With the very important G-20 meetings in Pittsburgh Thursday and Friday, politics is front and center in capital markets. This intervention, leading to uncertainty, aided to the sell-off on Thursday.

Reuters is reporting that A123 Systems, Inc. (AONE) increased the number of shares offered in its IPO from 25 million to 28.1 million and sold those shares at a price of $13.50. If the underwriters exercise their overallotment option, which is usually...

Gold reached an 18 month high at $1,017.50/oz in early European trading this morning. Gold has found its footing in the low $1,000s/oz and looks set to launch an assault on the all time record nominal high of $1,033/oz (on March 17th 2008).

Below is a summary of updates to the BioMedReports.com FDA Calendar, which includes a database of 288 entries as of 7/30/09. The calendar was originally created by Mike Havrilla to track companies with pending new drug, biological agent, or medical...

The Dow Jones Industrial Average hit 9000 intraday Thursday, driving the U.S. dollar lower against all of the higher yielding currencies. Although earnings have been mixed, risk appetite is back. Relatively healthy U.S. economic...

J Clinton Hill submits: ETF Market Direction Summary: 11-20-2009 It is the weekend before my birthday (i.e., Thanksgiving Day) and I am celebrating early, therefore Friday’s summary will be brief. Although I might get a little bent, I still remain...

Tom Lindmark submits: Calculated Risk points to an interesting but short article at Bloomberg by Meredith Whitney in which she postulates that once the Fed withdraws its support for the mortgage backed securities market, mortgage rates will move up...

Ira Stoll submits: The blogger Felix Salmon, at Reuters, was kind enough to link my post from Friday morning about the Bair-Miller-Moore Haircut and to disagree with it. I will try to answer Mr. Salmon point-by-point and also offer a more general,...

Ira Stoll submits: When the FDIC chairman, Sheila Bair, gave a speech in Istanbul on October 5 floating a proposal to limit the claims of secured creditors of failed banks, we commented that the change would "make it harder and more expensive for...

David Shvartsman submits: It's been a big week for the cottage industry of John Paulson-watching. The Paulson & Co. fund manager is set to launch a dedicated gold and gold mining equity-focused fund at the start of next year, in which he'll invest...