There’s only one word to describe what took place in the financial markets last week - ugly.
You probably don’t need to glance at the box score below to know that stocks dropped significantly last week. Monday’s dizzying drop of 777 points in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, attributed to the House of Representative’s failure to [...]

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The tug of war in the stock market ended in just about a draw last week as the Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose a fraction.
Since the beginning of the year, the S&P 500 index has traded in a range roughly between 1,215 and 1,450, according to data from Yahoo! Finance. However, when you consider [...]

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The Financial Markets, June 5, 2008
How do you succeed as an investor? According to legendary bond manager Bill Gross of PIMCO, “Investment success depends on an ability to anticipate the herd, ride with it for a substantial period of time, and then begin to reorient portfolios for a changing world.”
Essentially, Gross is saying, “find a [...]

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The Financial Markets, May 27, 2008

Oil prices up, stock market down. That just about sums up last week’s market action.
After rising 57% in 2007, the price of a barrel of crude oil has risen another 38% so far in 2008-and it’s starting to hurt, according to Barron’s. Oil is a key ingredient in so many [...]

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The Homeless Middle Class? I’m Disgusted.

Yes, I am disgusted. Not at this new phenomenon of people, but at the fact that we, as a country, are having trouble even paying rent. I just read a story on CNN about Barbara Harvey, a 67-year old mother of three grown children and former loan processor, who is [...]

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The Markets, May 12, 2008

Soaring crude oil prices helped put the kibosh on a three-week winning streak in the stock market, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The Journal reported that for the six trading days ending May 9, crude oil prices surged 11.8% and ended at a record price of just under $126 per barrel. [...]

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Surviving on Credit Cards

We’re in trouble. And by we I mean me, you, and everyone else that’s finding it harder and harder to meet the daily living expenses we all face during hard times. And, folks, those times are now.
Today, I received my $600 tax refund check, courtesy of the U.S. Treasury. I was glad [...]

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War is Good. For Some Companies, Anyway…

War is never good. Unless you’re a company that profits from wars. Below are some stats provided by AOL about moneymakers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not that any of this will come as a suprise to anyone, but Bush and Cheney have plenty of contacts, I am sure, in [...]

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The Markets

Here’s some positive news. More than half of the institutional money managers surveyed in Barron’s semi-annual Big Money poll are bullish on the U.S. stock market through the end of this year. In fact, the survey found that 87% of the money managers expect to be net buyers of stocks over the next three [...]

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The Check is in Your Mailbox

Georgie Porgie’s stimulus checks arrive in the mail today for a certain number of Americans. If you’re among the few chosen (according to your Social Security number and you’ve signed up for direct deposit) you should be seeing as much as $600 deposited into your account.
130 million American taxpayers will [...]

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