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U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission economists have found that reforms adopted in 2010 have bolstered the $ 2.6 trillion money fund industry but would not have prevented the Reserve Primary Fund from “breaking the buck” during the financial crisis. The SEC’s findings were laid out in a new study released late on Wednesday that examines the 2008 financial crisis and the impact of reforms implemented as a response to those events. During the crisis, heavy exposure to collapsed investment bank Lehman Brothers caused the net asset value (NAV) of the Reserve Primary Fund, a large money market fund, to fall [...]

TOKYO Asian shares fell on Thursday but losses were curbed as the region’s factory activity surveys mostly improved, with China’s official and private sector manufacturing PMIs confirming a recovery in the growth trend even if it lacked punch. European shares were seen rising modestly. Financial spreadbetters expect London’s FTSE 100 , Paris’s CAC-40 and Frankfurt’s DAX to open as much as 0.2 percent higher. U.S. stock futures were down 0.3 percent, however, suggesting a weak Wall Street open after ending Wednesday flat in the wake of a powerful storm that caused the market’s first weather-related two-day closure since the late [...]

Our Friend, Patty Summertime is for rituals such as piling in the car for a road trip and the inevitable stop for fast food, standing in line and staring up at a colorful menu with backlit promises of greasy fulfillment. It’s for letting our shoulders gradually burn to a crisp while standing around the barbecue grill, discussing that game last night and the finer points of patty flipping. One way or another, burgers will almost certainly be included. Nearly half of all Americans eat at least one burger per week — up from 38% in 2009, according to Technomic, a [...]

A recent obituary in The New York Times read: Walter Pichler, 75, an Artist Who Bucked the Status Quo. I am not familiar with Mr. Pichler or his work, but I read the article because the headline drew me like a moth to flame. Bravo to him. Let’s here it for not always doing what we’re told, what society expects or what tradition dictates. So I guess that also explains my attraction to this quote in a recent edition of The Writer’s Almanac even though I’d never read any of this writer’s work: “As a bookish child in Calcutta, I [...]