Unless you live in a cave, you know that things haven’t been going well for the United States during the past couple of weeks. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers and AIG crumbled under the weight of our own idiocy and greed (and are also being investigated by the FBI, yay!), Democrats and Republicans are harshly divided, no one can agree on Bush’s $700 billion bailout, and Washington Mutual was just sold off to JP Morgan.

Oh, also, an asteroid is probably going to come after us some point in the near future.

We here at CC agree that school work is of the utmost importance, so by no means should you blow off that 15-pager on the life cycle of the zebra fish in lieu of our national downward spiral, but perhaps you might want to pour yourself an extra glass of wine this weekend (or if you don’t drink, purchase a nice package of Oreo cookies) and force yourself to relax.

The media is doing its best to scare us, and yes, times are kinda sh*tty, but the best thing we can do as young people is educate ourselves on the issues currently effecting us, process them to the best of our ability, and then tell ourselves to remain calm.

You know what also helps? (find out after the jump) Read More »

(In the second installment of our Expert Series Understanding The Economic Situation, we continue with the Q and A with a VP of an Investment Banking Firm. He knows his stuff and he’s gonna break it down for us in ways we can finally understand. Pay attention; he offers great advice for us college ladies for saving, spending, and not getting depressed. In case you missed the first part, read it HERE]

Do these recent economic waves mean college students and recent grads should stay away from investing in the stock market right now?

No - they should DEF participate and now is the time to do it. Recent and current grads should look to NON-financial stocks. Everything is down right now and there are so many bargains. Look to other tech and retail stocks. Buy stock and just let it sit. Don’t start trading regularly like I did when I was in college. I didn’t really make anything off of it, and if I had held onto the Google stock that I bought at $15, I would NOT be answering this email right now - I would be on a beach drinking fruity drinks with umbrellas.

How does one actually start to make smart investments?

Smart investments are ones that are based off of information, not emotion. An emotional investment is, “OMG, everyone is selling off finance stocks - I should sell mine too!” An informed one is made by reading 10K reports, poking around the internet for info, maybe even emailing or calling an investor relations representative of a company (they HAVE to talk to you and actually like doing so). Then you say, “Oh, Lehman is f*cked but JP Morgan is still in a strong position.” Read More »

We’ve sorta been freaking out lately about this whole economy thing. What the hell is going on? How bad is it? Should we start stocking up on non-perishables?

Depending on what channel we are watching, or what paper we are reading, we are hearing very different things. Most of which we do not understand.

So, we at CollegeCandy decided to bring in an expert: a VP of an Investment Banking Firm. He knows his stuff and he’s gonna break it down for us in ways we can finally understand. Pay attention; he offers great advice for us college ladies for saving, spending, and not getting depressed.

(Note: We had so many questions that it was just way too much info for a single post, so we will be breaking this one down into two. Come back tomorrow at the same time to find out the rest!)

CC: We keep hearing the words “Recession” and “Depression” - What’s the difference between them and which one are we REALLY dealing with now?

VP:The market, especially now that it has been globalized, is very cyclical. It goes through growth periods and reduction periods. A recession, in its most simple terms is an extended and significant contraction of the market that is evident in several indicators that are generally accepted as representative of the market. The REASONS for contraction are endless; everything from housing to taxes to the results of Rose Bowl affect the market, but it is important to note that a recession refers to SIGNIFICANT losses across the country for over 1 quarter (3 months), but - this part is important - it should be visible in the GDP. A depression is simply a sustained recession. Read More »