US Banks Hit By Swiss Franc Fallout

In the tightly knit world of global finance, what happens halfway around the world can have devastating effects at home. Case in point: the fallout from the recent Swiss bank decision to drop its cap on the franc, which is hitting even US banks and the sturdy dollar....

Who’s Winning the Currency Wars?

It sounds like the plot of a bad science fiction movie. A mysterious, invisible war is going on behind the scenes of the world’s major banks, with cutthroat brinkmanship and dirty strategies to get the upper hand in the global currency markets. It’s not the plot of a...

Bond Rates Plunge – But Where’s the Crisis?

Ever since the financial collapse and recession of a few years ago, financial experts have been watching the sky or signs of falling. They’ve scrutinized the behavior o US assets at home and on the world stage for sings of another collapse and recession. Currently...

The Bitcoin Bounces Back

After a rough couple of years, the Bitcoin is surging back with a vengeance. Just a year after its fall from grace in the Silk Road drug site scandal, the digital currency’s market value has even beaten gold in the world’s markets. Whether hailed as a welcome...

Looking Ahead: Another Financial Crisis?

As the US economy regains its feet after the massive financial collapse of 2008, economists are turning their gaze to the future: what will trigger the next major economic crisis – not just for the US, but also for the global economy as a whole? And a bigger question:...

Shady Trading Bilks Small Investors

In the end, Secure Investment was neither. The popular currency trading site for small investors vanished in early 2014, never to return. It took more than $1 billion in users’ money with it, and the situation offers a graphic demonstration of how to spot a financial...

Solar Energy: Changing the Balance of Power

The sun is rising on solar energy. After a long stint on the fringes of the alternative energy movement, solar power is hitting the mainstream – and giving conventional utility providers a run for their money. Solar energy was once the darling of the well off...

Lower Credit Standards: Economic Boost or Bust?

We’ve always been told that success depends on setting high standards. Lowering your standards, so the conventional wisdom goes, leads to accepting low quality and ultimately bad outcomes. But in a bid to offset a sluggish recovery, the US government is advocating...

US Dollar Rides High in World Markets

After the roller coaster ride of recent recession years, the US dollar is on top again – at least for now. And its strong showing against other world currencies may be due to the Federal Reserve’s much-maligned Quantitative Easing plan. According to a recent Business...

The Fed’s Stimulus Strategy: Silencing Skeptics?

In the end, did hard easing work? That contradictory term for Qualitative Easing version 3, the Federal Reserve’s controversial and much disputed stimulus plan, has been in the news and on the minds of economists and financial advisers since it was conceived in 2012...