In what should be no surprise, banks are cutting back on small business loans. Please consider Small business loans: $10 billion evaporates . Eight months after President Obama began prodding the nation's banks to increase their small business lending, the loan numbers continue to move in the oppos ... Read more

Salesforce (CRM) produced excellent results but disappointed some of their exceptionally greedy shareholder base who expected better. The stock was at or near is 52 week high and reports of 20% increase in revenues in a terrible economy were not satisfactory to this very tough crowd. Who managed tho ... Read more

G10 Advancers and Decliners vs USD CHF 0.70 EUR 0.66 JPY -0.16 GBP -0.35 Gold has once again outshone other assets classes by powering to new highs above $1152, bringing the gains month-to-date to an astounding +10.2%. The move has been paralleled by rallies in most major and ... Read t ... Read more

G10 Advancers and Decliners vs USD GBP -0.24 JPY -0.41 EUR -0.90 CHF -1.08 The USD has recouped some of its recent losses today as equity markets failed to sustain the positive momentum of yesterday’s strong rally. EURUSD has sold off markedly from its early visit to 1.49 ... Read t ... Read more

| Peter Klein | Useful information for undergraduate instructors, provided by students, from the Chronicle (via Ross Emmett). Sample: There is no need to put those “just for fun” optional readings on the syllabus. We will never read them. If I even see the word “option ... Read more

| Peter Klein | Speaking of Peters , the McKinsey Quarterly site has a video interview with the late Peter Bernstein on risk. Bernstein was a deep thinker and an excellent writer . I once found myself on a plane next to an investment banker who was reading Bernstein’s Against ... Read ... Read more

When we posted on Nov. 12 about the flurry of margin calls at Boston Scientific Corp. (BSX), there was no way to know that the pace of involuntary stock sales would continue. As a historical recap:  Michelle noted in her post last week that company co-founders Peter Nicholas and John Ab ... Read more

Last night I spoke with one of the Senate’s brightest lights — Sen. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.), who also happens to be one of only two physicians in the chamber. We discussed where the Democrats’ behemoth government health-care takeover bill is heading, as well as his plan to read the 2,000-plus p ... Read more

From the AFA program:SSRN-In Search of Attention by Zhi Da, Joseph Engelberg, Pengjie Gao: "Abstract: Turnover, extreme returns, news and advertising expense are indirect proxies of investor attention. In contrast, we propose a direct measure of investor demand for attention -- active attention -- ... Read more

I had a student ask about this...Why China Hates The Carry Trade: "A carry trade is when you borrow from a currency with a low interest rate, and then invest in a currency with a higher interest rate. Say the US interest rate is 3%, and the Chinese interest rate is 5%. Borrow at 3%, invest at 5%, ma ... Read more