• News
• Videos
• Articles
• Forums
• StockMarkets.com ®
• Tuesday, 21 May 2013

Make this My Home Page | Tell A Friend | RSS

web StockMarkets.com

This Blog is also available as an RSS Feed

• July 2014 Compliance for Volcker Rule - 20 April 2012

Named for former United States Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, the Volcker Rule forms part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, designed to prevent banks in the US from making speculative investments that would not be in the best interests of their customers. The Dodd-Frank Act stipulated a 2014 compliance deadline, but some of the law's fine print relating to the Volcker Rule appeared open to interpretation, prompting bank officials to request clarification from financial regulators. The clarification came yesterday in the form of an announcement that Wall Street need not comply immediately with the Volcker Rule banning banks from trading with their own money.

• Europe Crisis, Stagnant Job Market Plague Investors - 5 September 2011

Investors face a new week on Wall Street with Europe's financial crisis and non-existent job growth fuelling fears of a double-dip recession. While some analysts are of the opinion that the United States is likely to avoid a recession, even if only by a narrow margin, others feel that it is only a matter of time before the economy slips into recession territory. Last week’s report of zero job growth, among other factors, resulted in consumer confidence falling to its lowest level since August 2009. With consumers fearful of job losses, the majority of consumers are holding back on buying anything that is not considered to be an absolute necessity, which in turn hits retailers and consumer product suppliers as trade slows down, and the economy slows down with it.

• NYSE Non-Compliance Notifications Issued - 25 August 2011

Wall Street investors are hopeful that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will provide some light at the end of the tunnel when he delivers his keynote speech at the annual Kansas City Federal Reserve retreat tomorrow, although analysts caution that expectations of further quantitative easing and other bailout-style measures are unlikely to be met. As double-dip fears continue, the ongoing woes in the US economy are impacting on stock market listed companies to the extent that many no longer meet the criteria for being listed on stock exchanges.

• Vulture Investing – Cashing in on Disaster - 9 June 2011

Individual investors, or investment funds, who take advantage of the misfortune of others to buy up assets at drastically reduced prices are often referred to as 'vultures' with their activities branded as 'vulture investing', or being a 'vulture fund'. Although the comparison may seem unflattering, even vultures serve a constructive purpose, clearing away the debris of disaster. The financial crisis that started in 2008 has provided more than its fair share of opportunities for vulture investing, and the flood of housing foreclosures caught the attention of investors who never anticipated that the crisis would drag on for as long as it has, with no clear indication of ending any time soon.

• Moral Hazard – Part 2 - 30 December 2010

While there are many reasons behind the current economic crisis, the term 'moral hazard' has been applied to risky decision making actions by lenders which led to the chaos in large financial institutions, referred to as the US subprime mortgage crisis, or the 2007-2010 financial crisis. It appears that the whole too-big-to-fail mindset may have resulted in extreme leniency when assessing the ability of borrowers to repay their loans – to the detriment of both lenders and borrowers. A number of financial giants took a tumble, with some being bailed out with government/taxpayers money and others being taken over by previous competitors, shifting at least part of the burden of bad decision making elsewhere.

• Third Quarter Reporting Continues Driving the Market - 19 October 2009

As we head into the third week of October, reporting of third quarter results is set to start speeding up, with investors having great expectations spurred on by better than expected reports thus far. Of the 135 Standard & Poor's 500 companies due to report this week, some of the more high-profile include Apple on Monday, with Tuesday featuring Caterpillar, DuPont, Coca-Cola, Pfizer, United Tech and Yahoo. Wednesday sees reports from eBay and Wells Fargo, with Thursday's highlights including 3M, Merck, AT&T, Amazon and American Express and Friday featuring Microsoft. The S&P 500 has rallied close to 61 percent since hitting a 12-year low on March 9, while the Dow has rallied by nearly 53 percent, topping the key psychological level of 10,000 twice during last week.

• September Phenomenon on Wall Street - 31 August 2009

Friday saw Wall Street start the day off on a reasonably high note in response to news from Dell and Intel with regard to the state of the PC market. However, all three major indexes went on to see-saw through the day, until at the end of the day the Dow Jones industrial average closed with a loss of 0.4 percent, the S&P 500 dropped 0.2 percent, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite managed a gain of 0.1 percent, thereby achieving a new 2009 high.