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Posted
Oct 24 2008, 01:38 PM
by
Minyanville
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This just in: Alan Greenspan isn't infallible, and the banking industry's hard-headed self-interest doesn't count for much when unleavened by a smidgeon of insight.
Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve Chairman, told a Congressional hearing that the credit crunch exceeded anything he had imagined; he goofed in thinking that banks would act intelligently to protect themselves from risky mortgages.
Democratic Representative Henry Waxman of California and chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said that the Federal Reserve, the US Treasury and the Securities and Exchange Commission pushed "the prevailing attitude in Washington…that the market always knows best."
Please, people: We're facing a serious mess, and turning things around requires more than artful butt-covering in the final days before November 4th's presidential election.
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Posted
Feb 02 2009, 04:08 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Some communicable diseases can be traced back to what medical researchers call "patient zero", the first carrier of an illness and often someone who has no symptoms. One of the most notorious examples of this is "Typhoid Mary", Mary Mallon, who is alleged to have spread typhoid fever in New York City and its suburbs between 1901 and 1906.
The global recession has a "patient zero", a single person who set off the series of events which may lead the economy into its greatest downturn since The Great Depression and, by some estimates, push 50 million people around the world out of jobs this year, according to The International Labour Organisation.
"Patient zero" bought a house in Stockton, California, in 2003 after getting a subprime mortgage. He defaulted on that mortgage 39 months later.
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Posted
Mar 09 2009, 04:05 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
The U.S. is calling for other nations to put more money into their credit and financial systems to help pull the world out of a deepening recession.
One of the problems is that many countries may not have access to the capital they would need to pull their own weight.
According to Lawrence Summers, President Barack Obama's chief economic adviser, the urgent need for a short-term spending increase by governments temporarily overrides the longer-term goal of fixing the global imbalances economists belief caused the financial crisis, the Financial times reports.
It's not clear that the United Kingdom and EU nations can print money the way that the US Treasury can because they may not have the same access to global capital markets.
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Posted
Mar 26 2009, 03:44 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Looking at statistics from India, it's clear that the cost of outsourcing technology work to firms there is dropping as unemployment in the country rises.
For a number of years, unions and members of Congress spent a great deal of time complaining about the number of U.S. jobs being sent abroad. The bitterness about the issue has receded recently, especially as the recession has deepened and large American companies have been inclined to cut jobs as much or more than they have been able to export them. Perhaps with the economy losing about 600,000 jobs a month, the need for efficiency through outsourcing has become less immediate.
But, outsourcing may be making a big comeback, with word that IBM (IBM) would cut about 5,000 jobs in the U.S. and move the work to India. This may be the beginning of a new wave of exporting of American jobs to developing countries which have large pools of well-educated workers.
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Posted
Jun 03 2009, 07:41 PM
by
Catherine Holahan
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
The market's recent thaw has again opened the window for
initial public offerings. But investors
hoping that a gust of IPOs will fuel the market's rally are due for disappointment.
The hottest tech companies are unlikely to make a public exit any time
soon. In fact, investors hoping to buy
stock in popular social sites such as Facebook,
Digg and LinkedIn will likely have to wait until 2010 and beyond.
"We have no plans to go public," said Facebook
spokesman Larry Yu in an interview. His comments echoed earlier statements by Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg that an IPO is not on the horizon.
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Posted
Jul 24 2009, 09:49 AM
by
John Reese
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
My investment philosophy is based on a central concept: Individuals can beat the market by learning from the wisdom of history's greatest investors. In that spirit, at the end of every week I recap what the market gurus I follow are saying about the investment world and the economy.
This week, these gurus have been making some pretty bullish statements -- or at the very least not sounding bearish. For example, some big-name hedge fund managers who made out shorting stocks last year, including Crispin Odey and Phillipe Jabre, are now finding major short positions to be too risky, Reuters reported.
Now, they are tilting their portfolios mostly -- or completely -- to the long side. Odey said that “equities now look exceptionally cheap against cash," and has his European fund 65% long in equities. Jabre says he has no short positions because it would be “too dangerous.”
They aren't the only strategists who have stopped shorting. Commodities guru Jim Rogers told Bloomberg this week that, for one of the few times in his career, he has no major short positions.
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Posted
Jul 28 2009, 01:35 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Jobless Jon Kolbe of Florida used every Internet avenue to find new employment -- Facebook, job boards, LinkedIn and Twitter. He created a Web site and an online contest called "Help Jon Kolbe Find a Job."
Nada. Nothing, until a stranger's tweet helped land his best lead in many months, The Miami Herald reports. It's more proof that Twitter is becoming a hot source for jobs. According to the Herald:
There are so many job messages being sent on Twitter that tools like TwitterJobSearch.com have been created to sort through jobs in various industries. There are more than 5,200 results for social media jobs and another 20,550 for the health care industry.
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Posted
Sep 25 2009, 11:53 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
That cagey old Dow Jones industrial average is sneaking close to 10,000 -- truly a milestone considering how miserable everything was not too long ago. But will 10,000 be a celebration? Think of it more as a ceiling than a floor, writes Conrad deAenlle on CBS MoneyWatch.com. He uses history as a guide, noting that the Dow shifted into reverse after reaching 100 in 1906 and after hitting 1,000 in 1966. The Dow surpassed 10,000 in 1999 and continued its march to 12,000 by the end of the year, deAenlle writes. It dropped below that mark in 2001 and 2002 before soaring to 14,000 two years ago. Bing: History of the Dow
The problem with a historic Dow milestone like 10,000 is that the
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Posted
Sep 26 2009, 09:07 AM
by
Jim Van Meerten
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
At the end of each week on my blog Financial Tides, I like to analyze what the market did by using several ways to evaluate the trends. There is some tracking error in each method, which is why I like to use several and then compare the results of each to get a consensus. I use BarChart to get all my data. Here's where we stand after the week ending Sept. 25: Value Line Index -- VLA: This is an arithmetic index of 1,700 stocks followed by Value Line. I like a mathmatical index because it duplicates the way most individuals purchase stocks. You buy 10 or 20 stocks with equal dollar amounts of each. Professionals and mutual funds might weight by market cap but most individuals don't.
- The VLA was down 66.6 points for a loss of 3.05%
- BarChart uses 13 technical indicators and the VLA was a buy on 6, a hold on 4 and a sell on 3 TA indicators for an Overall rating of buy 24%
- The Index was tracking above its 20-, 50- and 100-day moving average
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Posted
Oct 07 2009, 07:23 PM
by
Vad Yazvinski
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect” -- Mark Twain
One of the main arguments "perma-bears" used in justifying why the recent stock rally is (and was) destined to fail miserably, has certainly been a widespread expectation of an upcoming collapse in the commercial real estate market.
Just yesterday the Wall Street Journal reported that "banking regulators are girding for a rerun of the housing-related losses now slamming thousands of banks that failed to set aside enough capital during the boom to cushion themselves when the bubble burst. 'Banks will be slow to recognize the severity of the loss -- just as they were in residential,' according to the Fed presentation, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal".
This is true. It has been clear for a while that hundreds of smaller banks heavily exposed to commercial real estate market are likely to fail or require more capital during the next 18 months or so. But isn't everyone expecting that at this point?
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