Archives: July 2008

FOREIGN SALES GROW, AS DO THEIR TAX PAYMENTS

Posted by: Howard Silverblatt on July 30

Five years ago U.S. equity markets were 57.6% of world markets, today they are 40.5%. Five years ago, the U.S. GDP comprised 29.6% of the world GWP, today it is...

More Ways To Stash Your Cash: V

Posted by: Lauren Young on July 29

Looking for places to stash cash? Here's today's asset allocation plan from Dan Crimmons, President and Founder of DPC Wealth Management in Ramsey, New Jersey. Amount Instrument $500,000 DFA One-Year...

America On Sale: A Response to Readers

Posted by: Ben Steverman on July 28

Last week I wrote a story, "America on Sale," on the sale of U.S. firms to overseas companies -- a trend exemplified by InBev's acquisition of Anheuser Busch (BUD). The...

Ways to Stash Your Cash: Part IV

Posted by: Lauren Young on July 28

I will continue posting more cash asset allocation plans this week. As a reminder, advisers were asked how they would invest $1 million for an investor with a one-year time...

Leave room for interest when relying on $100,000 deposit insurance

Posted by: Aaron Pressman on July 28

Colleague Lauren Young has posted some advisors' suggested cash protection investment plans for $1 million. I'd just add one caveat. The FDIC's standard deposit insurance coverage of $100,000 per account...

Ways to Stash Your Cash: Part III

Posted by: Lauren Young on July 27

This cash advice comes from Lyn Dippel at Financial Advantage , a wealth management firm in Columbia, Md. Dippel's two biggest concerns for cash investors are that inflation will outpace...

Ways to Stash Your Cash: Part II

Posted by: Lauren Young on July 26

Here's another plan for an investor with $1 million who is look for a safe place to park cash for the next year. This recommendation comes from Stacy Francis...

More Ways To Stash Your Cash

Posted by: Lauren Young on July 25

Clarification: Rydex CurrencyShares are actually exchange-traded products (grantor trust structure)—not exchange-traded notes. I've updated this post to reflect the changes. Over the past few months, I've fielded lots of questions...

Decreasing Expected 2008 S&P 500 Dividend Growth To 4%

Posted by: Howard Silverblatt on July 24

Due to the unprecedented dividend decreases in the Financial sector, amounting to $14.5 billion, I are reducing my 2008 dividend payment to $28.85 from $30.30. The 2008 rate represents a...

The Next Investment Bubble: Onions?

Posted by: Ben Steverman on July 23

The Onion reports "Recession-Plagued Nation Demands New Bubble to Invest In": WASHINGTON—A panel of top business leaders testified before Congress about the worsening recession Monday, demanding the government provide Americans...

How Do You Save Money? A Plea for Suggestions

Posted by: Ben Steverman on July 22

If you want to be wealthy, you need a healthy income and you must invest wisely. But neither of these are enough unless you're saving enough. Financial advisors often say...

Bank Profits: Will the Good News Fade?

Posted by: Ben Steverman on July 22

So far this earnings season, bank profits have appeared strong, or at least above the very low expectations of just a week ago. Some of this strength might be deceptive....

Financial Reporting Follies? Not in this case...

Posted by: Ben Steverman on July 18

Sometimes it's hard to know why the stock market rose or fell in a given day. Yesterday, it wasn't. The main reasons for Thursday's rally were a drop in oil...

UTX: Few Signs of a Global Slowdown

Posted by: Ben Steverman on July 17

United Technologies (UTX) shares jumped 5.9% Thursday after a solid earnings report. For weeks, many investors have been worried that a slowdown in overseas economies could hurt big U.S. exporters....

Off Balance Sheet Items - FASB is amending the disclosure, another new 'must know' vocabulary list

Posted by: Howard Silverblatt on July 16

Overview: It looks like there is going to be another new vocabulary list come November, and its impact, for better and for worse, may rank up there with FAS 157....

How Much Time Does Amateur Investing Require?

Posted by: Ben Steverman on July 16

If you invest or trade in individual stocks, how much time do you spend on research before you buy? Yesterday I was talking to Ron Sweet, the vice president of...

Kiss the dollar good bye and wish it well on its trip down

Posted by: Aaron Pressman on July 15

Having been in Europe not too long ago, I witnessed firsthand the ridiculously little I could get for my Ben Franklins over there. But after hearing Federal Reserve chairman Ben...

Da Bears: Is the Bottom Coming or Going with the Prudent Bear Fund sale?

Posted by: Lauren Young on July 15

David Tice, manager of the $1.2 billion Prudent Bear Fund, used to be one of the fund industry’s biggest outliers. In fact, just a few weeks ago he told BusinessWeek...

Thoughts on a Volatile Day

Posted by: Ben Steverman on July 14

So many things happening in the financial markets today! Not that you could tell by looking at the closing prices of major stock indexes, which after a volatile session ended...

Male vs. Female Stocks: Who's Winning?

Posted by: Ben Steverman on July 11

In May I blogged about BW colleague Peter Coy's fascinating look at how the U.S. economic slowdown is hurting men much more than women. He pointed out that adult women...

New First Eagle manager to replace Eveillard draws blank stares

Posted by: Aaron Pressman on July 10

A couple of weeks ago, super-star mutual fund manager Jean-Marie Eveillard of First Eagle funds mentioned that he'd hired a successor but couldn't name the name yet. Well, now the...

Investing Lessons from John Templeton (1912-2008)

Posted by: Ben Steverman on July 08

John Templeton, the philanthropist and legendary investor, died today. It’s difficult to take a comprehensive look at a man who squeezed a lot of life into 95 years, so I'll...

Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Bear?

Posted by: Ben Steverman on July 08

Stocks are just barely in an official bear market, a condition described as a 20% decline from the recent high. As I type this -- on the morning of July...

Surprising Optimism on Fifth Third (FITB)

Posted by: Ben Steverman on July 03

A week ago the financial industry was getting very worried about its own prospects. Bank after bank seemed to be running short of cash as their stock prices plunged, making...

Beware of Stocks Under $10

Posted by: Ben Steverman on July 02

A story today from BW colleague Karyn McCormack makes an interesting observation: There are a lot of brand name stocks trading below $10 these days. If your share price is...

Waiting for Profit Warnings

Posted by: Ben Steverman on July 02

So far, it's been a relatively quiet week on Wall Street. But the calm is deceptive because the market is going through a crucial quarterly waiting period, right after the...

Lampert's Bet on CIT Group and Housing

Posted by: Ben Steverman on July 01

An update to my post on CIT Group below: Thanks to the Bespoke Investment Group blog, I learn that Edward Lampert -- who some have hoped would be his generation's...

CIT Gets the Subprime Monkey Off Its Back

Posted by: Ben Steverman on July 01

For some firms that dabbled in real-estate lending, the stock market’s advice seems to be: "Run away at any cost." As CIT Group (CIT) and H&R Block (HRB) demonstrate, investors...

Standout Stocks in the First Half

Posted by: Ben Steverman on July 01

Now that the year is halfway through, I went hunting through the S&P 500 index, looking for stocks that somehow did well despite headwinds for their sectors and industries. The...