Archive for the ‘finances’ Category

Wall Street on the Up and Up

Friday, January 2nd, 2009

Good news coming from Wall Street today, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 258 points, or 2.9%, to close above 9,000 for the first time since November. Standard & Poor’s 500 index gained 3.2%, and the Nasdaq composite rose 3.5%. Numbers have been rising since this past Wednesday but experts ...

Milking the Declining Price of Dairy Products

Friday, January 2nd, 2009

Like the auto industry in Detroit, America’s dairy industry is also taking a huge hit that’s sure to affect your grocery shopping budget. The New York Times’ Andrew Martin reports: "In a warehouse that [Roger Van Groningen’s] company runs here, 8 to 20 trucks pull up every day to unload milk ...

Bigger ’09 Paychecks Under Obama’s ‘Make Work Pay’ Tax Plan

Wednesday, December 31st, 2008

Americans making less than $75,000 annually should expect to see a slightly larger paycheck every two weeks when Barack Obama takes the presidential office on January 20. While he was once believed to be re-thinking the plan he touted during the election, the President-elect is in fact expected to implement ...

Home Price Index Hit With 18% Drop In October

Tuesday, December 30th, 2008

Homes prices across the country dropped again between September and October, marking the 27th month in a row that the S&P Case-Shiller Index has posted losses. The mean price of homes saw a 2.2% drop, bringing prices back down to where they sat in March of 2004. Altogether, home prices ...

NASDAQ’s Tech Driven Trading Model Outsmarts the Competition

Tuesday, December 30th, 2008

Financially, 2008 was a year defined by the plummeting stock market, but Forbes Magazine still thought that no company was more impressive over the four quarters than market mogul NASDAQ OMX. The financial magazine’s Daniel Fisher praised the New York-headquartered company for adapting to recently introduced methods of new business ...

Drop in Holiday Spending Spells More Trouble for Retailers in ‘09

Monday, December 29th, 2008

Described by industry analysts as one of the worst holiday season sales periods on record, December’s retail sales figures plummeted 4% from last year’s numbers. Retailers are finally coming to grips with the fact that the American public has gone into a full-on savings mode that wasn’t the norm in ...

Top 10 Cities Vying for a Piece of Obama’s Job Creating Stimulus Plans

Thursday, December 18th, 2008

On December 8, the United States Conference of Mayors met and drew up an 803-page report outlining how their respective cities would use the money President-elect Barack Obama intends to spend on infrastructure projects aimed at improving America’s economic situation by giving the country a face lift. Altogether, the 427 ...

New York Enacts Digital Retail Tax – Is Your State Next?

Wednesday, December 17th, 2008

In New York this week, Governor David Patterson announced the state would begin charging a digital retail tax for online purchases. The tax will go into action along with similar plans from Paterson to raise taxes on movie tickets, soft drinks, sweets and snacks, and luxury clothing items among other ...

Wall Street Investor Bernard Madoff Confesses to Running Pyramid Scheme

Tuesday, December 16th, 2008

Longtime Wall Street investor Bernard Madoff confessed last week to running a years-long Ponzi scheme that’s believed to have swindled up to $50 billion in investments from more than thirty high profile individuals and organizations. The New York City based Madoff first told his children that he was deeply involved ...

Federal Reserve To Cut Interest Rates to Historic Low

Tuesday, December 16th, 2008

The Federal Reserve decided this afternoon to cut a key short-term interest rate to historic lows, making things clear that it will “employ all available tools” in its effort to save the country from its current economic crisis. The Fed announced that it would pull back its target for the federal ...