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Jamie Dimon Goes Insane: "People Who Pass On Rumors Should Go To Jail"* Hilary Lewis | Jul 8, 2008 3:09 AM JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon is usually a font of wisdom, but if he actually means what he's quoted as saying on Charlie Rose, he has gone temporarily insane: Reuters: JP Morgan Chase & Co Chief Executive Jamie Dimon said U.S. regulators should investigate whether people betting on Bear Stearns' stock falling deliberately brought down the investment bank. "Where there is smoke, there's fire," Dimon said in an interview with Charlie Rose on PBS, televised on Monday. "I think...

AN AUSTRIAN man who lost a six-figure sum in bad investments has admitted killing five family members with an axe to spare them the "disgrace" of financial ruin. The 39-year-old public relations consultant, identified only as Reinhard S, walked into a Vienna police station at 3.20am yesterday, and told the duty officer: "In my apartment are my dead wife and my dead child." The man said that, after killing the two, he drove two hours to Linz, where he killed his father-in-law and his parents. After trying and failing to hang himself, he turned himself in. Vienna police confirmed the...

WASHINGTON - Cindy McCain, whose husband has been a critic of the violence in Sudan, sold off more than $2 million in mutual funds whose holdings include companies that do business in the African nation. The sale on Wednesday came after The Associated Press questioned the investments in light of calls by John McCain, the likely Republican presidential nominee, for international financial sanctions against the Sudanese leadership. Last year, at least four presidential candidates divested themselves of Sudan-related holdings. According to McCain's personal financial disclosure, Cindy McCain's investments include two mutual funds — American Funds Europacific Growth fund and American...

I have a theory that if you took all the money in the world and divided it equally among all the people's of the world, it would end up in the same pockets as it left 5-10 years from now. The rule here is that money goes where it can earn it's highest return and be guaranteed to return. That clearly isn't Wall Street. The sub prime stuff made the underwriters and issuers a fortune and the investors nothing. Investors like pension funds and super wealthy individuals have been there and done that and my sense is they are not...

The world is teetering on the edge of the worst recession for a generation, according to the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation, the world’s third-largest sovereign wealth fund. Tony Tan, executive director of GIC, which has estimated assets of more than $300bn, told a global staff conference: “We could be facing a recession which is longer, deeper and wider than any recession that we have encountered in the last 30 years.” He added: “The financial and investment markets will be extremely nervous and volatile over the next one to two years. “Instead of the rising tide which [has] broadly benefited...

I was filling out my DuPont proxy this morning and came across a shareholder proposale regarding global warming. At first I rolled my eyes and then laughed when I read it. This proposal is right up the alley of any Freeper who doesn't believe in global warming. If you have Dupont common stock or know someone who does, tell them it and remember to vote YES on Proposal 4!

Why have U.S. stock markets been such relatively poor performers this decade? American equities have lagged their brethren in the rest of the world since they reached their lows in October 2002. At the height of the stock market last October--before it was clobbered by the credit crisis--the S&P was up about 100% from its lows of five years before. In contrast, German equities have risen more than 200%, the French about 120%. The MSCI World Index, which includes the U.S., has moved up about 135%. It's no surprise that the MSCI Emerging Markets Index has skyrocketed almost 400%. It...

Germany's second biggest state-owned bank, Bayerische Landesbank, revealed Thursday that the global credit crunch (more...) has cost the bank €4.3 billion ($6.7 billion) -- far more than it had previouly predicted and more than any German state-owned bank has suffered so far. BayernLB, which is based in Munich, reported writedowns of €2.3 billion in 2007 and another €2 billion for the first quarter of this year as a result of the fallout from the US housing market crisis.

U.S. regulators are investigating whether traders illegally sought to force Bear Stearns Cos. shares into a tailspin last week by spreading false information about the firm's finances, two people familiar with the inquiry said. The Securities and Exchange Commission probe is focusing on whether hedge funds or other investors bet on a drop in the company's shares while spreading rumors that the New York firm was nearing collapse, said the people, who declined to be identified because the inquiry isn't public.

The U.S. Treasury is struggling with how to handle any political or Islamic ramifications as Persian Gulf sovereign wealth funds look to make substantial investments in capital-poor American banks and securities firms. The crisis in mortgage-backed securities has created a need for new capital to enter financial markets after major financial institutions such as Bear Stearns and Carlyle Capital Corp. failed over the weekend. The crisis is an opportunity for sovereign wealth funds that have prospered as the price of oil has soared over $110 a barrel. WND previously reported sovereign wealth funds in six Persian Gulf countries, including Kuwait,...

The global volume of futures and options trading soared by 28 per cent last year, the largest annual increase since 2003, fuelled by a sharp rise in equity market volatility and a rush to commodity related contracts. More than 15bn futures and options contracts changed hands during 2007 at 54 exchanges across the world, according to the Futures Industry Association. The results show the rate of growth accelerating after a 19 per cent rise in 2006, 12 per cent in 2005, and 9 per cent in 2004. It is the largest volume rise since volume jumped 30 per cent from...

Commodities were at the centre of one of the earliest known financial bubbles – the tulip mania that hit the Netherlands in the 17th century. The price of the flower was lifted by huge investment demand to a peak of 1,500 guilders a pound in February 1637 – equivalent to what a master carpenter made in about four years. It had seen a tenfold increase in the space of two months and was trading at a level not supported by demand-supply fundamentals. Amid record costs, demand for tulip bulbs soon evaporated and prices crashed. Fast-forward about 400 years and some...

FBI searched Murrieta businessmen's homes in investment probe Friday, March 7, 2008 By LESLIE BERKMAN The Press-Enterprise The FBI confirmed Friday that it searched the Murrieta homes of James Duncan and Hendrix Montecastro for documents and computer data as part of a criminal investigation. Contents of the search warrant indicate that the FBI is looking into the investment schemes that already have made the two Murrieta businessmen and their colleagues the targets of lawsuits by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and irate investors. The U.S. attorney's office, acting on behalf of the FBI, obtained the search warrant from U.S....

Behind the recent bad news lurks a much deeper concern: The world economy is now being driven by a vast, secretive web of investments that might be out of anyone's control.

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - New Jersey announced Friday it will prohibit state pension money from being invested in companies that do business in Iran. Most American companies are already barred from doing business in the country, but Democratic Gov. Jon S. Corzine signed a measure restricting the state from buying stock in international companies that do business with Iran. Florida and California have similar laws. The move is designed to protest the country's links to terrorism and its nuclear ambitions. 'I continue to support using economic means, not military means, to bring about policy changes in Iran,' Corzine said recently...

The phrase has long since entered the political lexicon, but it was former House Speaker and Massachusetts Representative Tip O'Neill who first christened Social Security the "third rail of American politics." The reasoning behind his snide dubbing is twofold: the high political mortality rate of those who suggest change to the program, and avoidance of the issue by even Washington's most forthcoming public officials. During the Oct. 9 GOP debate, presidential candidate Fred Thompson threw conventional wisdom to the wind and grabbed the rail. Hard. Thompson called Social Security's current trajectory "unsustainable" and proposed reducing the benefits of recipients to...

Washington (AHN) - Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson proposed Friday to reduce promised retirement benefits and to create a system of voluntary personal retirement accounts that can also help to finance the Social Security program. Under the proposal, retirement benefits for workers who are now 58 and older will not be affected. Employees who are now younger will get smaller monthly Social Security pensions because their benefits will be calculated based on the yearly increase in prices. Meanwhile, the personal retirement accounts will be funded with workers' contributions to be matched by funds from the Social Security trust fund. Workers...

You want to build wealth for life by beating the market. You want to stay ahead of the masses who stash their money in savings accounts (gasp!), bonds, and even index funds. Because there's nothing worse than knowing you'd be doing better by doing nothing. But you face the risk of losing to the market if you stash substantial portions of your hard-earned dollars in non-dividend-payers, underperformers, or -- worst of all -- non-dividend-paying underperformers; because when your investment dollars stagnate, even the lowly T-bill will take you to the woodshed. Greatest growth: Fueled by dividends Master investors such as...

New Swedish companies are bursting with ideas in IT and biotech. It's time for international investors to sit up and take notice, says leading entrepreneur Johan Staël von Holstein.

Foreign investors slashed their holdings of US securities by a record amount as the credit squeeze intensified, according to the latest Treasury figures. The Treasury International Capital report – known as the Tic – for August will be closely watched because it appears amid growing concerns about the weakness of the US dollar, which hit a record low recently against a basket of major currencies. “The bad news is that [the data] plainly show how vulnerable the dollar is to a continuation of the credit crunch-risk averse environment,” said Alan Ruskin, chief international strategist at RBS Greenwich Capital. “There is...

ABOUT a week ago, I was swimming in my pool when I had serious difficulty breathing. “Uh-oh,” I said to myself, “now I am about to die.” My wife was upstairs reading, way out of earshot and, anyway, if I were about to have a lethal heart attack, I wouldn’t be able to scream. It turned out to be a nasty but short-lived bronchitis, and as I was lying in bed recovering, I thought, “I will die someday, and before I do, I would like to share with you the best possible thoughts I can, in gratitude for the many...

The roller-coaster career of maverick trader Victor Niederhoffer took a sharp downturn after losses mounted and a key investor withdrew money from his firm, demonstrating how the market's recent volatility has shaken even some veterans. Mr. Niederhoffer's hedge-fund firm, Manchester Trading LLC, ran into difficulties a decade after Mr. Niederhoffer lost most of his personal savings when his previous hedge fund collapsed. Last month, Mr. Niederhoffer's largest hedge fund, Matador Fund Ltd., was liquidated after suffering losses of more than 70%, according to people close to the matter. Adding to Mr. Niederhoffer's problems, according to a person close to the...

September 13, 2007 Renewable Energy: Not Just Another Investment Bubble by Mark Braly, Contributing Writer Davis, California [RenewableEnergyAccess.com] Renewable energies and demand-side technologies have become the third largest investment class for venture capitalists (VC) in the U.S. This was just one of the messages heard by the more than 700 investors and entrepreneurs who convened on the campus of the University of California Davis this week for a three-day conference that showcased the newest in clean energy technologies. The event, which ran Sept. 10-12, kicked off with a panel of Silicon Valley venture capitalists in a session entitled "The Green...

The number of millionaires in the world increased by 8.3 percent in 2006, with about 9.5 million individuals now estimated to have more than a million dollars in financial assets, a report said Wednesday. The survey by financial services group Capgemini and US investment bank Merrill Lynch said strong global economic growth and gains on the stock market explained the expansion of the exclusive club of "High Net Worth Individuals" (HNWIs). The financial assets owned by the group totalled 37.2 trillion dollars (27.7 trillion euros), an increase of 11.4 percent from 2005, with Singapore, India, Indonesia and Russia producing the...

WASHINGTON -- Seventy percent of Americans now say the economy is getting worse, a belief contradicted by a growing workforce, increased wages and household wealth, and a stock-market rally that has boosted worker-retirement investments.

One of the ideas behind Stockpickr.com is to allow investors to peek inside the portfolios of the big financial guns to see what stocks they like. Although they wouldn't be considered financial gurus, the Clintons recently liquidated their blind trusts, and we took note. The Bill and Hillary Clinton portfolio on Stockpickr lists the 25 largest stock holdings liquidated by the couple's blind trust, with each holding representing an investment of more than $100,000 each. The flurry of recent news items about former president Bill Clinton and presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton's blind trust have focused on the reason why...

On Tuesday, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke turned optimistic about the U.S. economy. The man who holds the delicate U.S. economy in his hands said that, in spite of slowing growth, he expects the economy to bounce back in the coming months. But good news for business is apparently bad news for anyone who own shares of U.S. companies. The Fed Chief's rosy economic forecast left scared investors running for the exits, and the stock market plunged. It may indeed seem odd that investors sell their shares when corporations appear to face good business ahead. But in reality, investors aren’t worried...

I need some help. I have a Brother who is a 100% service connected disabled Vet. His wife of less than 4 years has put him in a home, run up his bills, taken his VA and SS monies, is trying to sell his house, and now she filed for divorce. Long, sad, story. No courts are involved yet. I had him go to legal aid and muck up the divorce papers to send her back to square one. That worked. She had durable power of attorney, and forced a fiduciary upon him. We have that going backwards now, also....

To protect the purchasing power of your money over the last five years, one of the best strategies was to send it abroad. Foreign stock markets overall have risen faster than U.S. shares since 2002. And a big bonus for American investors in foreign securities has been the currency effect: As the dollar's value has sunk against many of its global rivals, returns earned abroad have been juiced significantly.Egged on by the greenback's latest slump, a long-popular view on Wall Street is back in focus: the idea that the dollar is in a sustained downturn. According to this school of...

Lives Well-Lived On the other side of the spectrum, I dined last night with an old friend from the glorious street of my childhood, Harvey Road in Silver Spring, Md. Gene Daumit, who was accompanied by his beautiful wife, DeeDee, is a super-smart guy with a Ph.D. from MIT, a major job at a huge chemicals company, a spouse with a great job in real estate, a home and a vacation condo that are both paid for (or mostly paid for), a substantial pension, and impressive savings. As they told me about their life, especially their wildly successful daughters, I...

What does this very well known technical indicator mean for us as traders? At TradingMarkets we look at the 200-day MA as the cut-off in determining whether a stock or market is in a bull market or a bear market. We take long trades after we get a buy signal ONLY if the stock or market is above its 200-day MA. We take short positions after we get a sell signal ONLY if the stock or market is below its 200-day MA. So what is the big deal about this line that is drawn on our charts? There are several...

Allegheny Technologies Inc. on Friday said 2007 capital investments could be in the range of $450 million to $500 million. The Pittsburgh company (NYSE:ATI), which makes specialty metals and alloys, also said its board approved an investment of about $38 million for further expansion of the titanium sponge production capabilities at its Albany, Ore., plant.

Come hear Congressman Ron Paul speak in person. Support him for President in 2008! The FreedomFest Conference -- July 5-7, 2007 at Bally's/Paris Resort, Las VegasDear Fellow Patriots, The coming FreedomFest conference in Las Vegas this summer will feature many fine speakers, but one of them is very special -- Congressman Ron Paul who has decided to run for President of the United States in 2008. Finally America will have a viable, articulate candidate for true constitutional government in the primaries and hopefully on Election Day. FreedomFest is sponsored by Dr. Mark Skousen, professor of economics at Columbia University and...

President Bush's State of the Union address, which called for a nearly fivefold increase in the nation's alternative-fuel consumption by 2017, did little to silence critics who contend that new fuels like ethanol and biodiesel aren't likely to play a major role supplying the world's energy needs in the years ahead. They see two key problems. First, the profitability of many alternative fuels -- without sizable subsidies -- is still in question. This is especially true now that the cost of raw ingredients used to produce "biofuel," including corn, has rocketed, squeezing profit margins for producers of those fuels. At...

Allocating assets: Your portfolio should be weighted more toward bonds and less toward stocks as you get older. One rule of thumb: Subtract your age from 100 and put that percentage in stocks. For a 60-year-old, that would be 40% in stocks and 60% in bonds. With people living longer, some advisors say this formula is too conservative. Review your situation, perhaps with an advisor, to determine the right mix.

New Mutual Funds Observe Islamic Law Deutsche Bank introduces Shari`a-compliant funds Deutsche Bank has launched five mutual funds that comply with traditional Islamic law, or Shari’a, in response to what it said was a growing demand for Islamic investment products. Marketed as DWS Noor Islamic Funds, Deutsche Bank says they are the first to be Shari`a compliant and excludes investments in alcohol, gambling, or companies with large amounts of debt. "With DWS Noor Islamic Funds, our Islamic clients can rely on a strictly Shari`a-compliant framework while benefiting from attractive international investment opportunities usually only available as conventional mutual fund products,"...

1. "We're making a mint on your 401(k) — even if you're not." The number of 401(k) investors has soared in the past decade, to nearly 50 million from 28 million, according to Cerulli Associates. That torrid growth has created impressive efficiencies for the folks who run your plan. But it doesn't mean those savings show up in your account; in fact, they could be coming straight out of it. In a practice known as revenue sharing, providers get a cut of the expense ratio on the funds in your 401(k) to cover day-to-day "administrative costs." Since the fee is...

Some companies are quietly investing in countries that sponsor terrorism. CNN's Lisa Sylvester reports on Video. Don't know how to embed a video, but here is the url: http://www.cnn.com/video/player/player.html?url=/video/business/2006/11/28/sylvester.investing.in.terror.cnn&source=money&wm=native_mac

GENEVA (Reuters) - Real estate remains the leading alternative investment for the world's wealthy, despite all the talk about private equity, hedge funds and commodities, private bankers said at the Reuters Wealth Management Summit. "The mass affluent -- those with up to $30 million in investable assets -- tend to use REITs (real estate investment trusts) or funds of real estate funds, while the even wealthier will be more inclined toward direct investments," said Christopher Meares, chief executive of HSBC Private Bank UK, Channel Islands & Luxembourg. Credit Suisse's clients have on average 15 to 20 percent of their investable...

Blood type may have something to do with stock investment styles and the success of investment, a poll of 1,126 individual investors suggests. The poll was conducted by stock investment portal site Paxnet from Aug. 30 to Sept. 8. According to the firm, investors with blood type A and AB were more likely to pursue stable investment strategies and were relatively successful in investments, while those with blood type of O and B made more aggressive investments and often lost money. Out of 394 investors with blood type A, 184 (47 percent) made profit in stock investment, as did 79...

NEW YORK -- An appeals court said Wednesday it had no reason to find evangelical Christians unusually susceptible to fraud as it ordered a new sentencing for a great-grandmother who received 14 years in prison for duping investors nationwide of nearly $2 million in a religion-laced fraud. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan upheld the convictions of Roberta Dupre, 62, and her accomplice, Beverly Stambaugh, 56, but ordered them resentenced. Dupre last year was given 14 years in prison and Stambaugh nine years. Judge Denise L. Cote in Manhattan imposed the harsh sentences after concluding they manipulated...

Several months back, as the U.S. appeared headed for a confrontation with Iran, oil prices soared. Energy stocks moved higher with almost every wire report. But once tensions decreased, oil stocks tumbled. Early in July inflation indicators turned negative, and the overall stock market seemed about to drop into the abyss. Then as soon as the inflation outlook seemed less threatening, stocks and bonds rallied. You can trade yourself poor buying and selling on news like this. Many investors, individual and professional alike, react to each news release like Pavlov's dogs. In the early 1980s, when the Federal Reserve was...

The days of ever-rising certificate of deposit yields might be waning. But CDs offering 6 percent have surfaced, and this may be the time to lock in, what is by most standards, a very good return. Usually, you'll need to look locally for institutions offering 6 percent. As of this writing, Bankrate's list of highest-yielding CDs doesn't have any topping the 6-percent level. That may be due to, among other things, Bankrate's requirement that CDs on the highest-yield list must be available nationwide. Many of the institutions we spoke with only offer their CDs locally. Consumers are hunting down these...

Something unusual is going on at Fidelity this election year. Employees at the conservative firm are on track to double their donations to the Democratic Party. And they’re not alone in the investment world. Overall, the Democrats are likely to bag their biggest share of Wall Street bucks this election since they held power back in 1994. The figures are tracked by the nonpartisan think-tank The Center for Responsive Politics. The facts? For the 2002 mid-term elections, Fidelity staff, their families and the company’s Political Action Committee donated $159,262 in total to Democrats at the federal level. So far, in...

Sometimes the best thing an investor or trader can do is nothing. It's hard enough to make money in a bear market. It's also tough not to lose it. Three out of every four stocks follow the broad market's direction. Thus when the market falls into a downtrend, it's important to cut your losses, pocket your profits and move toward cash. Sitting in cash lets you free yourself from the daily market noise. You can use the time to reflect, go over past trading mistakes and sharpen your skills. Despite what some so-called market gurus say, your probability of finding...

The day my husband and I became millionaires was a lot like any other day. He went off to work, grumbling about the commute. I was fretting about our utility bill and decided to check our personal finance software to see how much more we were paying than the previous year. While I fiddled with the numbers, I told the software to update our account balances. Lo and behold, the net worth column showed seven figures where before there had been six. There was no popping of champagne corks, no trips to the Continent, no quitting of jobs. The fact...

(English-language translation) In order to strengthen economic relations between both countries, an agreement was finalized yesterday to establish a Spain-United States Caucus within the U.S. Congress, [Puerto Rico] Resident Commissioner Luis Fortuño announced. He and Democratic Congressman Xavier Becerra of California serve as co-chairs. The agreement materialized following a meeting [Fortuño and Becerra] held with Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Antonio Moratinos and Spanish Ambassador Carlos Westendorp. The caucus has a membership of 21 Congressmen, Republican as well as Democrat, several of Hispanic descent. "A bridge of constant commmunication wants to be established and institutionalized, so that, no matter the different...

Millions of American investors, as well as their pension funds, mutual funds and other institutions, have unsuspectingly invested their hard-earned wealth in foreign companies that aid and abet the Islamofascist theocracy in Iran. If you are reading this article, you’re probably one of those unsuspecting investors. You may not directly own shares of corporations that do business in and with the Islamic Republic of Iran, but chances are your 401K, mutual fund portfolio or public pension system is invested in such companies. Congratulations. A portion of your money is going toward arming and training Hezbollah terrorists, sheltering members of Al...

Iran's refusal to comply with international regulations on nuclear technology and its increasingly belligerent stance toward the West have been hot topics in the news recently. But few Americans realize that even as their government is condemning Iran's behavior, American businesses and investment firms are helping supply the country with the financial resources it critically needs.

An obscure paragraph added to the Revenue Act of 1978 by an unknown author has drastically changed the way Americans save for retirement and, possibly, how they vote. Over the past 25 years, since a 38-year-old retirement consultant in Philadelphia got IRS approval to establish the first tax-deferred account system, 401(k)s have exploded, dramatically increasing the nation's investor class and boosting individuals' total savings. Economic and political analysts say 401(k)s have enriched millions of American workers, particularly lower-income people, and their longer-term impact on the economy, especially investment capital formation, and the electorate is now coming into fuller view. "The...