Gift Ideas For Under $15

With the holidays right around the bend (and perhaps some Secret Santa-like gift exchanges, if not holiday parties, in the next few days at offices across the country), here are a few gift ideas, all for under $15:

1. Give the gift of stock (it’s the gift that keeps on giving, as long as the company whose name is on the stock stays in business): while supplies last, $15 will buy you one share of Morgan Stanley or two shares of Citi.

2. Everybody likes a good finance book, and here are two of the best of ’08, both going for under three Abe Lincolns: Mohamed El-Erian’s When Markets Collide: Investment Strategies for the Age of Global Economic Change, winner of the 2008 Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year; and Ahead of the Curve: Two Years at Harvard Business School, Daily Telegraph journalist Philip Delves Broughton’s tale of two years at HBS.

3. If the loved or liked one on you’re shopping list has a taste for fine vintage, as well as a sense of humor, try these two items (both, as of 3 p.m., on sale for $15 or less): a lovely Bear Stearns Residential Mortgage baseball hat, or a handy Lehman Brothers emergency evacuation kit.