News & Events - Articles of Interest
2010 Food, Beverage, and Consumer Products Financial Performance Report, 20 July 2010
The U.S. and world economies are several quarters into recovery after the deepest recession since World War II. The good news for CPG companies is that every major national economy—each a potential CPG marketplace—is growing, some more vigorously than others. World trade is seeing sustained recovery, though it will take time for the global economy to claw its way fully back to prosperity.
Crisis Awaits World’s Banks as Trillions Come Due, 11 July 2010
FRANKFURT — The sovereign debt crisis would seem to create worry enough for European banks, but there is another gathering threat that has not garnered as much notice: the trillions of dollars in short-term borrowing that institutions around the world must repay or roll over in the next two years.
Untangling Skill and Luck
How to Think About Outcomes—Past, Present, and Future
The outcomes for most activities combine skill and luck.
Separating skill and luck encourages better thinking about outcomes and allows for sharply improved decision making.
There are good methods to sort skill and luck in sports, business, and investing.
We define the key features of skill in the investment business.
2010 EU-wide stress testing exercise
Q1: What does it mean to stress test a bank?
A: Stress tests are an important risk management tool that has been used for a number of years now, both by banks as part of their internal risk management practices and by supervisors to assess the resilience of banks and of financial systems in general to possible shocks.
Stress tests assess adverse and unexpected outcomes related to a variety of risks, and provide an indication of how much capital might be needed to absorb losses would the shocks that have been assumed actually occur. Usually stress tests envisage a set of hypothetical “what if” scenarios with different degrees of severity.
Stress tests do not provide forecasts of expected outcomes: the adverse scenarios are designed as “what-if” scenarios reflecting severe assumptions which are therefore not very likely to materialise.
Is there life after debt?, 24 June 2010
Rich countries borrowed from the future. Paying the bill will be difficult, and so will living in a thriftier world.
Triple Bottom Line: Kraft Foods, 23 June 2010
Food products giant releases report showing the company’s not starved for good and successful ideas for pairing success with sustainability.
P&G Makes Push in India, 23 June 2010
Piyush Bhatt, a grocery-shop owner in Pune, India, has seen more shoppers reaching for Gillette razors, Tide detergent and Pantene shampoo, an indication Procter & Gamble Co.’s recent push in India is helping its sales.
Betting against China is not easy but plenty are trying, 27 May 2010
Being bearish on China may not turn out to be wise, but it does require some ingenuity.
Niall Ferguson | Fiscal Crises and Imperial Collapses: Historical Perspective on Current Predicaments, 13 May 2010
Niall Ferguson, Harvard University, delivered the Peterson Institute’s ninth annual Niarchos Lecture on May 13, 2010, on the topic “Fiscal Crises and Imperial Collapses: Historical Perspectives on Current Predicaments.”
Quality Counts. Barrons, 17 August 2009
This time, the cream isn’t rising to the top. The historic rally that has lifted the Standard & Poor’s 500 index by 50% from its March lows has been led by economically sensitive and lower-quality stocks, including such sectors as financials, basic materials, retailers and industrials. By contrast, high-quality stocks like Abbott Laboratories (ticker: ABT), ExxonMobil (XOM) and Procter & Gamble (PG) generally have lagged, with many showing outright losses so far this year…