Category: Finance
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Fannie and Freddie on the brink
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shares plummeted again today as concern mounted that the US government will be forced to take over the beleaguered mortgage finance companies, which some investors fear are at risk of default. The markets opened two hours ago, and the Dow has already fallen below 11,000. We are now back at…
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A history of banking in 47 minutes
Educational.
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Websites To Save You Cash During The Irish Recession
DoubleViking makes a list of 11 websites that will save you cash. Can we create a similar list for Ireland? My first suggestion would be: Pumps.ie – A collaborative website that allows users to input the price of petrol and diesel at any petrol station throughout Ireland, thus giving you the cheapest places to fill…
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A Nation in Debt
Barbara Dafoe Whitehead has a nice roundup of the US debt mess in the current issue of the American Interest. She has some startling statistics too: Between 1989 and 2001, credit card debt almost tripled, from $238 billion to $692 billion. By fall of 2007, the amount of revolving consumer credit had reached $937.5 billion,…
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Why 20%?
Barry Ritholtz poses the question. It’s a good one. What is the magic about 20%? What makes this the “official” onset of a bear market? There isn’t any NBER-like group that declares an “official” bear market. Best as I can figure, the 20% number is a not-quite-a-random number — more than a 10% correction, less…
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Beds and Blowjobs
Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary. Um nothing more to add.
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Immigrants leave Ireland
The Wall Street Journal highlights the downturn here with a story on immigrants leaving. The statistics are pretty stark, and I like how the WSJ uses these and most Irish media don’t: Citigroup economist Piotr Kalisz in Warsaw estimates that up to half of Polish émigrés to Western Europe since 2004 will return home in…
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Exchange Traded Notes – tax treatment in Ireland
For the past several weeks I have been in correspondence with the Revenue in relation to their treatment of various investment instruments. I was particularly interested in more exotic ones like Exchange Traded Notes (ETNs) Futures Contracts, Options Contracts, CFDs and Spreadbetting. Perhaps the most surprising result of my questions was that Revenue don’t know…
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Bear Stearns
Ouch. The National Pension Reserve Fund has 17,181 shares in Bear Stearns according to their 2006 annual report. In 2006 those share were worth €2,123,556. Once the JPMorgan deal is finished, the NPRF’s holding will be worth €34,362. That’s a loss of €2,089,194. Worse still, the fund reported it had €11,526,645 of shares in Lehman…
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TMF
I did a small piece for today’s Irish Examiner on the Motley Fool’s visit to Dublin at the weekend. What a cool bunch of guys. I think it’s page 17.