How to Get an iPhone 5C for Half Price

Are you thinking about getting an Apple (AAPL) iPhone 5C but thinking of holding off because of the price? Then how does fifty bucks sound? You can get a brand new iPhone 5C from Best Buy (BBY) as long as you sign up for a two year contract.

This offer is only available until October 7, according to Business Insider. Also, there is no discount on the iPhone 5S.

Here is how it works. You buy the phone for $100, but they give you a $50 gift card at time of purchase that you can immediately use towards your purchase.

Stocks that Own the Shortest Domain Names: One Letter Long

You may have recently seen my article, Stocks that Own the Highest Priced Domain Names, and wondered about some of the other interesting domain names. For example, there are very few one-letter domain names that are owned by companies, but generally the companies are stocks that the average investor can own.

The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority put a restriction on single character domains back on December 1, 1993, so if a corporation didn't own the name back then, it would have had to purchase it. Here is a list of one letter domain names and the stocks that own them.

a.co is owned by Amazon.com (AMZN)
 
o.co and o.info are both owned by Overstock.com (OSTK).

q.com is owned by CenturyLink (CTL). If you go to q.com, it takes you right to CenturyLink's web site.

x.com is owned by x.commerce, which is owned by eBay (EBAY). When you go to the x.com website, it takes you to the x.commerce website.

x.co is owned by GoDaddy.

y.co is owned by YCO Group Plc, a luxury yacht company. The stock trades on the London Matched Markets Exchange.

z.com is owned by Nissan North America Inc., which is owned by Nissan Motor (NSANY), which trades on NASDAQ. However, the website is currently inactive.

i.net is owned by Future Media Architects, a privately held company. The company also owns c.tv, h.tv, k.tv and n.tv along with several other dot tv domain names.

u.tv is owned by UTV Media (UTV.L), a broadcasting and New Media company based in Belfast in Northern Ireland. The company trades on the London Stock Exchange.

Is anyone aware of any others that I may have missed?

Recent Purchases of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway

Recently, the Forbes 400 issue hit the newsstands and mailboxes, reporting that Warren Buffett, head of Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A) (BRK-B), is the second richest person in America, with a net worth of $58.5 billion. (Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft (MSFT) was in first place.)

When Warren Buffett invests, investors listen. Many investors like to follow in Warren Buffett's footsteps. The way to do that is to see what Buffett is buying. During the second quarter of this year, Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway made only two purchases, Suncor Energy (SU) and Dish Network (DISH).

Dish Network is a provider of direct broadcast satellite subscription television services. The stock trades at 85 times trailing earnings and 24 times forward earnings. The company generated earnings of 56 cents a share for the latest reported quarter, versus a loss for the same quarter a year ago. Revenues for the latest quarter were up 1.0%. The next earnings announcement is November 4. It has $9.53 billion in cash, which works out to over $20 in cash per share. However, the company does carry debt in the amount of $14.17 billion.

Suncor is a Calgary, Alberta, Canada based integrated energy company which targets petroleum reserves in the Athabasca oil sands. The stock trades at eleven times forward earnings and 1.37 times sales. The stock yields 2.2% and has increased its dividend paid out each year since 2008.

If you want to access a free list of all of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, you can get it at WallStreetNewsNetwork.com.

 Disclosure: Author didn't own any of the above at the time the article was written.

By Stockerblog.com

Will the Government Shutdown Be Good or Bad for the Economy?

It happened! Today, the United States government shutdown began. Did investors care? Not really; the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 62 points and the NASDAQ was up 46.5 points.

So let's look at how the government shutdown might affect the economy. There are about 2.8 million non-uniformed employees of the Federal government, according to the Office of Personnel Management. Obviously, not all of these employees will stop working, as many of them are in jobs that are considered critical. Economists estimate that 600,000 to 800,000 workers will be furloughed.

These Fed workers are all across the US. They will cut back on spending, which can hurt local economies, and if the shutdown lasts long enough, they may not be able to pay their mortgages, which will cause more foreclosures and hurt the real estate market. Even state and local governments receive government funding, so they will be adversely affected.

Companies that do a lot of business with the Federal government will suffer. Although I'm sure the government will eventually be good for the money, if the shutdown drags on, it could affect the short term revenue results could be affected. Some of the largest government contractors include Lockheed Martin Corporation (LMT), The Boeing Company (BA), Northrop Grumman Corporation (NOC), General Dynamics Corporation (GD), and Raytheon Company (RTN).

The travel industry may be slightly affected, especially in the areas of national parks, but instead of tourists traveling to Yosemite, they will go to Disneyland instead. So this could help stocks such as Disney (DIS), Cedar Fair LP (FUN), Six Flags (SIX), and SeaWorld Entertainment (SEAS).


So what do you think? Will the shutdown be positive, negative, or no effect?

Disclosure: Author owns DIS.