Wed, May 23, 2012, 12:43 AM EDT - U.S. Markets open in 8 hrs 47 mins

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    Believe it or not, Mother's Day isn't just an invention of the greeting card and flower industry. The tradition dates back to the ancient Greeks as a celebration of Rhea. From there it became a Christian ritual paying tribute to Mary. By the 19th century, Mother's Day evolved into roughly what it is a today: a celebration of Mom.

    For the kids and dads, Mother's Day may be all about paying tribute and giving mom a break, but as every good parent knows, raising a child means never really getting a day off.

    Camilla Webster, co-author of "The Seven Pearls of Financial Wisdom" is putting a slightly different spin on the day. She's looking to remind us all of the power of mom by encouraging every parent to rethink their influence on their children's financial futures.

    Here are Camilla Webster's 5 Ways to Raise Your Kids to Be Wealthy

    1. The Big Three

    Webster says mothers need to teach your kids the fundamental point of making money in the first place. Income isn't a way to keep score with others or determine your non-financial self worth.

    Kids should understand the "Big Three before" drawing their first allowance or paycheck --Save, Spend and Benevolence. Every portion of every dollar coming in should be divided into each of the three.

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  • And just like that, the storied annals of Wall Street can now add "London Whale" to a growing list of infamous traders who have blown themselves up and left their employers with a hefty bill. In the case of JP Morgan (JPM) and its $2 billion blunder, the infraction appears well contained and not threatening. But no matter, for the third time in less than a year --following UBS (UBS) and Kweku in September, the collapse of MF Global in October-- we are once again talking about carelessness and loss of control in some of the nation's biggest, and most influential banks.

    "How does this happen? Two billion dollars!" marvels Rich Ilczyszyn, co-founder of iiTrader.com, and former employee of MF Global. "This industry is supposed to be highly regulated. How does the CEO of the company not know what the hedge is doing in the company? We saw this with MF Global," he says in the attached video.

    Of course there are many differences between JP Morgan's debacle and some of the other trader implosions, mainly that the biggest U.S. bank's solvency never came into question, and some of the alleged hedging positions were actually making money. Even so, it has not only gripped Wall Street, caught the attention of Main Street, and wounded the financial superstar CEO Jamie Dimon, but it will surely make the road to revision of the Dodd-Frank bill and Volcker rule more bumpy and probably less fruitful for the banking industry.

    "It's a very small percentage of their book," Ilczyszyn says, before lamenting that the last thing the market needs right now is more risk, or a reactionary backlash from regulators.

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  • Financial markets were rocked last night when JP Morgan (JPM) announced an unexpected loss of $2 billion in what CEO Jamie Dimon called "synthetic credit positions." According to Dimon, one of the most highly regarded CEOs in the financial industry, the losses had been incurred over the last 6 weeks.

    The trades were intended to be "hedges," a position the firm maintains, but the losses looked much more like the result of aggressive prop bets that proponents of the so-called Volcker Rule are seeking to outlaw.

    Josh Brown, author of Backstage Wall Street and JP Morgan shareholder suggests the ill-fated trades likely came out of the firm's Chief Investment Office. "There was some talk in the press about a month ago that they were putting on trades that were so large that they actually skewed inter-market relationships (causing other parties to lose money)," he says.

    The trades were allegedly implemented by a man named Bruno Iksil, often referred to on street as the "London Whale" and sometimes Voldemort.

    Whether or not it was the Iksil at work, the trades being made were enormous and potentially dangerous. When asked about the stories weeks ago, Dimon dismissed them as a tempest in a teapot.

    "Now it turns out that it's about a $2 billion loss and it's something that's going to take them a while to unwind," says Brown. "In the context it's not relevant but as a shareholder you're always concerned because this was supposed to the 'quality' U.S. bank."

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Pagination

(1,322 Stories)

ABOUT BREAKOUT

Breakout is Yahoo! Finance’s daily all-out, roll-up-your-sleeves, dive-in, interactive investing show, offering fresh segments throughout the trading day. If you love making money, if you want to protect what you have, if you’re passionate about understanding these crazy markets, you’re in the right place. Welcome!

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