| Hedge funds wrestle with leverage -- What could go wrong?
Leverage, the use of borrowed money for investing, goes in and out of favor. When times are good and people are making money, it's great. It amplifies returns (positive or negative) and, particularly in real estate, can lead to mind-bogglingly high return on investment numbers. But the downside is also huge, as anyone who lost a job in the wake of a failed leveraged buyout of the 1980s found out. My summary of the positives and negatives of leverage is this: Everything that's good about leverage is also bad about leverage. Having said that, this paragraph from Saturday's New York Times scares the bejesus out of me: Let's say you are very wealthy and have $25 million to invest in a portfolio of hedge funds. Banks like BNP Paribas, Royal Bank of Canada, or Barclays will leverage your investment, say four to one, allowing you to invest $100 million, using derivatives.
Backstage Productions has taken an innovative, advertising-driven ...
What began as an idea dreamt up between two old friends has now become a financially sustainable success. Fresh out of college with big dreams and great ideas, Fahd El-Gammal, an accounting graduate from the American University in Cairo, and Ahmed Selim, who studied mass communication at Misr International University, only had Gammals bedroom balcony and their youthful enthusiasm to fulfill their dream of creating an alternative music-publishing company. Kawalis-Masr, or Backstage Productions in English, offers emerging stars in the music business an alternative way to distribute their music and increase their market exposure. The young entrepreneurs knew an opportunity when they saw one. It started four years ago with the new underground bands emerging, like Wust El-Balad, and cultural centers like El-Sawy [Culture Wheel] began to appear, and we started seeing emphasis from the audience on these bands but no one produced their songs, says Gammal, Kawalis-Masrs 22-year old production manager.
CNBC's Mad Money to Broadcast From IU
CNBC's Jim Cramer, host of Mad Money, will broadcast from Indiana University's Assembly Hall on April 4. A group of students at IU's Kelley School of Business say they made it a goal to get Cramer to broadcast his show from the Bloomington campus after they formed their own Mad Money club last April.
Source: Inside INdiana Business
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Every school, every Thursday / Des Moines south
We have had a busy year so far in the Art Room. With the students having two art teachers each week the students get new and different experiences with each teacher. All of the classes have been working on small motor skills, design, color, printmaking and experimenting with a variety of materials. We have elephants, fish with names in them, carrots, students falling out of a plane, group puzzle designs, crazy hats, pretty pastel shapes and so much more.
Jackson
Nothing submitted.
Jefferson
The fourth-grade music concerts in the performance area will be: Laurie Ross' class on May 23 at 8:30 a.m.; Pam Olson's class on May 24 at 9:30 a.m. Other concerts include: third-graders on May 9 at 8:20 a.m.; Chorus on April 23 at 6:30 p.m.; and fifth-graders on April 6, VIP morning, in the Gym.
Disaster Meeting
Today Senator Kent Conrad is meeting with farmers and ranchers from the area to discuss his disaster aid bill that passed the house and senate. The details of the bill call for about four-point-two billion dollars in disaster relief. About two hundred million dollars of this will be coming to North Dakota. Senator Conrad says one compromise made in the bill is that farmers and ranchers will have to choose to take relief for either 2005 or 2006.(Sen. Kent Conrad/ D-ND)"It's gonna make a big difference. This is not a Cadillac plan it's more of a chevrolet plan but it's going to make a meaningful difference to an awful lot of people in North Dakota." This news comes at the right time for many of these farmers and ranchers. This is when they are beginning to prepare for the upcoming growing season.
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