For students in my Financial Management class (FINM2401) - Alan Kohler has written an editorial on the current short sale restrictions here in Australia ( The Blind Leading the Naked , on Business Spectator ). In a nutshell: Short selling is an important part of price discovery in markets, but the securities lending business in Australia should be more transparent

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More on Short Selling

The ongoing saga of BrisConnections is coming to a head. There’s a good background piece in the Sydney Morning Herald ( here ). BrisConnections is a highly leveraged business, established to build a toll road out to Brisbane Airport

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How NOT to make an IPO

America is infatuated with outrage. We’ve spent the last couple of weeks spiking our collective blood pressure over bonuses at the faltering insurance giant AIG

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Outrage Infatuation

The DJIA rose 54.40 points, .75% to close Friday at 77278.38 The Nasdaq Composite gained 25.77 points, 1.80% to finish the week at 1457.27 The S & P 500 rose 11.99, 1.58% to 768.54 The 10-Year Treasury yield fell 0.263 percentage points to 2.626% Crude oil rose $4.81, 10.4% to $51.06 The markets had a second consecutive week of gains and are showing signs that we may have the first monthly gain in stocks since August.

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The Week in Review

From The New York Times : John McCain and Richard C.

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Let ‘em fail

I was catching up on podcasts this morning and my mp3 player served up this gem from NPR’s Business Story of the Day podcast : Despite Losses, Star Investor Trusts In Stocks David Swensen, manager of Yale University’s endowment, says that individuals should be investing in index funds: … because most so-called actively managed mutual funds — the ones that pay managers to pick stocks — charge such high fees that the fees more than eat up the added returns they’re able to achieve, he says.

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Index Funds 1, Active Managers 0

President Obama keeps reminding us that it’s not his fault. Again today at a police acadamy graduation in Ohio, he said, “We inherited a big mess.” It seems to be his favorite line. It is, after all, George Bush’s recession, right?

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Who’s big mess?

From Fox News: The Dow Jones Industrial Average has fallen faster under President Obama than under any new president in at least 90 years, according to a review conducted by Bloomberg. Bloomberg reports that since Inauguration Day, the Dow has fallen 20 percent, leading at least one investor to dub this the “Obama bear market.” The Dow has also dropped 31 percent since Election Day

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Obama–already setting records

One of the topics in my personal finance course (FINM1401) is Managing Credit. Yesterday I finally got around to listening to the recent EconTalk podcast about credit and bankruptcy

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Managing Credit

The Young Liberal in our office approached me the other day and started a conversation about the pitiful mess our economy and stock market are in and asked some pretty good questions about sub-prime mortgages and and the collapse of housing markets. I was so encouraged when he seemed to come to the realization that government meddling had a significant role in our present lot

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Barney Frank and The Young Liberal