Post tagged with interest rates

  • A law with unintended consequences

    February 24th, 201001:19 PM ET
    By Joseph Slife
    "It wasn't supposed to turn out this way." So we wrote in our November 2009 article (subscribers only) about the unintended consequences of the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act, signed into law last year by President Obama. The law took full effect Monday. AP Personal Finance writer Eileen AJ Connelly picks up th...

  • Where has all the money gone?

    January 13th, 201010:47 AM ET
    By Joseph Slife
    Citing stats from the Investment Company Institute, USA Today reports that investors withdrew a net $490 billion from money market funds during the first 10 months of 2009. Most of went - where? If you guessed "into stock funds," you're wrong. Nearly two-thirds of the money went into bond funds. Normally, investors chase after stocks during...

  • Payback time? NYT looks at the "Debt Bomb"

    December 02nd, 200910:33 AM ET
    By Joseph Slife
    "What a good country or a good squirrel should be doing is stashing away nuts for the winter," bond expert Bill Gross said in last Monday's New York Times. "The United States is not only not saving nuts, it's eating the ones left over from the last winter." Gross, founder of Pimco, the world's largest and most influential bond-investment firm, is ...

  • Between a rock and a hard place

    November 12th, 200908:40 AM ET
    By Mark Biller
    That's where the Fed finds itself currently, trying to balance its dual mandate of price stability and full employment. As Randall Forsyth writes in this week's Barron's (subscription required): Friday's jobs data underscored Wednesday's reiteration by the Federal Reserve that it will keep its key policy rate at 0-0.25% "for an extended per...

  • World Bank, IMF warn of new bubbles

    November 11th, 200909:55 AM ET
    By Joseph Slife
    The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are concerned that artificially low interest rates combined with huge sums of money sloshing around from "stimulus" programs and central bank coffers could lead to another round of asset bubbles, especially in Asia. The Wall Street Journal has the story: The World Bank warned Tuesday that the sud...

  • Weak recovery = strong stock gains?

    September 09th, 200909:32 AM ET
    By Mark Biller
    According to columnist Jon Markman, up is down and down is up: Investors who are worried that the economy won't advance fast enough or far enough to justify a 15% rise in the stock market this year have it all wrong. Stocks have actually been rising because the coming recovery from last year's wipeout is expected to be slow and weak, rather th...

  • Do you feel protected yet?

    August 20th, 200912:23 PM ET
    By Mark Biller
    Today, the first provisions of the new Credit CARD Act - designed to protect consumers from the dirty tricks of credit card issuers - kick in. Unfortunately, as is so often the case with federal legislation, the law of unintended consequences appears to have kicked in already. As Chuck Jaffe points out, this law that was supposed to make thing...

  • Baby steps back toward normal

    August 13th, 200908:41 AM ET
    By Mark Biller
    As expected, the Federal Reserve left its target interest rate unchanged yesterday. However, they did take one tiny, positive step back towards "normal" monetary policy. One of the more controversial policies to come out of the financial crisis was the Fed's program to buy long-term government bonds directly from the Treasury. In other words, ...

  • An offer you CAN refuse: Say no to bad credit card deals

    July 08th, 200909:33 AM ET
    By Joseph Slife
    From Chuck Jaffe at MarketWatch: The Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act (widely known as the Credit CARD Act) takes effect in February, although a few key provisions kick in at the start of August. One of the key provisions that begins in August requires credit-card issuers to give 45 days' notice before any rate hike. ...

  • Maximizing income from CDs

    June 19th, 200911:35 AM ET
    By Mark Biller
    James Stewart of SmartMoney has a counterintuitive strategy for investing in CD's (certificates of deposit, not the musical variety). Instead of buying longer maturities in order to get slightly better yields, he thinks savers should currently be shortening their maturities. In this environment, I have a suggestion that bucks the conventional wi...
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