In a surprise move, the House of Representatives yesterday voted against Paulson’s $700 billion bailout bill.  I was shocked, personally, because the bill was widely expected to pass and seemed to have a lot of support from both parties in congress.  In any event, this basically brings us back to square one since what happens [...]

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On Black Monday October 19th, 1987 the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 508 points, from 2247 to 1739, a drop of 22.6%, in a single day.  It was the single largest drop in stock market history, percentage-wise.  Basically, what’s taken a year to unfold at present happened in a single day.  Sounds bad, right?  Anybody [...]

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Both hosting and writing guest posts is something ever how-to-blog advice post mentions, and I’ve never done either.  Others seem to have used it to great affect, though, so I plan on changing that.  I am hereby formally accepting guest posts and plan on publishing a few of them over the next few weeks here [...]

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This morning, I almost had to call in sick to work.  My car was running on empty and I couldn’t find a gas station that actually had gas.  Eventually, after visiting 5 different stations, I eventually found one in an out-of-the-way location that still had gas.  At $4.50 per gallon.  The problem is two-fold.
Hurricanes Ike [...]

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Everybody uses it.  Some of us are obsessed with it.  Some even choose to report on it monthly in their blogs.   So, is net worth the best measure of worth?  In a word, no.
High Net Worth Does Not Equal Financial Independence
For starters, net worth includes everything from retirement accounts, home equity, and cash in the bank [...]

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This might be a bit off-topic, but being the cheapskate I am, I’ve always had an aversion to waste.  This morning as I drove to work, I noticed a perfectly good living-room suite laying out by the dumpster.  Granted I didn’t get out of the car for an up-close inspection, but this furniture couldn’t have [...]

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A lower dollar and high oil prices aren’t all bad news.  According to the US Department of Commerce, exports grew by 21% for the year ending in June 2008, trimming the trade deficit by a small but nonetheless significant 4%.  But there’s another not-so-often-reported benefit of the current economic situation:  products manufactured and sold domestically [...]

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Yesterday, the S&P 500 dropped 59 points, or about 4.71%.  The standard deviation of daily returns for the broad market amounts to a bit more than 1%.  In statistical terms, it was a four standard deviation event.  What exactly does that mean?
Yesterday Was A Very, Very Rare Day
Standard deviation is a measure of how dispersed a collected [...]

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I was having a conversation with a friend the other day about sick pets and how far we’d be willing to go to save them.  While I don’t currently own a pet, I have in the past and am a huge animal-lover, especially dogs.  Unfortunately, pets aren’t any more immune to disease than humans.  They [...]

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Today was a sad day:  I went for a dip and the pool and it was uncomfortably cool.  In another week or two, I probably won’t be able swim at all.  I love the fall and cooler weather, I only wish I could swim year-round.  But anyway, one with the links.
Finance Blog Network
Curt at Penny [...]

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