Articles About Financing

Sears is trading at its lowest level levels since John Kerry won the Iowa Caucus and New Hampshire Primary in 2004 — and that’s not good news for one of America’s oldest retailers. The retailer, which owns Kmart as well as the Kenmore, Craftsman and Lands’ End brands, announced  after Christmas that it would close […]

When we say that a company “went bankrupt,” we imply that it had no other choice. But American Airlines deliberately filed for bankruptcy. The airline had four billion dollars in the bank and was in a position to pay its bills. American has been losing money for some time and its board decided that it […]

Ireland was one of the nations that was hardest hit by the Eurozone crisis, but now it’s being seen as leading stricken nations in their efforts to turn their economies around.  International Monetary Fund (IMF) and European Union (EU) officials are impressed by its austerity measures, imposed after the massive 2010 bailout.  For the average […]

As the stock market moved between negative and positive territory on the last day of January, 2012, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was nevertheless poised to close with their biggest January gain in 15 years – despite closing down a few points for the day.  In fact, it could be the best January for Standard […]

The federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) proposed limiting banks’  proprietary trading and hedge fund investments under the Dodd-Frank Act’s Volcker rule. The CFTC  3-2 vote makes it the last of five regulators to seek public comment on the proposal. This vote opens the measure to 60 days of public comment.  The rule, named for […]

The global apartment sharing startup AirBnB has raised $112 million at a $1.3 billion valuation, confirming rumors about the fast-growing company which books rooms, apartments and houses in destinations from New York to San Francisco to Hawaii to London to Paris to Barcelona to Buenos Aires.  The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz (AH).  Reports […]

The Obama administration plans to work closely with federal regulators, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to start a pilot program to sell government-owned foreclosures in bulk to investors as rentals, according to administration officials. There currently are approximately 250,000 foreclosed properties on the books of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), […]

European leaders will this week try to deliver new fiscal rules and cut Greece’s onerous debt burden.  All this in the wake of Standard & Poor’s (S&P) Eurozone downgrades. France was not the only Eurozone nation to feel the pain. Austria was cut to AA+ from AAA; Cyprus to BB+ from BBB; Italy to BBB+ […]

Yet another European nation – and one not in the Eurozone – is facing a financial crisis now that Standard & Poor’s (S&P) has downgraded its credit rating to junk status. The nation is Hungary, whose status was changed as a result of concerns about proposed policy changes regarding the country’s central bank.  S&P cut […]

Confidence in American homebuilders rose in December for the third consecutive month, a sign that the housing market is finally stabilizing.  The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo (NAHB) Housing Market Index (HMI) of builder confidence climbed to 21 — the highest level since May 2010 — from a revised 19 in November.   Economists […]