Money and Financial Lifestyle

For a number of reasons, I haven’t been blogging much: First off, I’m still in post-semester recovery mode. This happens every Spring - after the semester is over, I need a week or two to decompress, clean out the detritus of the year from my office, and kick back a bit before refocusing on my summer research goals. This time around, between the timing of exams and faculty meetings, it was worse than usual.

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Interestign Times In The Unknown Household

The semester is now officially over at Unknown University. I gave my last final Tuesday afternoon (the last slot in finals week). Unfortunately, grades had to be turned in by 4 today (only 48 hours later)

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Stick A Fork In Me!

Retail gasoline prices rose again overnight and are now up nearly 40 percent from the start of the year, while the price for crude on Tuesday topped $60 a barrel for the first time since early November.

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Gasoline nears $2.25, crude briefly above $60 (AP)

The U.S. trade deficit rose in March for the first time since last July as the global recession cut sharply into sales of American exports. The politically sensitive deficit with China increased.

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Trade deficit widens in March to $27.6 billion (AP)

Investors were hard-pressed Tuesday to find a reason to extend Wall Street’s two-month rally. Stocks mostly fell as investors shifted into defensive corners of the market, driving up shares of drugmakers like Pfizer Inc

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Investors hunt defensive stocks as rally stalls (AP)

Ford Motor Co. shares dropped almost 9 percent Tuesday morning, a day after disclosing a public offering of 300 million shares of common stock that will help it fund its health care trust for retired autoworkers and their families.

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Ford shares sink on share offering (AP)

Home prices fell in nearly nine out of every 10 U.S.

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Median home prices fell nationwide in 1Q (AP)

Citigroup Inc said on Tuesday that the committee overseeing its use of $45 billion of taxpayer money had approved the use of nearly all of that sum to make loans.

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Citigroup: $45 billion TARP money goes toward loans (Reuters)

Several large U.S. banks undertook big capital-raising efforts on Tuesday, hoping to satisfy regulators who want to see bigger cushions against a deep recession, or proof they have enough of a buffer already.

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BofA and other U.S. banks scramble for capital (Reuters)

General Electric Co plans to invest $100 million in a factory to build high-tech batteries for heavy equipment, which it believes could be a $1 billion business over the next decade.

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GE sees $1 billion potential in advanced batteries (Reuters)