Rick Newman
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5 Wall Street Fallacies
Continue reading… 26 CommentsAn oversized dose of humility sure hasn’t cured the narcissism rampant on Wall Street.
It’s all about them, you see. The nation’s in a painful economic swoon, jobs are disappearing, families are struggling to pay their mortgages, and lots of people are just plain failing. But read the papers or turn on the radio or watch CNBC and you’d think the top national priority is boosting the stock market. To convince you further, there’s the ubiquitous “sad trader” photo, showing some guy in a blue or red jacket on the trading floor looking catatonic after yet another triple-digit blowout.
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More Companies At Risk of Failing
Continue reading… 71 CommentsEverybody hopes the economy bottoms out and starts to improve tomorrow. Or sooner. But there are few signs of an imminent recovery. One obvious indicator is the health of big companies – you know, the ones that have been announcing all those four- and five-digits layoffs recently. And the outlook for them seems to be getting worse, not better.
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How To Measure Your Well-Being Against the Dow
Continue reading… 4 CommentsAre you better off than you were in 1997? The Dow Jones Industrial Average certainly isn’t. As we keep hearing, the Dow, which has fallen about 55 percent from its October 2007 peak, is slumming around at its lowest point since April 1997.
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6 Upsides To a GM Bankruptcy
Continue reading… 358 CommentsJust a few months ago, General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner insisted bankruptcy was "not an option." Suddenly, it's an option. And Wagoner is gone.
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Why the Merrill Bonuses Are a Watershed Moment
Continue reading… 38 CommentsIn the midst of the Vietnam War, an Air Force major told war correspondent Peter Arnett that it was necessary to destroy the town of Ben Tre in order to save it. The twisted logic came to encapsulate the insanity of the entire decade-long fiasco.
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5 Things That Could Revive the Markets
Continue reading… 65 CommentsCan stock prices fall forever?
It feels that way. Each time we’ve hit an unthinkable low over the last few months, investors have whispered to each other that it can’t possibly get any worse. Then it gets worse. Overall, stocks are down about 25 percent just this year, and about 55 percent since they peaked in October 2007. By some measures, it’s the worst wipeout since (you guessed it) the Great Depression.
