Articles

TD Ameritrade is offering an attractive promotion to open a brokerage account with them. They'll give you 30 free days of trades and $100.

Bob Nardelli, Rick Wagoner and Alan Mulally are to blame for the sharpest 2 day market drop that we have seen in years. Seeing such stupidity just caused a massive panic.

GM's 10-K showed a funded status of $19 billion, based on assets of $104 billion and liabilities of $85 billion as of Dec. 31. If the union and the employees believe in the company than why not lend the company the money for the turn-around?

Marketwatch writer Paul Farrell brings up some interesting points but I find things are never as bad as they seem, or as good. I also look at articles like this as a marker to a bottom in the market. The more great depression articles you see, the closer we are getting to some kind of low. Are we there yet? No. But we're getting closer.

Bloomberg published an article today in which several analysts and bank execs said the rates being paid by some banks was insanity (way too high). I guess they haven't heard of competition or of the saying he/she who has the cash makes the rules.

Venture Bank Direct is offering a competitive 3.8% APY savings account.

The SEC charged Mark Cuban, internet entrepreneur and NBA Dallas Mavericks owner, with insider trading. I thought it would be interesting to see what could be uncovered by searching his blog. Mark Cuban is one of the very few celebrities who have been blogging consistently for many years.

The financial services sector continues to contract. On top of the 23,000 jobs cut this year, Citi is now reporting an additional cut of 50,000 jobs, or 14% of its workforce.

Both WaMu and Chase have started offering a competitive 60 month CD paying 5% APY. It's no surprise they are offering the same rate, since Chase purchased WaMu.

The UAW President Ron Gettelfinger is now saying that high gas prices are the cause for the Big Three collapse and that the companys' problems shouldn't be blamed on mismanagement or high labor costs. What a cop out.

The mainstream press is catching on to something we've been writing about for some time, namely that banks are being forced to keep their rates high to prevent runs and to rebuild liquidity.

States and local governments are asking for a piece of the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program funds as revenue drops. This will have consequences for the Muni market.

Citibank announced yesterday that it was raising rates on about 20% of its credit card customers. Other credit card companies are doing the same and cutting credit limits.

Keeping your credit score up or repairing bad credit is more important than ever in a bad economic environment.