According to MarketWatch, the underlying rate of U.S. inflation accelerated in January. MarketWatch, reporting on statistics released by the US Department of Labor said that the consumer price index increased 0.4% in January, driven by 0.7% gains in both energy and food prices. The core CPI (Consumer Price Index), which excludes food and energy costs, was also up 0.3% in January. MarketWatch reported that this was the largest gain since June 2006. Economists were expecting the CPI to rise 0.3% in January after a 0.4% gain in December. The core rate was expected to rise 0.2% after rising 0.2% in the previous month. What does this rise in inflation mean for you? In the short term, rising prices may continue to stimulate the Federal Reserve to control interest rates downward. So you can expect your credit card interest to at least stay where it is or go a little later for the moment.

Financial Blogs

Lately I've been poking around looking for some financial blogs. Personally, I really liked MarketWatchCommunity from Dow Jones, which is closed, but built off of their MarketWatch product from its own more than 14,000 writers and editors. I also found in an Octover 7, 2007 article in CNNMoney.com an odd assortment of useful ones. See Best financial blogs, There are thousands of sites devoted to finance...these 10 may just help you make some money. CNNMoney's list includes: Seeking Alpha, links to everything from analysis of media and Internet stocks to investing in China; The Asset Allocator! provides links, each day, to articles on top business stories and corporate blogs and top business news sites and U.S. Government office sites, and other investment resources; CANSLIM Investing contains easy to read stock picks, analysis, and market commentary; The Kirk Report written by Charles E. Kirk, an individual investor; Big Ben's Investing Blog has specific information on certain stocks; The Thinking Bull, a compilation of online financial articles; Random Roger's Big Picture for investors looking for overseas investing ideas by Roger Nusbaum an investment advisor from Your Source Financial; Footnoted.org by Michelle Leder, a financial journalist; Stock and commodity trading, technically oriented, covering day to day stock market activity; and Thinkblog, by the ThinkEquity Partners, a research and investment banking company. I also found one I liked that was broken, but so well organized that I really wished it was more than a thin stream... Vestopia.com, like Jim Cramer... dedicated to closing the information gap between consumers and professional investors. It offers intelligence from a tiny group of mediocre market professionals... but holds the well organized promise of filtering a much larger group of advisors by focus and expertise: Iinvestment asset class (Equity, Fixed Income, Blends, ETFs, Options, Derivatives, International, Hybrid, and Mutual Funds); investment approach(Fundamental, Technical, Fund. and tech., and Quantitative); as well as equity strategy(Growth, Value, and Core). Too bad there only seem to be a few contributors and the registration is broken or not yet developed.