Can you think of a 4-letter word ending with k? Something that many people profess to do and yet evidently they are not doing enough of? Yes, the answer is R-I-S-K or more accurately, the ‘management of risk‘ as they go about their daily lives. At Smart Incubator, we passionately believe that teens and adults [...]

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Europe may already have passed its biggest stress test. The euro has rallied 8 percent from a four-year low last month. Greece, Spain and Portugal have managed to sell 50 billion euros ($64 billion) of debt since May 10 when the need to save the single currency forced finance ministers to create a nearly $1 [...]

debt, Euro, greece, IMF, Risk Management, stress test Hide

Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s $550 million settlement with U.S. regulators yesterday will benefit the firm by ending three months of uncertainty at an affordable price. Now the rest of Wall Street begins calculating the cost. Investors welcomed the deal with the Securities and Exchange Commission, saying the company won key points: The cost was below [...]

goldman, investments, Risk Management, structured products, US Hide

On a hill high above Cleveland, Tennessee, stands a manor modeled after George Vanderbilt’s Biltmore. A stone-and-stucco pile topped by a copper dome, the house is perched on a 650-acre (263-hectare) estate that features two artificial lakes, a regulation-sized football field and a three- story tree house, plus stables, a greenhouse and an aviary. If this sounds [...]

consumers, credit, housing loans, US Hide

There is nothing like an inquisitive child to make you realize just how complicated the topic of money is. That’s what I ended up thinking after my 4-year-old daughter a few weeks ago stomped her feet, turned red and demanded to know why we did not own a summer house. It might have been funny [...]

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China’s passenger-car sales growth slowed in June as inflation accelerated, reducing consumers’ spending power in the world’s largest auto market. Sales of cars, sport-utility vehicles and multipurpose vehicles rose 10.9 percent from a year earlier to 839,228 last month, the China Automotive Technology & Research Center said today. That compares with 34 percent growth in April and 25 [...]

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The U.S. House of Representatives approved the financial-overhaul bill, moving a step closer to enacting the broadest rewrite of Wall Street rules since the Great Depression. The House voted 237-192 in favor of the bill. It also will have to be approved by the Senate, which delayed action until after the weeklong July 4 recess, [...]

credit, dollar, lending, Risk Management, US Hide

Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble slashed prices on their rival electronic book readers on Monday, responding to intensifying market competition and the success of Apple’s iPad. Shares in both companies fell about 3 percent as investors feared intense competition could lure away buyers of e-books, the fastest-growing segment in a moribund bookselling industry. Profit margins on Barnes [...]

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U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said he’ll raise taxes on banks and savers, while cutting welfare spending in a budget tomorrow that aims to close a record deficit without strangling an economic rebound. Osborne said yesterday the “pain” of the biggest spending squeeze in 30 years will be spread over the Parliament’s five- year [...]

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Russian President Dmitry Medvedev illustrated his call for a supranational currency to replace the dollar by pulling from his pocket a sample coin of a “united future world currency.” “Here it is,” Medvedev told reporters today in L’Aquila, Italy, after a summit of the Group of Eight nations. “You can see it and touch it.” The coin, [...]

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On Friday the new Prime Minister of Japan, Naoto Kan, warned that the country must control its national debt or risk defaulting. This comes after this week’s interesting advertisement, placed in Japanese magazines by the Ministry of Finance, which attempts to use sex to sell government bonds. Click here for Japan’s full advertisement. Why the push to [...]

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