In a coordinated effort, central banks around the world have lowered their respective interest rates to try to save off a worldwide financial calamity. But, it is beginning to look like it is too little, too late. Even after this extraordinary measure, the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended down nearly 200 points. I took the opportunity in the morning, when [...]

Today saw some very interesting trading in the shares of Google at the very end of the trading day. Nasdaq is citing “erroneous trades” as the culprit. Quite frankly I think a better explanation is in order because of the confusion that erupted when the stock went from 400 per share to a low of 25.80 within three minutes of [...]

Update: Dow closed down 777 points today. Nearly everything is down right now… Dow -500, Nasdaq -130, Oil under 100. The vote for the $700 billion bailout package has failed to pass in the house and has sent shockwaves through the financial markets as the level of economic uncertainty reaches new highs. This news has worked out well for my [...]

The ban on short-selling of financial stocks in the US has led me to be very interested in buying puts in some of these companies. In particular I have bought puts in Bank of America which was bid up after announcing a plan to buyout Merrill Lynch. The acquisition of Merrill and previously Countrywide is only going to cause significant [...]

Fannie (FNM) and Freddie (FRE) have had one helluva great rally over the last few trading sessions despite a very choppy market, including one day that saw the dow lose well over 200 points. Fannie Mae is up about 70% since last week Thursday when it traded as low as 3.82 and now sits at 5.94 per share. Freddie Mac [...]

Is stock in Yahoo! a screaming buy now that it has fallen to its pre-Microsoft offer levels? I’m not sure what Yahoo has up its sleeves for the future, but Jerry Yang will have to come up with a solution (very quickly) to recover the share price or face losing his job at the company he co-founded. Personally, I think [...]

Shares of Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE) took a dive today of around 15-20% on rumors of weakness on their balance sheets and a poor cash position. While I understand the ramifications of the housing crisis and its ill effects on lenders such as these, this selloff is simply overblown. I have been playing the big swings up [...]

Shares of Abercrombie & Fitch Co. (ANF) started out quite strong this morning after their earnings statement and beating the street estimates for quarterly earnings by a penny per share. But in the end the stock closed nearly unchanged from its previous close. Profits were down 4.2%, which I think is pretty good considering the way retail has been reporting [...]

My online stock trading company of choice, Trade King, is offering a $50 bonus to any friends I sign up to their service who fund their account with at least $1,000 within 30 days of opening. I am very happy with Trade King as long as I’ve been using it and the commissions are terrific, definitely some of the lowest [...]

After the dust settled from the Microsoft/Yahoo merger fiasco, Carl Icahn got his seat on the board next to Jerry Yang and Co. Icahn’s position has long been that of continuing talks with Microsoft about a potential merger, however after reaching his compromise with Yang about board seats and abandoning his proxy battle, his motives may have changed as well. [...]