The Sun's Financial Diary

We spent more than 5 hours at Adventure Aquarium in Camden, NJ (it’s not a place you want to live though) last Friday, even though it was the third time we have been there in 10 years. In fact, things haven’t changed a lot at the Aquarium since our first visit in 2000. Back then, [...]

Market Recap
U.S. stocks registered another weekly gain last week, despite a gloomy employment report from the government Friday which showed that the nation’s unemployment rate jumped to 8.9% in April. While the jobless rate is the highest in 25 years, the pace of job cut seemed slowed last month, fueling the speculation that the worst [...]

Market Recap
U.S. stock market stretched its gain into third month after consumer confidence improved unexpectedly last month and the Fed said that the worst of the recession may be behind us. Stocks were also boosted by quarterly earnings news as two-third companies in the S&P 500 have reported strong numbers so far. For the week, [...]

Market Recap
U.S. stock market ended the holiday shortened trading week with gains of more than 3% for all three major indices last Thursday after Wells Fargo said it earned a record $3 billion in the first quarter. Optimism in the banking sector carried the stock market to its fifth straight weekly gain. After reaching 12-year [...]

Market Recap
U.S. stock markets ended the week mixed after technology shares and surging commodity prices led both Nasdaq and S&P 500 higher, despite failed attempt on the Capitol Hill to rescue Detroit’s troubled automakers. Tech bellwethers such as Intel and Google surged after House Speaker Pelosi indicated that the U.S. House will act soon in [...]

Market Recap
You can never underestimated what one piece of good news can do to the market on a day that was supposed to be very bad.
Last Friday, the government said more than half a million people lost their jobs, the most in 34 years, and monthly unemployment rate jumped to 6.7%, the highest since 1993. [...]

Market Recap
U.S. stocks fell for the third straight weeks this week as concerns over the fate of Citigroup and Detroit’s Big Three weighed on stocks. On Thursday, the S&P 500 index even closed at its lowest level in 11 years after a report from the Labor Department showed weekly jobless claims rose to the [...]

Market Recap
Another volatile week on the Wall Street ended with all three major indices slipping deeper in red, despite the nearly 900 points turnaround of the Dow on Thursday. On Friday, electronic retailer Best Buy cut its annual profit forecast, sending the stock 14% lower, while Goldman Sachs dropped to its lowest level since becoming [...]

Welcome to the 177th edition of Carnival of Personal Finance!
There are a total of 85 submissions to this edition of CoPF, covering a wide range of topics from money management, investing to frugality, savings and budgeting to economy and career. Among them, here are my 5 picks that I want to share with everybody first:

Health [...]

When I was vacationing in China last month, I skipped all the roundups that I usually do in the weekend. It’s time to get back to normal. But before I share the weekend readings, here’s a quick recap of the U.S. stock market last week.
Basically, the last week of October saved the month, though not [...]