Markets

Trader Mark Spots the Mark-Up Monday Trend

Some of my most profitable and interesting discoveries in the market have occured when I’ve taken a hunch or gut feeling and then backed that up with some actual fact-finding. My boy Trader Mark (Fund My Mutual Fund) just followed up on one of his suspicions concerning why it felt as though the market’s been…

Quick Question re: the Stock Market

Quick question for those following the stock market today… Does any of this activity even remotely resemble rational buyers and sellers pursuing their own interests in a logical fashion?  Or am I simply looking at computers trading against other computers ad infinitum? Nice way to start the week: Ford surprise profit vs CIT not-surprise bankruptcy…

Sparring With the Cult of Ayn Rand

I recently posted an interview I did with the ghost of Ayn Rand and, as expected, a few Randian ideologues came out of the woodwork to challenge the points I sought to get across in my post. I do these faux-interviews because I believe that my strong suit as a writer and financial commentator is…

Can The Stock Market Save The Economy?

A friend of mine, someone completely outside of the Wall Street world, asked me this question a few days ago and in addition to being at an utter loss for the answer, I thought it was one of the more interesting questions one could ask right now. My friend, we’ll call him Dirk (if only…

Menu Engineering: Hacking Human Reactions to Price

I thought this piece about determining how to set prices on GigaOM this morning was fascinating.  Wall Street is all about prices.  What is something worth now, what will it be worth in 10 seconds, 6 months or 3 years from now? There are no shortage of formulas and equations that can be used to…

Alternate Realities: GOP or Dem Markets

Which of our two major political parties would be a better steward of our capital markets and financial system if left unchecked by the other party?  I think either way, the result would be pretty scary. The Republicans never met a business they didn’t want to deregulate and the Democrats never met an underprivileged constituent…