Month: May 2009
Below are all the posts archived for the month.
The Right Way to Look at Risk and Reward
in Links
Last week, Felix Salmon commented on a story that appeared on WSJ about a GM bondholder. He makes a very keen observation on risk and reward in that post. If you invest a large chunk of your 401(k) in the stock of just one company, your actions are fraught with peril. If that stock performs
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Interesting Reads: May 30th 2009
in Links
Here is a list of some interesting things that I read during the week. Lessons from Ecuador’s Bond Default by Felix Salmon Risk of Deflation in the Eurozone by The Baseline Scenario Movie Bonanza Historical Context by ECONOMPICDATA Questions to Ask Your Financial Planner by Five Cent Nickel 55 Best Ways to Save Money by
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Why GM Is Not Zero
in Investments
A few days ago, I wrote about the GM bankruptcy and how the stock was worth nothing. Today the stock is still trading at 75 cents and I found out something very interesting about this. From Barrons: The mystery is that it isn’t trading at zero. That’s what the common is worth. Goosegg. Nadda. Zip.
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What is Credit Card Insurance
in Credit
Image by Wheat_In_Your_Hair Yesterday, a friend noticed that he was getting charged $4 every month for credit card insurance. When he called them up to find out what it was, they said that it’s a type of insurance that protects him from a credit card default due to any emergency. He got that canceled and
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What Is An Inverse ETF?
in ETF
Inverse ETFs are a class of ETFs that rises in value when their underlying asset falls. For example, the ProShares Short QQQ ETF (whose underlying asset is the NASDAQ) will rise, if the NASDAQ falls. So, if you expect companies in the NASDAQ to perform poorly, you could buy the ProShares Short QQQ. Recently, Inverse
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Banks Want to Buy Their Own Assets With Taxpayer Money
in Economy
From the WSJ: Some banks are prodding the government to let them use public money to help buy troubled assets from the banks themselves. Banking trade groups are lobbying the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. for permission to bid on the same assets that the banks would put up for sale as part of the government’s
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The Lopsided Credit Card Model
in Credit
Image by Sumanth Garakarajula Every time I travel by Delta I get some air miles, which is a reward for being loyal and profitable to them. If I buy stuff worth $50 from Kohl’s, they give me $10 in Kohl’s cash. Panda Express has given me some kind of a discount card, which I use
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Facebook Valued at 10 Billion Dollars
in Economy
From Bloomberg: Facebook Inc. received an investment from Russia’s Digital Sky Technologies that values the company at $10 billion, a third less than the valuation assigned to the social-networking company when Microsoft Corp. invested in 2007. Digital Sky will buy $200 million in preferred stock, gaining a 1.96 percent stake in the company, Palo Alto,
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A Tale of Two Words
in Opinion
The current debate about bank nationalization reminds of the – Disinvestment process that started in India about ten years ago. Indian economy was slowly opening up and the government was selling its equity stake in large public sector companies to private investors and corporate houses. This process was fraught with political perils and was called
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iShares S&P North American Natural Resources Sector Index Fund: IGE
in ETF
iShares S&P North American Natural Resources Sector Index (IGE) is an equity ETF that tracks an index based on US traded natural resources related stocks. iShares IGE ETF is a passive fund and seeks to replicate the performance of the underlying index. At any given point, it invests about 90% of its assets in the
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