Free Republic

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,...

It's the third year of President Bush's second term, and the markets are booming. Is there a connection? Not when you look at the numbers. According to data provided in part by Jason Trennert of Strategas Research Partners, the markets tend to post strong gains during the third year of any president's term, and it's not because of anything the president himself is doing. Take the case of the current president, George W. Bush. His approval ratings continue to tumble, but the markets continue to rise. Nor does he get any credit for the market's gains. But even if the...

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- U.S. stocks were on the rise late in Thursday's session, after a fresh batch of earnings reports led by Exxon Mobil Corp., Dow Chemical, Comcast Corp and others lifted the S&P 500 Index to its best level in about six years. ADVERTISEMENT With less than an hour of trade left, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, meanwhile, was on track to close at a record for the fourth straight session, while the Nasdaq Composite flirted with six-month highs.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Stocks rallied Monday, with the S&P 500 closing at a five-and-a-half-year high, as investors bet that the slowdown in the economy and pullback in energy prices means the Federal Reserve won't lift interest rates again anytime soon. The Nasdaq composite (up 30.14 to 2,249.07, Charts) added nearly 1.4 percent, according to early tallies. The tech-fueled index had been on both sides of unchanged in the morning, before moving higher at midday. The Dow Jones industrial average (up 67.71 to 11,575.81, Charts) added 0.6 percent, ending within 150 points of its all-time high of 11,722.98, hit on...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Stocks surged Tuesday afternoon amid falling oil prices and a slew of corporate news, including an upbeat earnings report from Goldman Sachs and boardroom shakeups at Hewlett-Packard and Bristol-Myers Squibb. The Nasdaq composite (up 26.84 to 2,200.09, Charts) rose 1.2 percent with roughly 2 hours left in the session. The Dow Jones industrial average (up 85.24 to 11,482.08, Charts) and the broader Standard & Poor's 500 (up 9.35 to 1,308.89, Charts) index both increased by about 0.7 percent. After a moderate start to the session, the major gauges picked up the pace by late morning and...

Stocks tumbled for the third straight day Friday on soaring oil prices, fighting in the Middle East and sluggish retail sales, just about wiping out the Dow's gains for the year. The Dow Jones Industrial average (down 106.94 to 10,739.35, Charts) sank 1 percent, leaving it up just 0.2 percent for the year. The world's most widely watched stock market gauge has tumbled 395 points since Tuesday's close. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 (down 6.09 to 1,236.20, Charts) index slipped 0.5 percent, and the Nasdaq composite (down 16.76 to 2,037.35, Charts)slid about 0.8 percent Friday, dragging them further into...

NEW YORK - Investors taking profits after the week’s big advance left stock indexes narrowly mixed at Friday’s close, but the lack of a wholesale sell-off left many on Wall Street pleased with the market’s resiliency. The market’s three major stocks indexes saw their best week of 2005. With few earnings reports and no new economic data to encourage buying, there was little impetus for investors to continue the week’s rally. The major indexes have all risen more than 3 percent since last Friday’s close, buoyed by positive economic data and falling oil prices. Investors mostly were waiting for next...

World's most widely watched market gauge posts biggest gain in four months; falling oil helpsNEW YORK (CNN/Money) - A broad stock rally Wednesday revived a battered market, giving the Dow its best one-day point and percentage gain in four months.The Dow Jones industrial average (up 135.23 to 10,540.93, Charts) jumped about 135 points, or 1.3 percent, according to early tallies. The gain marked its best single-session advance since Dec. 1.The broader Standard & Poor's 500 (up 16.05 to 1,181.41, Charts) index rose 1.4 percent, while the Nasdaq composite (Research) added 1.6 percent.A big drop in oil prices and a bounce...

<p>Some folks just aren't happy unless they have something to worry about and the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee may be the biggest worry warts of all.</p> <p>No sooner do we triumph in our 20-year mud-wrestling match with inflation than these professional hand-wringers discover a new "flation" to be afraid of.</p>

Based on a theory of cooperative herding and imitation working both in bullish as well as in bearish regimes, we have detected the existence of a clear signature of herding in the decay of the US S&P500 index since August 2000 with high statistical significance, in the form of strong log- periodic components. Please refer to the following paper for a detailed description: D. Sornette and W.-X. Zhou, The US 2000-2002 Market Descent: How Much Longer and Deeper? Quantitative Finance 2 (6), 468-481 (2002) (e-print at http://arXiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0209065). For a general presentation of the underlying concepts, theory, empirical tests and concrete...

New York, NY - Standard & Poor's announced today that it would replace the seven non-U.S. companies currently in the S&P 500 with seven U.S. companies, effective after the close of trading on July 19, 2002.As a result, Standard & Poor's will make the following changes in the S&P 500, and resultant changes to the S&P 100, S&P MidCap 400 and S&P SmallCap 600 Indices: United Parcel Service (NYSE:UPS), Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS), Prudential Financial (NYSE:PRU), eBay Inc. (NASD:EBAY), Principal Financial Group (NYSE:PFG), and S&P MidCap 400 component's Electronic Arts (NASD:ERTS) and SunGard Data Systems (NYSE:SDS) will replace Royal Dutch Petroleum...