Now the Solvency Shark tries to help you manage your money yourself. When you take control of your financial situation, you make decisions that fit your needs, not the needs of someone else— banks, retailers, insurance agents, etc. Continue reading
Investing
ETF’s: For Everyone From Buffett to Beginner
Investing is as littered with abbreviations and confusing jargon as bars are filled with college basketball fans this time of year. These confusing and complicated sounding words and signs can often be a hard barrier to entry to overcome for beginner investors. There are so many words and abbreviations to look up that many just end up giving up! One such term is ETF. In reality ETF’s make investing even for the most beginner investor very simple. ETF stands for Exchange Traded Funds and although they have been around for decades, they are becoming more popular for their radical outlook on investing. Continue reading
Investment Banking Ethics and Grey Areas
The term “investment banker” has a very strong negative connotation in American society, especially in the aftermath of “The Great Recession”. They are often characterized as greedy and selfish individuals whose sole purpose is to make money at the expense of others. The public typically blames the personal traits of bankers for the scandals that make headlines. While it is certainly true that the actions of investment bankers played a huge part in the latest financial meltdown, is it possible that these scandals are caused by the huge amounts of “grey areas” that there are within the industry and the hyper-competitive cultures at firms as much as the personality traits of the individual bankers? Continue reading
Investment Banks: Why Do We Need Them?
If you asked an average American on the street to list the top five most disliked professions it would be very likely that something along the lines of “Wall Street Investment Banker” would be high on the list. Investment bankers are often perceived as lazy, unoriginal, and greedy. People think they reap huge wages and bonuses from the hard work of other individuals, corporations, and even countries. This perception has only been reinforced since the financial crisis that started in 2007. Continue reading
Moody’s Downgrades Banks in Necessary Step
Investment banking can be a confusing subject for anyone, especially when it involves credit ratings and downgrades. Moody’s recent credit downgrading of 15 banks can seem like another bit of bad news for the economy but, while this may be true, it was a necessary step to accurately represent the current status of both domestic and foreign markets. Continue reading
Facebook Flop: Take 2
The past couple weeks have been interesting to say the least for the worlds largest social network. The company Facebook (ticker FB) and its publicly traded exchange NASDAQ have had a bumpy ride of late. The latest initial public offering (IPO) of Facebook and the subsequent mess got me thinking about how other recent “tech giant” IPOs have fared in the past few years. Continue reading
The Facebook Flop
Unless you have been living under a rock for the past couple months I am sure that you have heard the news of the world’s largest social networking site, Facebook, “going public”. Although you may not know exactly what this means, you probably also noticed that something went terribly wrong with the initial public offering (IPO) of the stock, resulting in Facebook (FB on the NASDAQ exchange) to drop a whopping 16.9% in its first week of trading. In a two part series I will look to examine what exactly took place in this latest tech IPO. Secondly, I will examine how Facebook’s IPO compares to other historically significant IPO’s in the past several years and what the future holds for investors and the company. Continue reading
SprinkleBit: A New Face Of Investing
Ever wanted to get into investing but were confused as to where to start? For several years I was in the same boat. I was interested in finance, stocks, and investing, but I was completely lost as to how to begin. In order to feel comfortable and enjoy investing I needed more information. Continue reading
What is a certificate of deposit?
A Certificate of Deposit, or CD, is an example of an investment method. They are most similar to savings accounts, in which you deposit money, which accrues interest over a certain period, which you can then collect. They are slightly different from savings accounts in that they are expected to run for their entire duration without withdrawal, and as a result, a bank will give a CD a higher interest rate than a savings account. CDs are notable compared to other investment strategies in that they are risk-free. Government institutions insure them, so there is no way the money could be lost. Unfortunately, lower risk investments lead to lower interest rates, but CDs are one of the most popular investment strategies because of the lack of risk altogether. Continue reading
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