Tue, 17/11/2009 - 07:57 by harsheeb
Wshington -- Financial bloggers said an invitation to meet U.S. Treasury officials took the inkless writers by surprise and had some influence.
"The mere invitation made me more favorably disposed to policy makers," said blogger Steve Randy Waldman in his blog Interfluidity.
Not to be too seduced by the kindness of those he writes about, Waldman said "on principal" he refused the free cookies, The New York Times reported Monday.
Michael Panzer, author of the Financial Armageddon said the Treasury's invitation arrived "totally out of the blue," although Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has been known to pay attention to bloggers in the past.
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Wed, 11/11/2009 - 07:43 by harsheeb
Washington -- Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., Tuesday floated a bill that would restructure the U.S. regulatory system overseeing the complex financial services sector.
The bill, a copy of which was obtained by The Hill, would establish an Agency for Financial Stability to identify and address risks to the financial system's stability. The agency, led by a presidential-appointed, Senate-approved chairman, could establish regulations on capital, leverage and liquidity requirements, under provisions of the bill.
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Tue, 03/11/2009 - 09:22 by harsheeb
Washington -- Spending on private and public construction in the United States turned higher in September compared with August, the U.S. Commerce Department said Monday.
Outlays for construction projects rose 0.8 percent to $940.3 billion at a seasonally adjusted annual rate. In August the figure for outlays was revised to 933 billion.
From a year ago, total construction outlays fell 13 percent.
Expenditures on private construction, rose 0.5 percent over August to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $613.9 billion.
In public projects, spending rose 1.3 percent in the month to $326.4 billion with a 0.1 percent drop in educational construction and a 1 percent rise in highway spending, Commerce said.
Copyright 2009 by United Press International.
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Tue, 03/11/2009 - 09:14 by harsheeb
London -- The Royal Bank of Scotland, under pressure from the European Commission, said it may sell some unexpected assets to pay for it's government bailout.
The bank said Monday that it was considering "some divestments not initially contemplated," The Times of London reported.
In a statement, the bank said, "it remains RBS's goal that any required divestments do not threaten its recovery plan, which is already under way."
The European Union's Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes is pushing the bank, which has been given $32 billion in bailout funds, to sell its 1,480 branch Citizens Financial Group, which gives it a significant retail bank presence in the United States.
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Tue, 03/11/2009 - 09:06 by harsheeb
Moscow -- Russia's Central Bank trimmed its bank-to-bank lending rate 0.5 percentage points to 9.5 percent per year as inflation has slowed, a bank official said.
Deputy Chairman Gennady Melikyan said Monday, "we are heading for inflation obviously under 10 percent," RIA Novosti reported.
The bank has cut its key rate eight times since January, having cut the annual rate to 10 percent at the end of September. The current rate is the lowest it has been since the early 1990s.
The lending rate started the year at 13 percent.
Copyright 2009 by United Press International.
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Mon, 19/10/2009 - 20:24 by Inderjit Singh
London -- Financial regulators in Britain have proposed banks examine borrowers' expenses on a variety of domestic purchases before approving new loans.
The Financial Services Authority has suggested banks review how much potential borrowers spend on alcohol, tobacco, child care and clothing, among other expenses, in a far more rigorous approach to determine who can afford a mortgage, The Times of London reported Monday.
To justify the new "affordability tests," the FSA said, "there is clearly a responsibility on all lenders to extend credit only where a consumer can afford it and, in our view, a robust assessment of both income and expenditure is key to ensuring affordable mortgages."
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Sat, 10/10/2009 - 04:20 by Motley Fool
The entire financial services industry got a regulatory nastygram from
the administration at 2 p.m. today when President Obama unveiled his
proposal for financial regulatory reform legislation, urging Congress
to pass the package by year's end. |
Sat, 10/10/2009 - 01:07 by Rich Duprey
In these dour economic times, Mr. Market seems to enjoy dogpiling on
any stock that dares to fall short of analysts' estimates. To defy that
trend, we're here to celebrate stocks that didn't merely meet Wall
Street's predictions, but laughed in analysts' faces
by leaving their miserly forecasts in the dust. The companies below
have all soundly trounced earnings estimates by 20% or more in the last
quarter: |
Fri, 09/10/2009 - 23:01 by Dan Caplinger
We all know what we're supposed to do during a bear market. But until you've actually been
in that situation, you don't really know what it takes to pull the
trigger and put real money at risk -- especially at times when every
instinct you have is telling you that you're throwing that money away. |
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Fri, 09/10/2009 - 22:54 by Morgan Housel
Earlier this week, I argued that the rage surrounding Goldman Sachs' (NYSE: GS) credit arrangement with CIT (NYSE: CIT) was just a bunch of needless noise. |
Fri, 09/10/2009 - 22:27 by Selena Maranjian
I could write this article the usual way -- by showing you how
to turn your thousands into millions through investments in solid,
well-known companies. Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG), for example, has grown by a compound average of 13% annually over the past 20 years, while Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) has averaged 28% over the past decade! Not too shabby. |
Fri, 09/10/2009 - 03:10 by Morgan Housel
After millions of borrowers learned the hard way how credit cards work,
change has come. Back in May, a bill was signed into law intending to
protect consumers from the dark, ugly world of borrowing money at high
interest rates. |
