If you're looking for signs that the market and economy are slowly returning to normal, it is somewhat encouraging that demand for new stocks is finally perking up again.
Concepts like "smart grids" and "intelligent metering" are difficult for the non-expert brain to grasp. So instead, wrap your mind around a simpler set of facts. Utilities experience peak demand -- for example, on blistering hot days when air conditioners are pumping all out -- just 2% of the year.
Two successful venture capital-backed initial public offerings in as many days have created a buzz that the IPO market is opening up.
AIG Chief Executive Edward Liddy will appear before a House committee Wednesday to lay out the company's plan for paying back billions of taxpayer dollars.
If you have been wondering why you're seeing so many TV ads for language teaching software company Rosetta Stone (in one swimming stud Michael Phelps crows about learning Chinese before the Beijing Olympics) three letters explain it: IPO.
Many investors looking for safe havens in a rough market are latching onto double-digit dividend yields offered by real estate investment trusts.
Much like the arrival of spring, the market for IPOs is starting to show some signs of life.
Facebook is gearing up to befriend investors. That, at least, is the chatter around Silicon Valley after the social networking darling booted its chief financial officer. But an IPO would be risky given Facebook's business model is still unproven - unless it has a gun to its head.
The husband-and-wife team that built the first franchise to advise clients on health-care deals is reuniting. Frederick Frank and Mary Tanner joined Peter J. Solomon Co. this week to launch a new pharmaceutical and life sciences practice, just in time for the current wave of deal making that's sweeping Big Pharma.
Citigroup unveiled plans Thursday to pursue a reverse stock split, and the company officially gave notice of its previously announced plans to convert the government's massive preferred share stake into common stock.
If you're looking for signs that the market and economy are slowly returning to normal, it is somewhat encouraging that demand for new stocks is finally perking up again.
Concepts like "smart grids" and "intelligent metering" are difficult for the non-expert brain to grasp. So instead, wrap your mind around a simpler set of facts. Utilities experience peak demand -- for example, on blistering hot days when air conditioners are pumping all out -- just 2% of the year.
Two successful venture capital-backed initial public offerings in as many days have created a buzz that the IPO market is opening up.
AIG Chief Executive Edward Liddy will appear before a House committee Wednesday to lay out the company's plan for paying back billions of taxpayer dollars.
If you have been wondering why you're seeing so many TV ads for language teaching software company Rosetta Stone (in one swimming stud Michael Phelps crows about learning Chinese before the Beijing Olympics) three letters explain it: IPO.
Many investors looking for safe havens in a rough market are latching onto double-digit dividend yields offered by real estate investment trusts.
Much like the arrival of spring, the market for IPOs is starting to show some signs of life.
Facebook is gearing up to befriend investors. That, at least, is the chatter around Silicon Valley after the social networking darling booted its chief financial officer. But an IPO would be risky given Facebook's business model is still unproven - unless it has a gun to its head.
The husband-and-wife team that built the first franchise to advise clients on health-care deals is reuniting. Frederick Frank and Mary Tanner joined Peter J. Solomon Co. this week to launch a new pharmaceutical and life sciences practice, just in time for the current wave of deal making that's sweeping Big Pharma.
Citigroup unveiled plans Thursday to pursue a reverse stock split, and the company officially gave notice of its previously announced plans to convert the government's massive preferred share stake into common stock.
Blackberry maker Research in Motion announced Tuesday that the company and four current and former officers have settled an options backdating case brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
After a barren U.S. market last year, four companies will test investor appetite for initial public offerings next week.
Companies repurchased huge chunks of their own stock when prices were peaking. Buybacks for S&P 500 companies hit a high of $150 billion in the fourth quarter of 2007, according to Thomson Reuters.
Dividend investing used to be really simple. Whether you were retired and needed the quarterly cash payments your stocks threw off for current income or you were a conservative investor simply looking to reinvest those dividends to generate a bit more growth, you bought these Steady Eddies with the intention of holding them for years - if not for the rest of your life.
Suleman Ali cashed out just in time.
Question: I just turned 60. My husband and I had about $40,000 in our 401(k) invested in the market and just lost half of it. We live in a very depressed part of the country - Michigan - no work. So we were invested in "aggressive income" stocks - big mistake, but we needed the dividends to live on. This is all the money we have, so do we reinvest or what?
It would be tempting to say they told us so.
Last month, Microsoft announced it was going to spend $40 billion buying back its own stock. Traditionally, that would have meant a payday for its investors. With Microsoft using its own spare cash to reduce the number of outstanding shares, earnings per share should have improved, and the stock price should have ticked upwards.
Microsoft announced Monday that it was planning to buy back an additional $40 billion worth of shares and fellow tech giant HP followed with a proposal to repurchase $8 billion worth of stock.
It's an annual ritual on Wall Street - the fourth quarter IPO season, when a flurry of companies make their debut on the public markets before New Year's. But given today's volatile market, and the dismal performance this month of what seemed sure to be a no-brainer IPO in Rackspace, you have to wonder what kind of year-end bump we might get.
It made all the sense in the world last year when Apollo Global Management LLC started making sounds about going public. At the time, private equity firms were riding high and everyone seemed to want a piece.
Blackstone Group, one of the world's largest private equity firms, reported a quarterly loss Wednesday due mainly to compensation expenses tied to last year's initial public offering.
Exxon Mobil once again reported the largest quarterly profit in U.S. history Thursday, posting net income of $11.68 billion on revenue of $138 billion in the second quarter.
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. is planning to go public in a transaction that could value the firm at between $12 billion to $15 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter.
The predicted demise of bank dividends has been greatly exaggerated.
Falling bank stock prices are a warning to investors not to get too attached to those fat dividend checks.
The IPO market hasn't exactly been running at full throttle this year. And lately, it can't seem to get out of first gear.
Securities regulators on Wednesday charged Broadcom Corp. co-founders Henry T. Nicholas III and Henry Samueli with falsifying the company's reported income
Motorola's latest stumble puts the spotlight on its cash supply.
The IPO of an innovative African mobile phone company sends the country into a frenzy with dreams of profits on the stock market
Thanks to its stake in Visa's initial public offering this week, JPMorgan Chase & Co. has enough money to pay for its Bear Stearns purchase and still have about a billion dollars left over.
Visa, the giant credit card issuer, ended its first day as a publicly traded company at $56.50 a share, 28% above its initial public offering price of $44.
The largest initial public offering in U.S. history is dovetailing with a looming recession. But that's one reason why Visa's IPO has come at just the right time
Visa buyers paid a whopping $17.9 billion, or $44 a share, when the company priced its initial public offering Tuesday evening.
Visa's initial public offering won't just be the largest in history if it prices as scheduled Tuesday night - it will also serve as a barometer of the very health of the U.S. financial system.
Blackstone's meager quarterly earnings is just the latest example of the stunning reversal of fortune suffered by the private equity shops that once dominated Wall Street's food chain.
If Visa's just-filed initial public offering documents are any indication, it looks like the company is the biggest beneficiary of its rival MasterCard's own decision to go public in the spring of 2006. San Francisco-based Visa is seeking to sell as much as 446 million shares between $37 and $42 per share, which would make the approximately $18.8 billion raised the second largest IPO in history, behind China's Industrial and Commercial Bank Ltd's $22 billion, and the largest ever for a U.S. company.
Visa said Monday it could raise almost $19 billion from an initial public offering, which would easily become the largest IPO in U.S. history
This Valentine's Day, Corporate America is sending investors something better than a bouquet of roses and chocolates. Cash.
Just because the U.S. economy might be looking at a recession, doesn't mean a few good tech IPOs can't light up the market. While no company is fully immune to economic retraction, the most promising technology companies have the advantage of a global marketplace in which to sell their wares. So if U.S. markets hit the skids, companies can always focus their efforts on Asian or European customers.
As financial markets go, so go initial public offerings.
Like holiday shoppers maxing out their credit cards, the nation's retailers have been racking up debt buying back their own stock. Now their bills are coming due.
One of Wall Street's most closely watched dealmakers said Monday opportunities were growing in the battered market for home loans given to borrowers with weak credit.
MARKETS: "Begin the begin," as Michael Stipe would say. Ready for October? As we go from Virgo to Libra -- (It's also Polish American Heritage Month) --I'll remind you that October was the eighth month of the Roman calendar (hence Oct.), but of course it's our tenth, and traditionally a month of market maelstroms.
Chinese stocks surged to a record high close Friday as subscription funds from coal miner Shenhua Energy's initial public offering returned to the market, further fueling a pre-holiday rally.
Women's apparel maker BCBG Max Azria has designs on Wall Street.
Enriched by high oil prices, Chevron Corp. will spend up to $15 billion buying back its own stock - a commitment that pleased shareholders and rankled critics clamoring for bigger investments in projects that might help lower energy costs.
Shares in China Construction Bank, the country's second-largest bank by assets, rose 32.3 percent Tuesday in their first day of trading, falling short of expectations amid signs that a slew of share offerings may finally be beginning to sate investor demand.
Merrill Corp., a provider of business communication and information management outsourcing services, will not go through with its planned initial public offering, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Thursday.
China Construction Bank Corp., the country's biggest property lender, has raised $7.7 billion in mainland China's biggest initial public offering so far, state media reported Wednesday.
Citadel Investment Group, the closely-watched hedge fund company that aims to evolve into a financial firm that can take on Wall Street's biggest brokerages, has poached a senior executive from Goldman Sachs in a move that strongly suggests Citadel will soon announce plans to go public. John Andrews, Goldman's head of investor relations, has agreed to join Citadel, says Katie Spring, a spokeswoman for Citadel.
The private-equity spigot hasn't turned off completely.
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts denied a report by the Times of London saying that the private equity firm has put its $1.25 billion initial public offering on hold.
Some once high-flying initial public offerings may be grounded as they become a tough sell amid market turmoil.
The public offering of a start-up Internet search firm has run aground after the underwriter pulled out of the deal, according to a report published Wednesday.
VMware Inc.'s shares soared by 76 percent in their stock market debut Tuesday, reflecting a belief that the rapidly growing software maker is on the leading edge of a computing trend that will yield huge profits for years to come
VMware Inc. shares soared 88 percent in the software maker's trading debut Tuesday, in what could be the hottest Wall Street IPO of the year.
Are investors running out of patience with Barry Diller?
DP World, the world's third-largest container port operator, may this year sell $2 billion of shares in an initial public offering and list the stock in Dubai, Middle East Economic Digest reported.
Data storage equipment maker Brocade Communications Systems Inc. trimmed its revenue outlook but raised the lower bracket of its operating earnings forecast Wednesday, sending its shares sharply higher.
American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. shares sank on Monday after the home loan provider announced "major" writedowns, delayed a dividend and said lenders were demanding it put up more cash.
Problems in the debt markets could force private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. to postpone its initial public offering, according to a report published Friday.
This year, Fortune's list of the highest-paid corporate leaders in Europe reads like a Who's Who of le tout Paris, with French executives taking ten of the 20 top spots, including first and second place. Carlos Ghosn, CEO of French automaker Renault, easily topped the list with $45.5 million (which doesn't include the millions he gets for also running Japan's Nissan, whose principal owner is Renault). That was more than seven times the size of his 2005 package and more than double that of the second-place CEO, Jean-Paul Agon of L'Oréal, with $19.3 million.
Whenever a popular investing argument starts to sound like a no-brainer, I know that lots of people will soon be losing lots of money.
The Securities and Exchange Commission filed charges Wednesday against chipmaker KLA-Tencor Corp. and its former chief Kenneth Schroeder in connection with an alleged scheme to backdate stock option grants.
Wouldn't it be great if you could find the ideal blend - an investment that combined the cozy security of government bonds with the double-digit returns investors expect from stocks? That seems like a pipe dream in a world where ten-year Treasuries yield 5 percent and equities sell at premium prices that augur a dim future.
The Dow lost about 150 points Friday, a day after closing above 14,000 for the first time ever, as a spate of weak earnings news and continued housing fears rattled markets.
The Dow lost over 100 points Friday, a day after closing above 14,000 for the first time ever, as a spate of weak earnings news and continued housing fears rattled markets.
Shares of Orbitz Worldwide Inc. Friday fell more than 3 percent in their market debut in what may be an ominous sign for the online travel agency, which has changed hands four times in four years.
The Dow lost over 160 points by midday Friday, a day after closing above 14,000 for the first time ever, as a spate of weak earnings news and continued housing fears rattled markets.
Stocks fell Friday, with the Dow Jones industrial average down more than 100 points the day after it closed over the 14,000 mark for the first time ever, as a big miss from Caterpillar hit blue chips and techs slumped under a spate of disappointing earnings news.
Stocks fell Friday, the day after the Dow Jones industrial average closed over the 14,000 mark for the first time ever, on a spate of disappointing earnings news.
Private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis & Roberts is considering a bid for retailer Macy's Inc., according to the online edition of trade paper Women's Wear Daily.
Pfizer is not in the best of shape. The beating its stock took on Wednesday shows it. The question is, should the drug maker diet or bulk up?
New listings on the Shanghai and Shenzen bourses could raise $52 billion this year. But can the rush last?
Cerberus Capital Management has no plans to launch an initial public offering as Blackstone Group LP and KKR & Co. LP have, Chairman John Snow said Wednesday.
Moody's Investors Service has questioned whether claims by private equity firms that they invest on a longer-term basis than public companies and are able to attract stronger management teams are justified.
Stocks posted modest gains Monday, just missing new record highs, as weary traders eyed the upcoming earnings reports, which began after the closing bell with Alcoa.
Johnson & Johnson's board of directors has approved the repurchase of up to $10 billion of the company's common stock.
While Wall Street cleared out for the July 4 holiday, two of the leading names in private equity made blockbuster announcements - flexing their might at a time when buyout deals are coming under increasing pressure.
KKR & Co., the prominent U.S. buyout firm that helped to create the leveraged buyout industry, filed with regulators Tuesday to raise up to $1.25 billion in an initial public offering.
Carlyle Capital Corporation Ltd. began trade on Amsterdam's stock exchange at $20 per share Wednesday, after a trimmed initial public offering that raised $303.5 million for the affiliate of Carlyle Group.
NetSuite, billionaire Larry Ellison's software company that sells computer programs accessed over the Web, filed Monday to raise up to $75 million in an initial public offering.
Companies flocked to U.S. markets in the first half of the year, making it the busiest six months for initial public offerings in six years, according to a new report.
STEVE GOLDMAN, CEO OF ISILON SYSTEMS, HAS become something of an IPO guru. Two of the company's biggest investors, Sequoia Capital and Atlas Venture, have asked him to school other startups in their portfolios in the art of going public. Isilon, a Seattle-based company that helps customers such as Kodak, My-Space, and NBC manage their digital storage needs, made a splash in December when it recorded the biggest first-day pop for a tech IPO in more than six years. Though the company's valuation has since come down to earth, Goldman's advice is still in demand. Here are some highlights.
Carlyle Group, a U.S. private equity firm, is considering a stock market listing similar to last week's initial public offering by rival Blackstone, Dow Jones Newswires reported Wednesday.
Blackstone Group units slid 5.2 percent on Tuesday, closing below the $31 price the private equity giant fetched in its initial public offering last week, as investors fretted the private equity boom may have peaked.
Units of Blackstone Group fell nearly 8 percent Monday due in part to concerns about the private equity firm's lofty valuation following its highly publicized market debut last week.
ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER RECORD. Every trading session this spring, it seemed, brought the Dow Jones and S&P 500 indexes to new heights. Driven by a tsunami of corporate buyouts and better-than-expected profit growth, stock prices kept climbing—nearly 10% for the year before a stumble in early June. Some optimists claimed the bull still had years to run.
The timing couldn't be more poetic for Kohlberg Kravis Roberts. Reports that it will have its own IPO stole some of the thunder from arch rival Blackstone's New York Stock Exchange debut Friday, signaling that the firm is still a titan in the world of private money.
Blackstone Group, one of the world's largest private equity investment firms, is set to begin trading Friday on the New York Stock Exchange.
Shares of private equity firm Blackstone Group jumped about 18 percent in their market debut Friday in the nation's biggest initial public offering in five years - one that's being watched as closely on Capitol Hill as on Wall Street.
Rising Treasury yields failed to spook investors Thursday as stocks finished higher, helped by lower oil prices and a better-than-expected report from the manufacturing sector.
Blackstone Group's initial public offering is seeing heavy demand from investors vying for shares of the biggest U.S. IPO in five years, which is expected to price Thursday.
Home improvement retailer Home Depot Inc. said it would sell its supply division to three private equity firms for $10.3 billion as it refocuses on its core retail business and it would repurchase $22.5 billion in stock.
Blackstone Group's $4.75 billion initial public offering is expected to price Thursday, according to underwriter Morgan Stanley.
The race to create the next Google is accelerating. Initial public offerings by venture-capital backed companies reached a three-year high in May, with 11 companies raising $1.6 billion on U.S. exchanges.
Rich Kinder had a secret. In fact, he had just tipped his hand, but it would be weeks before his shareholders picked up on the hint. On a conference call with Wall Street analysts in April 2006, th...
Forty stock picks inspired by the greatest investors of all-time: From the deepest values to solid growth, these shares can make retirement dreams come true.
Recently I've been getting a lot of e-mails from readers wondering how they can find investments that offer high income at a time when most stocks and bonds are paying disappointing yields.
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