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One of the rare inspirational subplots of our current financial panic has been the rise of Meredith Whitney. An obscure and little-noticed analyst of Wall Street banks, working for an obscure and little-noticed Wall Street bank (Oppenheimer & Co.), Whitney has become, in a matter of months, a woman who moves markets.

It all started back on Oct. 31,... See more

Top Financial News

(Rockefeller borrowed aggressively from banks, but those were mostly cash flow loans that were quickly repaid, not long-term investment capital.)

Charles R. Morris • The Tycoons: How Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, and J. P. Morgan Invented the American Supereconomy

Amazon sold $672 million in convertible bonds to overseas investors. This time, with the stock market fluctuating and the global economy tipping into recession, the process wasn’t as easy as the previous fund-raising had been. Amazon was forced to offer a far more generous 6.9 percent interest rate and flexible conversion terms—another sign that

Brad Stone • The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon

As we have seen, ultra-low interest rates facilitated corporate mergers and borrowing, thereby boosting Wall Street’s income. Inflated asset prices raised the incomes of hedge fund managers and other asset managers.40 Rather than investing in real assets, companies used debt to buy back their shares. The finance sector’s share of the economic pie

Edward Chancellor • The Price of Time: The Real Story of Interest

. Still, it was losing money from high shipping costs and was plagued with quality problems, according to a report from The Information. It had tried increasing prices to $9 on some products, but it wasn’t enough. SoftBank had set up its investment in Brandless so that it would only deliver all of the cash when certain markers were hit. It never... See more

Protocol • Brandless shuts down operations, becoming SoftBank Vision Fund's first failure

Arm Sets IPO Price at $51 a Share

Ben Dummett wsj.com

the suspension of the centuries-old requirement that infrastructure monopolies provide every user with the same services, pricing, and terms.

Center for Journalism & Liberty • Democracy, Journalism, and Monopoly: How to Fund Independent News Media in the 21st Century

That presents a paradox for business schools, which trade on their exclusivity. Some programs are trying to entice applicants by extending deadlines into the summer, removing barriers to entry like the GRE and the GMAT tests, and lowering application costs. In doing so, however, they risk eroding the prestige that makes their degrees so valuable.... See more

Ikya Kandula • fastcompany.com

As noted in the memo, this conversation was highly confidential at the time and not to be circulated, but eventually, it leaked to the Wall Street Journal.