Mr. Cuban stated, “I am disappointed that the Commission chose to bring this case based upon its Enforcement staff’s win-at-any-cost ambitions. The staff’s process was result-oriented, facts be damned. The government’s claims are false and they will be proven to be so.”

I wonder how he will fare.

Employees at Moody’s Investors Service told executives that issuing dubious creditworthy ratings to mortgage-backed securities made it appear they were incompetent or “sold our soul to the devil for revenue,” according to e-mails obtained by U.S. House investigators.

I love this one:

An e-mail that a S&P employee wrote to a co-worker in 2006, obtained by committee investigators, said, “Let’s hope we are all wealthy and retired by the time this house of cards falters.”

If you’re not sure about the role Moody’s and Standard and Poors played in the debacle, Barry has a good brief rundown:

The proximate cause of the Housing crisis were 1) Ultra-low rates; and 2) Abdication of traditional lending standards, thanks to 3) originators ability to resell mortgages for securitization purposes, and hence, 4) not have to worry about loan defaults.

The credit crisis was caused by 1) the above securitized mortgage paper, that was 2) rated triple AAA by Moody’s and Standard & Poors 3) Which was then “insured” by credit default swaps (CDS) — the unreserved for, shadow insurance products 4) whose exemption was made possible by the Commodities Futures Modernization Act.

That legislation exempted these derivatives from any supervision or regulation. The lack of reserve requirements is why there is now $62 trillion in CDS, many of which will never pay their counter parties the promised insurance.

He has more here, including IM conversations between staff at Standard and Poors.

Rahul Dilip Shah: btw: that deal is ridiculous

Shannon Mooney: I know right … model def does not capture half of the risk

Rahul Dilip Shah: we should not be rating it

Shannon Mooney: we rate every deal

Shannon Mooney: it could be structured by cows and we would rate it

The purge outlined Tuesday represents a 10 percent reduction in Yahoo’s payroll of about 15,000 employees. It’s the second time in nine months that Yahoo has resorted to mass layoffs in what so far has been an ineffectual effort to rebound from a financial funk that has left its stock price near a 5 1/2-year low.

Things got worse in the third quarter as Yahoo earned $54.3 million, or 4 cents per share. That was a plunge of 64 percent from $151.3 million, or 11 cents per share, at the same time last year.

Remember, Microsoft were prepared to pay up to $35 a share under the original deal. Yahoo now trades at $12.

Other holdings include Coca Cola, Kraft Foods, Nike and Burlington Northern.

I have seen some very low Price/Earnings ratios on some really good companies of late. And in the current climate, the wisest course of action might be defensive stocks. Johnson and Johnson stands out for me. That or stay out of the market altogether. For now.

Reuters have a report on Mr Market’s reaction.

Hewlett Packard, which acquired Electronic Data Systems for nearly $14 billion this summer, plans to trim its company-wide workforce by nearly 8 percent as part of that acquisition.

Palo Alto, Calif.-based HP will announce restructuring plans for the EDS division to “streamline costs, invest in growth and drive shareholder value,” it said in a statement.

The company said 7.5 percent of the combined workforce, or 24,600 jobs, will be cut as part of the restructuring. Half of those cuts will be in the United States.

BizJournal.

How will the market react later today? Dow futures are off by 300 points, the dollar is weakening against the euro and we could be in for a world of hurt throughout the week.

Disclosure: At the time of writing I was long euro v dollar.

ETFs are bought and sold on the stock market just like shares. They offer an easy, inexpensive entry to the markets and can be bought through a stockbroker for a standard brokerage fee or from an investment company, preferably for a flat fee. The minimum investment is usually €5,000, but can be as much as €20,000.

ETFs are listed on the stock market like ordinary shares. You can buy and sell them like you do with ordinary shares. They are also priced like ordinary shares. So where does this minimum investment of €5,000 come from? And a maximum? It makes no sense. (Though I guess he may be directing the article at the pensions market specifically) He goes on:

They can also be bought from the likes of Eagle Star, Irish Life, Canada Life and Rabodirect, which have their own commodity-linked investment funds. These companies buy commodities indices on the world’s stock markets.

Eagle Star’s Global Commodities Fund was the top Irish performer in this area over the past year, until last Wednesday. It rose in value by an impressive 48.16%. Next was Irish Life’s Commodities Index Fund, which grew by 20.19% over the same period, followed by Rabodirect’s BlackRock World Gold Fund (up 18.61%), Rabodirect’s BlackRock World Mining Fund (up 12.48%), Canada Life’s Quadrivium Fund (down 12.37%) and Rabodirect’s JPM Global Natural Resources Fund (down 16.79%).

Ah. Now I see. Let’s take the Eagle Star Global Commodities Fund as an example. According to the information in the prior piece, there is a minimum investment level of €5k. But that’s only if you go through one of this firms who are simply reselling ETFs. The one mentioned actually just tracks this. Which traded at $67.80 a share on Friday.

Why would I go through Eagle Star when I can just buy the ETF myself on the market? I could buy one share for $67.80, that’s the real minimum investment level. And the maximum? Well I guess I could theoretically buy all the ETF shares, but that would cost quite a bit of money. Or better yet I could dollar cost average my investment in ETFs, and buy at regular intervals. See here.

Strangely, expense ratios are nowhere mentioned. It is one of the biggest factors for anyone buying ETFs. Vanguard offer some of the lowest.

The Fool has a good roundup on the difference between mutual funds and ETFs.

I suspect all of these firms are simply reselling ETF products and taking a cut for themselves. If you want commodities exposure you would be better advised to avoid all of these firms. Technically the least you can invest is one share, not €5,000.

Just open a cheap online broker account with Firstrade or Zecco and do the buying yourself for next to nothing.

And no matter what you do, either doing it yourself or through one of these firms, you will be dollar exposed since the ETFs are listed on US markets.

I am trying to get data together on our housing bubble. Comments appreciated.

The markets opened two hours ago, and the Dow has already fallen below 11,000. We are now back at 2005 levels.

Educational.

Can we create a similar list for Ireland? My first suggestion would be:

Pumps.ie - A collaborative website that allows users to input the price of petrol and diesel at any petrol station throughout Ireland, thus giving you the cheapest places to fill up your car.

ESB calculator - Helps you see how much particular units are costing you and how to change your electricity habits.

Make sense of cards - Get your debt sorted out, calculate how much can save by playing the rate tart game.

Please give more in the comments and I’ll add them in.

Between 1989 and 2001, credit card debt almost tripled, from $238 billion to $692 billion. By fall of 2007, the amount of revolving consumer credit had reached $937.5 billion, a 7 percent increase over the previous year.

Another interesting statistic is the proportion of lower income people who play state lotteries. Households earning less than $12,400 a year spend $645 a year on the lottery. By comparison, households earning $62k-$124k a year spend $373 a year - proportionately far less.

Interestingly she suggests four pro-thrift ideas. Thrift is, I think, a word almost unknown to Irish people. The concept of thrift has also been lost in the Celtic Tiger malaise. It is worth quoting these four ideas:

Re-establish a public education campaign. During World War II, Americans saved at extraordinarily high rates—about 25 percent on average. This impressive display of thrift and sacrifice was driven primarily by the war, but it also had a more proximate source: The U.S. government, collaborating with civil society leaders, actively stressed the importance of saving for the war effort while also providing a specific new savings tool in the form of war bonds. Perhaps the time is right to re-establish a pro-thrift public education campaign. Similar campaigns to reduce drunk driving and smoking and to encourage seat belt use appear to have had a demonstrable impact on people’s behavior in recent years. Why not thrift?

Challenge “consumer spending” as a main solution to economic problems. Whether it is a national security crisis like 9/11 or worrisome economic news, our leaders in recent years seem increasingly determined to insist on the catchall economic salve of prodigious consumer spending. Hence, for example, the 2008 tax rebate legislation. But this is, at best, partial and misleading advice in a society marked by dangerously high levels of debt and dangerously low levels of saving. Perhaps it is time to balance the message of more spending with a message of more saving and wealth building.

Create a thrift savings plan available to all Americans. Since 1986, the U.S. government’s Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) has permitted Federal employees to build wealth and save for retirement by systematically placing a portion of their earnings into diversified stock-and-bond index funds. These funds are managed by an independent board, with oversight from the public and private sectors. The expense ratios on TSP funds are low (0.06 percent), making them cheaper than similar commercially run funds. Currently, the TSP boasts 3.7 million participants, manages assets of approximately $225 billion, and is widely viewed across the political spectrum as a major success. Federal policymakers and others should consider offering this same wealth-building opportunity to all working Americans.

Build new thrift institutions. New, community-based thrift institutions can stand as attractive alternatives to payday lenders and other anti-thrift institutions. If we are serious about confronting the debt culture, building these new institutions is our most urgent task. They must possess three core traits: Functionally, they must provide opportunities and incentives to save and offer credit at affordable costs for prudent purposes; structurally, they must be broadly democratic and organized as not-for-profit cooperative or mutual organizations; geographically, they must be accessible to low-income Americans.

Re-purpose the lottery. State lotteries are the most egregiously anti-thrift state-run institutions in America. Because lotteries typically enjoy broad support by politicians and the public, it would be hard, if not impossible, to outlaw these operations at present. But it is possible to re-purpose the lottery, at least in part, as a thrift-promoting institution. In every state lottery outlet in the United States, a customer should be able to purchase “savings” tickets as well as lottery tickets. In this way, a comprehensive public apparatus devoted to encouraging everyone to become a bettor would simultaneously become an apparatus devoted to encouraging everyone to become a saver. It ought to be an easy sell: “Every ticket wins!” because, in fact, every single savings ticket would improve the financial well-being of the purchaser.

Incidentally, are there any statistics about our National Lottery? Besides the fact that most of the charity money goes to the constituency of the then Minister for Sport?