citigroup

You're not going to fall for the old Nigerian prince scam anymore -- but the fraudsters know that, and they've moved on, too. Here are some financial scams that made the rounds in 2011 -- and will likely be back in some form this year.

Last month, Harrisburg, Pa., tried to throw in the financial towel and declare Chapter 9, but a judge threw out the bankruptcy petition. That doesn't mean the city is magically healthy again, though, and it's not the only municipality in similar straits. Here's why it matters to the rest of the country.

Looking for a credit card that pays better rewards: You may be shopping in the wrong place. Rewards offered by traditional credit cards have been shrinking. Yet there is a certain class that offers consumers a better deal.

The bad news is that the stock market, as measured by the S&P 500, sits at 1,131, a low point it hasn't traded near consistently since late 2009. The worse news is that there's every reason to believe it will decline further to below 900, back to levels it hit around March 2009.

It appears that complaints from consumers and regulators about the lack of credit card transparency at banks have not fallen on deaf ears. According to CardHub.com's 2011 Credit Card Application Study, the 10 biggest issuers of plastic have significantly improved transparency this year.

In a cost-cutting move, Swiss banking giant UBS announced that it would trim 3,500 people from its workforce. Most of the cuts, which are expected to save $2.5 billion in annual costs, will be in the firm's underperforming investment banking unit. It's the latest in a string of big bank layoffs. Who could be next?

It took a while -- three years, really -- but Citigroup, by far the weakest of the big banks coming out of the recession, is starting to pull through. After this morning's second-quarter earnings report of $3.3 billion, or $1.09 per share, investors have several things to rejoice over.

Citigroup Inc. (C) said Thursday that hackers accessed the credit card information of tens of thousands of its North American customers. The bank said it recently discovered during routine monitoring that account information for about 1 percent of customers was viewed. Citi has more than 21...

The theme for Thursday is big players adjusting to a changing world: Citigroup is shutting down a major hedge fund it used for soon-to-be-banned proprietary trading, Goldman has been subpoenaed over its role in the subprime mortgage crisis, and OPEC is thinking that it might need to pump more oil.

With sales estimates gloomy, the Dow Jones U.S. Financial Services ETF may be a great bet. So far in 2011, it has had a return of just over 2.6% and a dividend yield of .5%