Word: boom
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...something in the dark. Roll it up: the hand withdrew before being caught by the glass. All the faces pressed up against the windows now (a nightmare through a fish-eye lens), and the fists beat harder on hood and roof and windshield, in a taunting, accelerating cadence: boom -- -- boom -- boom-boom-boomboomboom boom. The driver, a Palestinian whose taxi had the blue license plates of the occupied territories and not the hated yellow Israeli plates, gave the Palestinian V-sign of solidarity with his fingers (the gesture, seen everywhere in the territories, means not peace, as in Viet...
Neither could Dutch tulip-bulb speculators in the mid-1600s nor American day traders in the dotcom boom of the late 1990s nor even Chinese investors in the early 2000s. The history of investing demonstrates that there is no faith stronger than that of newbies plunging into a molten market. And that certainly describes China today. Emboldened by last year's 130% rise in the Shanghai Composite Index--which made Shanghai one of the best-performing exchanges in the world--first-time punters like Du have been storming into Chinese stocks, ending the market's five-year slump...
...surprisingly, comparisons are being drawn between China's stock boom and the U.S. dotcom bubble. Certainly there are similarities, such as a frenzy for initial public stock offerings. As investor demand for Chinese stocks has increased, so has the list of mainland companies eager to cash in on the mania by going public. In 2006, Chinese firms raised more than $53 billion in the Hong Kong and Shanghai markets through IPOs and secondary share offerings, up from $24 billion the year before. Among them was the largest IPO in history, November's $22 billion listing in Hong Kong and Shanghai...
...only in recent years have tourists ventured much beyond Black Sea beach towns and into the Ohio-size expanse of rose farms, medieval monasteries and Roman ruins. Visitors, especially Western Europeans, are flocking to ski resorts in the Rila and Pirin mountains and have even sparked a property boom in Bansko, where investors are scooping up cheap vacation homes. Meanwhile, low-cost labor, economic incentives and proximity to the rest of Europe are luring record levels of foreign investment from companies like French car-parts manufacturer Montupet, Chinese TV maker SVA and U.S. energy firm AES--even though Bulgaria still...
...Japan's postwar boom lasted decades, and even during the stalled 1990s, it was able to live off the fat. Yubari underscores the reason that Japan's faith in a more prosperous future has been shaken. "Yubari citizens are filled with anxiety about the future, and so are a lot of Japanese people," says Sasaya, the snow piling outside his small shop in Yubari's shuttered downtown. "It makes me wonder where Japan is headed." The answer could lie in another Newtonian law: what goes up, must come down...