How to manipulate the market. (SLYT)
posted by ryoshu on Mar 11, 2009 - 64 comments

By one measure, this stock market is as bad as any in the last 180 years.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll on Dec 9, 2008 - 21 comments

All the stocks and bonds you think you own are actually owned by a company you've probably never heard of, a company owned by the same people who own the US Federal Reserve. [more inside]
posted by Mutant on Oct 24, 2008 - 58 comments

As many peoples eyes will be elsewhere the readers of the blue may not have seen the red flowing in the streets of Mother Russia. Russia’s two main bourses, RTS and MICEX, said on Wednesday they were suspending trade until further notice. How bad? Russian shares suffered their steepest one-day fall in more than a decade on Tuesday, losing up to 20 per cent, as a sharp slide in oil prices and difficult money market conditions triggered a rush to sell. [more inside]
posted by rough ashlar on Sep 17, 2008 - 67 comments

A bottom for banking? Buying or selling shares in a company one manages - insider trading - is legal in The United States, provided the relevant forms are filed with The SEC. This information is then made available to the general public via EDGAR, Sec Form 4, or high level aggregators. Investors scour web sites for such filings, as purchases or sales of a companies shares by insiders are public evidence of managements private opinions regarding the future prospects of the firm they are running.

Even before yesterdays relief rally insider buying in banking shares hit a two decade high. So does this surge in buying indicate the worst is over in banking? When trading its best to pay close attention to a broad range of signals, because sometimes even the insiders get it wrong.
posted by Mutant on Sep 9, 2008 - 23 comments

A New State of Mind. "New research is linking dopamine to complex social phenomena and changing neuroscience in the process."
posted by homunculus on Aug 12, 2008 - 25 comments

Pakistani Investors Stone Exchange Pakistan investors stormed out of the Karachi Stock Exchange, smashed windows and cursed regulators after the benchmark index fell for a 15th day, the worst losing streak in at least 18 years. [more inside]
posted by rough ashlar on Jul 17, 2008 - 29 comments

The simple phrase "it's different this time" are the four most expensive words in the English language. Sir John Templeton, 1912-2008, we thank you for this lesson and countless others. [more inside]
posted by Mutant on Jul 9, 2008 - 67 comments

The rapid growth of electronic trading since 1976 has benefited equity market participants by improving competition, reducing cost and increasing liquidity while insuring better pricing.

One unexpected side effect has been the recent emergence of "dark pools of liquidity", or the secret stock market. [more inside]
posted by Mutant on May 20, 2008 - 21 comments

Academic discussions of stock markets frequently reference The Efficient Markets Hypothesis; an idea that share prices are fairly valued, their prices reflecting all available information. However folklore such as "Sell in May and go away", which proved prudent in 2007, clashes with this theory. [more inside]
posted by Mutant on May 15, 2008 - 11 comments

While the US equities markets were closed on Monday for Martin Luther King Day, stock markets around the world took a nosedive, losing billions in equity; the markets in Australia, South Korea, Japan, China, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Germany, France, the UK, and more countries have dropped at least 5% each (Canada only fell 4.75%), even though most of those markets had already been seriously down for several days prior. India has been hit particularly hard, at one point down a whopping 11%, tripping their markets' automatic "circuit breakers" for a mandatory time-out period, before scraping back up to close at 8% down. US futures markets are currently predicting a 650+ point drop just at the open Tuesday morning, before even a single trade goes through. [more inside]
posted by Asparagirl on Jan 22, 2008 - 306 comments

It was twenty years ago today... [more inside]
posted by Mutant on Oct 19, 2007 - 27 comments

At a time when fed-up American citizens are petitioning Congress to end the imprudent financial practices that caused the housing bubble sub-prime mortgage crisis liquidity crisis impending recession -- including the banning of SIV's and refusing any bailouts for Wall Street, banks, or mortgage companies -- the United States Treasury Department has just announced the creation of a giant-mega-ultra SIV called "M-LEC" made up of assets from several of the largest American banks. Already unofficially nicknamed "Sivie Mae" (or worse, "the Frankenstein Fund"), it would be an off-balance-sheet way for these banks to pool and price the ABCP's that they've lately been having trouble pricing and thus selling -- i.e. the liquidity crisis. [more inside]
posted by Asparagirl on Oct 16, 2007 - 82 comments

meta-markets Online stock market for trading socially networked creative products.
posted by tellurian on Sep 3, 2007 - 20 comments

Minsky Meltdown ahead? Named after Hyman Minsky, an economist who was known for his research concerning financial crises, specifically asset bubbles based on credit cycles. [much more inside]
posted by umop-apisdn on Aug 29, 2007 - 75 comments

A New Kind of Bank Run. ...a new financial architecture has emerged that relied more on securities and less on banks as intermediaries. With the worth of [these new] securities now being questioned — and no equivalent of deposit insurance — some who financed the securities want their money out, a fact that has created the 21st-century equivalent of a run on a bank. . It's no wonder these securities are being questioned, when some are based on Ninja mortgages and foreclosures are up 58% from last year.
posted by storybored on Aug 10, 2007 - 51 comments

Just how bad is it Jim? Cramer, no not Kramer, melts down on live TV and tells a very large audience to stop trading. Is the US economy heading toward collapse?
posted by spish on Aug 7, 2007 - 133 comments

"I have $334,442 in 'bad debt' (I’m not counting even my student loans in that figure). It’s likely that this blog will not last long, because its more likely that I am not going to make it." The journey of the "Debt Kid," who ended up with more than $300,000 of personal debt from playing the stock market. He's 23 years old. "I don’t have a choice to succeed or not. I have to succeed. To have any chance of a 'normal' life (wife, kids, ect), my business has to succeed. I’ve promised to pay my mother back (I owe her over 100K). I have to succeed." Suddenly, paying off a few thousand dollars in debt doesn't seem so impossible.
posted by jbickers on Jun 1, 2007 - 75 comments

Want to learn about investing? Morningstar, an independent investment researcher, is offering 172 free online "classes" on stocks, bonds, funds, and portfolio building. And there's nifty quizzes at the end of each lesson where you can earn points that can be used for Morningstar products.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero on Jan 9, 2007 - 20 comments

EarthShell, a small Maryland company that makes environment-friendly packaging (among others) may wink out of existence thanks to PIPEs, or private investments in public equities. Who likes PIPEs? Hedge Funds, mostly. Companies that take the pipe, as it were, may be sealing their doom. 10 percent of PIPE deals done this year are 'death spirals', where the company's stock price plummets from short selling by the financiers who structured the deal in the first place. And of course it's legal if you don't get caught shorting the stock naked and covering with the shares from the PIPE. (BTW, http://www.earthshell.com appears to be on the margins now or I'd have linked it).
posted by nj_subgenius on Dec 27, 2006 - 24 comments

Five Years After the Bubble is a collection of ten links from the perspective of those who were neck deep in the whole thing. I found the link while reading up on Andy Kessler, who had an interesting piece in today's WSJ, and is giving away his new book.
posted by trharlan on Apr 15, 2005 - 3 comments

One man's retirement math: Social Security wins At the heart of President Bush's plan to sell Social Security private accounts is a simple notion: You're always better off investing your retirement money than letting the government do it. By doing it yourself, you can stow some money in the stock market, and over the long run will get a better return on that investment than today's Social Security system offers. The idea is broadly accepted. That's why the administration's plan to partially privatize the system sounds appealing to many. But that better return won't always happen. Just ask Stanley Logue of San Diego. For 45 years, the defense-industry analyst paid into the system until his retirement in 1994. But with all the recent hoopla over reform, Mr. Logue, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate, decided to go back and check his own records. Would he have done better investing his money than the bureaucrats at the Social Security Administration?
posted by Postroad on Dec 27, 2004 - 80 comments

Why Stock Markets Crash : Critical Events in Complex Financial Systems. Professor Didier Sornette of UCLA has some very interesting things to say about stock markets. In his book, he explains how his "theory of cooperative herding and imitation [...] has detected the existence of a clear signature of herding in the decay of the US S&P500 index since August 2000 with high statistical significance, in the form of strong log-periodic components." Although his timing has been just a bit early, the theory, the predictions to date and the pictures are all pretty uncanny. This is easily the most interesting book on the stock market I have ever read and provides interesting and believable hypotheses about things I never imagined could have rigorous explanations. For an overview, here is an interview with the author.
posted by muppetboy on May 14, 2004 - 19 comments

Another "Google heading for an IPO" report - but this time it's for real, according to the Financial Times. Apparently the shares will be sold through an electronic auction "designed to prevent a recurrence of the sort of financial scandals that have engulfed Wall Street since the collapse of the dotcom bubble". Not that Google was ever going to be Enron.
posted by zimbobzim on Oct 23, 2003 - 24 comments

Take Stock in Weblogs - Blogshares is a web-based simulation of stock market where the commodity is weblog linkage. Currently, Metafilter is worth $27774.44. What's your weblog worth?
posted by Argyle on Mar 30, 2003 - 23 comments

100 year average shows "stock market prefers Democratic presidents to Republicans" - "President George W. Bush inherited the lousy end of the business cycle...[however]...Slate ran the numbers and found that since 1900, Democratic presidents have produced a 12.3 percent annual total return on the S&P 500, but Republicans only an 8 percent return. [from Slate] Meanwhile, deficit spending [NYT reg. req.] is back in fashion -Guess I'm putting my $ in gold.....
posted by troutfishing on Nov 20, 2002 - 49 comments

A speculative bubble is created when objectivity, reasoning, and valuation give way to greed and an insatiable desire for profits. On this date in history... October 29, 1929: The date of the stock market crash that marked the start of the Great Depression in the United States. Could it have been averted by the reading of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay?
posted by puddsharp on Oct 29, 2002 - 21 comments

Remembering the crazy dot-com boom. In November of 1998, a small California Internet provider named AvTel Communications announced they were providing local ADSL service to the community via a typical (and innocent, at least so it was thought) corporate press release. Business wires spin completely mis-interpret the release, CNBC talks about it on air, then clueless investors hoping to get rich quick start throwing money at the stock causing the stock price to rise an amazing 1284% in one day before trading is suspended. After several class-action suits, and a company re-name, the company managed to survive the hoopla, but only barely. Now they're being de-listed like yesterday's trash. Did something like this ever happen to a company for whom you worked? Let's share! (Yeah, I worked there then.)
posted by WolfDaddy on Sep 12, 2002 - 10 comments

Thomas Frank lays it down for you again, anyone still yearning for a more unfettered free market. via anfin
posted by engelr on Aug 17, 2002 - 2 comments

Someone we trust says something reassuring. Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, arguably the most powerful man in the world, blames "infectious greed" for the recent panic-like tail-spins on Wall Street, but says that the economy is on the way to recovery. One comment held that Greenspan was finally able to let out how he feels about what's going on, without shrouding his opinion in economic jibber-jabber.

"For once he really spoke his mind. He usually tends to obfuscate things quite a bit."

But really, how many of you expected Greenspan to say anything other than "the fundamentals are in place for a return to sustained healthy growth"? Does Greenspan actually feel this way? Could it be that he is actually majorly pessimistic, but is using his soothing sweet-song voice and obvious clout and earned respect to somehow buck recent trends? Bush's speech didn't do much for our faltering economy, but will Greenspan's? Can one man's mere words possibly change the course of history? Well?
posted by Hammerikaner on Jul 16, 2002 - 27 comments

Speech of the Prez on corporate ethics. Does it go far enough? Stock market is "uninspired".
posted by beagle on Jul 9, 2002 - 44 comments

Oooh, Martha's in trouble... Looks like her ex-boyfriend may have tipped her off to some insider information (and subsequently got popped). News of the incident has caused Martha Stewart Omnimedia stock to drop. Not a Good Thing.
posted by shecky57 on Jun 12, 2002 - 13 comments

ORIGINAL SIN: How prices of initial public offerings were manipulated by Goldman Sachs through the illegal practice of "Laddering" Isn't that enronic!
posted by srboisvert on May 13, 2002 - 10 comments

Worldcom had lent $430 million to Bernard Ebbers, its CEO - apparently to meet margin calls on its stock. (The amount was $366 million as per BusinessWeek). Bernie Ebbers resigned on April 30th. "About the best that can be said of the arrangement is that it keeps a big block of WorldCom stock out of the market, leaving it safely parked in the CEO's portfolio. Price to WorldCom: almost 20 percent of its balance sheet cash as of year-end 2001." I wonder, what could the board have been thinking?!
posted by justlooking on May 3, 2002 - 2 comments

Malcom Gladwell's got a new one in the New Yorker about a guy whose investment strategy positions him to profit from unlikely and scary random catastrophes like 9/11. Its' not on newyorker.com, but the story's subject was kind enough to scan it and post it.
posted by luser on Apr 16, 2002 - 8 comments

Fake profits are causing the stock market to descend. Could someone explain to me the meaningful difference between Enron and Amazon.com? One company recently reported fake profits of $5 million, while having billions in debt. Enron, well...no profits either, and billions in debt. So why is Amazon.com considered "promising"? Enron had a revenue stream too.... Prediction: Amazon.com's stock will be "revalued" sharply lower as people get lucid about real profits and as the accounting/profit scandals spread.
posted by ParisParamus on Feb 4, 2002 - 19 comments

The Catch with Wells Fargo's Share Builder Some of you may have seen Wells Fargo's ads touting $4 per transaction and unlimited transactions for $12. The main catch is that you cannot trade every day. From their FAQ- "ShareBuilder trades can be made the first, second, third or fourth Tuesday of each month. You select which day you would like your trade to take place when setting up your ShareBuilder Plan. In the event of a month with five Tuesdays, no ShareBuilder trades will take place on the fifth Tuesday." When the rest of the world is going to real-time trading, why do you think Wells Fargo is pushing this? Do you think it is deceptive that this is not mentioned up-front?
posted by SandeepKrishnamurthy on Dec 12, 2001 - 10 comments

Will the rich be nicer to the poor? The way the stockmarket keeps plunging the rich might be asking the rest of us how to survive.
posted by jbou on Sep 21, 2001 - 22 comments

Re-opened American stock markets tumble 5%, stabilize. As of 11:06 AM, Dow down 481, NASDAQ down 75.
posted by tranquileye on Sep 17, 2001 - 16 comments

An idea to support the U.S economy. The suggestion is that everyone American should buy 10 or 20 shares in their favourite stock on Monday, and in doing so support their country in the time of crisis. It sounds like a good idea to me. (The story is at the bottom of the page)
posted by Atom Heart Mother on Sep 14, 2001 - 33 comments

Aaargh! They're considering adding AOL to the Dow!
posted by Steven Den Beste on Jan 1, 2001 - 9 comments

An Australian Man who sent millions of e-mails around the world falsely stating shares in an American company would rise 900 per cent was today sentenced to two years in jail. The charges filed are believed among the first of their type made against anyone in the world. Mr Hourmouzis had pleaded guilty to two charges of making a false statement on the Internet.
posted by murray_kester on Oct 29, 2000 - 4 comments

"I wasn't doing anything wrong..." So says Jonathan Lebed, the 16-year-old who paid out $285,000 to the SEC to settle his pump-and-dump case. His father agrees: "He earned it. He did a lot of work. He didn't sit behind a garage smoking pot, or stealing wheels off a car." Yeah, right: after all, he bought his parents a Mercedes with the profits of his stock manipulation.
posted by holgate on Oct 22, 2000 - 17 comments

NBCi relaunches as probably the most boring, blase portal site I've ever seen and their stock goes up? Is it just me, or does it look like they bought the site from "Al's Do It Yourself Portals"?
posted by owillis on Sep 25, 2000 - 7 comments

Gates and Allen setting up thier own (safety) .Net In the past three months, Gates has sold 4.15 million shares valued at about $291.2 million, while Allen has sold 16.26 million shares valued at about $1.2 billion.
posted by quonsar on Sep 14, 2000 - 3 comments

Day trading and looking at pictures of beautiful women. Life just doesn't get any better than this.
posted by Steven Den Beste on Jul 1, 2000 - 4 comments

Will MSFT go up or down tomorrow on the market? Whatcha all think?
posted by Steven Den Beste on Jun 7, 2000 - 11 comments

On a nearly daily basis, new billionaires are made in stock swaps and mergers. Today it's Earthlink and Mindspring becoming one. Suddenly a couple of minor leage national ISPs might be powerful enough to take on AOL. I just hope I don't have to hear Sky Dayton's radio commercials anymore...
posted by mathowie on Sep 23, 1999 - 0 comments

'Hey I heard you huffing and puffing on that exercise bike, are you doing hills on it?' 'Nope, it was just doing some daytrading, my portfolio was taking a dive.' (conversation coming to a gym near you)
posted by mathowie on Sep 15, 1999 - 0 comments