Inya Ivkovic, MA

Since early 2009, gold is up 45%, currently hovering around $1,300 an ounce. Caught in the brushfire, towns in which gold mining companies, large or small, have made their home are displaying the classical symptoms of a boom: rising home prices; unrelenting construction; insatiable demand for skilled workers;…

Historically, countries have pulled themselves out of most recessions through exports. The way this works is, as the value of currency falls, goods and services become cheaper, while the rest of the world left unscathed by the crisis sweeps the cheaper stuff and pushes the weaker economy's exports…

For the first time since June 2009, the Street has finally acknowledged that forecasts for S&P 500 earnings should be cut for the third quarter of 2010. This should certainly cast a deep shadow over the stock market, because there is simply no way to keep the engines…

Many Americans facing foreclosures on their homes are starting to believe they may not have to leave their homes, because questions have arisen as of late about lenders and whether they have followed all the foreclosure rules. If they have not, then seizures may be halted until the…

For the past two centuries, ordinary investors have always struggled making their portfolios work, because they simply did not have access to as much information as big firms on Wall Street did. If time was money, then information was pure gold. Even as recently as year 2000, for…

Quantitative easing (QE) seems to be one of those sexy terms used in the same sentences with phrases like "jumpstart the economy" or "bolster the recovery." In the U.S., it seems QE is not only something people talk about, but it is also becoming a distinct possibility. Apparently,…

There is a new sheriff in the proverbial global village, recruited to keep the peace in the currency markets. It is 66 years old and, since the crash of 2008, it has played a crucial role in reshaping the global economy. It is the International Monetary Fund (IMF)…

It seems that Ireland remains in perpetual debt crisis. Usually peaceful Icelanders have stopped short of storming their Parliament, frustrated that the government has done nothing to get the country out of debt. In the U.S., many homeowners have taken their last breaths under their own roofs. That…

Washington may be indulging in a dangerous illusion; one in which it could be able to control China's currency — the yuan. Since September, the yuan has gained about 1.8% against the U.S. dollar, to which it is pegged; so, although the gain seems small, it is not.…

Europeans are not happy. Last week, many European countries saw eruptions of anti-austerity protests, from Greek doctors and railway workers leaving their jobs, to Spanish railway men, to an Irish man driving a cement truck before the Irish parliament, angered that there is money to bail out banks,…

In a nutshell, the answer to this question is "Not really." It appears that the prolonged phase-in of the new international capital and liquidity rules, implemented by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, will only further muddle the already muddled banks' future financial stability and security. In the…

I just came back from a two-week trip to Sweden. One of my impressions, purely from a receptive tourist's perspective, is that Sweden is one of Europe's best kept secrets. It is a vast and enchanting country, offering a range of breathtaking landscapes, from rolling fields, to sandy…

Some 46 years ago, President Lyndon Johnson declared "an unconditional war on poverty in America." Almost five decades later, this war is still carrying on. Not that a massive amount of money was not thrown into it — approximately $15.0 trillion to be precise, and all in an…

In the last few trading sessions, gold has been steadily assaulting the $1,300-an-ounce resistance level. It appears that very few traders doubt it will hit that new high in the near term, considering the recent high on the spot market of $1,278.90 per ounce of gold. Of course,…

Alan Greenspan's mystique has been thoroughly demystified in the aftermath of the crash of 2008. That has not stopped him from offering more opinions. The other day, he opined that advancing equity markets would do so much more for the U.S. economy than dumping any more government stimulus…

It isn't that gold is not a safe haven in and of itself; it is just why are we flocking to its safety now? Last week, gold hit record highs at over $1,270 an ounce. At the same time, new economic data coming out of the U.S. signaled…

If there were two names people may most commonly associate with the financial crash of 2008, it would be those of "Lehman Brothers" and its former chairman and CEO, "Richard Fuld." Before Lehman Brothers failed and all hell broke loose two years ago, Fuld was the proud torchbearer…

The economic stimuli, deployed by nearly every government around the world in response to the crash of 2008 and intended to prevent further deterioration of economic growth, are far from working. Governments have had lofty ideas on how to put their respective stimulus in action, but have mostly…

In January of this year, if anyone had asked me what I thought about Ben Bernanke, the U.S. Federal Reserve's chairman, I would probably have answered something along the lines of: "There goes a poor copy of Alan Greenspan minus the charisma, but pushing the same-old and, by…

Ever since the gold standard was removed, central banks have been selling off gold from their treasuries. They thought gold was not valuable enough to justify storage costs; they thought that gold was a dead asset. Many investors, financial planners and stockbrokers, who are now in their 30s…