In 2008, the brokers and bankers made a huge mess in the subprime mortgage markets and caused the deepest recession in decades. The finanical crisis cost the tax payers trillions of dollars to bail out the failed financial firms and to restart the nation’s economic growth engine. The message during the market recovery to Wall Street from the central bank and the government has been “don’t mess with the financial markets to cause another market crash.” The media and many pundits haven't got the message and are still writing very frequently about the impending market crash. With the recent news on Greece, the media went all out to scare people but we wrote that investors shouldn't be surprised given Greece's history of debt problems. The S&P 500 shrugged off the negative news and barely declined at all, a pullback of just 3%. Looking at the trend, you’ll notice that the S&P 500 has been trading sideways at 2080 plus or minus a few points in a narrow range since November 2014.
7 Things To Do Right Now Because Your Personal Data Is Under Attack
With the popularity of social media and increased time spent online, many of us have willingly sacrificed our privacy in order to keep in frequent contact with friends — sharing photos and details about where we ate dinner last night. However, it is the growth in our online shopping habits and preference to use plastic over cash that have increased our vulnerability to identity theft.
5 Tips to Keep Thieves Out of Your Bank and Brokerage Accounts
Today, data breaches at major retailers like Target have made cybercrime front page news. It is unsettling because nobody knows when or what will happen once the personal information of tens of millions falls into the wrong hands. With ubiquitous computing, you cannot let your guard down for even a moment, especially when hackers are increasingly targeting bank and brokerage accounts. According to the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crime Enforcement Network, illegal wire transfers are outpacing cases of identity theft. In fact, wire-fraud cases in the securities industry are up tenfold over the past decade.
5 simple steps to protect yourself from the Target data breach
This past month has been an unwelcome reminder that identity theft is on the rise. Target and Neiman Marcus are the two high profile retailers whose networks were breached over the holiday season; however at least three other well-known smaller US retailers were breached. Target has already reported that 70 million to 110 million of its customers had their information stolen including credit card numbers, names, addresses, phone numbers and PIN numbers. That is a staggering figure as that represents a third of all American adults on the low end, and is nearly three times as great as the company's original estimate at the high end. Fraud experts said that information stolen from Target's systems quickly flooded the black market.
According to Javelin Strategy, 1 in 4 data breach notification recipients became a victim of identity fraud in 2012. This isn't good news for those affected by the holiday data breaches. Therefore, it is imperative to be proactive to protect yourself. You don't want to spend hours, weeks or even months trying to resolve problems.