Is it déjà vu all over
again in the debt market? You’d be forgiven for thinking so, especially
if you remember the auction-rate securities debacle from 2008.
Those securities were and are used by some tax-exempt organizations
as a form of inexpensive financing. They price using a Dutch auction at
periodic (usually short) intervals. Read morehere.
The North American energy boom should help power up an industry that's been stuck in the doldrums: marine transportation.
Shipping, the ugly stepsister of commodities, has been unappealing over the past few years. A massive shipbuilding boom created overcapacity, sending shipping fees into free fall. The Baltic Dry Index, a key benchmark for waterborne transportation fees, peaked at 11,793 in May 2008 before plunging to 663 in December that year, according to FactSet. By Friday it crept back to 933. See original story here.
Investors seeking income might want to take a peek at preferred-stock funds.
What is preferred stock? It is a hybrid security that is a cross between equity and debt. Like debt, it pays a fixed amount of interest, and holders get paid before any common-stock dividends are distributed. But like equity, it tends to have larger price swings to both the upside and the downside.Buyers may reap handsome yields of around 6% with advantageous tax treatment on distributions. Still, you need to understand the nuances of preferred stock to get the most from it. See original story here.
The price of a stock doesn't tell you anything about
whether it's a good deal, but the so-called price/earnings ratio can
help. The trick is figuring out which P/E ratio to use.
Obviously, just because one stock is $200 a
share and another $12 doesn't mean the latter is cheaper in terms of
what you're getting. For a better gauge, you need to calculate what you
are paying for each dollar of company earnings. Hence, the P/E ratio,
derived by dividing the price of the stock by one year of per-share
earnings. So if one stock has a P/E of 12 and the other of 10, the
latter is cheaper. Read original story here.
By SIMON CONSTABLE
Friday we got news that jobs remain scarce in the U.S. Unemployment is still hovering around 8 percent but that doesn’t really give any sense of just how bad things are for the vast majority of Americans. Thursday last week I heard a presentation by Professor Matthew Slaughter of Dartmouth’s Tuck school of business. It was sobering to say the least. First he pointed out: it will take until 2020 for the economy to get back the number of jobs we had at the beginning of the great recession. It gets worse. Even if you have a job, your earnings are being eroded. Median pay adjusted for inflation has fallen since 1989. It should be a reminder to anyone who thinks we’re on the road to recovery that it will be a long road.
By SIMON CONSTABLE Like the host of "The Price Is Right" TV game show, Wall Street is saying "Come on down!" Investment professionals are anticipating an influx of income- and growth-hungry mom-and-pop "retail" investors into the stock market this year—especially as the economy picks up and pressure grows for interest rates to start rising. See original story here.
