimeBuyerHelpandInformation_01.jpg

My First Home originated from our experience in the purchase of our first home We found the entire buying process daunting complicated and stressfulMy First Home has been founded with a commitment to assist and empower ALL home buyers The firsttime buyers may appear to be a dying breed amongst property purchasers nevertheless an essential contributor to the housing marketMy First Home is an independent and privately held online website property company whose aim is to become an intermediary between the professional providers within the property market and home purchasersOur objective includes giving further coverage and knowledge concerning the differing roles within the industry Whilst demonstrating how they relate and complement each other in the property marketWe work alongside Housing Associations House Builders Estate Agents Mortgage Brokers Solicitors Accountants Economists Professionals in Media Marketing Sales and ResearchNot just the place where you live but also almost certainly your single largest financial investment buying your first home is a process worth enjoying and getting right

House we're in the process of buying

biancasbud — Sat, 9 May 2009 10:20:56 MDT

House we're in the process of buying - house.jpg

Do you dress like a douchebag flowchart

pizzler — Sun, 10 May 2009 23:48:08 MDT

Do you dress like a douchebag flowchart - flowchart.jpg

Stock Prices during the Kuwait Souk Al Manakh

don_veto — Thu, 5 Nov 2009 10:42:37 MST

Stock Prices during the Kuwait Souk Al Manakh - manakh_prices.jpg

Perhaps the greatest speculative mania of all time was Kuwaits Souk alManakh stock bubble in the early 1980s which is as fascinating as it was devastating The bull market began when investing in local Gulf Companies became in vogue with Kuwaitis who wished to ride the coattails of the oilinduced Middle Eastern economic boom A peculiar Kuwaiti custom allowed traders to pay for stocks using postdated checks under the assumption that default would be unthinkable Unsurprisingly human avarice prevailed as some traders speculated in stocks paid for by billions of dollars worth of unsecured checks causing the stock market to inflate like a balloon and pop in a most analogous manner The rise in oil prices in the late 1970s created an unprecedented amount of wealth in the oilrich Persian Gulf countries with Kuwait receiving a particularly large share of the good fortune As US stocks embarked down a perilous bear market Kuwaiti shares were experiencing a seemingly unstoppable bull run as nouveau riche Kuwaitis turned to stocks as an investment vehicle to store their wealth The bull market was abetted by the scarcity of Kuwaiti stocks which consisted of only a few dozen uninteresting companies that were traded on the official exchange 1 The scarcity was the result of the royal sheiks reluctance to grant the corporate charters necessary for companies to become publicly traded for fear that companies might become vehicles for stock speculation 2 Kuwaiti investors however werent concerned with risk as their collective memories recalled a market panic in 1976 and 1977 in which the government had moved in to support prices buying heavily for its own account so that nobody would suffer 1 These traders assumed that the government would always be on the sidelines ready to bail the market out if needed in the future in effect creating a floor underneath share prices By the summer of 1981 an unofficial overthecounter stock market was formed called the Souk alManakh which started specializing in the trade of highly speculative unregulated nonKuwaiti companies such as those incorporated in Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates 3 Formerly a camel trading venue 1 the Souks history was long intertwined with trading Not long after the Souks founding the market became a hotbed of speculation overflowing with portly gentlemen in flowing white gowns thobes with capacious pockets full of papers worry beads in one hand cigarette in the other 1 Interest in Kuwaits heavilyregulated official market dwindled as the Souk earned the reputation of being the more exciting of the two markets in which one could double their money within a few months Sharing more similarities with a casino than a stock market the Souk alManakh attracted wealthy highrollers whose preferred method of trading entailed placing orders via car phones 1 Boredom during Ramadan spurred daily flurries of trading activity lasting well into midnight as a form of entertainment 1Souk stocks were Gulf companies incorporated outside of Kuwait and not subject to Kuwaiti regulation with interests ranging from property to poultry farming 4 Fitting the markets gambling nature most of these companies were little more than shell games 2 with very little in the way of assets let alone earnings with only about half of the Manakh companies even publishing annual reports 1 Company fundamentals mattered very little however to traders who regularly saw these same stocks rising 20 to 50 percent a month 1 According to Collapse of the Souk Eventually the securities of fiftyfour real and ficitious offshore companies were traded on the Souk with no relation to company performances or prospects Most of these companies had been established as recently as 1979 or 1980Adding fuel to the fire was the type of informal margin financing through the use of postdated checks which were accepted as a cash equivalent as per Kuwaiti custom This type of personal credit didnt require a bank balance the receiver hopes that there will be one when the due date rolls around 5 The Kuwaiti culture mandated that payment would be made as a default would have violated the tradition of trust 1 as well as caused a loss of face upon the entire family The rapid influx of speculative capital caused Kuwaiti stocks to skyrocket with Souk shares increasing by an average of 63 percent in 1981 3 The prospect of nearly instant wealth proved too enticing causing many Souk players to draw against funds they didnt have convinced that they could simply sell off their shares to raise cash when the checks came due This type of speculation involved financial leverage which can greatly amplify any gains or losses in the underlying market Greed caused traders only to see themselves tripling their money as compared to the equally plausible scenario in which they could have incurred large debts resulting in bankruptcy Trading on the Souk epitomized financial Russian roulette Stock speculation fever gripped Kuwaiti culture as thousands of traders with little business experience rushed to get their hands on any stock they could find As the Souk alManakh market soared to incredible new heights many speculators became willing to issue postdated checks for double or triple a stocks purchase price confident that the share prices would rise by that much by the time they had to pay 1 An informal futures market arose in postdated checks as investors upon receiving their shares used them as collateral to borrow even more money for stock speculation The traders who received the double or triplepremium postdated checks in return for selling their stock then proceeded to discount the checks in return for cash that cash was then parlayed into an even larger stock investment 3 Like the tulip bulb mania and the South Sea bubble before it the Souk alManakh miracle was an illusion an inverted pyramid reliant upon share prices increasing exponentially for its continued existence Word of the Souk alManakh money machine spread like wildfire around the Middle East causing wealthy Palestinians Egyptians and Pakistanis to purchase stock through Kuwaiti nominees as only Kuwaitis could trade legally NonKuwaitis were just as eager to invest despite their lack of legal standing At the booms peak in 19801981 some stocks were advancing 100 percent per month with some advancing tentimes One stock The Gulf Company for Industrial Development even advanced fifteenfold The combination of extreme stock gains and astronomical amounts of leverage made many speculators millionaires and billionaires many times over The IPO market flourished as enterprising and crafty business people sought to take advantage of the credulous investing publics insatiable appetite for shares of all kinds Scam companies were spawned overnight with neither customers nor products while legally escaping the regulation of Kuwaiti authorities One IPO example was formerly a failed 100 million real estate venture that was converted to a hospital called Gulf Medical and brought public by the individuals looking to recoup their initial investment So successful was the IPO that it was 2600 times oversubscribed where for a whole week one to two planeloads of completed subscription forms arrived daily from around the Middle East The investment bank hired forty Egyptian schoolteachers to process the stacks of paperwork Over the next few months Gulf Medical proceeded to to advance 800 percent garnering the owners a handsome profit 1 Shares of investment companies that invested in other Souk stocks were among the more popular types of stocks traded creating a large amount of overlap between stock opportunities as well as serving to inflate the market as whole Even more preposterous were the Fund of Funds of Fundsinvestment funds that specialized in investing in companies that invested in Manakh companies Each Manakh fund sold at large premiums over their assets 1 highlighting their sole purpose of making a quick profit at the expense of their investorsThe height of the societywide insanity occurred as eight individuals known as the Cavaliers floated a total of 55 billion in postdated checks seemingly in an attempt to corner the market The most prolific check writer of the Cavaliers was Jassim alMutawa a Passport Office employee in his earlytwenties who managed to pass off 14 billion all by himself Sloppy accounting on the part of his brother and partner Najeeb alMutawa caused Jassim to become a staggering 34 billion overdrawn 1 According to Collapse of the SoukEventually approximately 29000 checks amounting to 93 billion were estimated to have been written against the shares of companies that were for practical purposes worthless Even government leaders werent immune to the stock speculation fever with members of the ruling alSabah party and members of Parliament trying their luck in the market It was even rumored that the Minister of Commerce Jassim alMarzouk tried his hand in the market despite it being his responsibility to regulate it 1The vast pools of cash being pumped into the market resulted in over 35 billion shares having traded hands by early 1982 4 with Kuwaits total market capitalization rocketing from 5 billion to an unsustainable 100 billion 1 Despite Kuwaits miniscule size its market capitalization was the third highest in the world behind only the United States and Japan 2 By late 1982 share prices commonly doubled by the hour and no price was considered too high to pay for a share4 Stories abound of outsiders questioning the Souk alManakh markets sustainability only to be dismissed with quips such as But things are different here Our government cant permit a collapse 1 and You Westerners have been coming here for five yearsyou all have predicted a crash Dont you understand there has never been a place on earth like the Gulf with such unprecedented wealth You will never understand that the Gulf market cannot crash 2 Just like in the tulip bulb mania the Mississippi Buble the South Sea Bubble the 1929 bubble the Nasdaq Bubble investors thought they were in a New Era The Kuwaiti version of the New Era stemmed from their taking for granted that the government would support share prices and the assumption that the Persian Gulf oil economy would keep soaring to even more spectacular heights In August of 1982 a female speculator presented one of Jassim alMutawas postdated checks for payment ahead of its due date catching him unable to pay his debts Within an instant the Souk alManakh house of cards imploded throwing hundreds of speculators into default Gulf Medical lost 98 percent of its value To make matters worse an overabundance of oil suppressed prices dropping Kuwaits 1982 oil revenues to only a quarter of those of 1980 Most devastating was the statement by Kuwaits new finance minister Abdelatif alHamad indicating that he had no intention of supporting the market at the insane levels to which it had risen1 preferring that speculators should pay for their sins in accordance with Islamic tradition 3 The Souks decline was so instantaneous and dramatic that it couldnt even be considered a crash as there were simply no bids 2 By September 1982 the Ministry of Finance ordered all dubious checks to be turned in for clearance tallying the value of worthless checks at 91 billion 5 The final result of the worlds greatest speculative orgy was a loss equivalent to 90000 for every Kuwait man woman and child 3 and commerce slowing to a trickle The Kuwaiti government promptly shut down the Souk alManakh built a new stock exchange and started over again

House we are buying

andria69 — Mon, 11 May 2009 06:45:28 MDT

House we are buying - 100_0056.jpg

We made the down payment and are in the process of moving in now