Bullish Blog

Investor’s Business Daily - Taiwan’s stock market this week bounded the most in 17 years after the island allowed Chinese institutional investors to buy its stocks for the first time since a civil war ended six decades ago.

AP - Sal Iannuzzi, the chief executive of Monster Worldwide Inc., received compensation in 2008 valued at $8.2 million — a 37 percent decline from the year before — according to an Associated Press analysis of a Wednesday SEC filing.

AP - Chrysler’s bankruptcy put only a small dent in Wall Street’s rally. The Dow Jones industrial average gave up early gains and ended only moderately lower on Thursday after President Barack Obama confirmed that Chrysler LLC will be going through a bankruptcy reorganization. The announcement was not surprising to investors, though, and the Dow still capped the month of April with a robust gain of 7.4 percent.

AP - How far the Dow Jones industrial average has fallen or advanced each trading day since Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Sept. 15. Since Lehman’s fall, which touched off a paralysis of the credit markets and deepened the recession, the stock market has gone through an extended period of volatility that subsided during December but that has returned in 2009. The numbers are the closing levels for the Dow:

The automaker hopes the bankruptcy move will force a settlement on lenders opposed to its restructuring plan. Fiat will take a 20% stake. The S&P 500 has its best month in 9 years. MetLife and Hartford Financial losses may pressure stocks on Friday

Reuters - U.S. securities regulator charged a former Citigroup investment banker for allegedly tipping his brother about upcoming merger deals in an insider trading scheme that involved six other friends and family members, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said on Thursday.

AP - A suspicious surge in trading of Schering-Plough Corp. shares just before news of its merger deal with fellow drugmaker Merck & Co. is being investigated by federal regulators, according to a published report.

Reuters - U.S. securities regulators charged an investment firm and one of its executives in connection with a multimillion-dollar kickback scheme involving New York’s largest pension fund, the Securities and Exchange Commission said on Thursday.

Income disparities can factor into relationships in surprising ways, whether you find yourself on the richer or poorer side of the equation.

AP - NYSE Euronext said Thursday its first-quarter profit fell 55 percent amid pricing pressure in cash markets and volume declines in Europe. However, the exchange operator’s results beat analysts’ expectations.