financial markets

Just as the financial markets were collapsing, Warren Buffett made a timely bet on Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) . The move seemed to validate the investment banker at its industry's biggest time of crisis. For a brief moment in time, Goldman was the golden child.

The plummeting financial marketsin 2008 scared a lot of investors out of stocks. Yet despite the fact that those steep declines brought big losses to shareholders in a hurry, it's only now that the full brunt of the longer-term trend has become clear.

You can always find examples to prove the effectiveness of buy-and-hold investing . But unless you know exactly what you're doing, it's challenging to confidently construct a portfolio of long-term winning stocks. For those who prefer to steer clear of stock picking, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) provide the diversification benefits of index funds, with some of the convenience that comes from trading on stock exchanges.

Moody's released an industrywide report on credit card quality earlier this week, and there's really only one takeaway from it: There's no recovery in the credit card industry.

Lest you focus only on stocks analysts expect to double, or the biggest stock bargains, here's a brief recap of some of the more unusual financial news of the past few weeks:

After a summer of contention, we finally have the first of several health-care reform bills for Congress to consider after the summer break. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus is following in President Obama's footsteps, offering a middle-of-the-road compromise that neither side seems to like very much.

It's been a tough year since what I like to call The Autumn of the Massive Collective Pants-Soiling. Have we grown up, sobered up, or started building a healthier economy? I think not. Welcome to the world of institutionalized speculation.

In recent months, The Motley Fool has had an opportunity to talk with an array of business leaders, authors, and economists. We talked with Atlantic Monthly national correspondent James Fallows regarding some misconceptions about China, got his take on Baidu.com (Nasdaq: BIDU), and heard about his behind-the-scenes effort to get rid of Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) "Mr. Clippy."

Actions speak louder than words, as the old saying goes. So why does the media focus so much attention on what Wall Street says about companies, instead of what it does with them?

Here's a simple question we can answer in a few minutes’ time: Is the Federal Reserve's injection of hundreds of billions into the U.S. economy the only thing that stands between us and crippling deflation? Or is all that money dooming us to hyperinflation that will someday have us looking back wistfully on $20 bread loaves while we swing clubs at each other, trying to corner the market on squirrel bits?