benchmark

Oil prices hovered below $93 a barrel Friday in Asia, pausing after the latest twists in Europe's debt crisis triggered a sharp two-week sell-off. Crude has plunged about 13% over the past two weeks.

Oil prices fell below $95 a barrel Monday in Asia amid investor concern that China's economy, the world's second-largest, is slowing faster than previously expected.

It may be because of the slowing European economy, the drive for austerity by the continent's national governments, or planned tax increases. But whatever the reasons, the European Central Bank said Thursday it would hold its benchmark interest rate steady at 1%.

On Friday, after the market closes, the Russell Investment Group will announce how it will rebalance its indexes in the annual event known as the Russell Reconstitution, the ripple effects of which will be felt as a brief, high-energy tremor through the stock markets.

Our blogger creates a random stock index and ends up landing in the top 1% of mutual funds for 2009 -- further evidence that picking the right stocks is a game of luck.

A reader asks this question: "I stumbled across some information on Vanguard's Web site about what they call the 'Investing Truths.' One of them is about costs and shows that a 1.2% expense ratio would eat up 46% of an 8% return over 50 years. Can that be true?" The short answer is "yes". Based on...

For more than a decade, some smart, successful investors have been telling me that Amazon.com (AMZN) would not succeed, because its business plan was flawed. Meanwhile, the company built its reputation as an online bookseller, added products, and boosted sales. During that time, Amazon's stock was...