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Time to Reward Shareholders? Anyone who pays attention to the financials of Apple, Inc. or anyone who follows its stock and analyzes it knows Apple has a history of hoarding cash.  Its former CEO Steve Jobs wouldn't have it any other way. From the time he returned as CEO in the late 1990s until his death last year, he refused to allow  Apple to pay a dividend or repurchase stock. He and Apple had suffered through tough times in the early days of his return, and he had haunting memories of getting caught in a financial nightmare, being strapped for cash. He, too, endured financial setbacks with his early-1990s venture, NeXT, and was forced to inject new cash capital from his pocket to keep the failing business afloat. So over the next decade after his return, Apple created all the gorgeous i-Products the world knows about, attracted a cult-like following of consumers, and generated cash--over $10 billion in cash reserves or over $20 billion in liquid securities, over $30 billi...

Fresh fears that the “safe haven” aspect of gold investing could be over hit investors last week with the news as “large institutions” began selling off their gold as February came to an end. Commentators and financial advisors ( as reported by a blogger for The Telegraph ) think gold prices have started a downward trend and will eventually dip to around $1,000 per ounce. This caused gold to dip in price by $100 in less than a day. Key figures such as Brian Dennehy from Dennehy Weller speculate that there could be a final spike in gold prices and then a “large correction” in the gold price will begin, taking gold down to $1,000 an ounce. He thinks gold could even get as low as $700 an ounce. Hope for gold prices Of course, with every financial commentator saying that gold will fall, there is a bullion seller to say that no, the gold market is not over and that any dips in price are only temporary. Ben Yearsley at Hargreaves Lansdowne says: “The gold price has remained high and gold sha...

From Emory MBA to Film Production Now and then MBA graduates depart from business school with aspirations to succeed in a conventional career: Consulting, banking, investing, marketing, or start-ups.  Somewhere along the way, they  re-discover themselves or  re-kindle other passions and head into other directions.  They find new interests and opportunities. And off they go.  Sometimes they transition into another conventional pursuit. Or sometimes pursue something off the beaten paths. Theresa Moore, a Harvard athlete and graduate, earned an MBA from Emory (now a Consortium school) and started out conventionally in marketing at Coca-Cola.  However, along the way, she switched courses, while  taking advantage of her business education and experiences.  Today she runs her own film-production company and directs and produces her own documentary projects. Her most recent project aired on CBS-TV in December and the NFL Network in February. She directe...

Traditionally, printing money supposed to be the last resort to the monetary policy. However from the recent sovereign debt crisis in the Euro zone and the U.S., we can see these policy makers are embarking on large scaled quantitative easing process to avert the collapse in the financial system. The US embarked on the QE1 and QE2 with each over US$1 trillion respectively in the last 2 years, similarly, the Bank of England had its first QE1 in Mar 2009 and the QE2 in Oct 2011 with £75b and £50b respectively. And recently, in saving the mess in the Euro zone, the ECB has engaged in the so called long-term refinancing operations (LTRO) which is equivalent to the back-door quantitative easing, with €409b and €529b for the last 2 months. Essentially, what is QE and LTRO? QE refers to the central bank implements quantitative easing by purchasing financial assets from commercial banks and other private sector businesses with printing new money. While LTRO refers to the central bank lending...

Another PR headache? Greg Smith , an executive director in equity derivatives, decided this week it was time to quit his career in finance after 12 years, even though he was on the doorsteps of reaching a Wall Street pinnacle--managing director/partner at Goldman Sachs.  He was frustrated, he said, by the culture, the norms and the behavior of colleagues at Goldman. He decided to share that frustration with just about anybody who participants in or follows global finance.   Smith's op-ed resignation in the New York Times (Resignation Letter)  certainly rocked the finance world for at least a day or two. At least until mid-next week, executives, market-watchers, observers, and pundits will try to address the questions Smith raises about Goldman and Wall Street's approach with clients   But will this issue be the talk of the Street two weeks from now?  Will those who have influence in the industry try to effect changes or rationally put Smith's compl...

What's next for Parsons? A fter an illustrious business career that spanned decades, Richard Parsons is calling it quits this month.  He announced he wouldn't pursue re-election as chairman of the board at Citi. (Citi , as many know, has been an important, decades-long supporter of the Consortium and a host at Orientation Programs and Consortium events in New York.) Has an era ended?  Parsons has been a pioneer in many ways, and he wraps up a career filled with quite a few "African-American" firsts."  He was CEO in the 1980s at Dime Savings Bank, at that time a well-known New York regional bank. He later became CEO at AOL Time Warner in the 2000s, landing right in the middle of turmoil from the cantankerous combination of AOL and Time Warner.    Few African-American lead or have led major financial institutions, so Parsons' exit from the Wall Street scene is noteworthy.  In 2012, Kenneth Chennault continues to preside over American Express . Stanley O’Ne...

To get the best hospital coverage quote, you need to do some checking of different features. There are 5 great ways you can get the best deals and the coverage that you really need. #1 Look Online at Sites When you checkout sites online, you can quickly compare what different hospital coverage plans offers. You can submit your information to get no obligation quotes. You can also see information online that helps you to find out what other companies have to say about a given provider. You can get the pros and cons from those that have had to rely on their services. Make sure you read the fine print too on what they state they offer so that you don’t get mixed up with coverage that is lacking. #2 Be Honest Even though you don’t have to do a physical exam to get a hospital plan , you do need to be honest about the information you share. You need to declare any lifestyle choices that you take part in such as drinking or smoking. Be honest about your weight, your physical activ...

You can get a lot of value out of a long-term cell phone contract. Long-term phone contracts provide more than simply a refreshment of minutes every month. Perks include being able to call other members for free who are in contract with the same carrier and free texting , depending on the carrier. In addition, a previously unaffordable cell phone can become affordable if purchased with a contract; it's a lot like the cell phone company is offering you a credit card to purchase the phone. Higher priced phones generally have better parts and are engineered better which allows them to last the duration of long contracts. You typically do not get phone insurance with pay-as-you-go routes. Also, when you acquire a higher quality phone with more features with a long-term contract, you have a lot of extra time to experiment with extra features far beyond the bounds of the two to four week trial period. Phones are so complex these days that many people feel that trial period is not lon...

Is lowering auto insurance costs a move that is worth the effort? Fortunately, you can accomplish that in many ways. Following are some tips that can make you save more money in auto insurance: Ask Someone to Evaluate You Let your current provider of auto insurance know if you are satisfied with their services. They will go at lengths to make you stay with them and keep you happy. However, in some cases you may ask them to evaluate your premium anew. Let them know that your driving record is flawless, your credit has improved, and include more stuff that will make them understand that more changes are in order. Let them know about current life changes too, such as marriage. That is a legitimate ground for evaluation. You can also include someone else in your policy. Making two separate policies won't make much sense when one will do, so it is recommended that you keep the policy that does the best work. There are also auto insurance providers that give married couples disco...

Bonus season at financial institutions has come and gone. Yet for the month or two afterwards, there is the inevitable aftermath, the ruminating over what happened and the pondering over whether lucrative payouts in years past will ever reappear. In the post-crisis financial industry, where many just feel fortunate to be employed, there will still be some degree of anger, frustration, or disappointment in payouts. Many yearn for the times of the 1990s or the early 2000s.  Most know the industry is still enduring a shake-out or a re-engineering of sorts, and compensation is a candidate for shake-out, too.  Handsome compensation packages still exist in certain segments, perhaps most prominently at venture-capital firms, private-equity companies and hedge funds.  Even in 2012, you can read about insane, mind-boggling bonuses, likely because someone made an insane, mind-boggling hedge-fund trade.  Payouts at banks, investment managers and other financial institutions (or...