Word: downbeat
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...upside - and brought lots of upbeat headlines - with employers reporting only 11,000 jobs lost and the unemployment rate dropping from 10.2% to 10%. A month later, the surprise was in the other direction - unemployment had held steady, but employers reported 85,000 fewer jobs. Suddenly the headlines were downbeat, and pundits were pontificating about the political implications of a stalled labor market. Chances are, the disparity between the two reports was mostly statistical noise. Those who read great meaning into either were deceiving themselves. It's a classic case of information overload making it harder to see the trends...
...move, however, may also send a more downbeat message to some shoppers. "It looks more like desperation than inspiration," says retail consultant Burt Flickinger III, managing director of Strategic Resources Group. "It may be a sign that Kmart's spring and summer inventory is not selling through." And Santa certainly isn't going to save Sears and Kmart, retailers that seem increasingly irrelevant in the Walmart/Target/Home Depot world. For example, as Morgan Stanley analyst Gregory Melich writes in a recent equity research report, "Sears Holdings' underinvestment in stores has degraded its ability to withstand the magnitude of the current pullback...
...gain from assuming a leadership role on climate change. This December, 190 countries will convene in Copenhagen for the third and final round of meetings to negotiate a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, the existing global framework on climate change. Until recently, many in the international community were downbeat about the prospects of effective legislation to come out of Copenhagen. Yet clean energy figured prominently in Obama’s stimulus package, renewing hope among many that American initiative on global warming might galvanize the world’s other largest polluters to act decisively to cut down...
...what they sell; related products such as concert tours, posters, and ringtones generate a significant cut of the total revenue. In 2008, while album sales fell 14 percent, concert ticket sales rose seven percent. And next time someone’s cell phone goes off to the deepening downbeat of “Disturbia,” consider that 20 percent of Rihanna’s revenue comes from the sale of ringtones. This innovative mentality is saving the music business, without undermining the business of music...
...hotels to stay afloat by delaying commissioning of newer competitors. "Projects that have only just got underway, which are aimed at opening in 2010-11, will be put off," says Jain of JLLM, "They will face constraints in terms of financing and ability to complete projects, as well as downbeat forecast for the sector. This will reduce the pressure on [room rates] by keeping competition down." That may be a relief to some players, but will be small consolation for the industry as a whole...