Skip to main content

Features of the week

Ready for this Friday's edition of "Features of the week"? Splendid. Pull up a chair and enjoy these great articles and interview links culled from the web & blogosphere.

1. Gold hits 28-year high as oil surges. Here's some of our past commentary on gold and oil prices.

Plus, a recap of last April's oil price debate between Steve Forbes and T. Boone Pickens.

2. Canadian dollar trades above US $1 mark for the first time in nearly 31 years.

3. John Authers discusses long-term consequences of a dollar decline in this September 20 video update at FT.com.

4. The Big Picture on, "Fear of a dollar collapse - Part II".

5. Sub-Saharan markets attract interest Gulf investors' interest.

6. Worries that Saudi Arabia might end its dollar peg.

7. Jim Rogers and Marc Faber comment on the Fed's recent moves.

8. Wilbur Ross sees value in the wreckage of the mortgage business.

9. Bear Mountain Bull highlights some important charts.

10. New Order fans: one from the jukebox archives. New Order live in-studio session for BBC Radio, 1984.

11. Sir Alan, so good to see you! Jon Stewart puts some interesting questions to former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan in this Daily Show interview.

12. The ICI's Civics Literacy Quiz and what the results say about American students' knowledge of civics, history, and the market economy.

13. Eat less to live longer? Why restricting calories may lead to longetivity.

14. Hedge fund chiefs, private equity guys among new entrants to the Forbes 400.

15. So the big angle with this latest Forbes list is that $1 billion is no longer enough to join the ranks of the Forbes 400.

As we noted back in March, when Forbes published their World's Billionaires list, becoming a billionaire is no longer the rare threshold that it once was.

Thank inflation and the steady devaluation of the world's paper currencies. Today's money is backed by nothing of real value and you can print this stuff at will, so what did you expect?

For a look back at the era when having a million dollars meant something (never mind having a billion), check out, "$1 million: What's the infatuation", and, "Tallying up the millionaires".

Thanks for reading Finance Trends Matter. Enjoy your weekend!

Popular posts from this blog

Nasdaq credit rating junked.

S&P cut Nasdaq's credit rating to junk status citing debt burdens and its questionable strategy to buy a controlling interest in the London Stock Exchange. Financial Times reported that the exchange's counterparty credit & bank loan rating were lowered fromm BBB- (lowest investment grade rating) to BB+. The change will increase Nasdaq's borrowing costs should it wish to pursue aquisition targets. For an earlier look at the exchange consolidation trend that brought about Nasdaq's push for a stake in the LSE, please see "Exchange fever" .

Clean Money - John Rubino: Book review

Clean Money by John Rubino 274 pages. Hoboken, New Jersey John Wiley & Sons. 2009. 1st Edition. The bouyant stock market environment of the past several years is gone, and the financial wreckage of 2008 is still sharp in our minds as a new year starts to unfold. Given the recent across-the-board-declines in global stock markets (and most asset classes) that have left many investors shell-shocked, you might wonder if there is any good reason to consider the merits of a hot new investment theme, such as clean energy. However, we shouldn't be too hasty to write off all future stock investments. After all, the market declines of 2008 may continue into 2009, but they may also leave interesting investment opportunities in their wake. Which brings us to the subject of this review. John Rubino, author and editor of GreenStockInvesting.com , recently released a new book on renewable energy and clean-tech investing entitled, Clean Money: Picking Winners in the Green Tech Boom . In Clean ...

Seth Klarman: Margin of Safety (pdf)

Welcome, readers! Signup for free email updates at the Finance Trends Newsletter . Update: PDF links removed due to DMCA notice. Please see our extensive Klarman book notes below. New visitors, please check the Finance Trends home page for all new posts. Here's something for anyone who has been trying to get a look at Seth Klarman's now famous, and out of print, 1991 investment book, Margin of Safety .  My knowledge of value investing is pretty much limited to what I've read in Ben Graham's The Intelligent Investor (the book which originally popularized the investment concept of a "Margin of Safety"), so check out the wisdom from Seth Klarman and other investing greats in our related posts below. You can also go straight to Ronald Redfield's Margin of Safety book notes .    Related posts: 1. Seth Klarman interviews and Margin of Safety notes     2. Seth Klarman: Lessons from 2008 3. Investing Lessons from Sir John Templeton 4. ...