Mortgage Blog

Thread’s new backpack, the start of its own product line, is drawing customer response strong enough for the startup to set more ambitious goals.

Less than 24 hours after launching a Kickstarter campaign on Wednesday, 411 backers pledged $75,432, handily surpassing the $45,000 goal with almost six weeks to go.

Founder and CEO Ian Rosenberger plans to keep the deadline but up the ante.

“We have been blown away by the response, so now we’re moving the goalposts,” he said. “We believe there…

Alta Marzzacco's husband recently suggested moving from Baltimore to Washington, D.C. She quickly quashed the idea.

“I just fell in love with the city,” said Marzzacco, who came to Baltimore from Ohio in 2008 as a career move within Wells Fargo. “It’s getting really built up and it’s really up and coming, yet it’s still affordable.”

Executives often say it's hard to get people to move to Baltimore, but once they do they enjoy it. The top recruiters from companies like T. Rowe Price…

Daniel Davis talks about the trends he believes are affecting his and other Central Florida banks.

One of Cincinnati’s largest private companies expects to generate more growth by bringing in an industry veteran to head up one of its key segments.

Summit Funding Group, the Mason-based firm that’s one of the nation’s largest independent equipment leasing companies, added Michael Fitzsimmons as general manager of its construction and material handling division. Fitzsimmons will oversee the operations and transactions of that Dallas-based division.

Fitzsimmons has worked in the equipment…

Stifel Financial Corp. has appointed David Sliney chief operating officer and Jim Marischen chief financial officer. The changes were effective Tuesday.

Marischen takes over the CFO role from James Zemlyak, who will focus exclusively on leading the firm's Global Wealth Management business, which he has been the head of since 2011, Stifel said. Zemlyak will remain co-president of Stifel with Victor Nesi, who will continue to lead Stifel's Institutional Group.

Sliney has been with Stifel since 1992.…

Some local credit unions had a drop in volume of new and used vehicle loans as of June 30.

Relatively high taxes on income and estates make Minnesota the fifth-costliest state in which to be rich, according to a new ranking.

CNBC reports on the listing by personal-finance technology firm SmartAsset, which combined factors such as income, property and estate taxes and computed them for people earning $465,626 — the threshold for the top 1 percent earners nationally. (Home values are assumed to be $2.3 million in value and total estate worth was set at $15 million.)

Minnesota's income-tax…

Digital Ally Inc. signed an agreement trading its potential to get a huge payday in several intellectual property cases for working capital.

The agreement with Brickell Key Investments LP (BKI) is complicated, but the gist of it is that the company will make an investment of between $500,000 and $10 million into the Lenexa-based developer of cameras for law enforcement (Nasdaq: DGLY). The money will be used by to pay Digital Ally's legal bills, repay debt and provide working capital.

In exchange…

Elon Musk took some obvious — and not so obvious — swipes at investors betting against Tesla Inc. this week by disclosing his hope to take the carmaker private at a significant premium to its current stock price. His neighbors in Silicon Valley might want to pay attention.

As of Aug. 7, Tesla (Nasdaq: TSLA) ranked as the country's top target for so-called short sellers, or investors whose bets stand to make money if a company's share price declines. The short positions affected approximately…

San Francisco startups are trying to hang onto employees by letting them go — out of state, that is. Startups are transferring employees to new offices outside of California, but are often hesitant to talk about it.