finance

Wall Street is still the center of wealth and ambition in this country although its reputation has dimmed somewhat recently. If you are an antiques collector or American history buff, you have a chance to own an iconic piece of Wall Street at a Christie's sale. On June 22, Christie's will auction off a cobalt-blue porcelain street sign, framed in wrought iron. It stood on the corner of Wall and Broad Streets and dates somewhere between the 1890s and the 1920s. Christie's estimates that the sign could sell between $60,000 and $80,000 but some serious antique collector could easily win this prize with a much higher bid.

Before being consigned to the Christie's sale, the antique sign was on loan to the Museum of American Finance where its temporary home (appropriately) was next to a market fluctuations exhibition. Leena Akhtar, Exhibits and Archives Director, would love to have it back and both she and the consignor hope some generous new owner will agree to loan it once again to the museum.

Now that she's staring down a $24 million lawsuit, Annie Leibovitz is running out of choices. With Art Capital Group claiming the rights to her photo archive, real estate and other assets posted as collateral, some experts say bankruptcy would buy her some time to find a new plan. But, it would come at the cost of privacy, as the photographers finances would be thrust into the public eye.

Neither Leibovitz's attorneys nor financial advisers returned Bloomberg News' calls for comment, but experts suggest that desperate times call for desperate measures. Filing for protection would push litigation into the future and secure the artist a bit of leverage. Hell, maybe it would buy her some time to see if Miley Cyrus wants to get naked again. I don't know if that would be worth $24 million, but I'm sure it would help Leibovitz to chip away at the debt.

Industry insiders seem to call Art Capital Group a capital source of last resort, though that's probably a bit unfair. If you're pledging collateral or are otherwise transacting in an illiquid market, common sense is necessary. And, let's face it, if traditional banks played in this space, Leibovitz may not have been hit with such tough terms. But, it's hard to believe she didn't know the rules of the game.

Mum's the word for now on Leibovitz's future. One thing is certain, however: she didn't spend the money on makeup.

[Thanks, Jason, for the makeup crack]

The one word I keep hearing when people describe the new iPhone app from our sister blog Daily Finance is slick. And indeed it is. It offers free real-time stock quotes from BATS Exchange and 15-minute delayed quotes from NYSE, NASDAQ, and AMEX; real-time financial news that lets you track business, company, and sector news and dozens of other news topics from over 3,000 sources; interactive charts; the ability to create up to 25 different portfolios and watchlists and much more. It's user-friendly and it's the kind of app you can live in, following it from basic market status to the news and research on various companies. Best of all, it's free. You can download it here and see a video on how it works here and for some screenshots click over to TUAW's review.

Want to marry a millionaire? Or, if you are already one, find some other millionaires to hang out with? Move to Los Alamos, New Mexico, where one in five households claims millionaire status, making the town the area with the highest concentration of millionaires in the country, according to a study in Kiplinger's Personal Finance. Many residents in Los Alamos work at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where, as one would expect, salaries for nuclear researchers aren't too shabby. Coming in behind Los Alamos is Naples/Marco Island, Florida, as well as the Bridgeport/Stamford/Norwalk, Connecticut region.

[Photo image via Sidecanyon.com]