Boost Savings with Great Federal Programs

It is difficult for millions of people in America to save money for the future.  Forbes magazine recently published a report stating the approximately sixty-three percent of people in America claim they have difficulties in saving one thousand dollars in case of an emergency.

Struggles for so much of the population prompted the United States federal government to discover new ways of helping this situation.  These agencies developed many new programs specifically designed for encouraging people of every age to start saving money.

Several popular programs are to follow.

Save Money for College

For those wishing to attend college in the near future, take full advantage of plan 529. The plan 529 creates tax savings designed for college students to pay their tuition.
The entire fifty states along with the District of Colombia have both sponsored a minimum of one variation of the 529 plan.

New 2017 tax Laws - The Things to Note

2017 is the year of change in many ways. Although the Trump administration has pledged numerous tax changes, there are pre existing changes included in the law that can affect your 2017 tax returns (which you submit in April 2018). Also, there are other changes that affect your taxes for 2016, which come into force in 2017. These are the key changes to bear in mind:

Timing of tax credits -- The 2015 PATH (Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes) Act states that the IRS is forbidden from sending out refunds or credits for overpayments before February 15th, whenever the EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit) or ACTC (Additional Child Tax Credit) is claimed on returns. This policy comes into force on January 1st, 2017. It does not affect the amount of your 2016 return, however it might reduce your cash flow, in the event that you wanted a reasonably early return to settle bills.

Limited Stores, the well-known women's fashion retailer, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Tuesday of this week, and will be closing all of its stores. Based in New Albany, New York, the retailer will now be under the receivership of Sycamore Partners, a New York private-equity firm that is buying the store's intellectual property rights and other assets. The bankruptcy filing and sale are pending approval from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware.

The chain announced a month ago that more than 240 employees would be laid off at its New Albany headquarters as a result of the sale, with both the CFO (John Buell) and Chief Executive Office (Diane Ellis) leaving in late 2016. The company also released a statement on January 6 stating that the site TheLimited.com, would continue to be in operation once the stores have closed. However, once the bankruptcy filing was made, a message was posted on the website indicting that it would be down temporarily.

Tips for Buying Oil Stocks in 2017

After taking a beating for over two years, the oil industry is making a comeback helped by OPECs plans to cut production by 1.2 million barrels daily. The reduction is expected to be in place by the end of January, 2017. Reports recently received from Saudi Arabia, the second largest industry producer behind Russia, show a production cut of 486,000 barrels daily since January 1. This is de-facto evidence that the production cut is in effect already. Information from the Energy Information Administration in the U.S. also shows a reduction in U.S. stockpiles of 7.1 million barrels in the week ending December 30, 2016. This is another indicator predicting an upcoming increase in global oil markets and stock values.

The service segment of the Apple corporation could be a great stock to keep an eye on in the future. Some experts are saying that this part of the company is now worth over $240 billion. This is drawing many investors to buy it.

Apple Services is now the second largest segment of the company. The biggest is their consumer products division. The services segment has some promising other factors that make it attractive, though.

One promising feature of the services segment is that the number of iOS users is constantly increasing. As there are more users, they are going to need more services. This will increase even more as Apple develops and implements more hardware on the consumer level. There will a lot of service expansions in the future as the amount of different hardware is increased at the consumer level.

Love or hate the results of the 2016 election, both Donald J Trump supporters and those who are less than thrilled with the election's results, can join together to rejoice in at least one aspect of what the Trump administration will mean for America.

Business is projected to boom as Donald Trump comes into the Oval Office. Just released this week, the November reading for the small business optimism index in correlation with the National Federation of Independent Business catapulted from 94.9 percent to 98.4. This is the largest surge in percentages since 2009, a time when many were hopeful that President Obama would pave the way for profit.

However, the red tape that instead ensued and lingered both with Obamacare and other resulted shortcomings of the now-ending presidency of Barrack Obama, washed away much of the optimism for small businesses across the U.S.

Let's take a very close look at the Cedar Fair, L.P. stock to see if it is a successful choice for someone who is considering investing in it.

When you are considering a hedge fund, you have to consider more than just the popularity. You could have a hedge fund that is popular one day and misses the mark and drops in popularity later. What you want to do is examine some of the other variables that the fund may have.

CEO Tim Cook is comfortable with the numbers for Apple Watch

Apple is well-known not to reveal their sales figures for each product. This has left market experts wondering if the Apple Watch is a hit or a miss. The IDC has reported that they are under what the company expected. Apple's CEO, Tim Cook says that they are "just fine".

The market for wearable technology is small. There are only 4 companies. The most popular competitor is FitBit. While we don't know the sales numbers, we do know that Apple has shipped over 70% fewer units in the last year.

Is CLR (Continental Resources, Inc) a Sensible Stock to Purchase?

By and large, NYSE:CLR (Continental Resources, Inc) shares have not seen much action throughout the third quarter. There was no change in the sentiment from hedge funds, and the stock was included in the portfolios of forty-four hedge funds by the end of September. Nonetheless, the change and degree of hedge fund popularity is not the only factor you should consider to determine a hedge fund's perspective. A stock might experience an increase in popularity, however it might still remain less popular than stocks with similar prices. This is why we intend to examine companies like NYSE:MJN (Mead Johnson Nutrition), NYSE:MAR (Marriott International Inc) and NYSE:IX (ORIX Corporation) to acquire additional data points.

Current shares of stock in Cirrus Logic have seen recent surges as high as 7.5 percent, which has exceeded expectations after the company's newly released fancy ear buds have grown in popularity. This type of digital technology is expected to be paired more and more with future releases of Apple devices, and this supplier is also on track to keep supplying more audio chips to the tech giant.

Throughout 2016, the stock value of Cirrus Logic has grown by 94 percent; the trend is so far projected to continue into 2017. Among all the other companies in the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, Cirrus is the third best performer on Wall Street so far.

With Apple's discontinuation of the standard headphone jack in the iPhone 7, the Cirrus audio chips are now standard in each set of headphones shipped with these new devices. Future releases of headphones from Apple will have even more sophisticated versions of this digital technology.