Archive for the ‘Grow Page’ Category

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

In need of a hero?

Monday, July 25th, 2011

Holy blazes, Batman, the budget’s gonna bust! We’re zooming toward the debt ceiling, but nobody seems to know what to do..

We need a hero. A Budget Hero!

Luckily, American Public Media put together this awesome widget that you can use to play around with the U.S. government budget, a little bit like our elected officials in Congress do. Cut spending, increase taxes, watch your deficit move around, and learn about what all these cuts and increases mean.

Think you can do better than Congress is now? You just might be… a BUDGET HERO!

Economics is…

Thursday, July 21st, 2011

Economics is the study of how people choose to allocate scarce resources. Every resource is limited in some way – wood , metal, food, even your time – and economics is the study of how people distribute these resources. Modern economics is broken into microeconomics (study of individuals) and macroeconomics (the study of large-scale economies).

To Commoditize is…

Thursday, July 21st, 2011

To commoditize is to treat something like a commodity. When you commoditize, you take a set of similar products and treat them as indistinguishable. Imagine printer paper: you don’t care which brand you get; all that matters is getting the best price. Printer paper is a commoditized market. However, the laser printer market is not a commoditized market because the different brands and their respective features matter more to you.

Commoditization takes differentiated products and transforms them into a uniform commodity market.

Administrative Expenses are…

Thursday, July 21st, 2011

Administrative expenses include the part of a company’s budget spent on its wellbeing or upkeep, but which don’t directly relate to the sales efforts of the company. For example, administrative expenses include costs associated with administrative staff, food and drinks for meetings, paperclips, and utility bills.

The Cash Price is…

Thursday, July 21st, 2011

The cash price is the price a seller charges a customer given that they plan on paying immediately in cash. Credit card companies charge retailers a commission (a small percentage of the sale), so some stores will charge a different price for people who use credit cards versus cash to make up for the difference.

You may have noticed that gas stations sometimes advertise “$2.50 per gallon–cash  ||  $2.53 per gallon — credit.” $2.50 is the cash price.

NAFTA is…

Thursday, July 21st, 2011

NAFTA is the North American Free Trade Agreement. In the 1990′s the United States, Canada, and Mexico negotiated NAFTA, which removed tariffs and other barriers to trade. The agreement makes trade between the three nations of North America mega-easy and is intended to generate trillions of dollars of revenue every year.

An Exotic Derivative is…

Thursday, July 21st, 2011

An exotic derivative is – you guessed it – an exotic member of the larger derivative family. It’s basically any derivative (aka complicated financial product) that is considered out-of-the-box. The label is somewhat time-dependent because a product that is “exotic” now may become commonplace in twenty years. All the other (boring) derivatives are often referred to as “vanilla.” So it’s up to you – will it be vanilla or triple-chocolate macadamia in that investment waffle cone?

A Performance Fee is…

Thursday, July 21st, 2011

A performance fee is an additional payment based on success. For example, a hedge fund manager might receive a performance fee (like a bonus) based on the profitability of his fund. Ideally, the promise of this fee will encourage the manager to make the best possible investments.

Apple Earnings Insanity

Wednesday, July 20th, 2011

apple-5-day-performance.png
(source: nytimes.com)

“Oh my god. Ohhh my god. Apple. Apple!!!!!!!”

– Intern Spencer, screaming as he watched the price of everyone’s favorite mega-corporation skyrocket to almost $400 per share.

(Just for fun, compare that with a maximum price of $9.54 per share in 2001.)

The reason for the sudden spike? Apple released its quarterly earnings report* on Tuesday evening, showing a record $28.57 billion in revenue. That’s $28.57 billion. In three months.

In the handy graph above, you can see investors getting excited about the upcoming earnings announcement on Monday and Tuesday, and then pretty much exploding with enthusiasm on Tuesday night.

What else would you expect from a company that has enough cash to buy almost every other mobile phone maker in the world, and that has enough fans in China to support an entire industry of counterfeit Apple stores?

* In the U.S., all publicly traded companies are required to produce earnings reports which disclose their sales numbers and net profit over the prior three months.)

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »