All Posts Tagged With: "wall street"
“Flash Trading” could be no more, thankfully.
Jennifer McClelland | RSS | Thu, Nov 05 2009 | 0 Comments
Flash orders give some traders an edge in the purchase or sale of their stocks. The advantage is only a split second advantage, but it is enough to get the attention of the SEC.
For the next 60 days, the change will be up for public comment and could be adopted by the SEC after that time.
Flash orders are one of those things that sometimes occurs in the trading world. They really have started to become quite a hot issue on Wall Street though due to people asking questions about fairness on the Street.
From MSNBC:
A flash order refers to certain members of exchanges — often big companies — buying and selling reports about continuing stock deals milliseconds prior to that information being made public. A number of big banks and financial companies, using high-speed PC programs, can get a speedy, sneak peep at how additional investors are trading, giving them a brief peek into the direction of the market.
The other rule on the table includes more transparency from credit rating companies. For its role in the subprime mortgage mess, the industry that performs credit ratings has been shamed. The practices of these companies (which includes Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s Investors Service, as well as Fitch Ratings) will be able to be seen by the public and will also be subject to restraints.
It is not fair when some companies have the ability to trade before the general public is allowed to do so. When there are ultra high speed computers and company information and reports available, then of course they will have an small advantage. I do not believe that the flash ordering has been exactly beneficial to a lot of companies on Wall Street because if you look at how many companies have performed over the past few months and especially when you look at the last year, you can tell that they are not exactly doing great. Many of the banks and financial institutions have only remained open only by the grace of our taxpayer dollars.
I am glad that they will no longer be helped out by any of the money that I pay the government. I know that the general public of the United States is ready to go after the boards of many of these companies because of all the bonuses that they seem to be raking in every couple of months; and I have to agree with the general public on this one.
These rules can be seen at the MSNBC article I’ve linked below. I would like to see what the SEC does with the public comments over the next two months. In 60 days, we will see how the market is doing and I am sure that will have some impact on the SEC’s decision as to what it is going to do with the new rules.
Related posts:Forex and ETF Trading Courses
Today’s Ebook – Privacy Choices for Your Personal Financial Information
Tags: credit rating, transparency, company information
The fall of the newspaper and why no one needs a subscription
Jennifer McClelland | RSS | Thu, Oct 29 2009 | 3 Comments
The Wall Street Times is one of the largest newspapers in the country. It has subscribers from all walks of life from coast to coast. However, are those readers actually getting out of the newspaper what they were looking for in the beginning?
I honestly don’t think so.
In today’s times there isn’t a real reason to have a subscription to a newspaper at all. You can get your news from the internet or 24 hour cable news. The news on regular non-cable television is even on for hours a day now. People are becoming increasingly aware of the move to a more digital form of the news.
There is a downside of the news becoming completely digital; print journalists are losing their jobs. Newspapers all across the country are going out of business and while newspapers like the Wall Street Journal don’t seem to be doing too badly right now, they have had to begin charging for information on its website to make up for the amount of readers its losing in subscriptions.
The good thing for the newspapers is that they aren’t having to pay as much for printing services and publishing services simply because they don’t need the same amount of supplies.
Overall, I feel as though newspapers in their current print form will likely become more and more scarce. I think that many local newspapers will hurt the worst and many will go out of business altogether.
As funny as it may seem, in the past few weeks (contrary to exactly how I feel) another print newspaper has been showing up in my town of 20,000. I completely did not expect for there to be another print newspaper here ever. With three local newspapers/publications in the county, the market is over covered.
No related posts.
Tags: journalists, wall street, subscriptions
The SEC is considering a ban on Flash Trading
Jennifer McClelland | RSS | Fri, Sep 18 2009 | 1 Comment
Flash orders give some traders an edge in the purchase or sale of their stocks. The advantage is only a split second advantage, but it is enough to get the attention of the SEC.
For the next 60 days, the change will be up for public comment and could be adopted by the SEC after that time.
Flash orders are one of those things that sometimes occurs in the trading world. They really have started to become quite a hot issue on Wall Street though due to people asking questions about fairness on the Street.
From MSNBC:
A flash order refers to certain members of exchanges — often big companies — buying and selling reports about continuing stock deals milliseconds prior to that information being made public. A number of big banks and financial companies, using high-speed PC programs, can get a speedy, sneak peep at how additional investors are trading, giving them a brief peek into the direction of the market.
The other rule on the table includes more transparency from credit rating companies. For its role in the subprime mortgage mess, the industry that performs credit ratings has been shamed. The practices of these companies (which includes Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s Investors Service, as well as Fitch Ratings) will be able to be seen by the public and will also be subject to restraints.
It is not fair when some companies have the ability to trade before the general public is allowed to do so. When there are ultra high speed computers and company information and reports available, then of course they will have an small advantage. I do not believe that the flash ordering has been exactly beneficial to a lot of companies on Wall Street because if you look at how many companies have performed over the past few months and especially when you look at the last year, you can tell that they are not exactly doing great. Many of the banks and financial institutions have only remained open only by the grace of our taxpayer dollars.
I am glad that they will no longer be helped out by any of the money that I pay the government. I know that the general public of the United States is ready to go after the boards of many of these companies because of all the bonuses that they seem to be raking in every couple of months; and I have to agree with the general public on this one.
These rules can be seen at the MSNBC article I’ve linked below. I would like to see what the SEC does with the public comments over the next two months. In 60 days, we will see how the market is doing and I am sure that will have some impact on the SEC’s decision as to what it is going to do with the new rules.
Related posts:“Flash Trading” could be no more, thankfully.
Forex and ETF Trading Courses
Tags: information, standard, financial institutions
Verizon to cut jobs following a loss for the quarter
Jennifer McClelland | RSS | Thu, Sep 03 2009 | 0 Comments
Verizon Communications, the country’s biggest wireless carrier said today that because its second quarter profits fell 21%, it will be cutting more than 8,000 employees and contractor jobs by the end of the year. The measure is one of the most drastic cost cutting measures that the company is implementing.
Verizon’s wireline business has failed to keep up with the falling revenues and has to cut the jobs in order to keep costs in line according to CFO John Killian.
Verizon has, in the past, balanced the job cuts in wireline with the amount of people being hired in its wireless division. However, this time that will not be the case and they are not going to be looking at hiring in the wireless division with the latest rounds of job cuts.
“We probably will not have large-scale hiring until we’re out of the recession,” Strigl said in an interview.
The quarter for Verizon ended with the company having 235,000 employees, which is 6,000 higher than the same quarter last year even with 8,000 job cuts throughout the year. In the totals, contractor jobs aren’t included in the totals.
When earnings came out, Verizon still beat Wall Street expectations, even if they only narrowly beat them. Verizon blamed the recession and falling demand for cell phones and new home TV service as a reason for the decrease.
At the same time, there was an additional 1.1 million customers to subscribe to the cellular service. This was in line with analyst expectations as the company ended the quarter beating out AT&T again. Verizon has 87.7 million customers while AT&T has 79.6 million. AT&T is, however, beating out Verizon in how many customers it is adding per quarter, last quarter it netted 1.37 million customers (which is likely thanks to its media barrage of the iPhone and other services).
Verizon’s wireless division doesn’t currently have a great device that can compete with the iPhone and until it does it will continue to fall behind AT&T in my opinion. I believe that the Blackberry Storm wasn’t the amazing phone that everyone thought it would be and while Blackberry will be coming out with a new device called the Storm 2 later this year, the company has said that it will not be getting rid of some of the features that made the phone so unpopular to begin with.
Related posts:Sprint lost nearly half a billion dollars in the third quarter
Bank of America has another loss for 3rd Quarter; Ken Lewis won’t be getting Paid this year
Tags: large scale, wall street expectations, wall street
This month could be particulary harsh for Wall Street.
Jennifer McClelland | RSS | Tue, Sep 01 2009 | 1 Comment
As MSNBC noted, if you go by historical figures, September is typically the worst month for stocks. While most people would think October would be the worst month for stocks (think Black Monday and Black Tuesday), September is often the worst month for Wall Street aside from huge crashes. Even last year, the Dow Jones shed 6%.
The S&P 500 has posted a decline of 1.3% on average every September since 1929.
So, why is September such a bad month for the stock market?
Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at Standard & Poors thinks that because people want to spend more time on their portfolios after coming home from vacations could be partially to blame for the fall in the September market.
Of course, toward the end of the year people are starting to run out of the money they had at the beginning half of the year due to tax refunds and bonuses.
Then there is the idea that mutual funds will sell off the funds that don’t perform well before the end of the fiscal year in October.
Related posts:“Psychologically, when the leaves turn in the fall, vacations end and the days are getting shorter, there is this kind of negative vibe out there that tends to accentuate any negative events,” said Dan Seiver, a finance professor at San Diego State University.
One factor that could contribute to a September downturn is the realization by investors that they’ve been a little too zealous, driving the market up 29 percent since March, and switch to sell mode. Anderson believes a small correction could be coming, but there is so much money on the sidelines right now that as soon as the market begins to head south those poised to jump could get in quickly, softening the downward impact.
You know Wall Street executive pay is too high when…
The U.S. saw another 284,000 jobs lost in October
Tags: Money, finance professor, fiscal year
