Most of us are familiar with economic and financial indexes (or indices). We hear daily reports of the change in “The Dow Jones Industrial Average,” or the “Standard and Poor’s 500.” These measurements are designed to provide indications of performance for the group of securities or activities (such as consumer spending) they represent.
Read MoreThe Wall Street Journal recently reported that, “Financial markets began taking seriously the prospect of a downgrade of the U.S.’s triple-A credit rating, which it has held for nearly a century.”
Read MoreThere are plenty of predictions made about finance and economics. In fact, a search for “money predictions in 2011” generates more than 28 million hits.
Read MoreIt’s hard to go anywhere these days and not hear the word “Facebook,” the social media website that dominates the Internet. Often the discussion is about users’ “privacy settings” and how individual privacy is becoming harder to maintain.
Read MoreOn the Money From the June 5, 2009 print edition It’s tough to recall a time with so much overlap between government and private business enterprise. Government monetary and fiscal activities are drawing more attention than ever. Relationships that previously were devoutly separate have begun to merge. For example, auto union workers are being transformed into shareholders, and banks now plead to return money to the government rather than accept it. The terms “public” and “private” are becoming hard to distinguish. Witness the most recent initiative by the U.S. Department of the Treasury – the Public Private Partnership Investment Program (PPPIP). A new word, “privblic,” may enter the financial glossary. As government’s commercial activities become more integral to private business, they reach down into everyone’s daily life to a greater degree than ever. It may not be enough to rely only upon the media to provide a meaningful synthesis of these new and untested activities and relationships. Access to information at its source is critical to finding clarity. Here are some...
Read MoreOn the Money From the December 5, 2008 print edition Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “Can anybody remember when the times were not hard and money not scarce?” That time certainly isn’t today. Money is scarcer than ever, and it seems every new financial decision is harder than the last. In the face of difficult decisions, it’s natural to search for additional and more meaningful information. Good decisions flow from good, truthful and complete information. For investors, the search for good information begins with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Most individual investors access company information using third-party services, such as Yahoo Finance, Bloomberg, etc., rather than the SEC’s Edgar system. The Edgar system presents massive amounts of data, but isn’t an effective distiller of information. Therefore, in June, the SEC announced it eventually would replace Edgar with a new interactive “company file system.” The plan is to improve how it acquires information from public companies, mutual funds, brokers and other regulated entities, and how it makes that information available to investors...
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