Tips for Cyber Monday and Giving Tuesday

With Black Friday in the rear view window, it’s time to focus on Cyber Monday, a holiday first mentioned in a NRF press release in 2005. At that time, the organization noted that the sharp increase in web traffic after the Thanksgiving weekend occurred because “consumers may have faster or more secure Internet connections at work and choose to shop there.” Despite having faster connections eleven years later, consumers are still lured by Cyber Monday deals. Shoppers spent $3.19 billion last year on the day and that number is expected to rise this year - according to Adobe Digital Insights, it is expected to be the largest online shopping day in history.

If you are planning to click away, here are Network World’s 12 Tips for Safer Shopping:

• Only download or buy apps from legitimate app stores.
• Suspect apps that ask for too many permissions.
• Check out the reputation of apps and particularly the app publisher.
• Only enter credit card info on secure shopping portals.
• Avoid using simple passwords, and use two-factor authentication if you can.
• Be alert for poisoned search results when using search engines to find products.
• Don’t install software that sites require before you can shop.
• Don’t use free pubic Wi-Fi to make purchases.
• Be suspicious of great deals you learn about via social media or from email addresses you don’t recognize.
• Turn off location services while shopping to minimize the potential personal data that could be compromised.
• Make sure the connection to e-commerce sites is secured (HTTPS).
• Double check the validity of the SSL certificate for the site.

In addition to Cyber Monday, the holiday weekend now extends to Giving Tuesday. Last year, over 700,000 people raised $116 million in over 70 countries and expectations are for even larger numbers this year, because post-election charitable giving has already spiked dramatically. Even before the election, Americans were known for their generosity. The U.S. is the world’s second most generous nation in the world (after Myanmar), according to the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF).

Americans gave $373.25 billion in 2015 and with changes to the tax code likely to occur next year, there could be a surge in giving before the end of 2016. Financial planners and tax preparers are urging clients to step up their charitable giving this year, because deductions are likely to be less valuable or potentially go away, in the coming years.

As you rush to complete your donations, you should be aware that earlier this year, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said “Fake charities set up by scam artists to steal your money or personal information are a recurring problem.”

To help avoid a costly mistake, here is a four-step checklist for your charitable giving.

Step 1: Confirm that the Charity is Legitimate. One of the simplest scams perpetuated by fraudsters involves using a name that seems familiar to a nationally known organization. To help taxpayers conduct research on organizations, the IRS has established an online search tool, Exempt Organizations Select Check , which allows users to search for and select an exempt organization and check certain information about its federal tax status and filings.

Remember, there’s a big difference between “tax exempt” and “tax deductible.” Tax-exempt means the organization doesn’t have to pay taxes. Tax deductible means you can deduct your contribution on your federal income tax return. Select Check allows you to find legitimate, qualified charities to which donations may be tax-deductible. Legitimate charities will provide their Employer Identification Numbers (EIN), if requested, which can be used to verify their legitimacy through EO Select Check. The IRS notes that it “is advisable to double check using a charity's EIN.”

Step 2: Research Charity’s Financial Health. Once you have confirmed that the group is legitimate, you can also see what others say about the organization by going to the Better Business Bureau’s (BBB) Wise Giving Alliance, Charity Watch and GuideStar. You will also want to know that its finances are healthy and that it is efficient, ethical and effective. Charity Navigator provides 0 to 4-star rating system, which includes a review of each charity’s fiscal performance. The site also helps you understand what portion of your donation goes to support overhead, versus goes to the cause itself.

Step 3: Determine how you will donate to the charity. You should NEVER send cash donations or wire money to someone claiming to be a charity. And do no not provide any personal or financial information until you’ve thoroughly researched the charity. If you are making a gift of appreciated securities from a taxable investment account, you will need to get information about how to send the assets-be sure to confirm all receiving account numbers.

If you are planning to send a check, your payments must be postmarked by midnight December 31^st -- just writing “December 31st” on the check does not automatically qualify you for a deduction; and pledges aren’t deductible until paid. Donations made with a credit card are deductible as of the date the account is charged, so if you are a little late in the process, you probably should stick to credit cards.

Step 4: Keep Good Records. For any cash or property valued at $250 or more, you must have a receipt (bank record, payroll deduction or written communication) identifying the organization, the date and amount of the contribution and a description of the property. For text message donations, flag the telephone bill with the name of the receiving organization, the date of the contribution, and the amount given.

MARKETS: In a holiday-shortened week, all four US stock indexes closed at new record highs and saw their third consecutive week of gains.

• DJIA: 19,152, up 1.5% on week, up 9.9% YTD
• S&P 500: 2213, up 1.4% on week, up 8.3% YTD
• NASDAQ: 5398, up 1.5% on week, up 7.8% YTD
• Russell 2000: 1347, up 2.4% on week, up 18.6% YTD (15-day winning streak)
• 10-Year Treasury yield: 2.36% (from 2.34% week ago, highest since July 2015)
• British Pound/USD: 1.2477 (from 1.2356 week ago)
• January Crude: $46.06, down 0.6% on week
• February Gold: $1,186.10, down 2.5% on week, 9-month low
• AAA Nat'l avg. for gallon of reg. gas: $2.12 (from $2.15 wk ago, $2.05 a year ago)

THE WEEK AHEAD: The Labor Department will release the final employment report before the Federal Reserve’s December 13-14 policy meeting. Barring a very strange reading (the consensus estimate for job creation in November is 170,000 and the unemployment rate should remain at 4.9 percent) or a sudden, exogenous event, a quart-point rate increase is assumed to be a done deal.

Mon 11/28:

8:30 Chicago Fed National Activity Index

Tues 11/29:

8:30 Q3 GDP-2^nd Estimate

9:00 US/S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indices

10:00 Consumer Confidence Index

Weds 11/30:

OPEC Meeting in Vienna

8:15 ADP Private Payrolls Report

8:30 Personal Income and Spending

9:45 Chicago PMI

10:00 Pending Home Sales

2:00 Fed Beige Book

Thurs 12/1

Motor Vehicle Sales

9:45 PMI Manufacturing Index

10:00 ISM Manufacturing

10:00 Construction Spending

Friday 12/2

8:30 November Jobs Report

Hot Fun in the Summertime for Housing and the Economy

Happy summer! This is the season when the economy, investors and workers often take a breather, though this year, there is hope that a bit of spring will pervade the next few months. The much hoped for housing recovery never took hold during the normally vibrant spring buying/selling season. And after a weaker than expected report on housing starts and a slump in mortgage activity last week, investors are bracing for more details about the nation’s real estate market. This week, there will be data on new and existing home sales activity, as well as prices. Bad first quarter weather-related weakness aside, part of the recent slowdown in housing is attributable to sheepish buyers, who were spooked by rising prices, especially in certain hot housing markets. Between April 2013 and April 2014, the median national price for an existing single-family home rose 4.7 percent to $201,100, according to the National Association of Realtors, while during the same time period, rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages increased by 0.7 percent to 4.14 percent, presuming that you qualify for a loan. (While it has become a bit easier to secure mortgage financing, credit scores remain critical to the process. The average FICO score on accepted residential mortgage applications for home purchase has fallen from 742 to 726 over the past year, which is above the average score for US households of 690.)

The drop off in housing activity caused residential investment to be a drag on economic growth in the first quarter of the year. This week, the government will release its third and final estimate of first quarter economic growth, which is likely to show that the economy contracted by more than the one percent reading that was previously reported. Some economists are predicting that the economy shrank by as much as two percent in the first three months of the year.

But that is all in the past, according to the analysts at Capital Economics, who anticipate that the recovery “is finally about to shift into a higher gear.” To what do they attribute the ebullient outlook? An steadily improving labor market, which is likely to augment wage growth in the second half of 2014 and beyond; an increase in consumer spending, which will be boosted by the afore-mentioned income growth; a pick up in business investment after a two year pause; a federal government which has temporarily stopped creating problems in the form of debt ceiling crises; and the wealth effect from the rising stock and housing markets, coupled with a drop in household debt.

Nowhere was that wealth effect seen more clearly than in the most recent Cap Gemini SA/Royal Bank of Canada analysis of the world’s millionaires. Nearly 2 million people around the world became millionaires (defined as having at least $1 million dollars in investments such stocks, bonds, cash, and primary residences) last year, a 15 percent increase from a year ago. There are now a record 13.7 million millionaires, who are sitting on $46.2 trillion dollars.

MARKETS: Investors are feeling mellow, according to the St. Louis Fed, which announced that its Financial Stress Index fell to its lowest level since the regional bank started tracking the data in 1993. This jibes with the fall-off in the volatility index (VIX), which is hovering at seven-year lows. You might excuse investors for getting a bit complacent. After all, Friday marked the 45th straight day that the S&P 500 closed up or down less by than 1 percent, the longest stretch of muted market action since 1995.

• DJIA: 16,947, up 1% on week, up 2.2% YTD (11th closing record of the year)
• S&P 500: 1962, up 1.4% on week, up 6.2% YTD (22^nd record close of year)
• NASDAQ: 4,368, up 1.3% on week, up 4.6% YTD (highest close since April 7, 2000)
• 10-Year Treasury yield: 2.63% (from 2.6% a week ago)
• July Crude Oil: $107.26, up 0.3% on week
• August Gold: $1316.60, up 3.3% on week
• AAA Nat'l average price for gallon of regular Gas: $3.68 (from $3.59 a year ago)

THE WEEK AHEAD:

Mon 6/23:

8:30 Chicago Fed

10:00 Existing Home Sales

SCOTUS to rule on legality of online broadcaster Aereo

Tues 6/24:

9:00 Case-Shiller Home Price Index

10:00 New Home Sales

10:00 Consumer Confidence

Weds 6/25:

8:30 Durable Goods Orders

8:30 Q1 GDP (Final reading)

Thurs 6/26:

8:30 Weekly Jobless Claims

8:30 Personal Income/Spending

Fri 6/27:

9:55 Consumer Sentiment