MM Money

ChoicePoint Will Stop Selling Some Consumer Information

Data collector ChoicePoint (CPS) said Friday that it will stop selling personal information about consumers to small businesses. The company also said the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating stock sales by its top two executives. The dual announcements were made in a news statement and a regulatory filing. The decision to stop selling data to small businesses was made because that was the segment of the company criminals tapped to gain access to ChoicePoint's ...     (full story) Continue reading "ChoicePoint Will Stop Selling Some Consumer Information"

Fidelity Makes Fee Cuts Permanent

Fidelity Investments said it will make permanent sharp cuts in some of its index-fund fees and make any increase subject to shareholder votes. The action ratchets up competition with rival Vanguard Group, which pioneered index funds. When Fidelity's cuts were announced in August, they attracted attention. But Vanguard pointed out that the fee could be raised at any time and others, including investment advisers and a Wall Street Journal columnist, noted that investors lured by ...     (full story) Continue reading "Fidelity Makes Fee Cuts Permanent"

Treasury Curbs Tax-Deferral Strategy

The Treasury Department released final rules yesterday limiting the use of life insurance and annuities to avoid current taxes on investment earnings. The Treasury and Internal Revenue Service regulations are aimed at preventing sophisticated investors from using life insurance to turn taxable investments in hedge funds and other "private placement" investments into tax-deferred or tax-free investments. Among the products targeted by the rules, which take effect today, are life insurance and annuity contracts "wrapped" around ...     (full story) Continue reading "Treasury Curbs Tax-Deferral Strategy"

In Search of a Sure Thing

Brian Trainor first heard about Cash Link Systems while he was watching a History Channel documentary about financial moguls. During a break, he saw a commercial pitching investment in a "cashless" automated teller machine. Instead of dispensing currency, the machine spit out a receipt, which the user presented to a nearby cashier for payment. The device, which resembled a desktop adding machine, required none of the expensive infrastructure of armor-plated, cash-dispensing ATMs. This was an ...     (full story) Continue reading "In Search of a Sure Thing"

Greenspan Again Backs Plan for Private Accounts

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan again endorsed President Bush's proposal to offer private accounts for Social Security as White House allies went on the offensive against critics of the plan. In issuing one of his toughest warnings yet to Congress about the danger of letting the nation's giant budget deficits persist, Mr. Greenspan told the House Budget Committee Wednesday that "the consequences for the U.S. economy of doing nothing could be severe" and that without ...     (full story) Continue reading "Greenspan Again Backs Plan for Private Accounts"

Toshiba Names New President With a Record of Turnarounds

The Japanese electronics giant Toshiba said Tuesday that it had appointed Atsutoshi Nishida, a man credited with twice turning around its computer business, its new president. Mr. Nishida, 61, will replace Tadashi Okamura, 66, who will become chairman. Taizo Nishimuro, 69, the current chairman, will become an adviser to the company. Mr. Nishida, an executive vice president who has been with the company for 30 years, is scheduled to take over in June. The change ...     (full story) Continue reading "Toshiba Names New President With a Record of Turnarounds"

Marriage Prospects: Richer, not Poorer

Is it true that married men earn more money than single guys? My research shows that there really is something about marriage that leads men to make more money -- as much as 27% more than single men. Why is that? One hypothesis was that men who are smarter and better-looking, and who earn more money, are also more likely to marry. But we found little, if any, evidence to support that. How did you ...     (full story) Continue reading "Marriage Prospects: Richer, not Poorer"

Four Top Performing Newsletters

One smart way to invest is to subscribe to a solid investment newsletter -- online or through the mail -- and follow its recommendations. But how do you separate the good newsletters from the lousy ones? Fortunately, Mark Hulbert has tracked investment newsletters for more than 20 years in his Hulbert Financial Digest. The latest issue provides performance data on all the letters he monitors. Hulbert is painstakingly accurate. He takes such steps as subscribing ...     (full story) Continue reading "Four Top Performing Newsletters"

Invest Your IRA in Real Estate?

Painful memories of the bear market and continued frustration over low interest rates have a lot of investors looking beyond stocks, bonds and mutual funds for their retirement savings. A small but growing number have discovered they can use the money in their IRAs to buy real estate -- from raw land to single-family homes to commercial buildings. But just because you can doesn't mean you should, warns IRA expert Ed Slott of Rockville Centre ...     (full story) Continue reading "Invest Your IRA in Real Estate?"

Keep Your Income Tax Documents Safe From Identity Thieves

Come tax time, it can be a pain to gather all your important financial documents together. And tax time is a prime time of year for additional headaches - caused by identity thieves who may be out to steal such vital information. Smart storage and document disposal are especially important in the weeks before you file your income tax return, reports the National Crime Prevention Council (www.ncpc.org). The key is to keep what you really ...     (full story) Continue reading "Keep Your Income Tax Documents Safe From Identity Thieves"

Tax Schemes Saved 61 Top Firms $3.4B

Fortune 500 companies took advantage of abusive tax shelters sold to them by their auditors to avoid $1.8 billion in federal taxes from 1998 through 2003, the Government Accountability Office reported Thursday. During that time, the GAO said, 61 Fortune 500 companies avoided a total of $3.4 billion in taxes through auditor-inspired tax schemes, sometimes while providing tax advice to their top executives. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said the GAO report highlights the need for ...     (full story) Continue reading "Tax Schemes Saved 61 Top Firms $3.4B"

Oil Prices Rise Amid Concern Over Weather and Supplies

Crude oil prices rose 5.8 percent to their highest level in nearly four months yesterday, jumping above $51 a barrel, on concerns that OPEC might curb supplies when it meets next month. Cold weather in North America and Europe contributed to the surge by pushing up heating oil prices. The gains sent stocks plunging as investors feared higher energy costs would hurt the economy. In the most active day of trading so far this year ...     (full story) Continue reading "Oil Prices Rise Amid Concern Over Weather and Supplies"

Women Less Tolerant of Risk: Poll

Women investors are more likely to play it safe than are men. So concludes a poll by the National Association of Investors Corporation. After surveying 1,110 American investors, the organization found that men and women have different responses to market conditions, and how they consider those conditions when deciding on an investment strategy. On a scale of 1 to 7, with 1 as "not risky at all" and 7 as "very risky," 43 percent of ...     (full story) Continue reading "Women Less Tolerant of Risk: Poll"

Prices Rise Only Slightly, Easing Fears About Inflation

Consumer prices barely rose in January, the government said on Wednesday, but the Federal Reserve signaled its intention to keep nudging up interest rates in the months ahead. Consumer prices edged up 0.1 percent in January, adjusted for seasonal factors, after being flat in December. The mild increase soothed investor anxieties about inflation, even though it stemmed in part from a temporary dip in oil prices that has since reversed. The consumer prices report came ...     (full story) Continue reading "Prices Rise Only Slightly, Easing Fears About Inflation"

Why a Real Estate Agent May Skip the Extra Mile

As housing prices keep rising year after year, real estate has become a national obsession - and a more powerful economic engine. Sales of homes and condominiums totaled an estimated $2.17 trillion in 2004, said Lawrence Yun, senior economist at the National Association of Realtors. The industry couldn't function without the armies of agents who help buyers and sellers reach mutually agreeable terms on those four-bedroom, center-hall colonials, and who generally collect hefty 6 percent ...     (full story) Continue reading "Why a Real Estate Agent May Skip the Extra Mile"

Fannie Mae Scrambles for New Ways to Raise Capital

FANNIE MAE, the nation's largest buyer of home mortgages, said on Wednesday that its primary regulator had discovered a host of new potential accounting violations at the company that had raised a fresh set of "safety and soundness concerns." Fannie Mae also said that regulators had decided to give it a three-month extension, until the end of September, to carry out a plan to raise billions of dollars in capital and reduce its portfolio of ...     (full story) Continue reading "Fannie Mae Scrambles for New Ways to Raise Capital"

Questions Arise of Possible Bias at Drug Maker

At Johnson & Johnson, the director of equal opportunity was worried. The company, she warned in a memo written in the late 1990's - the exact date is unclear - had "areas of vulnerability" to employment discrimination lawsuits. As it turned out, she was right. And the memo, written by Marion HochbergSmith and intended to prod Johnson & Johnson, the giant drug company, into making improvements, could now end up serving as an unintended legal ...     (full story) Continue reading " Questions Arise of Possible Bias at Drug Maker"

Oil Climbs Above $51 a Barrel on Concerns About Supplies

Crude oil prices rose nearly 6 percent today to their highest level in three months, jumping above $51 a barrel again, on concerns that OPEC might curb supplies, while cold weather in North America and Europe pushed up heating oil prices. "The path of least resistance was clearly on the upside today," said Eric Bolling, an independent oil trader on the New York Mercantile Exchange, who is betting both crude oil and natural gas prices ...     (full story) Continue reading "Oil Climbs Above $51 a Barrel on Concerns About Supplies"

Winn-Dixie Files for Bankruptcy Protection

Winn-Dixie Stores, the grocery chain founded by William Davis in 1925 that long had a lock on the South, announced early Tuesday that it had filed for bankruptcy protection in an effort to address financial and operational challenges that had hampered its performance. The company said in its filing, made in the Southern District in Manhattan, that it had secured $800 million in debtor-in-possession financing from Wachovia Bank. All 920 stores in eight states and ...     (full story) Continue reading "Winn-Dixie Files for Bankruptcy Protection"

Novartis to Become No. 1 Generic Drug Maker With $8.4 Billion Deal

Novartis, the fourth-largest brand-name drug maker in Europe, announced today that it would acquire Hexal of Germany and its American affiliate, Eon Labs, for $8.4 billion in cash in a deal that would make it the world's largest company in the growing market for generic medicines. The deal underlines how Novartis, which is based in Basel, Switzerland, is positioning itself to benefit from an expected boom in the market for generic drugs, which are low-cost ...     (full story) Continue reading "Novartis to Become No. 1 Generic Drug Maker With $8.4 Billion Deal"