As we noted last week, the disaster in Haiti has been exacerbated considerably by the fact that the country is virtually uninsured. In response, a number of private insurers have attempted to raise relief funds. Read this article for more ...

When President Obama nominated Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to a second term last August, few observers expected anything to derail the confirmation process in the Senate. However, The Wall Street Journal has reported that Mr. Bernanke is rapidly losing ...

The extent of the disaster in Haiti has been shocking.  No one can say how many lives have been lost but we know that the casualty count will be in the multiple thousands.  The extent of the damage to Haiti's ...

The January 2010 issue of Rail Time Indicators was published today and a video summary of the report appears below. As the report notes, 2009 was a year that hopefully will not repeat in the future. For the full year, ...

P&C National Underwriter magazine has reported that reinsurance pricing was down for the latest January 1 renewal season as global capacity has been restored to levels close to the all-time peak of December 2007. While pricing has softened, underwriting has ...

Earlier this week, we reviewed Andrew Ross Sorkin’s book Too Big To Fail which provides a very interesting inside account of the most important events of the financial crisis of 2008. In a speech at the Foreign Policy Association in ...

In an interview on Nightly Business Report last night, Vanguard Founder John “Jack” Bogle comments on the investment follies of the decade coming to a close and expressed positive views on prospects for returns from common stocks in the decade ...

In the brief interview shown below, Professor Meir Statman of Santa Clara University’s Leavey School of Business discusses investor risk tolerance with Paul Kangas of Nightly Business Reports. Prof. Statman is a leading expert in the field of behavioral finance ...

As we discussed in September, much of the response to the global economic crisis of the past two years was based, at least in part, on the economic theories of John Maynard Keynes. Broad based government intervention in the economy ...

Anyone who has ever worked in a large organization knows how rare it is to encounter unified information systems that capture all relevant data required for intelligent decision making. Typically, individual departments have their own systems for critical tasks and, ...

Those who followed politics in the early 1990s will recall the impact that “bond market vigilantes” had on the Clinton Administration’s fiscal policies. Will credit rating agencies replace the bond market as a form of fiscal discipline in the years ...

T. Boone Pickens made headlines in 2008 with his "Pickens Plan" for American energy independence. The plan, which consisted of a combination of wind farms and greater use of natural gas, was unveiled as crude oil prices reached an all ...

On the surface, this post may seem to have very little to do with investing. However, the importance of having a set of standards or principles is critical for success in all professions. In a segment on Friday regarding the ...

Prem Watsa, Chairman and CEO of Fairfax Financial Holdings, has often been referred to as "Canada's Warren Buffett" due to his successful insurance and investing track record. However, in a recent interview with canada.com, Mr. Watsa expressed very different views ...

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released its November report on employment this morning which shows that unemployment dropped to 10.0% from 10.2% in October.  While any drop in the "headline" unemployment rate is likely to be greeted with celebration ...

Morningstar has announced the launch of its corporate credit ratings initiative which will initially cover 100 companies with plans for expansion to 1,000 companies as additional credit analysts are hired in the coming months. As we have discussed in recent ...

The Royal Gazette, a Bermuda based newspaper, reports that reinsurers have posted a second straight quarterly increase in policyholders' surplus as a result of firmer pricing and the absence of large catastrophes during the 2009 hurricane season. Read this article ...

As investors, most of us rely heavily on professional journalists who are paid to uncover breaking stories on the economy and individual companies. In addition to reading direct sources of information on companies, access to quality journalism can often influence ...

In the CNBC video recorded today and shown below, American Express CEO Ken Chenault comments on credit conditions at American Express as well as broader issues associated with consumer spending. As we have noted in the past, economic recovery will ...

Warren Buffett has commented on the massive “greenback emissions” and the tendency of politicians for favor monetizing debt rather than imposing more obvious choices such as tax increases or spending cuts. Gary Shilling, President of A. Gary Shilling & Co ...