Personal Finance News

“Sitting here in London, it's very easy to see.”

Stocks fell on Monday, ending a tumultuous year that battered financial firms but left other pockets of the market and the world with stunning gains. via HendersonvilleNews.com

“With the SIVs off the fund's books, Legg eliminates the concern about the funds 'breaking the buck,'”

U.S. financials stocks were mixed Monday following a report that Merrill Lynch & Co. via MarketWatch

“Lingering demand for year-end funding should keep a lid on yields as liquidity dries up before kicking off 2008 trading on Wednesday”

Treasury prices rose in the final session of 2007, as investors once more hedged against a variety of risks by buying government-backed bonds.

Treasurys staged an unusually impressive rally in the past year. Weakness in the housing sector and overall economy, as well as concerns that beleaguered banks could face a year-end liquidity squeeze, provided fuel for the government bond rally.

Treasury price gains were most vigorous in August when investors grew nervous about the crisis in subprime mortgages and began shunning all forms of investment with exposure to these problems. Read more

“More new policies are being written”

U.S. mortgage insurers saw defaults rise to a new monthly record in November, according to data published Monday by an industry trade group. via Canadian Business Magazine

Stocks sank Monday, as a modest uptick in existing home sales could not lift investors' downcast spirits on the last day of Wall Street's volatile and difficult year. The Dow Jones industrial average fell more than 100 points.

The National Association of Realtors said November existing home sales rose 0.4 percent to an annual rate of 5 million _ the first rise in nine months. However, sales are still 20 percent below where they were a year ago, and the median existing home price has dropped 3.3 percent over the past 12 months. Read more

“Once they adjourn for the Fourth of July, it's hard to imagine they'll do much beyond appropriations bills. That's a realistic assessment, and the State of the Union will likely reflect that.”

President Bush's final-year agenda is a stripped down list of what he can realistically hope to get done, since the clout he once touted is fading away.

Bush will venture to four other continents, get more involved than ever in trying to forge Middle East peace, and continue to command two wars that assure his relevancy to the end. As Iraq improves, he must now deal with renewed violence in Afghanistan and upheaval in Pakistan.

At home, Bush will try to extend two domestic achievements that are dear to his legacy _ the No Child Left Behind education law, and tax cuts that otherwise expire in 2010. Read more

“Take a survey of employees about what they think of things”

The arrival of a new year gives small-business owners a great opportunity to look at a variety of human resources issues and decide what changes they should make. via Chicago Tribune

You don't need tarot cards to predict the big stories the fund industry will see in the coming 12 months, just good contacts in the mutual fund world. via MarketWatch

“Over the next 24 months, the growth is going to be huge”

While mutual funds are a staple of many 401 and other retirement plans, ETFs are likely to become serious competitors in the coming years. via Chicago Tribune

Shares of MBIA Inc. rose sharply on Wednesday after private equity firm Davis Selected Advisers acquired a 5.1% stake in the bond insurer, according to a regulatory filing. via Crain's NY Business

“The fact that we are significantly ahead of national averages for both corporate and public plans clearly illustrates our commitment to managing this plan for the long-term benefit of our members”

Indianapolis - Indiana's account that pays state employees' pensions was 99 percent funded at the start of the 2008 fiscal year - better than similar funds in other states, according to an annual report. via WTHR-TV Indianapolis

“Last week, we had an 18-year-old shot on the street.”

Derrick Duckworth, a broker, said 40 percent of the houses in his Atlanta neighborhood were vacant because of mortgage fraud. via The Dispatch

“If this structure of income distribution is put in place, it will have a far-reaching impact on economic, social and political development in China”

China hopes to grow its middle class to more than half of its population by the end of the next decade, a Communist Party planner said Wednesday.

The goal is part of quadrupling China's per capita gross domestic product by 2020, said Zheng Xinli, vice minister of the Communist Party's Central Policy Research Office.

A bigger middle class will also challenge the government to provide greater social security and services and better education systems, Zheng said at a news conference.

'A growing middle-income population will ensure that more people will benefit from reform so that our reform will be endorsed and supported by more people,' Zheng said. Read more

“Taxes aren't that high out here, so even at $7 an hour people can burn off their county taxes pretty quickly”

Audrey Davison lives alone, gets a $620 Social Security check each month and worries about the sharply rising taxes on her four-bedroom house. via The York Daily Record

Q: I am about to apply for Social Security disability benefits. I have two children, ages 13 and 15. via The South Mississippi Sun Herald

“Whether he opposed it or embraced it at the outset, it became law”

Mayor John F. Street is getting more than $111,000 as he leaves office, money that a city official said comes from pay raises that he was entitled to but did not take.

Street had vetoed a pay-raise bill in the midst of an election in 2003, and the City Council overrode it. The mayor, however, chose not to take an increase, which at the time would have raised his salary from $146,000 to $165,000.

Now he has decided to collect it retroactively.

Street referred questions to City Finance Director Vincent Jannetti, who said the mayor is entitled to the money. 'He deferred it and held back on it,' Jannetti said. Read more

“When the music stops, in terms of liquidity, things will be complicated. But as long as the music is playing, you've got to get up and dance. We're still dancing”

Just last summer, analysts were predicting the subprime mortgage mess had been 'contained,' big bank CEOs were 'dancing' over the liquidity flowing in credit markets and private-equity titans yearned in Soprano-like fashion to 'kill off' the competition.

Times have changed. The housing and mortgage crisis has escalated into a full-fledged credit crunch, which now threatens to throw the economy into a recession. People and places far removed from this mess are finding themselves caught in the fallout. Read more

Families who lost their homes to the foreclosure crisis this year will have at least one reason for cheer this holiday season: They won't have to worry about a big tax bill. via The Tennessean

Small-business owners who expect to hit the ground running when 2008 arrives might want to think about sitting back for a just a bit and doing some strategic and financial planning for the new year. via The Morning Call

More than 13,600 New Yorkers will receive about $18 million in restitution following a $325 million settlement of the predatory lending case against Ameriquest Mortgage Co. via The Business Review (Albany)