A fascinating long term study by EconomPic, building on a similar study done by The Big Picture on the seasonality of investing in US equities. The old adage, “sell in May and go away ” seems to have empirical validity. Look below for my study on Australian stock prices.
Using S&P data from Professor Shiller’s Irrational Exuberance site, I constructed the below chart going all the way back to 1871. The outp
Before investing in any retirement fund, you must know the benefits of saving money with the same. You can find them by visiting roth-ira.org. Roth IRA is a retirement fund, which has been gaining popularity off-late since one can benefit from rising taxes owing to fluctuations in the country’s economy. You pay your after-tax money along with your investment during your working years which leaves you less worried about paying taxes after retirement. W Read more text…
Savings Accounts and Money Market Rates provided by 24 October 2011 President Barack Obama continues to push forward his plan to support job creation in the U.S., despite recent setbacks in Congress.
The Associated Press reports that President Obama introduced the third facet of his plan on Friday, October 21, proposing to spend nearly $70 billion on investments in infrastructure, including the creation of a bank designed to support infrastructure development projects.
The bill is intended to help repair crumbling bridges and roadways as well as invest in upgrades to airports and railways, including the development of high-speed rails. Read more text…
The news from Europe that its leaders (after two years of turmoil) finally delivered what looks like a useful set of tools to bring the crisis, if not to an end then at least under some sort of control triggered huge rallies across riskier assets. The S&P 500 erased all of its 2011 losses and is now on course for the best monthly performance since 1974. Commodities meanwhile also took another major step away from the lows seen last month with the Reuters Jeffries CRB index surging by 5.5 percent and almost moving into positive territory for the year.
The big question now is whether Europe has done enough in order to bring back investor confidence in the Eurozone or whether, once the dust settles, the market once again comes to the conclusion that the can has once again been kicked further into the long grass.
Europe’s top leaders are meeting Sunday in Brussels to hammer out a solution to the debt crisis threatening the common currency, the euro, and — potentially — banks around the world.
The European Council meeting comes on the heels of an agreement to funnel more money into European banks to protect them from almost certain defaults by Greece and possibly other European countries.
The deal, agreed in principle by finance ministers Saturday, could be worth around 100 billion euros ($138 billion). Read more text…
It has been a while since I’ve touched on the EUR/CHF as the SNB has done a good job of holding the floor at 1.20. However, today the pair has tested and failed to break above its long term falling trend line which puts the ball back in the court of the SNB to continue to weaken the CHF.
Wednesday’s have typically been good for the EUR/CHF as a weekly SNB meeting leads to speculation of further policy moves by the Swiss National Bank. When the end result is nothing but market rumors the Swiss franc will often strengthen on Thursdays. This is the case today with the EUR/CHF down 200 pips. Wit
Massive uncertainty around this weekend’s summit will dominate fx price action today. We suspect further reduction of risk going into this weekend, given the chaotic and often times confusing comments, reports and politicized nature of this crisis, as it is really anyones guess on what will happen sunday night (or now potentially wednesday). Given European policy makers renewed efforts to hammer out a deal, we suspect that a solid solution will be forth coming. That said, this deal never fully addresses the structural root of the problem. Greece and other peripheral and core nations (western and eastern) needs growth to help manage deficits. And on this topic, the sell off we are witnessing in China’s stocks and commodities are worrying. Read more text…
On October 11, 2011, the Federal Reserve Board, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation issued proposed regulations implementing section 619 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, commonly referred to as the “Volcker Rule.” The Volcker Rule consists of two key restrictions. First, banking entities are prohibited from engaging in proprietary trading (“Proprietary Trading Provisions”). Second, banking entities are prohibited from sponsoring or investing in private equity or hedge funds, or extending credit to or engaging in other covered transactions with affiliated private equity or hedge funds (“Covered Fund Provisions”). The Proprietary Trading Provisions are covered in Subpart B of the proposed regulations, and the Covered Fund Provisions are covered in Subpart C of the proposed regulations. This client Read more text…