Financial News Friday – August 16, 2013

Bank of America moves to dissolve Merrill Lynch. The bank plans to keep the name of the firm for its retail brokerage arm. The move is cited to be part of a plan to reduce costs by $8 billion per year. (Bloomberg)

Professor Laura Hamilton of the University of California, Merced, has recently studied the impact of parent aid on academic achievement within college. She determined that parental financial help is associated with lower GPAs, but higher graduation rates. Students that put themselves through college via student loans were also found to have lower GPAs.  Students that financed their own college through work-study programs and scholarships typically achieved higher grades, but also higher dropout rates. This is likely due to the burden of working whilst studying for classes. (MSN Money)

Calculated Risk has an interesting animated chart, which shows the US population distribution by age from 1900 to the projected population in 2060. (Calculated Risk)

30 million newly printed $100 bills are defective. The resulting cost to taxpayers will be around $3.8 million. (MSN Money)

15% of the highest income investors (incomes of $750,000 or greater) stated they had no plans to retire. An additional 31% of these high income investors stated that they planned to retire after age 70. Most respondents to the survey cited  their hard work, education, and frugality as keys to their current income. (ThinkAdvisor)

Amazon plans to expand its AmazonFresh service into New York City. New Yorkers will now be able to purchase just about anything from Amazon and have it delivered right to their door. (Yahoo Finance)

Here’s a nice overlay chart of the demise of Palm’s share price versus the recent 3 year decline of Blackberry’s share price. (Zerohedge)

Photo Source: Michael Gray