Goldman executives were in a good mood for a good reason: they had bet against the mortgage market. Of course, that was the only reasonable thing to do.

The reason why prices aren't random is because they are set by human beings who are driven by just two emotions: fear and greed.

Lawrence G. McMillan reviews the options market in his weekly column for April 23.

Fear makes you do things you don’t want to do. It makes you cut expenses, cut projects, and cancel vacations. All the things you knew you should do but really don’t want to do.

Today, we look briefly at a few innocent paragraphs that could simply kill the job-creation engine of the US.

Even the simplest systematic strategy can carry unintended risk.

Options can be used in somewhat the same way as stocks are in terms of betting on the direction of the stock price, just like buying a stock. But options have very different characteristics of a stock and there is a lot of information you’ll need before you jump into live option trading.

Lawrence G. McMillan reviews the options market in his weekly column for April 16.

When will the de-leveraging bust resume?

Why is gold moving up?  Gold is usually what you buy when you suspect that financial policymakers are making mistakes.  But what mistake are they making?