
Each week QFINANCE will endeavor to bring you some of the biggest news stories from the past five days in finance and business, as well as some of the most fascinating websites and links that have crossed our path. We hope you'll enjoy reading it and you'll come back each Thursday to brush up on your finance and business knowledge.

Each week QFINANCE will endeavor to bring you some of the biggest news stories from the past five days in finance and business, as well as some of the most fascinating websites and links that have crossed our path. We hope you'll enjoy reading it and you'll come back each Thursday to brush up on your finance and business knowledge.

Many of us are familiar with the basic services that banks provide. In simple, straightforward cases, banks keep our money and pay an interest on it, while providing the convenience of cash withdrawals along their network of ATMs. But are consumers benefitting from their banks, or are they really ripped off by hidden bank charges?

Each week QFINANCE will endeavor to bring you some of the biggest news stories from the past five days in finance and business, as well as some of the most fascinating websites and links that have crossed our path. We hope you'll enjoy reading it and you'll come back each Thursday to brush up on your finance and business knowledge.

The stock market performance in China can be described as “tragic” in 2011. Shanghai Composite Index was down 21.68, while Shenzhen Component Index declined 28.41% last year. The vast majority of Chinese investors suffered heavy losses. However, based on Guangzhou Evening News, what appeases Chinese investors’ unhappiness is that several international stock market legends that invested in Chinese stock market, including Anthony Bolton and Warren Buffett, were also hammered last year.

Each week QFINANCE will endeavor to bring you some of the biggest news stories from the past five days in finance and business, as well as some of the most fascinating websites and links that have crossed our path. We hope you'll enjoy reading it and you'll come back each Thursday to brush up on your finance and business knowledge.

Oil prices had a low point or two in 2011, but finished the year with a fairly decent run, ending on the $100 mark despite fears of a potentially serious recession in Europe. In the ordinary course of events you would expect fears of a slowdown in global trade to cause the price of oil to slide, but the price of oil is determined by fears of bottlenecks in supply just as much, or probably quite a bit more, than by fears of a falling off in demand.

Many of us were busy with celebration and festivity over the past few weeks, but the financial sector continued on in choppy waters as Europe’s future remains bleak. Feeling out of the loop? Don’t worry! QFINANCE has summarized the main headlines and news stories of the past two weeks in finance and business that have crossed our path.

One of the more influential books to appear late in 2011 was Jim Rickards’ Currency Wars, which likens the struggle by various nations to secure competitive advantage for themselves by weakening their currency, to the military conflicts of WW1 and WW2. According to Rickards, while we all hope there will never be a military WW3, we are already in currency WW3, or C-WW3.

I tend to keep away from doing the “New Year Predictions” thing – but this year I’m making an exception. I’ve decided to make one prediction for next year: 2012 is The Year of the Courageous.
Morningstar
Pensionomics
Ian Fraser and Anthony Harrington
Economy Watch
QFINANCE Editor
Wolfgang Fengler
Searching Finance
Ian Fraser
John Grange
Anthony Harrington
Chris Hewett
Leslie Kossoff
Christoph Lindinger
Mindful Money
Insider Monkey
Stacy Pruitt
Shaun Richards
Bill Sharon
Rachel Stanley
Gervais Williams