If JP Morgan loses a current class action suit, big banks may have to take more responsibility for informing their clients when a deal or a financial instrument raises red flags. New documents have surfaced in a class-action suit a group of pension funds is leading against JP Morgan. They show that during the financial crisis, JP Morgan executives realized a certain investment entity called Sigma was going under. They hedged their own bets, but didn't let their clients — the group of pension funds now suing — know of the danger. If JP Morgan loses this case, big banks may be obliged to intervene in such matters. Louise Story, whose piece on the suit was just published in The New York Times, tells us more. 

While the economy flailed this summer, gold prices hit a record high. WNYC reporter Lisa Chow has been reporting on the growing trend of gold investments and talks about who is investing in gold and why.

 

President Obama’s "Build America" bonds were supposed to help cash strapped municipalities pay for roads, schools or construction projects, but they may be benefiting Wall Street banks as well.

It's our final installment of our Do It Yourself Bailout series. Takeaway contributor Beth Kobliner has taken us on a financial journey; she's helped us learn how to invest the right way, trick ourselves into saving, and understand the art of negotiating. Today, we talk about a big piece of your financial and personal life: your spouse or partner. 

If you’re like a lot of people, the idea of investing seems overwhelming, mysterious and downright frightening. The wild ride, you reason, just isn’t for you. That argument may make sense for money you know you’ll need to get your hands on within the next ten years. But for money you don’t plan to touch for longer, it can be riskier to keep your cash in a savings account that does not keep up with inflation.

After you pay off high-rate credit card debt, put money into tax-favored retirement plans (particularly those with company matches) and save six months’ worth of living expenses in a bank savings account (to bail you out if you lose your job or have a major emergency), you should consider investing at least a portion of your money. Some steps to consider:

We are closer than ever to getting our financial life in order here on The Takeaway. This is week nine of our series, Do It Yourself Bailout. Since the beginning of the series Takeaway contributor Beth Kobliner, author of "Get a Financial Life" has tackled our trickiest money issues in order to help us all get on sound financial footing. We have talked about how to trick yourself into saving more money and whether you should prioritise your retirement savings over saving for your kid's college, among many other money questions.

It's not news that a lot of couples squabble about money. But what might come as a surprise is the fact that more and more couples are trying to avoid those money fights by keeping their finances separate. In a 2009 survey by PayPal, 57 percent of couples said they kept all or some of their money apart, up from 48 percent in 2008.

Increased international investment in U.S. properties is one sign that the global economic downturn is easing. But the Obama administration isn't pleased by all of the proposed investments. The New York Times reports in an exclusive story that the White House is citing national security concerns in objecting to two investment poposals by companies controlled by China and the United Arab Emirates. Times Washington correspondent Eric Lipton is covering the story.

By now, we’re all aware of the dark side of the world of finance. But there’s another side to finance that starts with a youthful impulse to save the world and evolves into something both savvy and humane. After a funny encounter with a child wearing her cast-off sweater in Rwanda, Jacqueline Novogratz realized how interconnected the world really is. Novogratz has been at the front of a movement that combines social investing and social entrepreneurship in some of the poorest countries in the world. She is founder of The Acumen Fund, a nonprofit venture capital firm that supports small businesses in developing countries, and author of the book The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World.