Word: profitability
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Most speculation is motivated by the desire for profit. It seems that recent interest in gold is instead motivated by the desire to maintain value. After all, the price of gold in dollars has not shown a steady return. As the government continues to enact costly but what many believe to be inadequate solutions to the financial crisis, investors fear the worst for the future of the economy and the the dollar. Thus, the price of gold has become a measure of confidence in the government to handle the crisis...
Among other key questions: What percentage of the purchase price will the government fund? A senior Administration official said as much as 80% of the purchase price could be government money, but the number has not yet been fixed. And who gets to keep the profit, if there is any? Does Uncle Sam let the private player keep it all, or does the government get some? How and when does the private player have to repay the government loan? And what if the toxic asset stays worthless - does the private buyer lose his money first, or does the government...
...what economists call a zero-sum game. In good times, risk-hungry banks loved this game, but now they have become risk-averse, and the game seems to have changed. So how can many of the banks simultaneously claim enormous swap losses without a single bank claiming significant profit...
Consider recent apartment buyer Hong Chang-Ying, who owns and runs a small electronics store in central Shanghai. She bought her apartment in Shanghai three years ago for the equivalent of about $80,000, and was "sure she could sell it by now at a profit, and buy a bigger place." Ask her if that plan still holds, and she just laughs. "I have no idea now what my place is worth now - and I don't intend to find out, because I'm not going to sell into this market." China may not confront the disastrous effect that huge...
...rival Target ($406 billion in annual revenues vs. Target's $65 billion), until recently Target had been decisively winning the growth game. From 2003 to 2007, Target's annual same-store sales growth averaged 4.6%, while Walmart's clocked in at 2.9%. Over the same period, Target's annual profit growth averaged 16%, while Walmart lagged behind at 10.3%. "Target was frying Walmart's brains out," says Howard Davidowitz, chairman of Davidowitz & Associates, a national retail investment-banking and consulting firm...