Fortune Watch

The billionaire Saudi prince, who invested in Citicorp in 1991 when it was in financial straits, said he would raise his stake from 4 per cent to 5 per cent. At Citi’s current market value of just over $25bn, the new investment would cost about $350m.

The 26.4 per cent fall in the shares, which closed at $4.71 in New York, prompted Citi’s directors and executives to look at strategic options, includes selling part or whole of the company.

A $350m vote of confidence from Saudi prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal could not halt the rapid decline in the fortunes of Citigroup yesterday, with fears mounting that what was once the world’s biggest bank will lack adequate capital to withstand the billions of dollars of losses expected in the months to come.

The £236m investment came before the market opened yesterday, and reversed the nose-dive in the ailing bank’s share price for only 20 minutes before the sellers returned. It had been hoped that the boost in sentiment from Al-Waleed’s vote of confidence would end a two-year selloff that has wiped more than $200bn from Citigroup’s market value.

But as quickly as the share price had improved, it declined again. At one point it plunged by more than 25% to less than $4, its lowest since 1994. By the close on Wall Street it was off by more than 26% at $4.71, giving the bank a puny market value of $25bn.

In January 2007, Citigroup shares were worth more than $54 each and the company was valued at more than $250bn.

Read (more…)

Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama made history by becoming the first ever African American to be nominated for the role by a major political party.

Barack Hussein Obama II was born on August 4, 1961 in Hawaii. His mother, Ann Dunham, a white American from Kansas, met his Kenyan father, Barack Obama I, while they were studying together at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. His parents separated when Obama was two, and he barely knew his father, who died in an automobile accident in 1982.


In 1967, Obama’s mother married Indonesian Lolo Soetoro, and the family moved to Jakarta, where Obama lived until he was 10. He has a half-sister Maya Soetoro-Ng.

Obama moved back to Hawaii in 1971 and lived with his maternal grandparents until he graduated from high school in 1979. A graduate of Columbia University, he entered Harvard Law School in 1988, where he served as the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review.

First elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996 Barack Obama served as an Illinois state senator for seven years before he was elected to the US State Senate in November 2, 2004.

Read (more…)

The election of a new American president is always an important event, because of the power the American president has to influence events and affect lives around the world.

This election is particularly important: the American economy is going through the most serious financial crisis since The Great Depression. And the international scene is littered with the debris of Bush’s disregard for the rule of law, and his confrontational strategies.

Barack Obama has promised to undo the damage eight years of Bush policy has caused. The other contender, John McCain, if he unexpectedly surmounts the odds and becomes president, will likely build on the Bush legacy, notwithstanding his recent disclaimer: “I am not President Bush.”

To be sure Obama has said he would use force to defend American interests, and would be ready to act outside the framework of the United Nations.

It may be that being the president of a superpower carries with it some obligation to brandish the use of force as an instrument of foreign policy, or else risk being disqualified from the race altogether.

Nevertheless, the possibility of an Obama administration choosing dialogue over confrontation, engagement over hostility, is real.

Therefore, the new president would be well-advised to send a message that his defence of American values is genuine and not a rhetorical device to justify oppressive foreign policy choices.
Read (more…)

What is it that prevents America from righting herself? Stupid, blind, unthinking patriotism — willful idiots yelling “We’re number one!” while ignoring all evidence to the contrary.
Read (more…)

With living costs rising at a seemingly constant rate, simple, everyday expenses are getting more and more difficult to accommodate, and many people are finding their budgets getting tighter than ever.

While there are plenty of areas people can trim their budgets, such as spending on entertainment or shoe shopping, the rising costs of necessary items like food and gasoline make it harder and harder for people to cut enough spending elsewhere in their budgets to accommodate the increased expense of these everyday necessities. And despite the need, it’s simply unrealistic to eliminate all extraneous spending in order to make room for the ever-increasing expense of groceries and gasoline.

Thankfully, with a little budgetary reorganization, some planning, and a dash of creativity, you can maximize your food budget to make sure you get the best value for your dollar. Here are a few tips to help you spend wisely at the grocery store, and stretch your food budget as far as possible.

Plan ahead All too often, people approach grocery shopping with an impulse-buy mentality. “I’ll just go see what’s on sale,” is an extremely ineffective approach to grocery shopping. Sit down with a cookbook and plan your meals at least a week in advance. Scheduling meals out in advance will allow you to maximize your food spending, as you can organize meals by primary ingredients, using them from one day to the next. Also, planning ahead will help you avoid impulse buys when you get to the store. Make a list and stick to it.
Read (more…)

The Rescue Plan. Is my money safe at the Bank?

Well to be honest, I would like to say yes. If you asked me the same question some months months ago, I would have undoubtedly said yes. Now however I actually have a sliver of doubt. It’s true that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) pledges to insure your money.

Read (more…)

The near-term outlook for global stock markets is for continued volatility, with little chance of sustained progress until we see an end to corporate earnings downgrades and an improvement in economic leading indicators.

In this note we comment on the problems facing emerging markets, and some broad thoughts on why capitalism remains a reasonable starting point for economic systems.

What is our market outlook?

The threat of a global financial meltdown has diminished thanks to massive central bank and government intervention, which has addressed the liquidity and solvency issues of many US and European banks. However, corporate earnings estimates for 2009 still look too optimistic in light of the poor economic leading indicators that we are seeing, such as consumer and business confidence levels. Therefore, sandwiched between the possibilityof an immediate short-term relief rally and a positive long-term view that equities are currently cheap, we have a near-term view that markets will remain volatile and are likely to trade sideways while the US, Europe and Japan endure a recession.

Emerging markets: the real threat would be a rise in global protectionism.

If the worst is over regarding the US and European banking crisis, it certainly is not for some emerging markets. Hungary finds itselfwith a massively over borrowed consumer sector, with foreign currencyborrowings in Swiss francs and Japanese yen. As these safe havencurrencies appreciate, the risk of widespread default on mortgages and other bank loans increases. The Ukraine economy is coming down with a bump as foreign lenders are put off by 25% inflation. Other emerging markets are suffering from a mix of problems that can include an overvalued currency, excess consumer borrowing (in local and sometimes foreign currencies), falling prices for commodity exports, domestic politics and a drop in demand for exports as the G7 enters recession.
Read (more…)

World leaders vowed yesterday to revamp the global financial system in the face of recession fears, but US President George W Bush urged nations to “recommit” to free markets despite economic turmoil.

China’s Premier Wen Jiabao called for more regulation of the world’s financial system, saying after the summit “we need to draw lessons from this crisis.”

“We need financial innovation to serve the economy better, however we need even more financial regulation to ensure financial safety.”

Wen confirmed China’s participation in a crucial summit in the United States on November 15 aimed at tackling the financial meltdown, without specifying which Chinese leader would attend the meeting of 20 industrialised and emerging powers.

The economic turmoil has led to growing criticism of US-style free market capitalism, with French President Nicolas Sarkozy earlier this week saying “the ideology of the dictatorship of the market… is dead.”

But Bush, moving to set an agenda for the upcoming international economic summit, said its participants must “recommit” to the principles of free enterprise and free trade.

“As we focus on responses to our short-term challenges, our nations must also recommit to the fundamentals of long-term economic growth – free markets, free enterprise, and free trade,” Bush said.
Read (more…)

Though investors have endured some pretty terrible Dow performances in recent weeks, including another 300-plus point on Friday, the downward spiral has not gone far enough to halt trading on Wall Street.

New York Stock Exchange rules currently call for circuit breakers to interrupt trading only in cases of extreme drops of more than 1,100 points. Such breaks, established after the Black Monday crash in 1987, are intended to help investors step back and assess what is happening.

The thresholds for market timeouts are set quarterly, using the Dow’s average closing price for the previous month, and activate in increments of 10, 20, and 30 percentage point drops.

For the current fourth quarter, if the Dow drops 1,100 points before 2 p.m., trading stops for an hour. If such a drop happens between 2 p.m. and 2:30 p.m., trading halts for a half hour. After 2:30 p.m., the 1,100-point threshold expires.

There is also a 2,200-point mark. If the Dow falls by that much before 1 p.m., trading stops for two hours. Between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m., a 2,200-drop causes an hour halt. After 2 p.m., trading ends.

If the Dow falls by 3,350 points, trading stops for the rest of the day.

The circuit breakers have been activated twice, both times in late afternoon trading on Oct. 27, 1997, when the Dow eventually closed off 554 points, or 7.2 percent. Trading that day was halted under previous triggers, which were later revised in 1998. The current triggers have never been hit.
Read (more…)

It is important to look for positive points to find a way out of the financial crisis, apart from philosophic controversy.

All countries, whether separately or collectively, are working hard to contain the crisis, or at least to reduce losses, despite the gloomy picture of the global economy and the pessimistic atmosphere blanketing the entire world.

Although it is difficult to speak about positive points while the entire world is facing such a crisis, there must be some positive aspects.

The first of these positive effects is that the financial crisis ushers in an end to the domination of the sole magnate in international financial relations, which was a major cause of the crisis.

Wall Street was the world’s most powerful investment house, just a few months ago, where investments used to pour from the East and the West. Now Wall Street means bankruptcy, and investors in fear of losing their money do their best to avoid it.

At present, there are regions in Europe and Asia, including the Gulf region, emerging as hubs of huge investments, which will bring about more stability to the world financial system. This shift is important for restructuring international relations in the post-crisis stage.

Read (more…)