| Auto sales plunge 41%
March 3, 2009 at 9:09 pm
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|  U.S. auto sales plunged 41% in February, the latest sign of trouble for the battered industry. |
| Taking the charge out of Chevy's Volt
March 3, 2009 at 9:02 pm
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| Any hope that General Motors can survive without massive aid from the federal government was dashed last week when the automaker reported a huge fourth-quarter loss. |
| A hedge fund manager's mutual twist
March 3, 2009 at 8:13 pm
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|  In what looks like a sign of the hard times in the hedge fund world, AQR Capital Management - one of the industry's biggest names - is opening its doors to the retail market. |
| Obama budget hopes meet bailout rage
March 3, 2009 at 7:28 pm
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|  President Obama's economic A-team went to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to address questions about the administration's ambitious budget request. |
| Stocks at 12-year lows
March 3, 2009 at 6:45 pm
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|  The Dow Jones industrial average and S&P 500 ended at fresh 12-year lows Tuesday as Wall Street failed to mount a rally amid ongoing worries about the financial markets and the recession. |
| Palm warns of weaker revenue
March 3, 2009 at 6:25 pm
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|  Read full story for latest details. |
| Obama to test home loan do-overs
March 3, 2009 at 6:23 pm
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|  Mortgage modifications have a bad rap, yet President Obama is depending on them to stop the foreclosure crisis. |
| Chrysler in talks to sell Dodge Viper
March 3, 2009 at 5:56 pm
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|  Read full story for latest details. |
| Hard times for hardhats
March 3, 2009 at 5:37 pm
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|  Cynita Davis, an unemployed construction worker and union member, arrived at the Local 325 office at 6 a.m. and waited for her name to be called. |
| Citi's troubles pile up
March 3, 2009 at 5:19 pm
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| To read the new 10K annual-report filings that Citigroup and Wells Fargo each submitted last Friday to the Securities and Exchange Commission is to recall -- with horror -- four days last fall when Citi was slated to take over the fourth largest banking company in the U.S., Wachovia. Then Wells pole-vaulted into the picture and suddenly, as October dawned, it was the West Coast bank, not the East Coast bank, that was to acquire this venerable, though reeling, Southern establishment. |
| Microsoft may create 3,000 R&D jobs
March 3, 2009 at 4:51 pm
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|  Read full story for latest details. |
| Blockbuster seeks funds, not bankruptcy
March 3, 2009 at 4:36 pm
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|  Blockbuster Inc., whose video rental stores have been pressured by the growing online market, said Tuesday it has hired a law firm to help find ways to raise capital, but that it does not intend to file for bankruptcy. |
| Stimulus money hits the street
March 3, 2009 at 3:53 pm
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|  The White House released its promised cash infusion on Tuesday to strengthen the transportation infrastructure across America, and began to announce the first recipients of the funds. |
| Nautilus recalls 78,000 Bowflex gyms
March 3, 2009 at 3:47 pm
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|  Fitness product maker Nautilus Inc. is recalling a total of 78,000 Bowflex home gym systems because of safety concerns, federal officials said Tuesday. |
| Winning stocks in a losing decade
March 3, 2009 at 3:22 pm
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|  In case you haven't heard, the Dow closed Monday at its lowest level since April 1997. |
| In defense of Obama's budget
March 3, 2009 at 1:16 pm
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|  Since its announcement last week, President Obama's budget has been savagely attacked by the Republican side on the grounds that it projects massive deficits and, as such, it represents the apotheosis of recklessness and fiscal irresponsibility. However, framing the debate in such terms, which are transparent in their political motivation, is a gross misrepresentation of some basic realities that are impossible to ignore. Here are four of them: |
| The end of paper?
March 3, 2009 at 11:44 am
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|  Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel. Mark Twain's advice was apt in its time but sounds downright quaint these days. The ink-stained publishing world is battling against companies like Google and Yahoo that sell ads via any Internet-friendly gadget. And we know how that fight is going: The buy-ink-by-the-barrel types are struggling. |
| Bernie: Ruth Madoff should keep apartment
March 3, 2009 at 11:35 am
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|  Lawyers for disgraced financier Bernard Madoff say his wife, Ruth, should be allowed to keep nearly $70 million worth of assets held in her name, including the New York City apartment where Mr. Madoff is currently under house arrest, because they are "unrelated" to the alleged Ponzi scheme. |
| AIG's dizzying PR binge
March 3, 2009 at 11:22 am
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| Read full story for latest details. |
| Obama: Little hope of recovery this quarter
March 3, 2009 at 11:00 am
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|  Read full story for latest details. |
| Dollar eases after rally
March 3, 2009 at 7:18 am
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|  Read full story for latest details. |
| More stock weakness in the works
March 3, 2009 at 7:09 am
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|  It may be a struggle to throw the gloom off Wall Street, with futures mostly lower Tuesday, after the Dow Jones industrial average fell below 7,000 for the first time since 1997. |
| Inside the Bear Stearns boiler room
March 3, 2009 at 6:53 am
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|  Years from now, when academics search for causes of the stock market crash of 2008, they will focus on the pivotal role of mortgage-backed securities. These exotic financial instruments allowed a downturn in U.S. home prices to morph into a contagion that brought down Bear Stearns a year ago this month - and more recently have brought the global banking system to its knees. |
| Trading securities and Ferraris
March 3, 2009 at 6:51 am
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|  Cioffi lived very well. In 2000, he and his wife, Phyllis, purchased a home for $815,000 in Tenafly, New Jersey, that in 2007 was assessed for $2.6 million. He owned a home in Naples, Florida, valued at $933,000, and a home in Ludlow, Vermont, valued at $2.2 million. He owned an apartment at the Stanhope, on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, and a $10.7 million, 6,500-square-foot home in Southampton, Long Island, which had six bedrooms, seven baths, a pool, a tennis court, and a separate guesthouse on two and a half acres. |
| 'The subprime market is toast'
March 3, 2009 at 6:49 am
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|  After 40 months of positive returns, the sudden and sharp decline in the two hedge funds was new territory for Cioffi and Tannin. They struggled mightily to figure out what to do. On April 18, one of Cioffi's investors, who had $57 million invested, informed him that he was considering redeeming his money. Cioffi told the investor that the portfolio managers had $8 million of their own money invested, one-third of their liquid net worth. He neglected to tell the investor that he had taken $2 million of his own money out and invested it in his other hedge fund. |
| Bear puts more skin in the game
March 3, 2009 at 6:48 am
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|  Two factors that Cioffi and Tannin could not have foreseen were starting to cripple their funds. Investors spooked by the January and February returns put in redemption orders for well over $100 million. With less new money flooding into Cioffi's funds and BSAM being forced to sell assets out of the funds, the small esoteric market became less liquid. The second factor was the creation in January 2007 of an index - known as the ABX index - that for the first time allowed investors to bet on the performance of the subprime mortgage market in much the way an S&P index fund allows them to bet on the direction of the stock market as a whole. The ABX was an index of securities backed by home loans issued to borrowers with weak credit. |
| Oil rises, but no long-term rally in sight
March 3, 2009 at 6:45 am
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| Read full story for latest details. |
| Goldman questions Bear's marks
March 3, 2009 at 6:44 am
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|  Despite what they said in the April 25 conference call, by early May both Cioffi and Tannin anticipated that the funds' April results were going to be rough. Cioffi published the net asset value (NAV) for the Enhanced Leverage Fund for April at -6.5%. A week later, Goldman Sachs sent, by e-mail, its April marks on the securities to Cioffi. As a counterparty to trades in the funds, Goldman was obligated to report its thinking about the value of the securities in the funds on a monthly basis. |
| Where are they now?
March 3, 2009 at 6:42 am
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|  The hedge-fund debacle and the fateful decision to lend $1.5 billion to the High-Grade Fund led to Bear Stearns' first quarterly loss in its 85-year history, in the three months ended November 2007. Besides Cioffi and Tannin, there was other collateral damage. On August 1, 2007 Jimmy Cayne fired Warren Spector. (After he was fired, Spector sold much of his Bear Stearns stock reaping hundreds of millions of dollars from it.) On January 2008, Cayne resigned as CEO probably within days of a coup d'etat that was percolating throughout the firm's corridors. (Cayne remained the Chairman of the firm's board of directors). |
| Inside the Bear Stearns boiler room
March 3, 2009 at 6:39 am
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| Years from now, when academics search for causes of the stock market crash of 2008, they will focus on the pivotal role of mortgage-backed securities. These exotic financial instruments allowed a downturn in U.S. home prices to morph into a contagion that brought down Bear Stearns a year ago this month - and more recently have brought the global banking system to its knees. |
| Retirement losses: What now?
March 3, 2009 at 6:13 am
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|  Question: I've just received the statement for my workplace retirement savings account -- 99% of which is invested in an S&P 500 index fund -- and it shows a loss of 37.5% for 2008. I'm 60, make about $100,000 and I was hoping to retire next year. What immediate next step should I be taking to recover my account value? --Benjamin, Albuquerque, New Mexico |
| Stock bargains: Takeover targets
March 3, 2009 at 6:10 am
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|  While some companies go into survival mode when times get tough, the strong ones look for opportunities to snap up cheap assets. We're already seeing this take place with Abbott Laboratories' acquisition of Advanced Medical Optics in January. I think it's a safe bet that this trend will continue. |
| Biz is failing: Should you tell the staff?
March 3, 2009 at 6:06 am
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|  Gary White has a problem many business owners share these days: His company has taken a financial hit, and he's not sure how honest he should be with his staffers about the situation. |
| Reality check on Obama's deficit plan
March 3, 2009 at 4:38 am
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|  President Obama won't submit a formal 2010 budget request to Congress until next month. But the head-knocking on the Hill over fiscal priorities begins in earnest this week. |
| Southwest settles unsafe jet complaints
March 2, 2009 at 8:46 pm
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|  Southwest Airlines will pay $7.5 million to settle complaints that it flew unsafe aircraft, and the fine will double unless the airline completes additional safety measures within a year, federal regulators announced Monday. | |
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Perhaps the best way to fix the troubled auto industry is to treat it like a financial firm and have the government take it over.
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