The banking sector still faces big challenges, but greater transparency will boost investor confidence and also encourage banks to manage risk better internally.
Investing
Are We Watching a ‘Great Rotation’ Into Stocks?
Money is flowing into stock funds this year. Skeptics abound but others believe that the Fed’s determination to rekindle an appetite for risk will produce a shift from bonds into stocks over the next few years and drive prices higher.
6 Reasons the Stock Market Could Do Surprisingly Well in 2013
A slow-growing economy with little inflation can actually be the best environment for blue-chip stocks.
How Long Can the Stock Market Defy Economic Gravity?
As the pragmatic conservative economist Herbert Stein once said, “If something cannot go on forever, it won’t.” I’ve been thinking about that saying a lot in relation to today’s bull market and the complacency with which investors seem to view it.
What the Current Economic Outlook Means for American Families
The economy is likely to keep improving, but slow growth could develop into chronic stagnation.
Herbalife Defends Itself Against Pyramid Allegations. But Does the Market Believe?
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, …
Is Herbalife a Pyramid Scheme, the Target of Market Manipulation, or Just a Good Gripping Yarn?
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, …
Lots of Goodies Were Stuffed into the Fiscal Cliff Deal
A host of special interests, from filmmakers to rum distillers, got tax breaks in last week’s fiscal cliff deal.
Do We Have Another Financial Bubble On Our Hands? Or Three?
Multiple debt markets are facing big trouble because of excessive borrowing and the Fed’s easy-money policies.
Corporate America Seeks to Elude the Taxman Through Special Dividends
While the President and Congress have seemingly made little progress in reaching a compromise that would help the country avoid the fiscal cliff, corporate America isn’t sitting idly by. Parts of the fiscal cliff are tax …
The Other Side of Warren Buffett’s Common Sense Tax Argument
Over the years, Warren Buffett has gotten a lot of miles out of his folksy charm and ability to distill elaborate financial concepts into plain English. And recently, proponents of higher tax rates for the wealthy have gotten a …
Why the Fiscal Cliff is the Wrong Thing to Worry About
The resolution of the Fiscal Cliff will probably no solve much, while little attention is paid to the real economic problems.
