Owner: Money-Rx Finance Blog URL:http://www.money-rx.com/blog/ Join Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2007 10:17:42 -0600 Rating:0 Site Description: Features profiles of academics, economists, investors and fund managers, withe exclusive comments. Site statistics:Click here
WSJ - Hedge Funds Leveraging Numbers 2007-11-25 09:09:00 The Wall Street Journal dumps another load on the already tattered reputation of New York's hedge funds. "When reporting their assets under management, hedge funds typically refer to the amount of money they have attracted from investors...Many hedge funds also borrow money to increase their "leverage," which amplifies their potential returns (and potential losses)....bond fund Y2K said it had Read more:Hedge
, Funds
, Numbers
, Hedge Funds
Kudlow Uncorks The Crystal Ball 2007-11-22 06:50:00 Larry Kudlow, NRO's economic editor, lays out the stakes, after gazing deep into his crystal ball and parsing the Federal reserve three year forecast. "Right now, stocks are in a classic declining-profits correction. This downward trend has so far reduced the Dow by roughly 8 percent. As a rough guess, a 10 percent correction ought to spell the end to the Dow’s slump. And Fed rate cuts should be Read more:Crystal
Thrift Savings Plan Restricts Day Traders 2007-11-20 04:58:00 Stephen Barr, writing for the Washington Post, reports that due to increasing administration costs incurred on account of day traders jumping in and out of the TSP, the board has voted to restrict inter-fund transfers to a maximum of two per month. The policy change will be announced in February 2008 and the computers re-programmed by April.
"For example, on Oct. 19, $371 million of the plan's Read more:Savings
Investing Communities Gain Value 2007-11-19 04:50:00 On the internet, collective wisdom is gaining a new definition. Rather than following the herd, which is the traditional form of collective wisdom, individual investors are increasingly moving away from fund managers and putting all their eggs into self-managed portfolios with investment strategies and tips gleaned from online investment and stock market websites.
The massive flow of information Read more:Investing
, Communities
, Value
Tax Strategy Patents Feel The Heat 2007-11-16 03:19:00 On September 7th, 2007, the House passed the Patent Reform Act of 2007 (H.R. 1908), including a provision prohibiting tax strategy patents. One day before, the White House issued a statement expressing concerns about the practise of patent protection for tax planning startegies and expressed a willingness to work with Congress on this issue.
Now the Senate has stepped into the arena, with Read more:Strategy
, Patents
Todd Woody (Green Wombat) 2007-11-14 00:06:00 Todd Woody
is a senior editor at Fortune magazine, San Francisco, CA. He is also the author the Green
Wombat blog ( http://business2.blogs.com/greenwombat/ ), hosted by Business 2.0, which deals with environment friendly business, tech, research and investments.
Career: Prior to this, he was in charge of the Business 2.0 magazine's green tech coverage as an assistant editor, a business editor at
The Economics of Love 2007-11-12 04:44:00 The JamaicaObserver states a study which shows that the number count of attractive women is increasing, while the number of 'unattractive men' is also increasing. "According to a 2005 study by the London School of Economics
, led by Dr [Satoshi] Kanazawa and published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology, attractive women are in higher supply than handsome men because beautiful parents are more
Hedge Funds Set To Bloom in Russia 2007-11-11 05:07:00 Ross Business Consulting (RBC) News reports that the Russia
's State Duma is about to give the green light for Russian hedge funds for qualified investors by early 2008. "Hedge
funds for qualified investors could appear in Russia as soon as next year, as the State Duma is due to discuss the second reading of amendments to the bill on investment funds shortly, Tatyana Medvedeva, an expert with the Read more:Funds
, Hedge Funds
, Bloom
The Grim Taxman Comes After Hedge Funds 2007-11-07 21:14:00 The IRS is poring over hedge fund tax filings to 'ensure they file their taxes correctly and abide by the tax rules...Of course, its just a coincidence that this comes on the heels of the House Ways and Means Committee approving a bill ( H.R. 3996 ) to hike the tax on carried interest for hedge funds and private equity funds. Which itself is again another co-incidence which just happens to come Read more:Hedge
, Funds
Econosphere Moves to Health Care 2007-11-05 21:24:00 Media news cycles are fickle objects. After drumming for weeks about taxes and hedge funds, the media focus shifts to health care.
In the WashingtonPost, Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) and DLC Chairman Bruce Reed write about the benefits of employers buying into Medicare for employees aged 55 to 64. "Unlike GM, Chrysler or even the UAW, its [Medicare's] core competency is health care. As the expert Read more:Health
, Health Care
Roger Ehrenberg - Monitor110 2007-11-01 09:24:00 Roger Ehrenberg is President and Chief Operating Officer of New York based Monitor
110 Inc. ( One One Zero, as in 6 for binary, or six degrees of separation ), which enables 'Institutional Investors to access, analyze, and monetize Internet information.' He is also Managing Director of Geometric Group LLC, also New York based and a venture capital firm which handled the conceptualization and seed Read more:Roger
William Conerly (Businomics) 2007-10-29 22:29:00 Bill Conerly is Principal of Portland, Oregon based Conerly Consulting LLC and the author of Businomics, From the Headlines to Your Bottom Line:How to Profit in Any Economic Cycle, Adams Media, April 2007, in which he explains the correlation between business decisions and economic news. He also publishes financial and economic outlook analysis on his blog (http://businomics.typepad.com/). About Read more:William
Barry Ritholtz (The Big Picture) 2007-10-26 05:25:00 Barry L. Ritholtz is Chief Market Strategist for Ritholtz Research & Analytics, specializing in the analysis of macroeconomic trends and the capital markets. His scribblings can also be found on TheStreet.com (Apprenticed Investor), RGEMonitor and Seeking Alpha.
Perhaps his most important asset, given his strong interest in digital media and technology, is his blog The Big Picture
(http:// Read more:Barry
Jeff Beaubien Lease Purchase Investor 2007-10-24 07:12:00 Jeff Beaubien is Principal of Beaubien Investment Company, based in Howell, Michigan and also the owner of the website Lease2Purchase
.com, where he hosts an online community of real estate investors, dispensing advice and tips. Beaubien has also compiled a comprehensive vault of information in his Lease 2 Purchase handbook, which takes a new investor step by step through the intricacies of real Read more:Investor
Rahmbo Takes On Tax Shelters 2007-10-19 00:06:00 Congressman Rahm Emanuel (D - Il) might just be planning to mail a dead fish to offshore tax shelters. Reuters reports that Sen. John Kerry and Rep. Rahm Emanuel introduced the bill and called for more parity between tax-deferral schemes for average workers and the rich, such as hedge fund managers. "Middle-class taxpayers that are saving for college or their retirement can't avoid paying taxes
Economic Blogs Added to Endangered Species 2007-10-18 22:38:00 There's a new panic fire sweeping through the hallowed halls of the econonmic blogosphere - A fear of extinction and drift into irrelavance. This current bear run was triggered by Mankiw's decision to stop visitors from posting comments on his blog. "The absence of comments may deter some readers from coming by. I hope not. But if attendance falls off a lot, I will start looking for another hobby Read more:Economic
, Blogs
, Endangered Species
Jason Shafrin (Healthcare Economist) 2007-10-15 21:46:00 Jason Shafrin is the author of the healthcare economist blog, and currently completing his Ph.D. in economics at the University of California, San Diego. He holds a B.S. in Economics from Wharton School. While his primary research interest is in health economics, he is also interested in labor economics, among other things. He has previously worked as a financial analyst for General Electric, Read more:Jason
, Healthcare
, Economist
Paulson Betting On Subprime Crash Legislation 2007-10-14 22:00:00 BusinessWeek has a fascinating account of some savvy investing which straddles the twilight zone between investor foresight and influencing events on the ground to favor your bet. "Paulson
& Co., which has seen its assets under management soar this year through fortuitous bets in the subprime market, has given $15 million to the Center for Responsible Lending, a Washington nonprofit that has been Read more:Subprime
, Legislation
Banks Circle Subprime Wagon With $100 Billion Fund 2007-10-13 10:03:00 Citicorp, J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and HSBC are among banks leading talks with the US Treasury to create a $100 billion support fund to fend off the danger of a fire sale of shaky mortgage-backed securities, collateralized debt obligations and other distressed assets following the recent global credit crunch. Simply put, the banks want to create a fund to buyoff Read more:Subprime
, Circle
, Wagon
Nobel Sweepstakes 2007-10-11 06:21:00 Economists make a living by forecasting, and they sem to be all tied up in knots over who is going to be awarded the Nobel
economics prize. Reuters reports that the problem is that Panel members often want to know if a theory works and they are willing to wait years, or decades, to find out. According to Tim Harford, columnist and author of "The Underground Economist", "We really have to see Read more:Sweepstakes
Dotcom Redux - Bubble 2 2007-10-10 03:21:00 Rebecca Buckman and Kevin J. Delaney, writing for The Wall Street Journal, chronicle the initial symptoms of another dotcom bubble in the works. "The goofy-names index, for example, is back near its previous high....Then there's this familiar froth indicator: Some office landlords in Silicon Valley are again accepting stock in still-private start-ups in lieu of rent....Free food is a bubble Read more:Redux
, Bubble
RIP - Carried Interest Tax Hike 2007-10-09 06:01:00 According to Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid, via the Washington Post, Congress will not be considering the tax hike on carried interest earned by private equity firms. In one meeting with industry representatives last month, Reid said the private-equity tax plan would not be considered in the Senate this year, according to a participant.
Reid's spokesman, Jim Manley, reflected that doubt Read more:Interest
, Tax Hike
ETA 2009 2007-10-09 03:01:00 Headlines say it all.
Reuters: S&P says U.S. subprime crisis won't peak til 2009
Gulf News, Bahrain: Oil to soar above $90 next year says expert
Rightside Advisors: The pending 2008 – 2009 recession
MoneyNews.com: New York state faces a higher deficit in fiscal 2009....
Alan Beaulieu: China on the edge
CBC.ca: EU, Asia set 2009 climate pact deadline
New Mexico Business Weekly: Economist tells NM
Best of the Web 2007-10-06 10:27:00 Lawrence Kudlow has a fabulous post on his blog (kudlowsmoneypolitics.blogspot.com) about how Bernanke morphed from an inflation hawk into a leader of the liquidity brigade. "The flip-flop itself is a tale of two Bernanke’s: On the afternoon of August 7, the Federal Reserve chair was an inflation hawk — according to the unchanged FOMC policy statement — fearful of adding liquidity to the markets.
John Nofsinger - Psychology of Investing 2007-10-05 21:34:00 Investment finance, with all the charts and data and financial models for investing, is highly capable of putting a budding insomniac to sleep, and it wouldn't be too far fetched to say that the job of professors teaching investment is to take something profoundly simple and turn it into a complex maze of jargon and formulas. If investing is a science, shouldn't every well taught investor with Read more:Investing
Freeze Rates on Subprime Loans Possible 2007-12-01 05:06:00 Mortgage rates for home owners with subprime loans could be frozen at current levels under an arrangement being hammered out by a broad based coalition and the Bush Administration. The group includes Wall Street bankers, mortgage investors, non-profits and consumer groups.
David Cho, Washington Post, reports that "Homeowners could apply to freeze their rates or refinance their loans quickly Read more:Freeze
, Rates
, Subprime
, Loans
, Possible
SWF Vultures Circle Over SIV Carcass 2007-11-28 08:12:00 Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) invests $7.5 billion in Citigroup. This announcement led to Wall Street letting out a big gasp of relief and the CW is that this infusion of capital, by itself, will calm the waters and lead to a market recovery. True. But...The dangers under the calm waters are quite worrying.
Businessweek - The new money will help bolster Citi, whose balance sheet was Read more:Vultures
, Circle
401k Plan Lawsuit in Supreme Court 2007-11-27 04:02:00 James LaRue says he lost $150,000 when administartors at his employer sponsored 401(k) plan failed to carry out his instructions to sell stocks and move the funds into safer investments. The federal appeals court in Richmond, VA, rejected his claim to legal redress last year, and the case is now in front of the SupremeCourt
, where his chances suddenly look a lot brighter, with huge implications Read more:Lawsuit
, Supreme Court
Todd Sullivan (ValuePlays) 2007-12-07 01:02:00 Todd Sullivan is a value investor, maintains his own blog (http://valueplays.blogspot.com/) which he started in December 2006 and is a financial writer based in Westborough, Massachusetts. He is a contributing writer for SeekingAlpha.com, Vinvesting.com, The Stock Masters, StraightStocks.com and Value Investing News.
His financial analysis and commentary have been prominent online financial news Read more:ValuePlays
Auto-Loan Delinquencies Rising Worry 2007-12-06 01:38:00 Following up on the heels of the housing crash, Jeffrey McCracken and Gregory Zuckerman, Wall Street Journal, report that auto loan delinquencies have clocked in the highest one month jump in eight years. "Delinquencies in the auto-loan market are ticking up to their highest level in several years...About 4.5% of auto loans made in 2006 to top-rated borrowers were at least 30 days delinquent as Read more:Rising
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