by sethd on March 19, 2010
A week highlighted by the relatively uneventful Federal Reserve meeting saw equity markets head generally higher, as investors cheered the prospect of several more months of low interest rates. After months of heated debate, a vote on health care reform looms over the weekend, and health care funds above-average volumes throughout the week. Below, we offer our picks for the week’s most important and interesting ETF stories from around the Web (sign up for our free ETF newsletter to get ETF analysis and commentary delivered to your inbox): [click to continue…]
A week full of highly-anticipated events got off to a sluggish start Monday, as most major benchmarks finished little changed in light trading. Perhaps the biggest news of the day came from Moody’s, which released a report noting that the margin of error for the U.S. losing its AAA rating has “substantially diminished.” Elsewhere, President Obama took his campaign for health care overhaul on the road, while Senator Dodd unveiled a bill with potentially serious ramifications for big banks and Wall Street behemoths. [click to continue…]
March has gotten off to a start similar to January, as another strong performance Tuesday has investors hoping the recent run-up will prove more sustainable than mini-rally that started the year. A showdown in the tech sector caught the attention of investors, as Apple filed a patent infringement lawsuit against HTC, the maker of Google-based [...]
March got off to a hot start on Monday, as equity markets posted gains on a positive manufacturing outlook and multiple reports of M&A activity. Most notably, UK-based Prudential PLC agreed to buy AIG’s Asia operations for $35.5 billion in cash and stock. Elsewhere, the Institute of Supply Management reported that its index of manufacturing [...]
Just weeks after a devastating earthquake sparked a humanitarian crisis in Haiti, another natural disaster has hit the South American nation of Chile. Early Saturday morning, a magnitude 8.8 earthquake, the fifth strongest ever measured in the country, occurred off of Chile’s coast, causing massive destruction throughout the region. At least 100 aftershocks of magnitude [...]
U.S. markets remained choppy to finish the week, as the S&P 500 finished the day up slightly. This came after AIG reported an $8.9 billion loss for the quarter and the EU told Greece that its plan to cut spending and raise taxes was not going to be enough to satisfy other members of the [...]
Markets trended higher in the holiday shortened week, as the S&P 500 flirted with and then crossed the 1,100 mark. The dollar strengthened throughout the week as debt clouds continue to hang over the euro zone and after the Fed raised the discount rate to 75 basis points. Below, we offer our picks for the [...]
Copper prices have continued their impressive rally this week, as the widely-used industrial metal finished higher on Thursday up for the seventh time in eight trading sessions, bringing its return over that period above 15%. The recent surge in copper prices has been driven by a number of factors, and many investors believe that the [...]
All eyes were on Ben Bernanke Thursday, as the Federal Reserve announced an increase in the federal funds rate from 0.50% to 0.75%. The widely-expected move comes as Washington looks to unwind the unprecedented stimulus programs enacted to prop up an ailing financial sector in recent years. “Like the closure of a number of extraordinary [...]
The proliferation of commodity ETFs has brought this “fourth asset class” within reach of more investors than ever before. But as many have learned the hard way, resource fundamentals are only one of the factors that impact many exchange-traded commodities, and the nuances of the futures market often have a more significant impact than changes [...]
Investors returned from a long holiday weekend with an abundance of optimism on Tuesday, as encouraging news from Asia helped to boost markets. Europe, which recently replaced Japan as the unofficial drag on the global economy, surged as well, as confidence in the Greece bailout efforts picked up. In takeover news, Simon offered $10 billion [...]
A pledge from EU leaders to provide “coordinated action if needed” to support Greece through its debt crisis gave global markets a lift on Thursday. The commitment from European Council President Herman Van Rompuy eased concerns that Greece’s woes could spread to the highly-leveraged economies of Spain and Portugal, and fears of a far-reaching “contagion [...]
