Veteran financial writer Melissa Preddy served as a business writer, editor and columnist for The Detroit News from 1995 to 2008, is a Michigan-based freelance journalist. Follow her daily posts.
After a few months of freak snowstorms, floods and southern chills, your readers may be eyeing those colorful gardening catalogues with even more optimism than usual. Hoeing a row or two of beans will seem like a snap compared to slogging through slush and ice.
From houseplants to turf, from the odd rosebush to entire yards’ [...]
Miscellaneous is probably my favorite among the 600,000-plus words in our English language. Like potpourri, salmagundi, hodgepodge, pastiche and its others sisters, it conjures up pleasant notions of variety, spontaneity and surprise.
That’s what you’re getting today: A veritable gallimaufry and mélange of topics that don’t quite merit their own posts but nevertheless will make for [...]
Health care reform limped back to center stage this week. And though the final outcome is as yet uncertain, one thing is for sure: Your readers will be wondering about how various scenarios will affect them.
That includes small businesspersons and corporate chiefs as well as individuals, so you have plenty of story angles from which [...]
Your readers are starting to find their mailboxes stuffed with bulky envelopes bearing annual reports and proxy statements.
Odds are fairly good that both items will head straight to the residential recycling bin. But there are several good reasons for business readers to take time to peruse the materials and to attend, if possible, annual shareholders [...]
With U.S. stock markets continuing to creep upward, pundits are trotting out bullish forecasts and recommendations, such as this one from MarketWatch.
A lot of the buying is being driven by some better-than-expected fourth-quarter corporate profits and upbeat 2010 outlooks by companies ranging from Target to John Deere. We know how fast all of that can [...]
As of Monday, March 15, readers have exactly one month to get their 2009 income tax returns filed.
Or at least, they have one month to file an extension request,which is automatically granted and buys them another six months to finally get that financial file organized. (Just remember to remind your audience that they still are required [...]
Tax credits. Loan modifications. Deed-for-lease. Short-sale incentives.
It’s getting difficult to keep track of government programs aimed at propping up the frail home buying and selling markets.
And we’re paid to do so. Imagine the confusion among shoppers and sellers facing foreclosure or ready to dip a toe into spring’s residential real estate season.
My suggestion: a graphics-driven [...]
Hard to believe that most of us in the United States will spring our clocks forward on March 14.
(Or, if you’re like me, you’ll shove one timepiece into EDT and get around to the rest sometime before the Kentucky Derby.)
Either way, it seems as though we were just luxuriating in that extra hour of sleep [...]
You think Toyotas with rogue throttles are scary?
Try Pringles with salmonella.
Over the past few days news of another possibly widespread food recall has broken, and your readers will be wondering how it affects them. While you’re at it, you might want to develop a broader piece on food inspection, retail and restaurant inspection and other [...]
