Archive for April, 2009:

2009: The Year of the “W”

{ Posted on Apr 30 2009 by Minyanville }
With White Snake echoing in my crowded keppe and a multitude of crosscurrents jockeying for attention I wanted to clear the mechanism and scribe some vibes as a follow up to yesterday’s morning missive which seems to be garnering ...Read More »

Bought The VWO and BND Vanguard ETFs Last Week

{ Posted on Apr 29 2009 by author }
I am really starting to like the Vanguard ETFs, almost as much as I like their mutual funds. They have really low expense ratios, they perform spot-on to the indexes they track, and they track sectors and indexes that ...Read More »

Two Ways: Microsoft, Verizon Try to Take a Bite Out of Apple

{ Posted on Apr 29 2009 by Minyanville }
Microsoft (MSFT) and Verizon (VZ) are gearing up for a battle with Apple (AAPL). According to the Wall Street Journal the two companies are in talks to launch a touchscreen smartphone to compete with iPhone.Microsoft executives involved with the ...Read More »

MV Weather Report: Fed Turns Sun Lamps on Market

{ Posted on Apr 29 2009 by Minyanville }
In a statement released today the Federal Reserve said the recession is easing but that it has no intention of suspending its aggressive attempts to revive the financial system. Which means that the target short-term interest rate will remain ...Read More »

Playing Whack-a-mole With Risk, Roulette With Inflation

{ Posted on Apr 29 2009 by Matt Welch }
The Wall Street Journal's "Heard on the Street" column argues today that, because of Too Big to Fail policies, market fear has essentially been transferred from private equities to public debt.What has eased equity-market fears is the huge government ...Read More »

Contributors: Adam B. Summers, Tim Harford, Gregory Benford

{ Posted on Apr 29 2009 by Reason Magazine - Topics > Economics }
Adam B. Summers is a policy analyst with the Reason Foundation, the nonprofit that publishes this magazine. In “Failed States” (page 24), he and the foundation’s director of government affairs, Mike Flynn, write about the profligacy of the states ...Read More »

SEC Halts Beverly Hills Hedge Fund Fraud

{ Posted on Apr 29 2009 by SEC.gov Updates: Press Releases }
Tags : , ,
Categories : All, SEC.gov Updates
The Securities and Exchange Commission today obtained a court order halting a fraudulent scheme in Beverly Hills, Calif., in which investors were coaxed into investing in two hedge funds that purportedly held more than $800 million in assets when in ...Read More »

TARP Banks Get Headhunted

{ Posted on Apr 29 2009 by Katherine Mangu-Ward }
And so it begins. Government in, high performers out: John Mack and Kenneth Lewis, the chief executive officers of Morgan Stanley and Bank of America Corp., said pay limits tied to federal rescue funds have prompted some top employees ...Read More »

Stages of Denial

{ Posted on Apr 29 2009 by Matt Kibbe }
According to Pajamas Media, 700,873 people attended some 883 tea party protests on April 15. It was a remarkable day, a tangible expression of public outrage that I have not experienced in my 25 years of advocacy and grassroots ...Read More »

WSJ: Advisers Ditch Buy and Hold Strategies, an Ockham View

{ Posted on Apr 29 2009 by Ockham Research Staff }
Categories : All, Ockham
The Wall Street Journal just published a story today about the death of buy and hold at many financial advisory firms.  Realistically, this is probably a small minority of shops in comparison to the overall community.  This also smacks of ...Read More »