Junk bond funds are up more than +20% off their March lows, and many of them still sport yields in excess of 10%. Though a double-digit yield is always tempting, now may not be the time to purchase high-yield bonds. Junk or “speculative-grade”… Read More
Results
IPO market is very thin because companies that aren’t top notch know they’ll get slammed,” says Amy Calistri, editor of StreetAuthority’s Stock of the Month, adding “In this environment, companies that aren’t the cream of the crop are wise to find capital elsewhere… Read More
Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) launched a search engine, so Google’s (Nasdaq: GOOG) releasing an operating system (OS). It looks like war. Google’s Chrome OS shares the same name as its browser, though it will operate independently. It’s expected to be available in about a year. Read More
Foreign stocks that trade on U.S. exchanges are outperforming their domestic counterparts. The Bank of New York Mellon Composite ADR Index outperformed the S&P 500 by 7.2 percentage points, +9.9% to +2.7%, for the first six months of 2009. During this same time period,… Read More
Las Vegas housing prices are in the toilet. The latest numbers show prices there have fallen -37.3% in the past year and -51.1% since 2006. The state of Nevada leads the nation in foreclosures — 10,000 in March alone — and seven out of ten Las Vegas mortgages are underwater… Read More
Regulators seeking to stave off a return to $140 crude want to crack down on oil-market “speculation” by putting limits on some big trades. Any new rules along these lines wouldn’t affect individual investors. The Washington-based Commodity… Read More
U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev opened the first day of their Moscow summit Monday by signing a preliminary agreement to reduce their countries’ nuclear arsenals. While many of the summit’s agenda items will be military in nature, a broader outcome of this week’s meeting may be… Read More
The head of the World Bank warned Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and leaders of the other G-8 nations that recent steps toward overcoming poverty could be lost without decisive action. Helping poor countries is important because such action has ripple effects throughout… Read More
The first half of 2009 has been nothing short of volatile for Wall Street. Between corporate bailouts, bankruptcies and unprecedented government spending, the news has been full of surprises. The assorted high-profile shenanigans of GM, AIG and others deserve their rightful place in the “Hall of Shame,” but there has… Read More
Oil prices have dipped from their recent peak above $70 per barrel, and the price of another commodity suggests crude has farther to fall. A barrel of oil contains 5.8 million British thermal units (BTUs) of… Read More