October 2008

With the bear market red in the claw, with an equal opportunity bear market taking out solid stocks right and left, with panicked investors feeling like every headline is an explosion, comes this impenetrable stupidity: Some Democrats in Congress have held hearings that included discussions of new proposals to tax 401K money. Specifically, the idea would be to eliminate most of the $80 bn in ... read more

With shares down 59% this year and profits plunging, General Electric, a bellwether stock for the US economy, became one of the first companies to test the Federal Reserve's commercial paper facility, with American Express fast on its heels. Companies use commercial paper as a short-term financing mechanism for day-to-day operations. Will GE's borrowings be enough to buoy the damaged ... read more

Investors ought to take a look at the embarrassing information that came out about the credit rating agencies' botched handling of subprime securities before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Internal memos at the agencies, email exchanges, instant messages all point to how insiders at these companies knew they were botching the job-and did little to stop the worst credit ... read more

Yahoo! issued yet another disappointing earnings report, with earnings dropping 64%. It also lowered its revenue estimates for the rest of the year, as it expects a continued downturn in online ad spending as the economy weakens. But when you dig into the footnotes, Yahoo!'s profit result look worse upon closer examination. Wall Street analysts have typically overlooked these items, which ... read more

New details in a report on the collapse of Bear Stearns released by the Office of the Inspector General overseeing the Securities and Exchange Commission shows how dangerously lax the SEC's oversight of Wall Street really was. It also gives damaging evidence that the SEC's hands-off approach helped cause the credit bubble to dangerously inflate. Specifically, the Inspector General's report, ... read more