Word: firming
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...Amazon didn't just have a broad product selection during the holiday season, it had a firm grasp of the consumers' many needs. Cash-strapped shoppers flocked to the site for its low prices, ready-to-ship inventory, shrewd consumer product reviews, low shipping fees and the holiday season's trendiest gadget, the Kindle. It refused to back down from pricing wars with Walmart and Target over books, and made a big push into electronics to tap the void left by the demise of Circuit City and Tweeter over the past year. (See nine e-readers to gawk...
...Then there's the free shipping that's often offered, which experts believe cannot be offered forever. "If energy costs go up and transportation costs continue to rise, that's got to get paid for," says Bill Martin, co-founder of ShopperTrak, a research firm that tracks shoppers...
Back in 2006, Lawrence McDonald, a former Lehman Brothers bond trader, remembers, he asked an intern what he was doing during the winter break at the now bankrupt investment bank. The intern, who was a junior in college, said he was trading derivatives for the firm. Surprised, McDonald asked the intern the size of his pad - Wall Street-speak for how much of the firm's money he was able to trade - figuring it couldn't be much. The intern's response: $150 million...
...intern, of course, wasn't the only one who was risking the firm's dollars. McDonald, himself a relatively junior trader, had a Lehman-funded trading account of $450 million. In the years leading up to the financial crisis, Lehman Brothers built up huge positions in real estate, derivatives and bonds. That all came crashing down in the fall of 2008, when the tumbling housing market and rising mortgage defaults caused the credit markets to seize up. In all, Lehman lost more than $32 billion from proprietary trading and principal transactions during the year and a half leading...
...grab your three closest friends and see if you can manage the inventory of a firm in the market. According to the Web site, “Despite the simplicity of the simulation, most teams find it extremely difficult to keep inventory and stockout costs low.” Pshh, it’s just beer...