investing

The Dow Jones and the S&P 500 both closed at levels not seen in nearly twelve years. Despite a 'bailout rally' for the financials in the morning, the day was marked by heavy selling with the Dow down to 714 and the S&P ending the…

Everybody is talking about nationalization. The latest trigger is the Citi discussions with the U.S. government to convert taxpayers' preferred shares into common equity. Below are a few Bloomberg video clips from just this morning…

It is not just Eastern Europe and Switzerland where problems are popping up. This from the Berlingske Tidene, a Danish daily:

This comes from Rueters Goldman Sachs Group Inc said several partners must cover margin calls triggered by the depressed value of Goldman stock and many of the firm's hedge funds, but the bank denied it is lending money to its executives.…

Yet another alleged case of massive fraud has been uncovered. This case is all the buzz in the financial sector. If the claims are proven true, fingers will point to the laissez-faire, deregulatory environment of the recent past as a…

Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) are losing money hand over fist, which should leave one wondering whether their appetite for Western assets will continue to bolster those markets. Funds in Asia and the Middle East have been hit by a…

Overnight, the Japanese government released figures for Q4 2008 GDP that pointed to a depression-like fall in the Japanese economy. GDP contracted 3.3% from Q3, or 12.7% using the U.S. convention of annualizing those numbers. This is the…

Now that I have burnished my bullish bona fides with two posts from the optimistic viewpoint, I want to share with you an analysis from John Mauldin that is much closer to the truth regarding where the global economy is headed, what type of…

Harry Markopolos is a fraud examiner who once worked as a fund manager. He knows fraud when he sees it and he saw it as plain as day with Bernard Madoff, who ran the largest Ponzi scheme in history. In fact, he tipped off the regulators at…

There is a view making the rounds now that repealing the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 is the root cause for all of the excesses we have experienced -- and by extension for the present economic Depression. Glass-Steagall was enacted in 1933…