So much for virtue. Sin is in. That’s according to a mutual fund manager who’s finding plenty of investment opportunities in companies profiting from vices like smoking, drinking and gambling. Jeff Middleswart’s aptly named Vice Fund is beating the house in a down market. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index is down [ Read More → ]

The dot-com IPO market has matured a lot since Netscape gave birth to it 15 years ago. But it has been virtually nonexistent since the spring of 2000 when the Web bubble burst, sending an estimated US$6-trillion worth of shareholder wealth into oblivion. Now the gloom is lifting and the likes [ Read More → ]

WASHINGTON - Unable to make a sizable dent in unemployment, Democrats are on the political equivalent of a golden oldies tour, pledging support for Social Security, Medicare and other venerable programs while trying to stoke voter fears about Republican intentions. The Voting Rights Act, Americans with Disabilities Act and most recently, [ Read More → ]

The people that we most choose to socialize with are actually online, according to the latest figures from Legal & General. The survey of 2,000 British residents suggested 70 per cent don’t know their neighbours’ names and would not recognize then in the street. With our neighbours proving to be so unknown, it [ Read More → ]

Valentina Morales isn’t worried about her retirement. In fact she’s not exactly sure what that is. What Valentina, 10, does know: Whatever it is, she will be OK. “It’s going to be a long time,” she said to her grandmother, Myriam Rodgers of Kendall. But in the meantime, “I’d like to be a [ Read More → ]

WASHINGTON — Prospects are bleak for fixing Social Security’s financial problems as the government retirement insurance program celebrates its 75th anniversary this week. Many Democrats adamantly oppose any cut in benefits to reduce cost and some won’t accept a gradual increase in the retirement age, something that was done in the [ Read More → ]

KANSAS CITY, Mo.—The latest form of identity theft doesn’t depend on stealing your Social Security number. Now thieves are targeting your kid’s number long before the little one even has a bank account. Hundreds of online businesses are using computers to find dormant Social Security numbers — usually those assigned to [ Read More → ]

Every politician worthy of the name knows that the easiest policy changes to put over are those that don’t kick in until well into the future. The idea, of course, is that by the time their dire ramifications become evident, they’ll be someone else’s problem. That must be why it has [ Read More → ]

If you’re an investor or just an average consumer trying to manage life’s expenses, social media and the Internet provide a wealth of free advice and guidance. Blogs, discussion forums and social networking tools such as Twitter and Facebook provide so much information the trick is to be selective and [ Read More → ]

The oil that spewed into the Gulf of Mexico has stained some “socially responsible” mutual funds. These portfolios aim to invest based on environmental, human rights, corporate governance and other criteria. Yet a number of major socially responsible funds and indexes included BP PLC on April 20, when the spill [ Read More → ]