Articles

There's another bank acquisition to report. PNC Corp. with the assistance of the TARP program, has purchased Ohio based National City. The combined bank will have a core deposit base of $180 billion, making PNC the fifth largest U.S. bank by deposits.

I'm not familiar with Peter Boockvar or his investing record but I thought it was interesting that analysts are not starting to talk about more drops in the markets. Before the talk was about whether we had hit a floor at 8,000.

We noticed today that Crestmark Bank is not taking new CD money which we thought was a little strange. So we called them and spoke with their Controller who says this is just normal business and all is fine.

Citibank is offering a competitive 6 month CD paying 4% APY.

Sandisk's CEO managed to destroy a better offer to acquire his company than Yahoo's.

Global markets of all sort are moving up and down with incredible quickness and volume. Is the precipitous nature of today's global markets good or bad?

The WSJ stepped into the high yield online savings world with an article on transfer times using online banks. There wasn't a lot of new information but it was a decent recap of why it takes 2-4 days to process a transfer.

ING has joined the rate raising crowd. Even though interest rates are projected to drop, banks are keeping their rates steady, or even raising them. I'm not complaining.

Quicken is going to the freemium model. They're offering their base service free now to compete against several other free online services and then offering upgrades to more powerful services. Still, for the average user, the free service is good news.

Jim Cramer decides to raise the ante on his theatrics by insulting all AIG employees. Outrages, the new AIG CEO Ed Liddy demands an apology. Tune in for more as the world turns...

The average American saved about 9 percent of their after-tax income between 1960 and 1990 according to the Commerce Department. It was less than 1 percent in each of the last three years. That's going to change and it will cause wrenching changes in the economy.

Don't believe what any politician tells you about taxes. Economic reality makes it certain that they will have to raise taxes at some point in their administration.

California last week raised $5 billion dollars to avert a cash crunch stemming from the credit meltdown. The most interesting thing about it is they skipped the big investment banks and went directly to their consumers.

Bank of America is offering a promo for some of the professional organizations listed on the site - i.e. The Society of Mechanical Engineers - but they are open to everyone. When I contacted Bank of America about the CD rates they said no special validation was needed to open an account. That means everyone is eligible.

Most folks in their 30's and early 40's now realize that we have lost everything that we worked so hard for as a result of the excesses of the baby-boomers.