We’re once again in the thick of earnings season and not only are U.S. companies reporting solid profits, but many large, multinational firms are also disclosing big cash stockpiles, especially at their foreign subsidiaries
One of the great economic success stories of 2012 was that the housing market finally found a bottom, and even began to show signs of a nascent recovery. But even as positive data on the real estate market began to trickle in …
Bill Simon, president and CEO of Walmart U.S., made a big splash yesterday when he announced two new initiatives the firm will launch this year: One focusing on putting returning veterans to work, with a promise to hire 100,000 …
The American Great Plains are known for their expansive farm lands, endless horizons, and — in recent history — staunchly conservative politics. So it may come as a surprise that only state-owned bank in the U.S. (an institution more widely associated with communist China than the Republican Party) can be found in ruby-red, rural North …
One of the more entertaining spectacles in the financial world this past month has been the recent battle between hedge fund manager Bill Ackman and nutritional supplement company Herbalife. The multilevel marketing (MLM) firm came under serious pressure late last month when Ackman put a massive $1 billion short bet on the company, …
Australian money manager John Hempton has called the battle between investor Bill Ackman and nutritional-supplement company Herbalife “hedge-fund porn.”
There is indeed something vaguely obscene about the ongoing drama, …
Update: The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the AIG board has decided not to participate in the lawsuit.
Hank Greenberg didn’t get to where he is today by being timid. The former chairman of AIG built the company up …
The summer of 2011 is not a time any of us would like to revisit, economically speaking. It was during this time that the European Debt Crisis had reached it’s most volatile stage, with many believing that a Greek exit from the …
With the Labor Department’s announcement today that the U.S. economy added 155,000 jobs in December and that the unemployment rate held steady at 7.8%, one comes to a depressing realization: the average monthly job creation in …
One of the truths revealed by the debate over the fiscal cliff is that lawmakers in Washington are in bitter disagreement over the cause of and solution to our economic malaise. There is the Keynesian camp, which believes that …
Without a doubt, the U.S. housing market has been the most successful sector of the economy this year, and Wednesday’s Case-Shiller home-price index report — which showed a fifth consecutive month of year-over-year increases in …
The recent history of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is interesting in part because it’s an illustration of how disruptive new technology can be. Twenty years ago the NYSE and it’s relatively young rival NASDAQ accounted for 97% of the total U.S. stock trading volume. Then the rapid development of computer technology, combined with a …
