On Tuesday, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates by 0.5%. Wall Street aggressively demanded the cut to stop the sub-prime mortgage contagion from triggering a credit crisis among large US and foreign investment banks and the collapse of their over-leveraged hedge funds, which ultimately threatened to drag the US economy into recession. The market rallied this week in response to the Fed's move. But there is no free lunch. [more inside]
posted by Pastabagel on Sep 20, 2007 - 99 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

An unexpected side effect of iTunes. Remember Bowie Bonds? Introduced in 1997, bonds tied to future profits of music artists (besides Bowie, James Brown and the Isley Brothers offered them) tanked with the advent of online filesharing. Thanks to iTunes, some on Wall Street are betting that the Bowie Bond is a concept with a future.
posted by me3dia on Aug 23, 2005 - 16 comments

Yesterday President Bush said, "Some in our country think that Social Security is a trust fund -- in other words, there's a pile of money being accumulated. That's just simply not true. The money -- payroll taxes going into the Social Security are spent." Is he advocating that the US default on its Treasury bonds?
posted by Sixtieslibber on Feb 10, 2005 - 115 comments

Interest rates are so low that you lose money buying bond funds. A preview of the liquidity trap?
posted by alms on May 20, 2003 - 10 comments

Scripophily is the misunderstood love of owning stocks and bonds that shouldn't be worth anything anymore. So why not make a business out of it? I'm just glad to see that e-toys is doing good once again.
posted by samsara on Jun 26, 2001 - 5 comments