Financial Mole

April 1 — Here’s one of Wall Street’s best-kept secrets: If you were investing 30 years ago, your best choice, for the long run, would have been super-safe Treasury bonds. That’s where the money turned out to be.

Premier Colin Barnett has welcomed China’s substantial stake in Fortescue Metals Group, saying Australia needs to encourage Chinese investment in its mining and resources sector.

Google’s new investment arm will focus on start-ups working on the Internet, biotech, green tech, software, and health care.

SYDNEY, April 1 – Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan issued guidelines on the foreign-investment approval process in February 2008, after critics argued that the process was murky and open to political pressures.

Colombian city Medellín’s Expodesarrollo investment opportunities fair, held at the same time as IDB’s annual meeting from March 27-31, attracted a number of foreign investment funds, the fair’s communications official Andrés Tamayo told BNamericas.

There is confidence someone will equal the government’s $1.5 billion investment in high-speed broadband.

Investment banking, on life support during the final months of last year, is now looking in ruder health.

March 31 — China ’s investment spending in the textile industry slumped 20 percent in the first two months of this year from the same period in 2008, the National Bureau of Statistics said.

– The Securities and Exchange Commission charged John Min and his company, Dime Financial Group, Monday for raising more than $6 million in a fraudulent investment scheme that targeted churches, church members and senior citizens.

March 31 — Aluminum Corp. of China, the nation’s largest producer of the metal, currently has no alternative plan for its $19.5 billion investment in Rio Tinto Group , Chairman Xiong Weiping said today.