equities

UPDATE 6:15 PM ET: The Dow ended down 777 points for it's largest one day loss ever. The S&P and Nasdaq were both off 9%. The futures market show even greater losses are expected tomorrow.A brutal day in the markets was made that much…

The House of Representatives in the United States has defeated the proposal originally crafted by U.S. Treasury Secretary to help bail the U.S. out of financial difficulties. My hope is that Congress can get to business and craft a…

I am listening to C-Span where the House of Representatives is debating whether to pass the deeply flawed bailout bill that has been crafted on the heels of major disturbances in financial services. Unfortunately, this bill is not going to…

I just watched a great clip of an interview Jim Chanos, the famous head of hedge fund Kynikos Associates, did with the FT's Gillian Tett (Hat tip FT Alphaville). Chanos does a very good job of arguing hat short sellers are being unfairly…

The interesting thing about the Paulson proposal is that it gives the U.S. Treasury carte blanche to buy any of these toxic assets at any price it chooses. This is relevant because of mark to market rules in FAS 157. I have posted a few…

It seems incredible - this rollback of the free markets. But, six countries have now banned short sellers of financial shares as if they are solely responsible for the market meltdown we suffered in the wake of the Lehman bankruptcy. The…

Recently I wrote a post on the safety of investment assets in the wake of the Lehman and AIG meltdowns. Even still, retail and individual investors are noticeably nervous about the safety of their funds.Last night on the radio, I heard a…

It's 8AM on the morning after a 500 point loss on the Dow. It could have been a lot worse, honestly. So I'm happy to have gotten away with that. Nevertheless, trading in Asia was not exactly confidence building with the Nikkei 225 down…

In case you missed it, the financial system in the U.S. is near collapse. This weekend was unbelievable. Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. The world's largest insurer AIG is looking for the Fed to help it avoid collapse and Merrill…

While everybody's focused on the 'good' news about the Fannie-Freddie bailout and they are partying like it's 1999, it might be a good time to slip in that bad news you were going to announce next week. Let's see if any company is crafty…