The Federal Reserve Board, which sets US national monetary policy, released minutes from its latest meeting today, striking a tone of temperate growth. [More]
investing
Markets Hit 2011 With A Jump
By 1.3.11
Markets held onto a rally Monday, spurred by news of continuing manufacturing sector growth. The Dow gained .98% in mid-morning trading, the S&P 1.24% and the Nasdaq 1.7%. But don’t start firing up your Scottrades and Etrades just yet unless you’ve got a fifth of Pepto in your desk drawer. 2011 is looking to be just as rocky as ever. [More]
Find Foreclosures Using Google Maps
By 12.13.10
You can check out foreclosures all over the US just by drilling down in Google Maps. [More]
Madoff's Son Hangs Himself
By 12.13.10
The son of convicted ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff was found dead this weekend hanging by his neck from a dog leash. Mark Madoff’s death was ruled a suicide. According to reports, he had been depressed because no one on Wall Street would give him a job. [More]
SEC Charges BofA With Setting Up Fake Bids To Defraud Munis
By 12.7.10
The SEC has charged Banc of America with fraud for rigging municipal bond sales with dummy bids, defrauding hospitals, schools, and other state-run organizations. The bank will pay $137 million to settle these charges. [More]
How To Invest Without Messing With Stocks
By 11.11.10
If you’ve got some extra scratch you’d like to grow into something bigger, do not risk it on the Arizona Cardinals against the point spread. The stock market is definitely a better option, but its volatility and complexity can scare people off. [More]
How Much Do You Suffer Today To Help Yourself Tomorrow?
By 11.7.10
Your future self – the one that hikes his pants above his belly and whines about the good old days – will thank you for sacrificing today to save as much money as possible for retirement. Or maybe he’ll resent you for not having more fun with your funds before opportunities passed you by. [More]
Read The Suicide Note Of A Ponzi Schemer
By 10.27.10
“For decades I’ve felt trapped, like, someone who has had a stroke who can think on the inside, but cannot communicate on the outside. … I feel like I have disappeared long ago. … So here is the story. My secret life of terrible crime.” So begins the suicide note of Robert Markman, whose 20-year Ponzi scheme was only discovered after he shot himself. [More]
Reporters Convert Toxic Assets Into Gold
By 10.15.10
Those crazy NPR Planet Money kids took the money they had left over from their failed toxic asset investment – affectionately known as “Toxie” – and put it all into the next big bubble: gold! For $419 they got one shiny gold coin. In 6 months they’ll sell it, regardless of prices, and in the meantime, report on what happens to it. [More]
Tomorrow Is Deadline To Undo A Roth Conversion For Cash
By 10.14.10
You’ve only got until tomorrow, October 15, to roll it back if you converted a traditional IRA to a Roth in 2009. Why might you want to do this? If the account lost money or you just need cash in hand, you can get back the taxes you paid on the conversion. [More]
SEC: Stock Market "Flash Crash" Caused By Single $4.1B Sale
By 10.1.10
Officials today announced they can trace May’s stock market flash crash to a single transaction. On May 6, 2010, at 2:32 pm, Waddell & Reed Financial of Kansas initiated the sale of 75,000 E-Mini Standard & Poor’s 500 futures contracts. A sale of this size, about $4.1 billion worth, would usually happen over five hours, but instead the trading algorithms sold them within 20 minutes “without regard to price or time.” At 2:42 pm, markets starting plunging 5% in five minutes. [More]
Sex At Goldman Sachs Is Cool As Long As You Report It
By 9.22.10
On the (high) heels of a sex-discrimination lawsuit filed last week by three female current and former Goldman Sachs employees, The Daily Beast takes a look at the investment firm’s official and unofficial internal policies on dating and sex. Basically, a far worse crime than a boss groping a subordinate is a subordinate not reporting it. No news yet though on what their internal policies are on screwing America in the workplace. [More]
New Rule Makes It Easier For Shareholders To Usurp Board Members
By 8.26.10
As of yesterday’s 3-2 SEC ruling, the little guy just got a little more power in the boardroom. When shareholders want to nominate people to the board, the company now has to include those names on the regular ballots passed out to everyone before the annual meeting, even if the company doesn’t like them. [More]
The Era Of "Investing" In Your House Is Over
By 8.23.10
The NYT says using a house to fund a comfortable retirement, pay for the education of your children, and send you on a cruise every winter was a purely 20th century phenomenon. And, like that century, the party is now over. [More]
Your Age -10 = % Of Your Portfolio That Should Be In Bonds
By 8.19.10
Just subtract 10 from your age and that’s how much percentage of your portfolio should be in bonds, commenter sevatt points out. [More]
Subtract Your Age From 110 To Figure Out How Much Of Your Portfolio Should Be In Stocks Vs Bonds
By 8.17.10
With the Feds buying up more Treasuries, bonds are looking attractive. But how much of my portfolio should I have invested in bonds? What’s the proper asset allocation between stocks and bonds? Well, an old-school rule of thumb is that you subtract your age from 110. [More]
Robot Traders Leaving Behind Bizarre "Crop Circles" In Market Data
By 8.11.10
Following the May 6 “flash crash” in which the market plunged 1,000 points in just a few minutes, a data firm started looking at the trades being made by the high-frequency computerized trading bots that have come to loom over over the stock market. By zooming into the trades being placed by the millisecond the firm spotted several strange algorithmic patterns. Plotted on a chart, they look like the freakin’ the stock market equivalent of crop circles. [More]
