Finance Geek

Start by cutting out the luxuries. Don’t eat out. Drive less. The benefits can include more savings, less debt and a bigger emergency fund. Hey, it’s only for a month, right?

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Intel, Accenture and energy shares lead markets lower, but stocks finish with a 3rd straight weekly gain. President Obama meets with top bank bosses. KB Home’s loss narrows. GM faces a March 31 deadline. Check the Dow stocks’ gains in this rally.

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If we can’t pay our top employees, they’ll go elsewhere and our firms will suffer irreparable damage.That, in a nutshell, has been the gripe from Wall Street in response to the novel idea that once you’ve received government bailout fun

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New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo stepped up his investigation into AIG Friday to include questions about how the firm is unwinding its notorious credit default swaps.”In an investigation, sometimes one thing leads to another, and here our revie

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A “funny” thing is happening just as Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner seems to have finally found a scheme to deal with banks’ toxic debt: Some big banks are aggressively bidding for toxic debt in the open market. …

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After the fastest 20% rally since 1938, the stock market was taking a bit of a breather Friday morning. In recent trading, the Dow was down more than 100 points. Layoff announcements by Google and Johnson Controls, and a warning about continued oversupp

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A proposal to split the automaker in two could save brands such as Cadillac and Chevrolet while letting a bankruptcy court liquidate Hummer, Saturn and other assets.

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A nearly painless, win-win solution for Wall Street and taxpayers? Don’t believe it for a minute. But the hoopla gives investors a chance to profit in the short term.

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The Nasdaq sees its best close since January as techs surge. An issue of 7-year Treasury notes sells easily a day after another sale didn’t go well. The final report on fourth-quarter GDP isn’t quite as bad as expected. Best Buy earnings cheer investors.

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The dominant player in Brazil’s oil industry appears on an MSN Money list of recommended stocks. Here are StockScouter’s top picks.

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Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner returned to Capitol Hill Thursday, this time to lobby for expanded authority to regulate the financial markets. “Over the past 18 months, we have faced the most severe global financial crisis in generations,” Geit

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DES MOINES — Federal financial help to stimulate the economy hit home for Michelle Paulson and thousands of other Iowans on Wednesday.

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When Timothy Geithner unveiled on Monday the latest effort to restore normalcy to credit markets, the natural inclination was to believe that maybe the government had gotten it right this time. Certainly the stock market’s response to the Treasury’s new plan was overwhelming. On the surface the plan appears to be a workable solution. One aspect of the P.P.I.P is to facilitate liquidity in the commercial real estate secondary loan and securities markets.

The thrust of Geithner’s plan is three-fold. Banks will auction off their illiquid assets, private investors will set market prices, and Treasury will provide the majority of the financing. Unfortunately, Treasury’s plan doesn’t acknowledge the fundamental valuation problems in commercial real estate, overlooks the excessive leverage in commercial real estate, and ignores strategies banks and financial institutions have already implemented to mitigate the problems of illiquid markets for their assets.

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As we’ve reported before on Valley Buzz, Facebook’s users have been in an uproar
about the new homepage and profile designs that seek to copy or one-up Twitter,
depending on where you stand. In the past Facebook has largely ignored or
ta

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As the internet reaches more and more people, the greatest challenge will be to keep the thing running.

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