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[ad_1] Welcome to my book update post where I share what books I finished recently + my honest thoughts and star ratings of them. My Reading Goals for 2021 For 2021, I set a goal of reading 3 books per week —  1 fiction book, 1 non-fiction book, and 1 audiobook each week. I know this is an audacious goal, but reading is something I love and it’s a way I learn, challenge my mind, improve as a writer and communicator, and am refreshed and encouraged through inspiring stories. I have a few shelves full of books (mostly that I’ve gotten free), so I decided to choose 52 books from off my shelf to read this year (see my list of 52 books I plan to read in 2021 here). I’ll also read other books that I find/am sent that pique my interest. Plus, I plan to go through a lot of audiobooks (I get mine free from the Libby app). The 3 Books I Finished Recently Off the Clock: Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done First off, I have to say that I have heard of the idea of time tracking for years. But up until I started listening to Off the Clock, I was not convinced it was worth the effort. It just felt like a lot of extra busywork. If you’ve followed here for awhile, you probably know that I use a hybrid of Google Calendar + a Daily Time-Blocked To Do List to stay on track. I’m fairly efficient and productive by nature and tend to have a pretty high capacity and accomplish quite a bit most days.  In Off the Clock, Laura shares how beneficial it can be to actually see and track what we’re doing every minute of every day, instead of just going by what we feel or think we probably are doing most of the day. I was curious if tracking my time would reveal areas where I could improve or if it would just be a lot of time spent filling in little rectangles on a paper for a week! I wouldn’t know until I actually tried time tracking, would I? Read more on how Laura’s book impacted me and what I learned from tracking my time. Can’t Steal My Joy: The Journey to a Difference Kind of Brave This is the heartbreaking story of what it’s like to walk through a really difficult diagnosis of your kids… one that ultimately takes their life. It’s also the story of what courage and confidence in Christ looks like in the face of deep pain, sorrow, and loss. I was inspired and encouraged by what Bekah shared in this book. I think it would be a true encouragement to anyone you know who is walking through debilitating sickness or the loss of a child to illness. My own critique is that the book kind of felt like it skipped around and I struggled to follow the story in places. I think there was so much good stuff in the book, but I would have loved a stronger story arc and editing. Verdict: 3 stars The Trumpet of the Swan We finished the last story by E.B. White in this 3-book collection (all in one book). It’s one I’ve read before to the older three, but I really loved reading it again to Kierstyn. It’s such a fun story — and it doesn’t turn out at all like you’d expect when you first start reading. If you have kids who are ages 5-8 (or so) who love animals and adventure in read alouds, I think they’d really love The Trumpet of the Swan. Have you read it? What have you been reading recently? I’d love to hear! Share in the comments. [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] 53% of Republicans view Trump as true U.S. president – Reuters/Ipsos poll [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] The court also instructed the authorities not to insist on any identity card and said any self declaration will make the migrants eligible for food grains. [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] The ability to look past the now and develop strategies that poise an organization for future success is key to any leadership position in almost any business. It’s true for the mortgage industry and especially the long-term strategies we’ve developed to react to the current low-rate environment brought on by a global pandemic. One of the most fascinating factors that drove rates lower was the decoupling of duration and swap spreads for mortgage- backed securities, which, ironically, analysts expected to be short-lived in 2020. This rally caused rates to drop which lured millions of homeowners to refinance their current home loans throughout 2020, leading to unprecedented loan volume for the entire mortgage industry. While much of the mortgage industry fixated on low mortgage rates the past year, it’s important to understand the anatomy of what drives rates. In the U.S., the federal funds rate refers to the rate that banks can charge other banks for lending excess cash from their reserve balances on an overnight basis. This rate can influence short-term rates on mortgages and credit cards in addition to impacting the stock market. This rate is also set by the Federal Open Market Committee. While they can’t mandate a particular rate across the board, the Federal Reserve can adjust the money supply so that interest rates will move toward the target rate — when they increase the amount of money in the system, rates fall, when they decrease the amount of money, rates rise. This rate is set eight times a year based on economic conditions. Over the last year, Fed Chair Jerome Powell consistently pledged that the Fed would continue to buy mortgage-backed securities to stabilize the American economy, which increased the amount of money in the Federal Reserve System and drove rates lower. This content is exclusively for HW+ members. Start an HW+ Membership now for less than $1 per day. Your HW+ Membership includes: Unlimited access to HW+ articles and analysis Exclusive access to the HW+ Slack community and virtual events HousingWire Magazine delivered to your home or office BECOME A MEMBER TODAY Already a member? log in The post The cyclical nature of the mortgage industry appeared first on HousingWire. [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] The post Blockchain Stocks: 10 of the Best Blockchain Stocks to Invest in Right Now appeared first on Millennial Money. At the heart of the fast-growing cryptocurrency market is blockchain technology. Let’s take a close look at some of the best blockchain stocks investors can buy right now.  10 Top Blockchain Stocks  Coinbase NVIDIA Corporation Square IBM Mastercard Visa  Salesforce.com PayPal Holdings Walmart Microsoft  Coinbase (Nasdaq: COIN)  Let’s kick off this list with one company that simply couldn’t exist without blockchain technology. Coinbase is a cryptocurrency exchange that gives its users the ability to buy and sell digital currency—including bitcoin, Ether, Litecoin, etc.—on the platform.  When users buy and sell the digital coins, those transactions are then logged in a blockchain ledger. This tech is especially important for cryptocurrencies because, as Coinbase says, the transaction “accuracy is constantly being verified.”  This matters because the price of cryptocurrencies is particularly volatile—thanks, in part, to whatever Elon Musk is tweeting about cryptos on any given day—so knowing exactly when and how much was exchanged is extremely important.  Blockchain technology is also critical to Coinbase because it easily allows for secure transactions—even more secure than using that debit card in your wallet with the fancy wireless microchip—and it doesn’t need a bank to verify the exchange. NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA) Tech investors should be very familiar with NVIDIA and its leading position in the graphics processing unit (GPU) market. GPUs are especially adept at performing tasks that CPUs can’t handle as well (like artificial intelligence processing) and they’re also very good at cryptocurrency mining. And while mining bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is only part of the broader blockchain market, investors should know that as blockchain technology becomes more mainstream, it’s likely the servers and other hardware that companies use will increasingly rely on GPUs.  As a leading technology hardware stock, buying shares of NVIDIA will not only give investors some exposure to the broader blockchain trend, but will also allow investors to benefit from artificial intelligence and data centers.  And with NVIDIA’s sales up 53% in fiscal 2021 and its stock up more than 1,000% over the past five years, it’s hard to find a better hardware stock.  Square (NYSE: SQ) Square doesn’t create any specific blockchain technology, but the financial technology (fintech) company does rely significantly on the technology because it’s a major player in the digital currency market.  Square’s popular Cash App allows users to easily buy and sell bitcoin and the company itself has purchased $220 million worth of the cryptocurrency. But Square’s management understands that there’s far more to blockchain technology than just buying crypto. Square CEO Jack Dorsey—who is also the CEO of Twitter (TWTR)—said in 2020 that “there are so many problems we can help solve” with blockchain beyond just using it in the financial sector.  IBM (NYSE: IBM) Another tech stalwart focusing its attention on blockchain technology is IBM. What’s unique about IBM’s opportunity is that the company is building blockchain functionality for some of its clients through its IBM Blockchain service, which it already has up and running.  Specifically, IBM Blockchain helps Nordea Bank (NRDBY) execute secure and safe trades, allows Kroger (KR) to keep track of its food distribution, and helps Marsh McLennan (MMC) to easily check proof-of-insurance records for its contract workers.  IBM’s stock hasn’t exactly been a top performer over the past few years, but the company deserves to be on this list because of its early moves into the blockchain space.  Mastercard (NYSE: MA)  It’s easy to think of Mastercard as just a credit card company, but over the past few years, the company has emerged as one of the top 10 holders of blockchain patents and earned a spot on Forbes‘s Blockchain 50 list. Ok Mastercard, I see you! Mastercard has amassed 89 blockchain patents and 285 applications pending and is already using some of its technology to improve food supply chains and integrate cryptocurrencies into its vast financial services business.  Mastercard is also using blockchain tech to help speed up international transactions—which are typically slow and expensive for the company—and it could help further bolster its financial services as cryptocurrencies become more mainstream in the next few years.  Besides its newly-formed blockchain street cred, the company’s stock has also easily beaten the market over the past five years, with nearly three times the gains of the S&P 500.  Visa (NYSE: V)  Not to be outdone by its payment processing nemesis, Visa has also fully embraced blockchain technology and made a massive move in mid-2021 to use Ethereum’s blockchain to easily convert digital currency into actual money.  Visa is working with Anchorage, a digital asset bank, to cut out the additional time and expense it takes to settle digital currencies and convert them into traditional fiat currencies. In short, Visa is doing some of the same payment processing services it’s done for decades but is now doing it for cryptocurrencies using blockchain technology.  As Anchorage’s cofounder put it, “This would give the next generation of crypto native issuers the option to directly settle with Visa in a digital currency over a public blockchain.”  That sounds cool, but why does this matter? Because converting digital assets to real currencies can be a huge pain and cost time and money. Now that Visa is helping to speed things up and save some money for the companies involved, it proves that blockchain technology is viable and adds credibility to the broader crypto market.  Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM)  Salesforce makes cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) software and over the past few years, this leading CRM company has begun integrating more blockchain tech into its services. The company launched a Salesforce Blockchain back in 2019, a low-code platform that allows companies to share verified, distributed data sets with third parties. If distributed data sets aren’t your thing (I can’t understand why they wouldn’t be!), just know that Salesforce is using blockchain to make data sharing safer and easier for its customers.  One of the

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[ad_1] S&P 500 Racks Up Gains as Bulls Feast on Tech Rebound [ad_2] Source link

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[ad_1] Belarus faces sanctions threat over 'state piracy' as some airlines avoid its airspace [ad_2] Source link