Amid hard times, oil companies are starting to improve upon their inefficiencies and hopefully the upgrades may prove to be a boost to their shares, along with related exchange traded funds (ETFs). Many oil companies are reducing budgets, closing wells and throwing out long-term contracts, report......

Words from the (investment) wise for the week that was (March 2 – 8, 2009) “Down, down, deeper and down”. So goes the chorus of a Status Quo song, but it is eerily starting to sound like the stock markets’ anthem. Another week and another plunge of equities on fears about the int...

Just about every economist says that the employment rates, ergo the unemployment rate, is a lagging indicator.  The same is arguably true for the total number of rigs in oil and gas.  Baker Hughes Inc. (NYSE: BHI) issued its new rig count for the month.  This is still lagging, but the count of ri...

Words from the (investment) wise for the week that was (Feb 23 – Mar 1, 2009) Battle-weary investors remained skeptical of a banking quick fix and endured more grim economic fodder during the past week, causing US stocks to hit their lowest level since 1997. After the worst January (-8.8%) on reco...

Words from the (investment) wise for the week that was (February 16 – 22, 2009) A perfect storm of a deepening global recession and banking woes last week battered equities and supported the safe havens of the US dollar, government bonds and gold bullion. A dismal corporate earnings outlook, fears...

Filed under: Columns, Recession, Financial Crisis Most experts now believe that in order to recover, banks need to find a way to move their "toxic assets" off their balance sheets to stop the bleeding of quarterly writedowns. The idea of establishing a "bad bank" to buy all that crap is gaining some...

A little over a month ago, Mark gave up on his GoPhone SIM, went into an AT&T store with his iPhone 2G in hand, and signed up for a new two year, post-paid plan. The sales rep promised Mark that his corporate discount would apply, and instead of a contract presented just a receipt. Now AT&T is sayin...

It is no secret that Asian economies have been hit hard by the economic downturn, but just how hard can be gauged by the plummet in Chinese exports, as the country has become the barometer for both the region and related exchange traded funds (ETFs). There are bits of good news in here,......

As boom has turned to gloom, commodities prices have dropped, demand has dwindled away, mining companies and the exchange traded funds (ETFs) that hold these companies have been hit hard. The Economist reports that Rio Tinto has been one of the hardest hit and are taking the following measures to......

The markets and exchange traded funds (ETFs) are rallying in spite of a gloomy report about job losses that far exceeded expectations. Heavy Losses. In January, the economy lost 598,000 jobs. The losses were spread across the manufacturing and services industries. The numbers put the unemployment......