Wall Street earnings are usually a snooze but banks and brokerages are using their third-quarter results as part of a thoroughly Darwinian power play aimed at grabbing business from rivals that stumbled badly in the quarter.
A lot of Wall Streeters are reminiscing this week about where they were during the 1987 crash. The more recent tumult - in 2001 and even earlier this year - gets lost in the chatter.
About $50 billion in adjustable rate mortgages reset this month, driving interest rates up for many borderline borrowers. And despite efforts to raise awareness, it doesn't look like anyone is really prepared for what's to come.
Market research can be full of surprises. Sometimes, in seeking to find out one thing, researchers turn up a whole different set of unexpected conclusions. Consider: A few months ago, online pearl merchants The Pearl Outlet (www.thepearloutlet.com) noticed that a growing number of customers, when asked the reason for their pearl purchases, replied that the baubles were given as an apology, usually to a wife or girlfriend. Intrigued, The Pearl Outlet hired pollsters Zogby International (www.zogby.com) to find out more.
Careful optimism about the U.S. economy and financial system has given way to a resurgence of unease in the last couple of days, prompted by an announcement Monday of an extraordinary plan to pump liquidity into an important part of the debt markets and less-than-upbeat speeches from Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.
Technology boosted the Nasdaq and helped the Dow cut losses at the end of a choppy session on Wall Street Wednesday, in which investors mulled upbeat earnings reports, mixed economic readings and oil prices near record highs.
