A while back I was reading about Bernie Madoff's adventures (fascinating story) and the smooth way he operated his giant Ponzi machine. The interesting part of the story was about how some of the damages will be recovered from other investors who were ostensibly lucky enough to withdraw their investments before the house of cards — Continue reading »
Oracle Buys Sun
📆 April 20, 2009
When today I heard the news of Oracle buying Sun Microsystems, my first thought was that I wished I had picked up some JAVA shares after the IBM deal had fallen through. It was just a matter of time before a suitor would snap it up. My second thought was about its impact on the — Continue reading »
Credit Ratings Knocks
📆 March 17, 2009
Years ago when I was a rookie employee at GE, fresh out of college, I was introduced to GE Interest Plus, offering a checking account with a competitive interest rate. I began saving my money there without realizing that this really wasn't a regular bank account. It wasn't their fault, the fact that they weren't — Continue reading »
Circuit City Goodbye
📆 March 8, 2009
Last week, walking by a Circuit City store at lunch time, I noticed a few people out on the street holding liquidation signs. Tempted, I went inside the store and took a look around the near-empty and dark store with few remaining items collected in the front of store. There were slim pickings and but — Continue reading »
GE Below Cisco
📆 March 2, 2009
Add this to the list of things you thought would never happen. GE's market capitalization of around $80B today is almost the same as those of Apple or Oracle. It’s less than those of Cisco or Google or IBM. General Electric, the conglomerate blue-chip company that once was known as the most admired with the — Continue reading »
Housing Market
📆 February 28, 2009
The stock market is going through tough times. Look at your battered 401k statement, if you dare, and you'll know how bad things are. Yesterday the DJIA barely hovered above the 7,000 mark. That's a 12-year low and some are still calling for more, a lot more, pain ahead. Short positions are now firmly in — Continue reading »
Berkshire Hathaway, Cheap Again?
📆 February 19, 2009
Back on Nov. 20, 2008 when the stock market was touching multi-year low points, Berkshire Hathaway (headed by the famed Warren Buffett) was touching its own low of $75,000/share. A number of notable sites/publications jumped to the defense of the stock, marveling at the opportunity of owning a share of this company at a bargain — Continue reading »
The APY Game
📆 January 26, 2009
It has been only a few days since I posted about the 4% savings account at Dollar Savings Direct. I characterized the rate as "unheard-of". Apparently the folks over at the bank agreed and over the weekend they lopped off 0.5% from the APY bringing the interest rate down to 3.5%. You really can't blame — Continue reading »
Give a few Sats