Friday, May 18, 2012

FOX News May 18


Michael Castner on WhoSay

Monday, May 14, 2012

WSJ: Lax Regulation Not to Blame for J.P. Morgan Loss

By SIMON CONSTABLE

By now you must have heard about J.P. Morgan Chase’s $2 billion trading loss. You’ll also have heard the screams of outrage and the calls for more banking regulation. Maybe the regulation is part of the problem. But it’s not all of it: Not by a long way.

What you may not know is that at least part of the problem comes from what economists call “agency cost.” That’s the cost of having someone run the business who doesn’t own it.


See original post here.


The original uploader was Urbanrenewal at English Wikipedia., 
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Sunday, May 6, 2012

WSJ: Real Interest Rates Explained

By SIMON CONSTABLE

There are interest rates. Then there are "real" interest rates.Looking at real rates can help you determine how much your purchasing power may grow, says Mihir Worah, head of the real-return portfolio management team at Pacific Investment Management Co., or Pimco.

Many of the savviest investors suggest paying closer attention to the latter. To determine the real rate, you need to start with the rate quoted for holdings in bank accounts, bonds and the like—it is known as the nominal rate—and then adjust it for inflation. Read original here.

Saturday, May 5, 2012

Barrons: Rice Prices Getting Set to Pop

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Bad news: That cheap bowl of rice you were counting on to stretch your paycheck may soon get pricey. Good news: You'll be able to profit off the coming move, although you'll need to be nimble.

It's happening because Western Hemisphere farmers are cultivating less rice while inventories are set to plummet. "Stocks are running low now, and rice prices do not go down when acreage goes down," writes Milo Hamilton, in a recent edition of his newsletter, The Firstgrain Rice Market Strategist. "Never [has that happened] in any year that we have traded rice, which is for over 30 years."

In short, prices are going higher. See original story here.

Rice Paddy
Photo by Joel Vodell on Unsplash