NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- What now, Citigroup?
That is the biggest question that investors are itching to have answered by the nation's fourth largest bank by deposits.
It has certainly been an interesting time for the New York City-based firm to say the least. Earlier this month, it was one of the first nine banks chosen by the Treasury Department to receive a cash injection in exchange for stock. Citigroup will receive $25 billion.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Leaders from both parties expressed concern Wednesday that a taxpayer-funded bailout of the financial industry will be used to pad the pockets of executives rather than get the economy rolling again.
1. Eventually, management will get tossed.
Starting with the least scientific or analytical reason for owning Yahoo, there's every reason to believe the days are numbered for CEO Jerry Yang and President Susan Decker. By all accounts fine people, they simply haven't led Yahoo well.
(Fortune magazine) -- That's about the craziest thing I've ever heard!" shouts Jeremy Siegel through the phone when I mention the headline of this story. "I mean, what's the rationale for anyone saying that?" I had called up the Wharton professor because he's one of the high priests of buy-and-hold investing. In his classic book, Stocks for the Long Run, Siegel analyzed 200 years' worth of U.S. market returns and concluded that patient, consistent investment in stocks over a long period is the most effective strategy for wealth creation among regular folks.
NEW YORK (Fortune) -- A chill has descended on America's shopping malls. With credit markets frozen, the Dow plunging and consumers buying less, retailers are bracing themselves for one of the worst holiday seasons in nearly two decades.
(Fortune magazine) -- Bill Kwon is the embodiment of the American dream. His father - who was arrested by North Korean Communists in the early 1950s for championing democracy - brought the family from Seoul to Illinois when he was a baby. Bill worked himself ragged pursuing every opportunity America's heartland offered, never leaving Peoria.
NEW YORK (Fortune) -- It's no surprise that even a $700 billion TARP can't cover everyone.
What remains mysterious, though, is how the government is deciding which banks get to participate in its TARP Capital Purchase Program, and which don't.
(Fortune Magazine) -- Mark to market is a business rarity - an accounting term that draws reactions from people who don't know spreadsheets from bedsheets. Mark to market, which we'll call MTM, evokes images of Enron's made-up profits and the other corporate scandals that marred the first years of this decade. Not pretty.
Now MTM - which means valuing marketable securities at market prices - is a hot item again, but for the opposite reason. This time financial companies and their allies are claiming it's too strict. They argue that marking the value of complex, illiquid securities to artificially low market prices has unnecessarily crippled the U.S. and world financial systems by creating billions of illusory losses on perfectly fine (albeit illiquid) securities, such as collateralized debt obligations linked to mortgages. Markets for these things, the argument goes, are depressed way below true economic value.
(Fortune Magazine) -- At 11 o'clock in the evening on Saturday, Sept. 13, Larry Fink was about to board a flight from New York to Singapore. The following Monday he was scheduled to meet with the managers of several Asian sovereign-wealth funds. For the head of BlackRock, one of the world's largest asset managers, this trip was a huge opportunity that could mean billions of dollars in new business.
What's the fastest way to restore your wounded portfolio? Put money into stocks that give you exposure to these trends. And there are some changes to the 50 Best Stocks in the World.
In the short term, you want to sell. Everything. And that's not an irrational desire. In a bear market, everything goes down. Good and bad stocks plunge. In fact, during the latter stages of a bear market, good stocks fall hardest. They're the only things that have kept any value, and investors desperate to raise cash dump the best of what is left in their portfolios to head off doom.
In the long term, you want to buy. Not everything, of course, but certainly the great stocks that have the best long-term prospects. You want to own the winners that have long-term, decade-long trends running in their favor. You want to hold on to those beneficiaries of long-term trends that you already own.
Dear Readers,
It really has been an amazing time; I've traded the equity markets since late 1977, and I've never seen market and economic conditions like these. It's not just the ferocity of the decline: it's also the extended high volatility and the way that so many of the major asset classes: commodities, bonds, and stocks have been hit hard--and simultaneously. Add that to the decline in housing and more general concerns over recession and you have bearish sentiment that feels qualitatively different than at prior market drops.
The candidates' proposals reflect their philosophical differences, but both pledge to cover the 45 million uninsured Americans
There is a basic philosophical difference at the heart of the health-care reform proposals of Senators John McCain and Barack Obama, and in this case McCain really is the maverick.
McCain, the Republican candidate, wants to decouple insurance from employment to some degree, long the standard way most Americans get coverage. He believes market forces unleashed will broaden the number of people covered and lower health-care costs.
Democratic candidate Obama wants to expand the existing employer and government-based insurance system.
I know it's not right, but there's some pleasure in watching my high-achieving former classmates squirm
An investment banker friend was recently complaining about the havoc and uncertainty at her workplace in these crazy times. I tried to express sympathy. But I found that I just didn't care. Actually, even worse: I felt like rolling my eyes. And this is a person I like.
Recently, I've found myself not only NOT empathizing with my fellow twentysomethings in the beleaguered financial services industry, but experiencing undeniable pleasure at their increasingly tenuous circumstances.
The FBI, after years spent focusing on national security, is struggling to find agents and resources to investigate wrongdoing tied to the country's economic crisis, The New York Times reported in Sunday editions.
Goals are huge. They motivate you to get to another level, providing both incentive along the way and some satisfaction once achieved. I’ve spoken of them a few times here on the blog, but felt that a little more elaboration might be in order.
